Frankie's Messes

I might have mentioned that Frankie has been our messiest toddler so far. I can't guarantee this is true because it very well may be that I have just forgotten how messy the other kids were at this age. Nature has a way of tricking us into having more (thankfully!)

As Seth says, it's really actually impressive how big of a mess he can make in a very short period of time. I'll share a few examples of what our dining room looks like after he's eaten.

This first one is pretty typical. He doesn't like having a sippy cup at meals, preferring a glass like everyone else at the table. Inevitably his food ends up in his cup or his drink ends up all over his plate. He loves to play with his food, and very often I'm pretty sure only about 5% of what we feed him actually ends up in his stomach. 

 Here his is after his morning yogurt. This is quite a bit cleaner than usual, although this picture does not show all the yogurt on the chair and floor. You may also notice that he is standing in both of these pictures. Booster seats seem to be an invitation for him to fall on the floor trying to escape. And sitting is just simply not Frankie's style...unless it's on my lap while he spills my meal all over both of us. 

This one is worse than it looks. We had quinoa and broccoli for supper, and the kids got pineapple juice to drink as a treat. As usual his food ended up in his drink cup, and before I could stop it, the cup was dropped on the floor. (I can't recall if that was intentional or not.) This sticky quinoa/pineapple juice combo splattered across the entire dining room floor - spreading all the way under the table, up against the wall and into the crevices of the drawers and leaded glass on the hutch. It's red quinoa in case you're wondering why it looks so funny.

This wasn't at supper but while I was trying to prepare supper. Frankie has a tendency to decide he wants a smoothie at very inopportune times. I prefer to make him a smoothie when I can go outside with him and help him drink it without making too big of a mess. On this particular day, he was so insistent on getting a smoothie that I made him one to keep him happy while I was cooking. Sippy cups and smoothies don't mix so well so I just had him stay in the kitchen next to me. I was using a hand mixer which made him decide he needed to help by getting me another hand-held blender we have. When he tried to pull it out by himself he dropped a pyrex pan on the floor and it shattered. The crash scared him causing him to drop his smoothie. You may notice that not only was the floor covered in this mess, but the smoothie also splattered onto half of the dishes in the cupboard.

It helps to remind myself that we deal with all of this because he is healthy and therefore active, and for that I am very grateful. Mind you, I am aware that some people have children who are both healthy and fairly inactive, but for us this is life. And boy, do our kids provide us with a lot of stories!