Lesson Learned

Micah eats well. It's the one quality everyone comments on when they have a meal with the boy. Eating is truly his super power. He will have 2 or 3 helpings of breakfast, a snack to get him through to lunch, a hearty lunch (while cleaning up what others aren't interested in), come home from school and eat a bowl of cereal, a sandwich, and a snack, then down dinner like he hasn't eaten all day. We try our best to make sure what he eats is at least super healthy, because limiting his quantity has been met with more resistance than we're willing to fight.

So today, on Day 3 of an 8 day vacation, we gave the boy a hearty all-you-can-eat breakfast and headed to the amusement park. Being that it was closer 90 degrees than it was 80, and being that we're thick blooded Yankees that had 6" of snow just last week, those high temperatures have us sweating a bit. We're not complaining, mind you, just stating facts. And another fun fact is that when I get hot, I just don't get that hungry. It may be all the drinking I do to ward off dehydration, or it may just be the fact that food sounds less than appetizing when I'm melting into a puddle. And the third fun fact of the day is that if I'm not hungry, I just don't think about mealtimes. Sure, we snacked here and there as the need arose, but we took a poll amongst the children and they all agreed that they weren't extremely hungry and a full meal wasn't necessary. Sadly, Micah was not among the kids that was able to give a verbal response.

Micah spent most of his day finding new ways to irritate us. He grumped about this and fussed about that, and purposely ran from us or refused to follow simple instructions. It's like he had a death wish or something. We were on the verge of putting him on the curb with a FREE KID sign around his neck. Instead, we brought him back to the hotel and let him swim for a while, thinking he might just need some down time. Swimming is a great destresser for him. Except it didn't help today. He was happy to swim, but got out of the pool and was grumpier than ever. There are no words to describe the level of grump that was reached today.

I finally reached my snapping point as we were walking into the restaurant and Mr. I Have To Be First was having none of my "please wait on us" cries. He had a time out in the van to pull his attitude into check but it did little to no good. He marched into the restaurant slightly subdued but not at all sorry. After watching him devour a plate of food, I realized that we didn't feed him much today. In fact, he had very little to eat.

Mental note: make scheduled stops to feed Micah. We'll all be happier for it.