My kids have stopped liking spaghetti. From the day we met, up until about three weeks ago, one way to achieve harmony in our household was to put some noodles in water, some sauce and meat in a pan, and with very little effort, feed all of us. But now, spaghetti is rejected.
By both of them. At the same time. My daughter, who lives for salad bars, so she can load up her plate with beets. My son, who dances in the grocery aisle in his attempts to convey to me his enthusiasm for sardines.
They sit and look sadly at their plates of spaghetti. The look in their eyes is much like what mine would be if I were offered a sardine and beet stew.
"I don't really want dessert tonight, Mom," sighs Linden, listlessly pushing the noodles across her plate. This is code for "I'm refusing to eat what I'm served." The understanding is that if you eat a reasonable amount of all of your dinner, you will be invited to dessert.
"I'm still full from those apples and peanut butter, Mom," says Oak diplomatically.
"The ones you had at 11:00 this morning?" I ask.
"Um. Yeah. I don't really feel like dessert tonight either."
"Fine," I reply. "But in an hour and a half from now, when we're getting ready for bed, I don't want to hear that you are suddenly starving."
"Deal!" he exclaims. "And if I do...I owe you a half hour of work around the house!"
Sounds like a win-win to me. Except for the small matter of the ginormous bowl of spaghetti I put back in the fridge. I am not going to serve it to them for breakfast and lunch tomorrow, but I am serving it for dinner tomorrow night. I can only hope that either hunger wins out, or diplomacy continues to reign.
*Well, I guess I've been honest enough on here that we all know I have screwed up badly more than a few times. I deserve worse than this. But who wants what they deserve?
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