It's What's For Dinner

Son: “Dad, what’s for dinner?”

Me: “Pork chops in a pineapple-glazed honey sauce with jasmine rice and edamame .”

Son: “AWWWWWW!!! NOOOO Dad!!! Aw come-on!! Can’t we have pizza?”

And that’s how our nights begin these days.

The kids love rice. They love honey. They love pineapple. And if you put a bowl of edamame in the middle of a room and unleash the little bastards they’ll literally fight to the death until it’s all gone.

Feeding edamame to them is like tying down a small child and throwing it into a room full of zombies. Yeah…like that.

But when you lovingly toss it all together on a plate, gleefully place it in front of the troops, stand back and wait for the overwhelming cheers…all we get is the kid’s version of Chef Ramsay.

“Dad! What the fuck is this you donkey? Come here…taste this! It’s crap dad! Crap!”

I absolutely love cooking. There’s nothing better than cranking the radio, pouring a full glass of red wine and knocking out a killer meal. But with the birth of two little rug-rats we’ve fallen victim to the lure of eating out.

Sitting at a table, having beer brought to you on demand without having to lift a finger while plates of goodness are brought is such a wonderful thing. But damn that’s expensive.

And sushi is…make that “was”…our weakness. We LOVE sushi!!! But damn it’s expensive.

The boy has to learn to eat food that costs less than $50 to create. The girl…well, she would eat chicken nuggets and chicken noodle soup until the world ended.

So, we’ve taken the old school “we used to walk to school uphill both ways” philosophy of parenting.

Last night we fed them pork chops. They tried it. They hated it. They went to bed with empty stomachs. And, yes…I showed them the trash can with their food in it and said, “daddy listened to a story on the radio today where a lady who struggles for food said a good day for her is when she gets half a glass of goat milk and cornmeal soup for the day.”

To help the message sink in further, maybe weekend we’ll take the boy to a soup kitchen.

I won’t categorize the experience as learning through guilt. Instead, I chalk it up as teaching through reality.

I’ll know I’m successful when he cleans his plate and then says, “dad, can we volunteer at the soup kitchen again this weekend?”

OK, now I’m dreaming. So I’ll lower my goals and just shoot for the clean plate.

The Negotiator

I called the local police department today to see if they needed a spot filled on their S.W.A.T. team—specifically the role of negotiator. Because holy shit the boy has that down to an art.

Take a small, harmless pack of gummies for instance.

The boy wants gummies. I’m cooking dinner, plan to serve it to the boy in 10 minutes, and therefore I am quick to deny the young heathen his delicious gummies.

I then get hit with, “Ok, but daddy…can I just explain something? See, you packed me gummies in my lunch box for today and I didn’t eat them all, in fact I didn’t even touch them, so then I should still be able to eat them right now cause I didn’t touch them at lunch so can I have them?”

And I look down at the boy and say, “Grayson…for the love of all things Mario Kart…NO!!”

“Yeah, but daddy…can I just say something? They’re really small and won’t take up much room in my belly and I KNOW I’ll eat my dinner so why can’t I just have them now?”

Gripping the spatula with all my might and grinding my teeth to nubs I turn and say, “Grayson…do you see what I’m doing?”

“Yes.”

“What am I doing son?”

“Making food.”

“That’s right. I’m making our dinner. Our dinner Grayson. The bountiful feast we will be shoving into our mouths in less than eight minutes now. You cannot have gummies and if you ask me again, I’ll take each of the gummies and melt them one-by-one right in front of you until they’re a big melty puddle of liquid gummy remains. Kapish?!”

The boy’s head is looking at his feet now as he feels defeat nearing. He realizes he’s got nothing…and he sure as hell doesn’t want to risk the lives of his delicious multi-colored fruit gummy snack because he knows my last statement was anything but a bluff. So he walks out of the kitchen.

But, before I could get halfway through patting myself on the back for a rare victory won without raising my voice against the boy, I see his little red haired head bob right back into the kitchen…only, he’s holding something.

“Hey daddy. What’s for dinner?”

“Stir fry.”

“Oh…sounds good. Hey daddy. I brought you some gummy snacks to have,” he says innocently as he holds out his unopened bag of gummies from his lunch box.

“Sweet! Thanks man,” I say as I grab them from his hand, open them, and empty them all into my mouth at once.

“DADDY!!!!! That was MEAN daddy!!! You knew I wanted those gummies and you ATE them all!!”

I immediately feel the vicious blade from the “worst parent in the world” dagger slide into my gut as I see elephant tears fill the boy’s eyes. I quickly drop to a knee and reveal to him that I faked pounding back the bag of gummies. Then seeing that did nothing to squelch the onslaught of depression and anger towards me I handed him the bag and said, “go down to the basement, kill this bag of gummies, and don’t tell your mother.”

Five minutes later a dim-watted light-bulb above my head spewing sparks and smoke signified that it had finally sunk-in that the little bastard had just made me his bitch. And I knew at that very moment he was sitting in the basement, slowly enjoying his gummies, and marking another notch on his secret score sheet for himself.

Grayson 137     Daddy 0