Not your typical Yoplait commercial

Lately, dinnertime at the Spencer house leaves our kitchen looking more like a zoo than anything else. I always knew the stereotypical image of a toddler sitting in his or her highchair with food everywhere, but for some reason I guess I thought my twin toddlers would be exempt. Ah, the good old days when I could believe my own lies . . .

Last night all four of us were actually together for a meal. As I was preparing the side dishes for our "adult" dinner, Michael was attempting to get some food in the boys: meatballs, bananas, bread . . . then the magical winner, yogurt (or as Dylan calls it, "yoshow!"). Finally they were interested in eating something, so we dished out the yogurt into two small bowls and handed them their spoons. They're not exactly pros at feeding themselves yet, but they refuse to let us feed them. Sometimes, when they're trying to feed themselves, we can shove a few spoonfuls into their mouths without them really realizing it. Ah, victory.

So last night they're dipping away into their yogurt, and Kyle is absolutely covered with blackberry yogurt. He has purple gunk EVERYWHERE. It's in his hair, in his ear and smeared across his face. It's covering his mouth and chin like a yogurt goatee. All of a sudden, he happens to spot a pencil eraser-sized bit of yogurt on his left hand, and he goes berzerk. He starts crying and holds up his hand, screaming, "HAND! HAND! HAND!" until I wipe his hand clean. Then, he's calm again, and goes back to the bowl of yogurt, all the time wearing his purple gunky mask that is starting to resemble a spa treatment.

At this point, Dylan is no longer in his booster seat, but has insisted upon sitting on my lap and has taken to eating my rice with a fork (which isn't working out too well for him). I try to feed him some with my fork, which inspires him to do the same to me. Unfortunately, he's not handy with the fork and rice, so he decides to grab a little. This fistful of rice, you see, is for me. Now, this is very sweet of him, but the snot dripping down his face from the temper tantrum he threw in order to get out of his chair and onto my lap is kind of grossing me out. I deny the rice, but he insists and starts kicking his feet. I guess I've insulted him and his offering, so now it's clear that I'm going to have to eat the rice--snotty face, yogurt-gunked fingers and all.

So this is love.