Here is how dining with Zara has evolved.

0 to 5th month
When we had dinner, we let her sit in her infant carrier with some interesting things to examine. She was happy.

5th to 6th month
She’d started solids, and able to sit supported.
When we had dinner, we put her in the high chair, one hand supporting her back, the other spooned food to our own mouth and hers.
We gave her something interesting to hold, she would bang the something on the table or chair noisily, and she was happy.

7th month
She’s able to sit on her own.
We just had to give her some sound making toys, or something extremely interesting to occupy her during dinner time. She would sit in the high chair making music by banging the items on the table or chair, or dropping them on the floor (to hear what sound they could make).
We had to take turns to eat, because feeding her, controlling the noise she was making (when other diners threw us glances) picking up the things she dropped was a full time job!

8th – 9th month
She started cruising.
She was not keen to sit still. If she had to, she would be dropping things on purpose, fretting to get out of the chair, or kept demanding for things beyond her reach (like the mobile phone, soya sauce bottle we placed out of her reach on purpose)!
We had to take turns to eat. Feeding her, picking up things she dropped, as well as pushing things further away from her reach was a very full time job and require a higher skill level(I wish I was an octupus)!

10th month
She started walking, and climbing.
Trying to keep her seated on the high chair is a big chore. She’s not that interested in her food, preferred to be on the floor walking. If we had to keep her in her chair, she would try to climb out of it, danger was not a concept she understood.
Definitely, there’s no way we could have a peaceful meal together. We had to take turns to bring her for walks, or if she still had not finished eating, we had to use 1 hand to force her down on her chair, and the other hand to spoon food into her mouth as well as push things out of her reach.

11th month
She started having a keen interest to participate during meal times.
She would sit in her chair, demands for her own set of cutlery (if none, she’ll just climb out of the chair skillfully and grab the nearest set), and then using the fork, spoon or chopstick she will reach for other people’s plate. She will also use her hand to grab rice from neighboring plates.
So, to prevent her for robbing people’s food, we let her have her own plate and spoon and put some rice in her plate. While we’re feeding her her actual food, she’ll pick up and push lumps of rice into her own mouth with her hand. Sometimes, even offering her food to us (which we have to pretend to eat or she’ll get crossed).
We could finally eat together again as a family. The after dinner mess however is another problem.

This is an exaggerated pic (not her), but it’s close to how she looks like after dinner… I wonder what is in store for us for the coming months.