CSotD: Foodility
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Dave Coverly is giving me flashbacks with today's Speed Bump.
When our first was born, we lived about an hour away from my in-laws and across the country from my own folks. It was like living on a well-stocked desert island — we had total control of the baby's input. Shopping was one of my favorite activities with him, since it's such a good opportunity to introduce new words. "This is celery!" and "We're going to get some beans!"
Back then, everything I did was magical to the little fellow, and the cheap joke is to say, "it didn't last," but, in fact, when he was an adult, I discovered that he continued to believe things I told him even when I thought he was old enough to know that I was kidding. At least I'm not the only one.
But one of the advantages of Parental Credibility was that, as we wheeled down the cereal aisle and he leaned over grabbing for the brightly-colored boxes, I could say, "No, that's junk! We don't buy that!" and it had some authority. He accepted that we didn't buy junk.
In fact, for several years, he didn't know the correct name for hot dogs. He thought they were actually called "pig noses," because that's what I told him they were made from. Which isn't a lie, though it is a place where the FDA and I part company on terminology.
But you can't live in the bubble forever, and this wasn't going to last. His best friend lived next door, and already knew how to say, "Go go Kmart!"
And it was scant comfort to know that, if we'd stayed there long enough for him to have hot dogs over at Joel's, they wouldn't have been pig noses but good, kosher cow noses. It was simply easier to fill his little head with visions of pig noses than with scholarly discussions of sodium nitrate and nitrite and so forth and so on. Cow noses would have worked just as well, which, as it turned out, wasn't all that well anyway.
The roosters — or pigs or cows or whateverthehell they were — were coming home to roost just about the time we moved down to the same town as Grandma. I don't remember which place we were living when he first chirped from the seat of the grocery cart, "I want pig noses!"
But once we were living two blocks from Grandma, all bets were off. And not only were we two blocks from Grandma, but Great-Grandma lived in the upstairs apartment, so, if they (second son having arrived a year or so after we moved) got tired of scarfing down Frosty Flakes and Froot Loops on the main floor, they could always find a game of checkers and a box of cookies on the second.
We might as well have moved in next door to Willie Wonka.
However, some words of comfort for anyone still trying to fight the good fight, and losing.
1. Despite their lack of nutritional purity, both boys played varsity sports and went on to do active things as adults.
2. It turns out, decades later, that the big attraction up in Great-Grandma's apartment was not the cookies but that she always let them win at checkers, usually in ways that involved a lot of laughter.
3. They also spent a lot of time down in the basement with Grandpa, as a result of which they know a good deal more about woodworking and general household repairs than I ever could have taught them.
4. The one whose first few years were carefully sheparded to ensure healthy eating habits always has a few hot dogs in the fridge. The one who grew up entirely in the world of Frosty Flakes and Froot Loops is an ovo-lacto vegetarian.
5. Your job is to teach them how to make choices. Your job is not to teach them which choices to make.
6. Their girlfriends really do have their own videophones. Whattaya gonna do?
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