It is a lot better now that he was older as he was able to mostly serve himself. By the middle of our trip I just let him go up to the buffet himself and kept an eye on him from the table (bad mom? he just went to the kid's buffet at H&V which is actually a real pain in the butt for an adult to bend down into as it's lower than the rest).
But when he was 6, wooboy. I think our first was tusker house lunch, only I didn't realize it was the brunch period so it was still mostly breakfast. My son is also on the spectrum and has ADHD (which explains some of the whirling behavior, but I see tons of kids whirl lol) so his coordination is not great and neither was his ability to pay attention and focus at the time, especially in a place like Disney (he is much much better now).
First, when it's just an adult and a child, you kind of have to take your bag with you up to the buffet. Maybe I could leave it at the table, I don't know... I'm from brooklyn, so I've got my purse on my shoulder. Then we walk up to the thing and get our plates. "Mom, I want a GREEN plate." "fine, this orangey plate is mine, here is a green plate it is yours... can you hold it yourself?"
Get in buffet line and make the mistake of letting kid get in line behind you... while trying to see what is available, turn around and see that the kid HAS HIS PLATE ON HIS HEAD. "What are you doing with your plate on your head?"
"don't do that, please." I turn back around and two seconds later hear a loud clatter as the plate ends up on the floor (i'm guessing somewhere between me saying not to do that and turning back around, it ended up back on his head).
"mom, I need a new plate."
So now with everyone looking, get out of line to pick up plate and find a place to put it down where it won't get mixed with the clean plates, and get another clean green plate. Get back on the back of the line this time holding two plates and with kid in front of me.
Start dishing out food onto plates. I discovered that the best method for doing this is to put both plates down every time you want to dish something out. It's loud there so trying to hear whether your kid wants something or not requires bending over... only I found out the hard way don't lean forward with your purse on your shoulder because it will flop forward narrowly missing the food... don't ask me how I know this. Walk the buffet with indecisive child trying to figure out if he wants to try this or that while people start getting antsy behind you. Finally walk the entire buffet and have food on both plates and walk back to the table deciding against having your child hold his own plate.
At this point you'd think you'd be home free to sit down and eat your meal but no, now the kid is doing the "I have to pee" dance. I ask "do you have to go to the bathroom?"
"what do you mean you don't know? you're doing the dance. Do you have to go to the bathroom?"
"the food is getting cold. do you or do you not have to go to the bathroom?"
alright. let's go to the bathroom. You couldn't have mentioned it before we got our food, right?
Successfully do the bathroom routine and come back to the table to find that Donald is on his way... oh well, the food is stone cold already so what's a few more minutes? but it was all worth it to see this, the expression on my child's face for his first character meeting:
The food was pretty decent even cold and I didn't really want breakfast food anyway
So much easier now although I think I did catch him putting his empty plate on his head once or twice. I will tell you though it was a huge sigh of relief when our next character meal was 'Ohana and they brought the food to the table. then it was "why yes, we'd LOVE some more bacon and waffles!"
Consistently amazing every single time.
