dinner started simply enough, with odin demonstrating his excellent eating skills. for the most part the days of messily smearing food from ear to ear are gone and lately he’s taken to simply plopping his hands on his highchair somewhat patiently waiting for us to shovel in the food.

as you can see, we don’t even need to use a bib since he’s such a good helper opening his mouth nice and wide!

but today, grandma decides it might be fun to teach odin some new tricks at the table and things may never be the same.

grandma is sitting to the left of odin and after a few minutes of watching his superb eating style, for reasons only known to her, she decided to prop her spoon in her mouth while talking to odin about how much fun it can be to play with your dinnerware.

after noticing that he was taking quite an interest in her behavior, she coyly and half-heartedly said, “oops. maybe i shouldn’t teach him to do that.”

but it was too late, as odin quickly absorbed the experience and thoughtfully pondered how he might mimic this new and interesting tableware trick.

in short order odin is very proud to have almost mastered the technique, even if he doesn’t quite have the ability to hold the spoon up in his mouth without his hands. but it’s clear that he thinks it’s close enough to warrant excited gesticulation .

at this point any attempt to return to “normal” eating are stymied by his insistence at continuing to copy grandma.

maybe we’ll have to make a mental note of this episode and reconsider any thoughts we had of leaving odin in her care for an extended period of time.

who knows what newer and more exciting tricks she may try to teach him!