Why Swiper the Fox is always welcome at our dinner table

Recently I have introduced Dora the Explorer to Evelynn and Eloise. Some of you who know of this show may ask why, why, WHY???? The reasons were simple at the time. First, it's on netflix, which makes it watchable since our DVD player got tragically broken by Eloise. Second, it's short, only 20 minutes long an episode, so I don't feel bad playing one while I get dinner prepped, or when I just need a short break from being mommy. Third, it does teach some good skills such as counting and preposition recognition (over, under, through, etc.) and also some Spanish, which is not critical to our situation but any knowledge is good right?

This show has become a huge favorite in our house. Evelynn knows most of the songs, if not all, and she loves interacting with the shows. Eloise has also gotten into the action, counting along with Boots and Dora and desperately trying to imitate the songs like her big sister. By far their favorite character is Swiper the Fox. At least once an episode the fox tries to sneak up on Dora and Boots and steal something that they are using to complete their mission. The line used (and frequently quoted by Evelynn) is "Do you hear that? It sounds like Swiper the Fox! That sneaky fox is always trying to steal our stuff!" In order to vanquish the fox's sneaky intentions, Dora and Boots, with the help of the audience, must shout "Swiper no swiping!" three times, which causes Swiper to reconsider his actions and run away since he's been discovered. As I mentioned before, this is the favorite part of the show for both Evelynn and Eloise, and it gets quoted often. Very often.

Some of you may be aware that Evelynn has a hard time eating her dinner. It's not that she doesn't like what we eat--she is a remarkably good eater and likes almost anything. The problem lies in the fact that it's incredibly difficult to make her stay in her chair and eat her dinner in a reasonable amount of time, like under 45 minutes. She plays this game where she takes 2 or 3 bites and claims she's full, has to go to the bathroom, needs to get something, needs and drink etc etc in order to get out of eating or delay the process. What ends up happening is me feeding her and making her eat until she's had enough that she won't ask me for food in the next 30 minutes. I hate dinner time because of this. We've tried a number of different things to help counteract this behavior. We've made the rule of if you get down from the table before dinner is over, you go straight to bed. This has worked well, and now she doesn't get down unless it's a dire emergency. We've tried setting a timer for her, with limited success since she has a limited concept of time. I've tried just loading her fork instead of feeding her, also with limited success. It's a very frustrating process that is relived every single night.

Now with all this background information out of the way, it's time to tell you how these two stories collide. Doug and I were trying to coax Evelynn into eating her dinner when she started quoting the Swiper the Fox dialogue. Doug then had a moment of genius. He claimed very excitedly that Evelynn better hurry or else Swiper was going to steal her dinner. Evelynn's eyes got really big. She exclaimed "OH NO!" very loudly, and then began to literally shovel food into her mouth as fast as she could. Doug and I stared in amazement. When she stopped to breathe, we coaxed her again by saying Swiper was still coming. She downed the rest of her meal. Total time of meal from beginning of Swiper warnings to the end: 4 minutes. By the end, Doug and I were laughing so hard it was getting hard to breathe. To my further amazement, Eloise got in on the actions exclaiming "Oh no, Swiper the F#@*!" (she has a hard time saying the word fox and it comes out very much like a cuss word) and also started to shove her mouth full of food. Upon Evelynn finishing her dinner, she jumped out of her chair and took the Dora position of one hand out in a stopping motion and began yelling in rapid succession with her mouth stuffed with food, "SWIPER NO SWIPING! SWIPER NO SWIPING! SWIPER NO SWIPING!" It was awesome. This trick has now worked three different times, and I will continue to use it until it no longer works, risks of indigestion be darned.