When do Babies Learn to Mop?

Dear Delilah,

I realize that along with practical skills like feeding yourself, you're also learning exciting concepts like gravity and cause & effect.

Here's a quick lesson in the latter:

When you cause food to be on the floor, the effect is an annoyed mama.

Believe it or not, I didn't spend half an hour  making a nice breakfast just so you could feed it to the dog and throw it on the floor. It's fine if you don't want to eat all of something, but maybe you could...I don't know...just leave it on your tray so it could be saved for later? Like a reasonable person? Oh, who am I kidding? Who in their right mind would expect a 14 month old to behave like a reasonable person?

Hmmm...perhaps it's me who needs to behave like a reasonable person and realize that babies throw food. It's part of the learning process. I'll let you in a not-very-secret secret though. I hate mopping. I won't even admit here how rarely I mop, because I'd hate for anyone to recoil in horror or call CPS about the food on the floor.

Honestly, the pets "clean up" most of it, but there are some things even they won't eat. What does every living thing in this house have against prunes,  anyway?


As much as I think that most of the baby product marketing out there misleads parents into believing that their children won't survive without piles and piles of latest and greatest stuff, I think it might be time for something like the Booginhead Splat Mat. While this product seems like a good idea in theory, in practice, it might end up being just another thing I hate to clean. It's certainly prettier than our current kitchen floor!

When all is said and done, when this little phase passes and you learn to keep your food on your plate instead of flinging it on the ground or handing it right to the dog, it will have proven to be yet another exercise in teaching me patience. So far, every lesson I've taught you has resulted in a lesson for me, often more powerful and poignant than what I managed to teach you.

On the bright side, by the time you stop throwing food on the floor, you'll probably be big enough to mop yourself!

Love,

Mama



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