Honey

A well known reality of feeding toddlers and preschoolers: They are much more likely to eat it, if they helped to make it. With that in mind, I recruited Malcolm to help me make a vegetable to go with tonight's main course of Dirty Rice with Sausage. Malcolm expressed great enthusiasm over helping me with my cooking project, from start to finish. He picked out a butternut squash from the fridge, and washed his hands while I washed the squash. I cut it in half, then he enthusiastically stabbed it repeatedly with a fork, to break the skin. We microwaved it, then scooped out the pulp. Malcolm sprinkled it with kosher salt and ground the pepper almost all by himself. I saved the best part for last. I let him squeeze the honey.

Now, please understand, that honey is a favorite food for Malcolm, bordering on a sacred experience. When he's sick, he gets a spoonful of honey, per his pediatrician's orders, to help sooth the coughing. This is why Malcolm enjoys being sick. "I can have honey, Mommy?"

Needless to say, Malcolm was delighted to learn that he could squeeze honey into the squash. I watched him stir it all together while I put the honey jar away, listening to him talk about how he was going to eat it, and could he taste it, and Mommy, please put some on my plate. I thought to myself, "I should get the smartest Mommy of the year award."

Dinner came, and he ate his vitamin, then picked all the sausage out of his dirty rice . . . and my dirty rice . . . and Matt's dirty rice . . . and the leftovers still on the stove. But he didn't touch his squash. Hmmm . . . .

"Malcolm," I asked. "Are you going to eat the squash? Remember, you helped me make it. We poked it with the fork, and you mixed the honey in?"

He looked at me, then the squash. "That's the squash, with the honey in it," I told him again.

"I need you to get it out!"

About ten minutes later, when Matthew and I stopped laughing so hard we turned purple, Malcolm sent us back into gales of laughter by adding in his most serious voice, and looking hopefully towards where we store the spoons, "Mommy, I need honey in a different way."