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Saturday, February 28, 2009

Meal times

Mealtimes are like working a job. I know I've whined, and complained about this before. Preparing a meal means that not only am I working with food, I am intercepting help from the Precious Princess. She wants to stand under my arm pit while I cook. She has special advise for me, such as "You're peeling half that potato away" or "That ain't enough oil". She constantly says, "Do you need me to do anything?" Now, I know what you are thinking....Give her something to do. You don't know her well. She doesn't want to peel potatoes or grate cheese or do anything that I ask her to do. She wants to stand under my arm pit and be my special advisor and critic. Finally after being told no several times to her offers of help, she'll say, "Do you wish I'd get out of yore way?" And although I want to scream, "Yes, Yes, a thousand times YES!" I smile and say, "Your not in my way". She'll start out of the kitchen, and turn back to offer her services just once more. When assured that I don't need her, she reminds me where her room is so that we can call her for supper. Whew! I've got a minute of peace. As we start setting the table and getting ready to eat, either she is already on her way or I send for her. She comes into the kitchen telling me that I have put too much food on her plate or what she wants on her plate. Next item on the meal time agenda: put the dogs in isolation. Either they go into the den with the gate, their crates or out on the deck. Why you ask? So she doesn't feed them everything on the table. Think we're set? Not hardly. She must have everything in place before I sit down. Then we all sit hunkered over our plates because at any minute, she may toss an unwanted item from her plate to ours or take something off our plates. And, precious, she will cough like she has TB all over the table and NEVER cover that mouth. Sweet. She uses at least 12-14 napkins per meal. And she'll blow her nose at the table. Sadly, I admit, I have done this all my life, and now I know why, I was raised at her table. Must have been acceptable at her house. Okay, meal time is winding down. She wants more tea. Everyone is finished and have placed their plates on the counter or in the sink (some are cleaner than others). She is still dragging out her meal. She thinks she'll be able to sneak food for the dogs, so she watches us closely. When she thinks we aren't watching, she opens a napkin and puts bites of food in it and wads it up and puts it in her housecoat pocket. YES THIS IS EVERY MEAL! Then one of us will wrestle it out of her hot little hands. And she will say, "Y'all beat anything I ever saw", and we say, "yeah yeah", and she prisses off to her room to watch Wheel of Fortune because we have convinced her that it only comes on in her room on her TV. I sigh in relief, another meal over and no one had to die.

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