Mrs. Parker, for those of you who don't remember, is the mother of Ralphie in the classic film A Christmas Story.
My favorite scene in the entire movie is when Mrs. Parker is trying to get her youngest son, Randy, to eat a hum drum dinner of mashed potatoes and meatloaf. He's playing with his food, the father is threatening Randy that if he won't eat his dinner his loving father will stick a fork in him somewhere... .
Then Mrs. Parker does the unthinkable. She gets her picky eater to gobble up his dinner. How does she do it? By asking him how the piggies eat. Randy then picks up his plate, and pretends he's a piggy and is eating from a trough - no utensils necessary. It's hilarious, because we've all known picky eaters, there's always one in every family. And we know the roll of the father rolling his eyes at the mother's antics, but everyone eats their dinner and goes off to bed full and happy.
Tonight, I was Mrs. Parker. My husband played the eye rolling role of Old Man Parker, and Fynn - my beloved two and a half year old - was Randy.
We sat at the dinner table, all finished eating, except Fynn. We were about to give up. Then I asked him if he could take big dinosaur bites of his sandwich (which sometimes works... not always, as that game is getting old). To my surprise, he looked at me, and said "Choo choo bites!!" So I asked him if he could take a big bite like Thomas the Train.
He did :)
Then I asked if he could take a big bite like Mavis (another train on the show, for those of you who aren't avid Thomas and Friends watchers!). He did! Then Percy... then James... we went through literally the entire cast. He kept eating! We even got him to take three bites one time by saying that Gordon was a big train and needs lots of food.
We were the Parker's tonight. From Lucas rolling his eyes, to me leaning over the table with my napkin in hand under my chin coaxing Fynn to take his choo choo bites. But it worked. And tonight, everyone is going to bed with full bellies and big smiles. Ironically, our lamp broke this evning... and I have Christmas music stuck in my head!