"You're Gonna Change (Or I'm Gonna Leave)"

At what point does making a mess while eating become a battle that must be fought – lest a certain little boy grow into a man thinking it's okay to dunk his fingers in his soymilk, fling his lettuce at the wall or toss his plate off the table when he's ready for dessert?

Everyone who has witnessed the trainwreck that is mealtime with Connor consistently comments to us that he is, by far, the messiest eater he or she has ever seen. By the end of the meal, what he hasn't managed to get into his mouth, is smashed up on the table, squished between his butt and his booster chair or lying on the floor beneath him. I've had to start kicking Murphy out of the kitchen when we're eating because he was gaining weight at an alarming rate.

Also, Connor often demands to eat with a toy in one hand — usually a Matchbox car. As a result, the car gets a pretty good dousing of whatever we're trying to get him to eat. (Refer to the bed of the pickup truck in the picture above.)

It was cute at first. Awww. Look. He got more on him than in him. Ha ha. But now it's becoming a tad embarassing. On those rare occasions when we eat in a restaurant, Stacey and I are usually scraping up whatever remnants of his food that we can from off of the floor and table before the server comes back and sees the mess waiting to be cleaned up once we leave — thus dramatically increasing our chances of receiving a plate of food contaminated with some type of bodily fluid.

Of course, I'm sure Stacey and I are both partly to blame. Our table manners have pretty much vanished ever since Connor came along. We've become quite adept at shoveling food into our own mouths as quickly as possible so that we can tend to Connor's needs and keep him from flinging his food willy-nilly across the room.

Then there's Stacey's incessant farting at the table.

Kidding. That, of course, is me.