Eating and Drinking with Daddy

Kirsten decided that I've been out of town plenty this summer, so now it's her turn. She's off in Denver with her adult sisters, leaving Soren and me to a guys' long weekend at home. I understand that today she enjoyed a "Day of Beauty," which, you know, is about time because, since my spa treatments in Vietnam, I've frankly been feeling a bit out of her league.

As you might expect, the absence of Mama has led to the erosion of the sobriety, morality and nutrition of her men. To wit, last night we went to the food court at the mall to have dinner. The remnants of Hanna were blowing through and we were trapped in the house all day, so it was nice to go to the mall to stretch. We got dinner from India Gourmet, which, it turns out, is really quite tasty, and convenient since no one cares what your toddler is doing at the mall food court.

Soren and I sat at a table across the aisle from another Dad and his 6 year old. They were squabbling loudly over the conditions under which the son would eat his dinner, fried chicken fingers and white rice. Soren was seated across from me, eating happily, without whining or fidgeting, his dinner, nan mounded with saag paneer, which is basically pureed spinach. While I'm constantly aware that Soren's food policies could change at any moment (witness chocolate cake), I couldn't resist a little smugness at the contrast of Soren politely eating spinach with the older kid having difficulty with fried food with little nutritional value.

Of course, not eating fried food doesn't count for much if you're drinking the wrong stuff. Especially if the wrong stuff is canola oil. Before dinner tonight (not at the mall food court, thank you very much), Soren felt I was a little slow at getting his apple juice, so perhaps I needed some help. He went to the baking cupboard and got out a bottle and put it on the table for me to pour into his cup. However, we keep the apple juice in the refrigerator, not the baking cupboard. In fact, he had given me a bottle that was remarkably like the apple juice: a Stop & Shop brand goldenish liquid in a bottle with a narrow "waist" about 2/3s of the way up, a trimmed rectangle below, and some more ornamentation above. He had found our vegetable oil, and was insisting that I pour some into his cup for him to drink with dinner.

Fortunately, he lost track of which bottle was "his" while I was taking pictures of him with this two bottles of "apple juice", so I was able to perform the switcheroo before he sat down to dinner.  (What, you think I'm up to actually posting that picture?)