I’ve been working on figuring out how to make dinner time less stressful for us. There are spills on the table and on the floor that can be troubling for both of us. I joke about getting a dog to help with clean up, but in reality, I need to find tools that allow my husband to feed himself safely without making a mess. I have a hard time bringing this up, not wanting to embarrass him, and it often turns into a joke. My biggest concern is that he will spill something, I won’t realize what has happened, and he will slip in it getting out of his chair. We don’t need any additional fall risks in our lives.

Amazon has been my friend as I look for something that might help. I searched for adaptable dinnerware and found that they have so many things, it is almost too much to sort through. There are scooper plates and bowls, plates designed with high walls with and without sections, plate safety rims that clip on to our existing dinnerware. The utensils range from bendable to weighted to rocker knives to sporks and knorks (a knife-fork combination). I have been considering this for months now, I finally decided it is time to order some things and give them a try.

I decided to purchase a couple of different styles of plates, a scooper and a high wall version. We can see if either of them work for him. I also ordered a small set of utensils. I am hopeful that he will be willing to try them and that they solve some of this problem. Otherwise we’ll be trying to convince the cat to clean up spills like the dog. Pretty sure I know how that would go…