The end of family dinner?

Now that preschool occurs during naptime...ouch.  We have re-arranged our dinners. After two weeks of not sitting at the table, not eating and then being hungry and awake at 9:30 pm, and general rejection of all food, all toys, and all suggestions, we were done with family dinner.  We could have been equally done with preschool, but we chose to keep it.

So we changed dinner. Something had to change with our loss of nap.  Sleeping from 4 to 5:45 was counterproductive for a pre-midnight bedtime.   A now eats dinner at 4:45 pm.  Which means I make a toddler dinner at 4:15, otherwise known as immediately when we arrive home from preschool. 

Since I am not making a family dinner (which would then have 2 portions sit uneaten for 2 hours), I have returned to that old toddler menu.  I've turned back the clock to that which we ate when A was 18 months old.  I've brought back circle chicken, small portions of two to three different vegetables, a fruit and a piece of cheese or a scoop of beans.

A eats, A goes through a bedtime routine, A goes to bed. Spouse arrives home in time for a kiss.  There is one final story while I then go start dinner.  Together, we can finish making dinner.

And then we have dinner by ourselves, quietly.

Maybe afternoon preschool was genius.

Update on Wednesday, January 25, 2012 at 10:03AM by The Urban View

We seem to be over the hurdle of early eating.  Now that our routine of no naptime has become - well, routine, dinner has moved back to its usual hour.  Which means we are all eating dinner together again.  Now with "confirmation" - which is A's word for conversation. 

"Daddy, You talk to Mama.  I'm eating."