Food is an adventure with children.

Oh… not necessarily an exciting adventure, more like the adventure fraught with the unexpected in the form of a whole lot of resistance.

Michael, a first-grader who had been with me for a couple of years, swaggered into the kitchen asking, “What’s for lunch?”

“Chicken Lips and Lizard Hips,” I said.

“Oh boy, I LOVE chicken lips and lizard hips, especially with ketchup!” We played this way for months.

“What’s for lunch, Kay?” he’d ask each day (and believe me, he knew the question could drive me nuts, knowing it would be repeated 10 times by 10 children before food was on the table)

“Lizard hips and chicken lips, Michael”

“Goody. I love that too! Ha ha ha”

Or sometimes, when I’d say, “What do you want on your plate,” he’d say, “I’ll have chicken lips and lizard hips please.”

I’d say, “What we’ve got, Michael, is hamburgers.”

“Oh,” he’d say. “Well, Mary K, I’ll have hamburger and cheese, no bun.”

I serve only what children ask for of the food I have prepared. I’ve learned that children don’t like foods mixed up. Casseroles, tuna salad, egg salad and things like that are usually big disappointments. So I keep meat, vegetables, fruits and starch separate. And because I’m not pressured about what children choose to eat, mealtimes were and are typically fun, relaxed times for us.

Children who choose what and how much, eat what they are served. And they are well behaved as they feel good about what they choose. Struggles about food are absent and other struggles aren’t allowed at the table. The children don’t have to eat the food but they don’t get to throw it about or play with it either (unless of course, like finger jello, it was intended to be played with ;-)). They tell me when they are finished and I help them wipe hands and mouth before they go play.

One day after eating out at a restaurant, I had leftover stuffed grape leaves in the refrigerator and felt mischievous. Michael came in and got washed up and after I had served baked chicken to about half the children I set the grape leaves on Michael’s plate. I told him it was chicken lips and lizard hips, expecting him to be surprised but amused.

Instead, he said… “Oh…” He didn’t know what to do. But because he was Michael he was not likely to make any bad remarks. Instead he looked up at me with his beautiful brown eyes and said quite seriously, “Thank you, Mary K, for going to the trouble of getting these for me. But you know, I really think I will have chicken today.”

Immediately I said, “Michael, they’re really just stuffed grape leaves. See?” as I took a fork and opened one up. “I was just making a joke.”

Looking back down at his plate he said graciously, “I see. Stuffed grape leaves. Interesting but I think I’ll stick with the chicken, cut up and with no skin. Thanks.”

Yeah, I still have a ways to go in the humor department. ;-)