A world that sits up
The table begins. Sitting. Food as culture, not only nutrition. A stranger at the edge of the room, and a person who now knows who is home.
Sitting changes the politics of the room. They can see what we see. Food is no longer only milk. A person they do not know becomes a plot. This is the season we begin the table — slowly, messily, as a family, not as a project with a score.
- Sitting with less help. Hands that rake and then pincer. The first tastes — a flavour, a texture, a face we make when it is lemon.
- Movement with intent. A pivot, a commando crawl, a reach under the sofa. The house has to get lower and safer.
- Stranger wariness. A protest when we leave the room. This is attachment working, not a problem to extinguish.
Food is how a house says you belong
We will sit them with us. We will offer what we eat when it is safe to offer. We will not become a short-order kitchen of beige. Milk is still the main story. The table is the culture. See Milk and table for the longer line. Here, the point is the seat.
The sitting season
- 01
One safe chair
Upright enough to swallow. Strapped. At the table when we can, not facing a screen in another room.
- 02
Hands before spoons
They learn food by ruining it. We cover the floor. We do not mop their curiosity off their fingers every ten seconds.
- 03
We eat too
A child who only watches us serve them never learns that a meal is something a family does together.
- 04
Play gets a reach
A pot, a spoon, a cloth to pull, a ball that does not roll under the world. We sit on the floor and we stay.
They cry when a new person lifts them
A relative looks hurt. Someone says they must get used to it.
We take them back. We let them look from our body. Trust is not trained by being passed around like a plate. The guest can wait until the child arrives on their own.
What we will keep
- The first food they surprised us by loving
- A photograph of the mess, not only the clean bib
- The name of the person they would not go to — without making it a story against them