Lunchtime

We eat lunch in silence, Turtle & I. Alone, I'll eat in front of the computer. With Christer, we talk as we eat. But with a pre-chatty baby, and a mama happy to sit and focus on the food for a minute, lunchtime is very quiet.

Turtle is very deliberate about his meal. He likes using a fork, sometimes to mix the food, sometimes to stab it and then pick the pieces off the prongs and into his mouth with his fingers. He takes each bite out of his bowl, and puts it back in again. Today he ate a bagel from the top down--that is he scooped off the cream cheese first, then chewed off any part of the bagel that had been touching the cream cheese, and finally resorted to eating up the remaining crust.

I eat my sandwich, too. Today, in the quiet, I watched him work on his meal while remembering to be thankful that I bothered to cut up a bit of onion, even though it was just me eating it, because it made the sandwich that much better. The quiet gives a chance to remember to be present, to notice the food, the company, the silence.

When he's almost done, Turtle glances at me with a mischievous glimmer and slowly tips his cup over. A few drips fall onto the tray before my look stops him. As I relax, he tries again, and I know he's done. In a quick motion the cup & bowl are pulled away, hands & mouth are wiped, the baby is freed from his chair and he runs back to his toys.