Vengeful Veggies

We try to teach our kids good table manners, but any of you with little ones know this is a struggle. Lots of reminding, encouragement, correction. Do it over again. And again. And again. Slowly, they catch themselves with their elbows on the table or realize how awful they sound while telling the day's events to Dad through a mouthful of mashed potatoes.

One of the things we encourage our kids to do is not say bad things about the food or pull ugly faces if they don't like what they're eating. I discovered this creates some repressed emotions that can come out in funny ways!

Our youngest didn't care for the corn chowder I served at lunch today. Later he drew some pictures in his free time....pictures of vegetables. At first they were pretty benign.

Here's an apple, banana, blueberry, and onion....all congenial looking chaps. Over on the right is a carrot - with a big bite out of him! Looks like he's not happy about it either.

Then things started developing a bit.

Mr potato looks like he's fainted, and Mr SoupCan obviously isn't pleased with his lot in life. And then my boy's true feelings about his lunch came out.

Yes, this one needed interpretation from the artist. A watermelon and a blueberry are loading rotten onions into a machine that will hurl them at....? the chef? other foods? Notice the Swiss Cheese guillotine on top of the onion-tossing gizmo. Definitely some pent-up thoughts about our veggies in here!

These drawings made me laugh so hard - even if the little guy wasn't fond of what I made for lunch. We're working on that, day by day. But for now, I think I need to keep these. Maybe I'll transfer them to an apron as a reminder to me to make "happy food."