The Smushter likes to eat!  And that’s great, but what’s more important here is that I LOVE to eat.  When I’m hungry and can finally fix myself a meal (which usually happens after I’ve spent 90 minutes feeding the helpless ones and my stomach starts to digest itself), I make just enough food to get satiated.  No more.  No less.

I prepare to sit down and eat a peaceful, stress-free meal at the coffee table in the living room.  (The words “small children” and “peaceful” have never gone together in our house, but on the days full of morning beers, I feel like I’ve got Jedi powers…and I try to use the force to merge the two.)  As soon as my plate clunks the coffee table and my butt hits the floor, the vultures children congregate, one performing FDA inspection of the plate contents, and the other poking my food to make sure it’s dead.

The older “inspector” doesn’t usually grab pieces of food off my plate.  He’s mostly just looking at it.  But 9 out of 10 times, my food doesn’t pass his standards and the punishment has him climbing on my back with arms wrapped around my neck choking me into unconsciousness oblivion.  Even that’s not that terrible, because when enough oxygen gets back into my head, I can shovel a morsel into my mouth.  It’s the younger “food critic” that’s worse.  She’s uncouth, picking and poking at my dishes.  She tests and taints my meal when it doesn’t meet her approval.  And her reaction is always the same.  She pulls the wet, half-chewed food out of her mouth and places some on my plate.  Then she spits the rest of the pieces onto my face and food in disgust.

It was time to put my foot down.  If I didn’t stop the madness, I’d die of starvation.  (I guess I could die by asphyxiation, but that’s much worse than keeling over with an empty stomach.  Much worse.)  So I devised a plan…mainly against the Smush, because she can ruin a whole meal for me just by spitting on it.  I decided that I’d buy some spicy potato chips and bait/entice/lure her to pick and poke away at my food.   When she loads up her mouth, she gets hit with a blast of mouth burning discomfort.  (Yes, I even amaze myself with my own cleverness!)

Let’s just say that my ruse worked like a charm!  Smush grabbed a fistful of chips off my rigged plate and got a faceful of hotness!  I couldn’t help but fall over laughing at the look on her face.  That’ll teach her to just put any and everything in her big boca!

What better way to stop a baby from grabbing handfuls of food from your plate than clubbing her?  The answer is clearly jalapeno potato chips.  It’s a technique that’s not in the textbooks, but it’s great for those parents that just want to eat in peace…or some semblance thereof.

Ha ha ha ha! I Got Ya, Mushy Mushy!

Gavin – 30; Honeydaddy – 20 (I know it’s a win against Smush, but I’m giving myself the point here.  I’m just too excited and tickled about this!)