Until Grace was four, she begged me to feed her.
"Feeeeeeeeed me, Moooooom!" She'd whine. I didn't feed her, and she'd eventually give up and feed herself or else not eat. But she was persistent, and she whined every single night.
Eventually, when Allie said, "I feed you!" and held up her fork to stuff food in Grace's mouth, Grace quit asking and started feeding herself.j
Amazing how that happens, isn't it?
So this evening, Joe made beef enchilada casserole. Both of our girls love it. Both pick out all the "chicken" (which is known as hamburger to the rest of us) and gobble it up, but leave the rest of the casserole on their plates.
Let behind are the pieces of onion (which both of our children claim to hate), sauce, cheese, and corn tortillas swimming in homemade enchilada sauce.
Partway through the meal, Grace found what she thought was an onion. "DAD! There's ONION in this! I can't eat it! It's disgusting!"
"Grace, there's no onion in it," he said.
"Yes there is! Right here! What's this?" She picked up a piece of onion.
"Oh, that? That's a piece of tortilla," I lied.
Satisfied, she went back to picking through the casserole to find the ground beef.
As Grace got up from the table, I pointed, "Look Grace, you missed a big piece of chicken right there."
(There was no piece of chicken.)
"Where?" she asked.
"Right there."
"Feed it to me."
I picked up her fork and fed her. Every bite I put into her mouth contained a big piece of onion, some tortilla, cheese, and "chicken" if I could find it.
She happily chewed each and every bit.
"I'm done," she said, near the end of her plate.
"Your belly is full?" I asked.
"Yeah. I'm full."
"Okay." I ate the last three or four bites on her plate. (Isn't that what every parent does? My mom used to complain about it all the time and said that's why I'm fat. Because obviously, this weight problem of mine happened around the same time as my first child started eating table food. {Really, it started before I was two, and I'm being sarcastic.} )
"Guess what Grace."
"What?" she asked.
"I just fed you half an onion."
"No, you didn't."
"Yes, I did. That thing I told you was a tortilla? That was an onion. Every bite I put in your mouth had a big piece of onion in it. And you liked it."
She gave me the hairy eyeball and stomped one foot.
She knew I was right. She had no argument. She ate the onion, and she liked it.
"Hey, isn't one of the 10 Commandments 'You shouldn't LIE.'?" she asked, looking from her dad to me and back.
I knew she was right. I had no defense.
"You are both sinners!" she said, which, of course, led to a conversation about how we're all sinners, saved by the blood of Jesus.
I was simultaneously happy that she's been paying attention during children's church and embarrassed to be setting such a terrifically bad example for my child.
I didn't properly think through the tell her you fed her onions plan.
So, in an effort to prove that she doesn't dislike onions, only that she thinks she dislikes onions, what I really proved was that we're all sinners in need of a savior.
In all, not a bad lesson for a Monday night.
I bet she continues to claim that she doesn't like onions.
Leave a Reply