Alice seems to be regressing in her table manners. Sometimes she is fine, but lately she has reverted back to eating a lot of things with her fingers. This is possibly because Simon gets to eat everything with his fingers. I got a book at the library called Fingers, Forks, and Chopsticks thinking it would help Alice with her table manners. I think it just made them worse, even although I always emphasize the page with the naughty girl eating spaghetti with her fingers at a party while her little friends look on in horror ("That girl is going to time-out!"). Anyway, mealtimes are trying, as we have to constantly monitor her. At her worst, she may swing her place mat around, throw her silverware or cups on the floor, throw food onto my plate, shove her own plate rudely away, stab the table, use her fork as a lever under her plate, poke her fork tine into the top of her milk cup hole, spontaneously declare that she is done with only half-eaten food and rip her bib off--scattering crumbs everywhere....the list goes on and on. Eating with her is exhausting. Sometimes she will behave just fine, but other times she is testing limits and our sanity.One result of having two kids who make a big foody mess everywhere and detract from our cleaning abilities is that we have recently been invaded by very persistent ants. I'm honestly surprised they haven't found us sooner, given the quantity of food matter constantly scattered on the floor, tables and counters. Zac tried several non-deadly ways of keeping the ants out, but they kept finding other ways in so we finally fed them poison. It was kind of sad seeing them munch to their deaths, but aside from living with them or not living with our children, we decided it was the only solution.
Ants eating poisonous goo
