Tried a new place for lunch today. I was seated next to a two kids with their mom and grandma.
The youngest was 3-4 years old. He had pancakes. Mom poured on syrup and cut up for him.
He reached with his hand to start eating, and mom told him, no, use your spoon (spoon? but that’s not the point of the story). So, he picks up a piece of pancake, puts it on his spoon, and finishes the transport to his mouth.
Go little dude. Mom didn’t notice (probably too busy smoking (which is another story (I won’t be going back (I still smell of smoke)))), and he polished off his plate of food in fine fashion.
Ha! Go little dude, indeed.
See, now I’m from California. If that had occurred here, the entire point of your story would be different. You would not have noticed that little guy’s actions at all, what with the mother getting arrested for multiple charges including, but not limited to smoking in a restaurant and child endangerment. All the cop cars in the city would have shown up and it would have been rather…noisy.
I haven’t been in a place that allows smoking for years. In Missouri, there is no controlling state law, so it’s all city by city. Some of the smaller suburbs still allow it, I guess. Ash trays on all of the tables, even.
I often sit next to my father when he eats supper. He eats like the kid the OP mentioned - he’ll put food on his fork with his hand, and then eat the food off the fork. I got so disgusted by this that he’s stopped doing it when I’m next to him, but when I’ve finished supper and left the table, and then come back to the table for something, I catch him still doing it. sigh
I’ve certainly seen a toddler who used her fingers to put the food on the spoon and eat it. We thought it was cute, and since she was so clearly still in the learning process, it was no big deal.
She was given an ice cream sandwich later that day, and didn’t know how to eat it. So my mother cut the sandwich up, stuck it in a bowl, and gave the child a spoon. She ate the ice cream, and watched my parents eat theirs with great interest.
And when her mother returned to pick her up, and complained about not being given a chance at an ice cream sandwich, the child ate half of her mother’s–this time by biting chunks off, like a normal person.
My kids ate with their fingers and then a fork, stabbing cut-up food. They didn’t graduate to spoons till I thought they were ready to master “semi-sloppy.” Even spaghetti is better tackled with a fork, tho they still ended up wearing some of it on their heads.
I remember when my oldest was learning to eat with a spoon. He’d scoop up whatever it was we were eating, and try moving it to his mouth. What he didn’t realize (and me either, until I watched him trying to do it), is that you have to rotate your wrist a little bit when moving from the bowl to your mouth, or everything dumps off.
He wasn’t figuring it out (and getting very frustrated at the lack of food). I finally had to guide his hand and wrist one time to show him how it worked - then he was a shoveling dynamo.
Heh. I watched one of my stepdaughter’s friends do this with waffles the morning after a sleepover…only she was 9 at the time, so it wasn’t nearly as cute as what the OP saw.