Splat!

Hello, dear blog readers! Now that the settling in process is finally getting somewhere, I'm looking for something functional to put under the table since we have carpeting in the dining room. Up until now I've been feeding the kids basically one at a time over the linoleum in the kitchen. We like to joke that it's a "one butt" kitchen, and having one adult and two kids in there at the same time (one being bed, one howling) just isn't ideal.

The thing that occurs during "Happy Hour" (aka Feeding Time) is that glint in the eyes of both kids where try to sneak food that they don't particularly like out of the chair and onto the floor. I think toddlers are equal opportunity "flingers:" one day they'll like something and the next day they won't. They might be celebrating their favorite meal by clapping their hands and having food fly everywhere, or they might be stealthily trying to sneak it onto the floor in hopes that a pet or other sibling might come along and hoover it up before it makes it onto the bottom of a parental shoe and tracked across the light-colored carpet. (I sometimes question why apartment managers often put in light-colored carpets into their units, especially when a lot of renters here have small children.)

Now that the boxes in the dining room have been dismantled, I've decided to look into getting splat mats to go under the kids' chairs. I'm just going to postulate that I'm not the world's greatest online research individual. That said, I found some GREAT tips and oil cloth/laminated fabrics on Etsy.com. I'm going to try to cut some fabric of my own and put on borders if the cloth isn't too thick.

Since I haven't actually purchased any fabric yet, if any of you readers out there have had a particular brand or type of splat mat in the past that you have really liked (or DISliked), I would love to hear further ideas and thoughts on the subject!

Happy Thursday, dear blog readers!