I’ve had almost a month of fairly successful dinners.
At first it went smoothly - me running the music, the kids taking bites. I let them decide on the rules, which so far are:
- Hands off the fork once the bite is ready
- All the food must make it into the mouth
- Take turns picking the song
My son had some difficulty accepting rule two. Eventually his sister talked him into it with a simple “or I won’t play.” That was a terrifying moment. I could feel this magical solution to dinner starting to slip away, and I had no move. But for some reason it really mattered to my son that his sister wanted to play with him, so he agreed. Just like that.
And that’s how Musical Bites became a game we play almost every night.
There were a few bumps along the way.
During the second week, there were five nights in a row they tried to insist that the winner should get dessert. I held my ground. Eventually I gave in a little. The best they could hope for, I told them, was pancakes for breakfast on the weekend if they played the game on school nights. My son asked if the pancakes would include syrup. I agreed it would. This was grudgingly accepted.
Then my daughter figured out she could watch my hand to tell when I was about to pause the music. It didn’t matter that there was no official winner - when her brother noticed she was always getting her bites in first, that was apparently an insult to his pride that couldn’t stand. I started hiding the phone under the table, behind my hands, anything to take away that half-second advantage.
That’s when it occurred to me: I can make an app for that.
The first rough prototype was done in a morning, after I biked the kids to school. It was ugly. It didn’t support playlists. But it paused and started a song automatically, which was the whole point. By the time they got home from school, playlists worked too.
That’s what we’re using now. An ugly, cobbled-together app - but it works.