The Day Brooke Had A Relapse

Since it had been over a year since Brooke stashed food, I thought we were out of the woods and could add a notch in our parenting belt of lessons taught and learned.  (Please refer to this post and this post to be reminded of this nasty behavior we carefully extinguished last year)  That is the funny thing about parenting for me, just when I think we might have something “solved” I abruptly get slapped upside the head with evidence that glaringly proves otherwise.

Yesterday, we needed to have a quick, issue-free dinner because we had somewhere to be.  So I decided to make a meal that couldn’t possibly be offensive to anyone in my family.  We had pasta, with panko breaded chicken and stir fried veggies with a creamy, cheesy white sauce that I made with my pickiest customers in mind.  We also had breadsticks, so I knew the meal would be well received and consumed swiftly, so we could be on our way without incident.

It seemed as though my plan worked at first, everyone was happily eating and visiting, but then Brooke got extra chatty and inadvertently downed her entire glass of milk within the first 3.5 seconds of the meal.  That’s when the trouble started.  She immediately felt full, so she kept chatting and talking and chatting some more.  After multiple requests and numerous gentle warnings to hurry and eat, Kyle sent her to eat in the mudroom on the bench we have in there.  For an overly-talkative dinner participant, this usually does the trick: no audience = no talking = fast eating.

It seemed to work because everyone finished up and Brooke emerged with her almost empty plate and said she was “way too full” to eat any more. We needed to go, so we deemed her efforts as “close enough” and headed on our way.

About an hour or so after we left, Brooke kept mentioning that she was “soooooooo hungry.”  I didn’t think much of it until we got home and I started piecing things together.

The girls were tired, so we hurried and got them all into bed and then planned on watching a little TV to relax and unwind.  Before we got started, Kyle tried to go into Brooke’s secondary dinning room to turn off a light that had been left on, but he couldn’t… the door had been locked. 

Locked door issues NEVER happen at our house, primarily because that would require the girls to close a door and that almost NEVER happens because they are all afraid of missing out on something (that is definitely my only-child gene).  So, as soon as Kyle said the door was locked, I knew it was a crime scene. 

Kyle unlocked the door and at first glance it seemed like things were as they should be in there, but then my maternal Spidey senses kicked in and I went on a stashed food hunt.  The bad news is that I found what I was looking for, the good news is that Brooke selected a much more hygienic spot (garbage can) than during her prior lawlessness and she sort of tried to disguise her deviance, so her skills are improving. 

    BARF.