Generally speaking, eating isn’t a problem for us with the kids. They more or less eat whatever we cook. That’s not to say they always like what we serve, but after a little kvetching they tend to give up, hold their nose and eat.
When they really don’t want to eat something, they have one well they like to go to- the “I’m not hungry anymore” well. They don’t realize it, but they almost always give the game away because they’ll look at their plate and then declare that they aren’t that hungry.
Such was last night’s dinner experience with the boy. The Wife wasn’t fooled though- after a day at the beach where they both spent almost the entire time in the water there was NO way he wasn’t hungry. The Wife opted to bide her time, so she bagged up the food he wouldn’t eat and waited.
We went to a fireworks display later that evening. In the bag the Wife put together, she also included the doggie bag of the boy’s leftover denner. She made sure the boy knew the food was there in case he got hungry. The fireworks were a town event and had all sorts of vendors present. Of particular importance was the ice cream vendor.
The Wife went and grabbed the lass, myself and herself some ice cream cones. At the time, the boy was quietly reading The Order of the Phoenix on our blanket. He watched the Wife hand out ice cream to everyone except him. The look on his face told the story- he’d been caught. His desire for ice cream overrode his disdain for dinner. Wordlessly, he went into the bag and pulled out his leftover dinner and finished eating it.
Then, he got his ice cream.
One reply on “The Wife: 1 – The Boy: 0”
…. the hard learned lessons of youth ….