Saturday, November 22, 2008

Chop Sticks

We have started a new family tradition. On most Saturdays we load up the monkeys and go eat Chinese food. A newish Chinese buffet is about ten minutes from the house. The food is really good and the price is affordable for this family of five.

Eating out with my monkeys is an experience. They all three have monster appetites. They also eat almost anything because there mother thought that feeding them out of the garden was a good idea. This has led to some odd outside grazing habits, but I digress.

Baby Monkey primarily eats sweet and sour chicken. He knows what he likes and he sees no reason to branch out. Middle Monkey eats everything. He even eats the sushi, but he is not crazy about the sticky rice. He takes the sushi rolls apart and eats everything but the rice - weird.

Today we looked up and Teenage Monkey was using chop sticks like an expert. Then I realized what he was eating with the chop sticks - banana pudding. I can't make this stuff up people. He was picking the vanilla wafers and banana bits out of the pudding with chop sticks. We were in public with normal people. Arrrgh.

Somebody help me. Please help me.

26 comments:

  1. Deb, please don't take this the wrong way...but that is why I nearly beg the waitress not to seat us near tables with children! I have "done my time" in the war zone. My girl monkeys weren't even that bad. I feel for you. I have a guest room if ever you want to run away from home for awhile. I'm here, Debbie, I'm always here for you. If you need a hand to lift you out of the monkey pit, just holler my way and I'll stick it out there for you to grab.
    Brenda

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  2. Ha, that is so priceless! Of course, even the thought of banana pudding at a Chinese restaurant is mind-boggling. Only in the South! Congrats to Teenage Monkey for mastering chopsticks, though---with my coordination (or lack thereof), if I tried eating anything with them, not only Brenda but everyone else in the restaurant would be hiding behind upended tables thinking they'd stumbled into a food fight!

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  3. Brenda, confession time. The waiter sat the boys at a table across the isle from Manly Man and me. When he started that we just pretended he wasn't ours.

    Ofb, that was quite a visual. We will have to have you sit at the kids table.

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  4. Chop sticks for banana pudding? That's a talented little monkey you have! :)

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  5. Hey, just be glad he wasn't eating the banana pudding with his fingers! I love your stories; truth IS stranger than fiction! hahhaa

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  6. Nola, I suppose it could have been worse. I don't know about truth, but my kids are definitely stranger than fiction.

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  7. Nola, I suppose it could have been worse. I don't know about truth, but my kids are definitely stranger than fiction.

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  8. Debbi - I agree - that's real talent! At least they eat most things when you go out and you're willing to take them, that's better than most kids these days. We took our 5 year old daughter to the sushi restaurant last weekend (we don't normally, but I'd messed up on a sleepover schedule so she had to tag along with us) and she at tempura and Edamame and rice and was fine. I love it when kids eat a wide variety of foods.

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  9. Diana, Teenage Monkey loves edamame. Sometimes the I think the only thing I have done right is the way I feed them and the resulting wide variety of foods they will eat. Still, pudding should not be consumed with chop sticks.

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  10. I give him credit for being creative! lol My son gets pizza at the Chinese Buffet, isn't that odd? ;)

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  11. You've just given me a huge craving for chinese take out!

    My husband became very proficient with the chopsticks after spending almost two weeks in Japan last winter. Did you know that they make plastic reproductions of the food on the menus for the customers to look at when picking what they want to eat? Apparently they look very real.

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  12. Racquel, that's it. Let's call it creativity. Now I feel better. Chinese buffets in the south are 19 kinds of weird:)

    Blossom, I know. My uncle spent a lot of time in Japan a few years back and came home with some weird beer. Mom graduated high school in Okinawa (spelling jacked up I'm sure) My good china was made in occupied Japan. Maybe the chop sticks skills were passed on from the other generations.

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  13. Thanks for the cool comment over at my place!

    I was about to laugh at Teenage monkey when I looked up and saw Mr de Elba sucking sweetened condensed milk right out of the tube.

    Yeah, great.

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  14. Ummm... well I don't think they use spoons in China?

    My children refuse to eat Chinese food so it's been ages since I've eaten Chinese food. What would they do if they got chopsticks? God only know, probably either stick them in their mouth and play walrus or just stick them in their nose to be gross. I'd say eating banana pudding with them is much better than either of those options, am I right?

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  15. I love your monkeys, Debi. They make me smile, and their mother was smart to feed them out of the garden.~~Dee

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  16. Debbie .. it is all too funny and REAL .. having a son I understand some of the monkey antics : )
    Hey .. if I only use chop sticks to eat .. I might lose some weight ? ... nah ... if you can eat banana pudding with the sticks .. you can pretty well eat ANYTHING!!! hahahaha

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  17. Teenage monkey is cool. He would fit in well in our family.:)

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  18. Joy, I never thought of it from a weight loss point of view. It would certainly slow me down.

    Thanks Foxy, will you pick him up at the airport? Kidding, sort of.

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  19. Foxy, I am not letting him read these comments. He would so be packing his bags for Australia.

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  20. Well tell him that when he is old enough and ready for travelling the world there is always a bed and a pair of chopsticks for him at our place.

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  21. Foxy, that is so sweet. Maybe it'll happen.

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