Kintropy In Action

I walked away from the table to grab a drink, and by the time I returned, my spoon was gone.  Janette had made spaghetti, and I am a fork-and-spoon-roll style spaghetti eater.  Spaghetti without spoon would simply not do.

I didn't have to look far.  I had moved Hannah between Gabriel and me at the table a minute before.  Now she sat there in her spiffy new rental wheelchair, smiling at me.  She gripped my spoon in one hand, letting it dangle precariously from her mouth.

"Hannah," I chided, "that's my spoon."

She dropped it, then dove for Gabriel's plate.

"Hey!" he laughed.

I reached across the table, saving his noodles from an untimely death-drop to the floor.  Hannah snagged his carrot, admired it, and put it in her mouth.

I tried so hard to find my serious Daddy voice.  Here was Hannah, a humongous carrot dangling from her mouth like some slightly-confused snowman nose.  "Hannah, that was pretty grabby and not nice.  Let's get you your own plate."

She reached quickly for my (new) spoon.  I moved it out of her reach as Janette saved the day, bringing Hannah a small plate with noodles and not one, but two spoons.  Although Hannah eats primarily by g-tube, she was definitely signalling I WANT TO HAVE DINNER JUST LIKE YOU, and we quickly complied (often the best recourse when Hannah is involved).

For a moment, we ate in peace.  Hannah was attacked by the sticky noodles from her plate (which kind of seemed to gross her out:  some agreement with Daddy there).  She mouthed and shortly thereafter dropped both spoons.  Some misbehavior earned her a timeout somewhere along the way, but we ate dinner together as a family for the most part.

In the end, Hannah, the spaghetti and spoon thief, was excused from dinner, and I was left to play Marco Polo with the many spoons scattered beneath the table.

-- Dad