It's a slippery slope, and we have found our way all the way to the bottom of the mountain. Where once there was a peaceful dinner time filled with a young child eating actual food, now there is chaos.
It started with snacks in the car on the way home from school. The young child swears that daycare doesn't feed her. While the empty food bowls in her lunch bag tell a very different story, she's always all, "I'm sooooo hungry. My belly hurts. Waaaaah!" I highly doubt anyone is stealing her nearly daily dose of lima beans and cherry tomatoes, but whatever. I tend to let her have some baby carrots or crackers or something as we drive home. (Yes, I'm a sucker. And?)
Then Alexis the Hungry Hungry Hippo convinced her father that she neeeeeeds a snack before bedtime. She's soooo hungry and she will positively pass out if she doesn't get a package or ten of fruit snacks. He worries that she will broadcast a louder and more persistent hunger cry in the middle of the night if she doesn't get her way, so he obliges her before bed needs. (Yes, he's a sucker, too. And?)
Now that she has managed to squeeze two snacks in between the hours of 6pm and 9pm, Alexis has no need for dinner. If you ask her, it has worked out perfectly. We all sit at the kitchen table together. As Mr. Husband and I try to eat, Alexis takes advantage of a captive audience and does stuff like this: