Tiny mealtime victory 🍽️🎉

I don't know if my daughter is especially impatient, but pretty much every mealtime, she'll sit at the table with her dad and I in her high chair and happily enjoy her meal for maybe a maximum of 5 minutes, and then it's a very demanding, "I want out! I want out!" with screaming and whining until she's out. We usually calmly say, "Yes, we'll let you out as soon as we finish eating" and then kind of suffer through the end of the meal with her protesting the whole time, trying to wriggle out of her chair. I know short attention spans are normal at this age, but I struggle with knowing what to do - if we let her out, she gets into things and we have to chase her and can't enjoy our meals, and if we keep her in, we can't hear each other speak. It's important to us to have family meals, and I want her to have as much practice as possible, but man it's hard.

Anyways, while she was screaming over us trying to talk, something clicked - maybe she feels left out of the conversation! So I start asking her questions about her day, and her dad and I kind of narrate the things we did with her - what we saw on our walk, at the park, etc. And she absolutely LOVES it. And we get to eat and talk to her at the same time, and I'd say we got another 5 minutes or so out of her, at least until we were done eating. It felt like a total victory, which I haven't felt in a long time.

I have no idea why I felt compelled to share this, other than to let you know that it your kid is as impatient as mine, you're not alone. Who knows if this will work tomorrow night or the next, but tonight felt good!