Sharing food

We eat together as a family.  And even if we all have the same food, the food on my plate is generally more interesting to my son than the food in front of him.

Lately he's been taking one small bite of each piece of food on his plate and then placing it on the table next to his plate.  Which I find to be a little crazy making, but haven't found a good way to discourage the behavior that isn't excessive.  Man, the things small children do with food can be enough to make any adult lose their appetite.  The one thing that gets me the worst is when he decides to put his food into his glass of water. Yuck; it sends shivers down my spine just thinking about it. Now that I know that's his game, I've gotten better at preventing it.  But the first time he did it... I don't even feel like thinking about it.

When he's not eating or making art out of his food, he's trying to put it in my mouth.  Which I get.  I put food in his mouth for a long time, why wouldn't he want to be like me and feed someone too?  And while I appreciate that he wants to share with me, I still don't want him feeding me by hand.  And more awkward still is when we are out to eat with friends, and my son wants to feed them.  It almost goes without saying; they don't want to be feed by my son either.

I know he means well.  And for the most part leading by example is what I do with him.  I'm just having a hard time conveying to him that I feed him because he needed help.  And generally speaking you don't feed people unless they need help eating.

I enjoy using utensils to feed myself.  And my son enjoys using his utensils as drum sticks.  But I think he's getting the idea.  He doesn't always remember to touch the fork or spoon to the food before putting it in his mouth.  But he's trying to do what his parents are doing with the whole food thing.  It's just rather weird to watch.