Don't play with your food! Or do?

Jenna is always the last person sitting at the table, procrastinating eating whatever it is she doesn't like or just taking her sweet time because she wants to tell jokes, play games, etc. Usually by the time we're eating dinner, we're counting down to bath and bed. The girls go down around 7, and I get in the habit of putting off dinner prep. We usually end up eating around 6. I definitely need to move all of this up. You'd think I'd learn by now to start dinner earlier so I'm not as stressed to make Jenna eat. In the back of my mind I'm worried about causing some kind of eating disorder by making her eat too quickly. I also don't want this to be yet another time of the day that I'm just telling her what to do the whole time. Dinner is supposed to be a fun, family-centered, relaxing time. Sometimes we get it right, ie. letting Ava crawl on the table when she's done and laughing at each other. Sometimes I just have to say, "Who cares?" Tonight was one of those nights that I wanted to lighten up with dinner but keep Jenna from getting so distracted that she takes forever. I decided that I didn't want to just leave her at the table by herself, exiled because she's the last one to finish her food. We had a big spinach salad with chicken. Quick and easy. She had already eaten her tomatoes, cucumbers and cheese cubes, and had some chicken and spinach leaves left (plus a couple pieces of avocado that I knew weren't going to get eaten). Then it hit me. She wants to play a game, so I'll make it up. Finish her food by taking bites in a pattern! She LOVES patterns and finds them in everything. So she made up what pattern she wanted to eat in. Chicken, chicken, lettuce, lettuce. This worked great for a reasonable amount of time. I just had to hold myself back from speeding her eating up. Even though she ate slowly, she kept track of the pattern as she was eating. It was cute. But then she had to be leaf-eating animals in the zoo, and I had to be a kid that wanted to ask the zookeeper if I could go in and feed them. Now, when Jenna plays games like this she tells me exactly what to say. I always tweak it a little and tell her that I can say what I want if I'm pretending, and when she's pretending she can say what she wants. For my own patience, and her eating even slower because of this game, I was done after the giraffe and zebra. Ava entered the scene and started getting into everything around Jenna and egging her on. So I decided she was just done. I'm continually checking myself and thinking about the long-term impact of my actions and words on the kids, especially Jenna. From tonight's experience, I took that it's ok to not be on schedule sometimes. You would think I know this by now with 3 kids and the fact that we're late everywhere we go. But by accepting the time I have for what it is, I can make it less stressful and more enjoyable for everyone. I might regret saying this some day, but for now I say...play...even with your food :)