Meal Time

For a while I was worried about preparing dinner time meals for Gregory. Dinners usually consist of a fish/chicken/meat course, one or two vegetables, potato, salad, and sometimes bread. There are condiments and spices, butter, salad dressing, salt & pepper, etc to be added table side. 


I began to notice that Gregory was having trouble figuring out what to do with everything I placed in front of him and it was taking a long time before he could actually begin eating. I would hint and point and this helped sometimes but was aggravating for both of us.


I was afraid that I was going to have to simplify our meals and even had nightmares in which I served one course at a time and we didn't finish with dinner until breakfast time. Another possibility was one dish meals and I hated that idea.


Finally I came up with a solution and it seems to be working for now. I do all the dressing, seasoning, buttering, etc before we begin eating. This evening when I put the plate in front of him the beets were sliced, the green beans buttered and seasoned, the salad dressed, the bread sliced. That's all he had to do was eat the meatloaf.


He still has trouble deciding which utensil to use, fork-spoon-knife all seem to become one. Always having been neat at table, thanks to his mom Helen's training, I find that he uses his fingers more often but still appropriately.


For now, problem solved. This seems to be the way with us. Old solutions die causing new problem to arise which lead to improved ways of dealing with most situations. Hope this continues for a long time to come so I do not have to think about what the future might hold.