A Haunted Dinner

Last night at dinner Andy and I came up with another creative way to get Lana to eat.  I've mentioned a few times here and here on this blog about Lana and her eating habits, or lack thereof.  Most dinner time meals are a struggle to get her to even taste anything, and last night was no exception.  So when an opportunity presented itself with a way to get Lana to finish her dinner, or at least start it, we took it.  This time-fear of ghosts!


While we were in the middle of dinner, the ice maker in the freezer dumped out the recent ice it had made, making a bit of a noise. Andy and I recognized the sound immediately, but the girls all asked,


"What was that?!"


I'm not sure why I started it.  I guess because it's close to Halloween and we have all the decorations up.  Plus sometimes it's fun to scare your kids.  So  I said,


"Oh I don't know what that could have been.  Maybe the ghost?"


Andy took this and added to it.  "Oh yeah, it's the ghost.  You better eat your dinner Lana before the ghost comes out."


Right on cue another sound came from the freezer.  Lana's eye's got really big. Then Andy pierced a piece of Lana's chicken with her fork and encouraged her to eat it.  She immediately did.  Then I suggested it was a food eating ghost that was going to come eat her food if she didn't.  


At this point all the girls were questioning whether we were joking or not.  We told them we were quite serious and Andy even started to look around nervously like the ghost was going to come get us at any minute.  I was having a harder time not breaking character and let a giggle go a couple times.  Lana wasn't paying attention to me though.  She  was taking it all seriously and eating every bite of her dinner. 


Sonya, who tends to get the most scared of just about everything, started to get really nervous.  I quietly whispered to her that we were just joking, so she wouldn't flip out.  She of course took that information and announced it to the rest of the table after a couple of minutes.  No matter though, Lana had finished her meal.  No ghosts were coming to get her food!  


So the latest getting Lana to eat tactic worked!  Eventually, she did realize we weren't serious and there were no ghosts.  Okay so maybe we connected being scared and eating for Lana, which may be harmful to her psyche later, but whatever, we got her to eat.  Besides, it's nothing a therapist can't fix in a few years.  We'll just add it to the list.