Mouth full

Today, mima and papa accompanied us to the outdoor shopping mall; we had a few things to return/exchange, it's got one of the few Seattle grocery stores with a reasonable passover food selection, and they've also got a nice play area for Zachary (which happens to be dangerously close to our favorite cupcake bakery). We started off with lunch at one of our favorite kaiten sushi restaurants, where Zachary has as much fun watching the conveyor belts and colored lights as we do picking out our sushi choices; Meh was particularly pleased to be able to eat raw fish again after her imposed pregnancy ban.

Lately at restaurants we've been trying to order Zachary some food of his own. Even though he generally shakes his head at trying it (or only eats the component parts that he's familiar with - raisins, chocolate chips, etc.), he's been doing a great job of labelling the foods. At lunch on Friday for instance, he happily said 'kah' (quesadilla) and [a slightly different] 'kah' (carrot) without actually touching the lovely cheesy tortilla goodness or fresh carrot sticks we'd gotten for him. (As you can see, he was also texting at the table - how rude!) He's also been getting very good at patiently waiting at the table while we finish eating, even if he decides that he isn't hungry.

Anyway, so this same sort of event played out at the sushi-go-round: he pointed at the lights, patiently played with his chopsticks, and when we placed a piece of kappa maki in front of him, he would occasionally point at it and say 'sah-shah!' (sushi). I didn't think much of the fact that he didn't actually eat the piece. At the very end of the meal, I got his jacket back on and then asked him to say bye-bye to the sushi. He looked at me, then grabbed the maki, held it for a moment, and shoved it into his mouth. Amazing!

Granted, the sushi stayed in his mouth, unchewed and unswallowed, for a good ten minute walk around the mall. He looked like a deer in the headlights most of the time, but I couldn't get him to commit to either eat it or spit it out. Finally, I came up with the idea to offer him his milk. He tried to drink it, but realized the sushi was in the way, and only then elected to thoughtfully chew and swallow it, before washing it down with the milk. 私たちの息子は非常に愚かな男の子です！ (That's meant to translate to "Our son is a very silly boy!")