Dinner Wars

Eating dinner has always been a difficult thing in our family, a battle really. All three children initially had to be forced to eat anything not coated in sugar, except child #3 who would eat bread and some things coated in sugar. I forced her to eat a very small bite of banana cream pie the other day and it very nearly put her into hysterics. I can’t even begin to count the number of pleas, deals, threats, rants, tears, missed desserts, early bedtimes, and cold-dinners-for-breakfast over the past decade. I can count the number of times we had to “recycle” a non-eating child (once), but that’s a story for another time.

This brings me to last night: tomato soup and quesadillas. Surprisingly, it was not the tomato soup that prompted the problem, it was the quesadillas. I made the quesadillas from whole-wheat tortillas, which apparently violated some sort of dinner armistice. My only defense was that the package was already open and I didn’t want open a new package of regular tortillas until this one was gone. After some bellicosity and undiplomatic saber rattling, child #2 launched the opening salvo: she gagged on her first bite and affirmed that the quesadilla was too “wheat-y.” I countered with “the look.” Child #2 retaliated in kind. Julie attacked the flank with the classic, “it’s perfectly good – even [child #3] likes it.” Child #3 crossed the neutral zone and said she “kind of” liked it and requested more cheese. Child #0 took pleasure in being a neutral observer and fled to his bedroom as soon as he could. As the intensity escalated, Julie lobbed in the, “It’s all in your head,” and “don’t get yourself so worked up” grenades. On the verge of biological warfare, we switched strategies. We promised a trip for soft-serve ice cream cones at a local fast food place for all who finished their dinner. I had to leave the room to de-escalate tensions and permit settlement talks. Child #3 stopped asking for more cheese, but child #2 resisted. I returned to the negotiating table and Child #0 and I both got on our coats, upping the ante. Finally, with extra milk, child #2 dry-heaved her way through the entire quesadilla. The conflict was over. It had lasted nearly an hour, but Julie & I won. For those that think we bribed our way out and that this was merely an empiric victory, you are mistaken. The kids each got a free ice cream cone coupon from school that expired at the end of the week. We had to do it regardless. Ha, ha ,ha!

The aftermath made the battle ironic. Once we sat down with our ice cream (I got an Oreo shake because I had no free ice cream coupon), child #2 kept sharing her cone with others because she is a sloooow eater and her ice cream was to “melt-y.” I suppose some of you are not disgusted by trading licks on ice cream cones, after all one of the many parental responsibilities, particularly for dads, is eating a child’s leftover food after conceding a loss in one of the many food battles. However, this lick sharing was worse because after fixing child #2’s melt-y problem, I left little black flecks in the ice cream. (I had been eating my Oreo shake.) Rather than be disgusted by it (I was mortified personally and was planning on fixing the problem with a couple more good licks), child #2 was delighted. “Oh, I get Oreo bits in my ice cream cone – awesome!”

Coprophagia

Every family has favorite pet stories. As Julie & I have not permitted pets beyond fish, our children love the stories of their parent’s childhood pets, particularly the stories of Ginger the dog. Here’s their favorite story: Ginger ate her own poop. That’s it. That’s the story. There are other stories, even other stories about Ginger. But that’s their favorite.

Why do I mention this story you ask? Well, I was working on a blog entry about my basement that had turned into a rant against personal odysseys, home-improvement and scrap books, when I remembered this story and decided to research why a dog would eat it’s own feces. (What can I say, I’m easily distracted.) Here are the important, earth-shattering discoveries I have made since googling “feces eating animals.”

It is not known why dogs engage in coprophagia or coprophagy (from the Greek, copro = feces and phagy = eat), but according to the well titled article, “Why Dogs Eat Poop” by Daniel Estep, Ph.D. and Suzanne Hetts, Ph.D. (www.AnimalBehaviorAssociates.com), “One theory is that it may be related to boredom or stress. Another is that it is related to digestive deficiencies. Neither theory has any support at the present time. No one really knows what causes it.” (So if your children ever tell you they are bored…) The article does provide comfort to some dog-owners whose pets suffer from coprophagia; rats, rabbits and horses also eat their own feces.

Another article on peteducation.com suggests that poop-eating habits can be curbed by making the poop “taste bad.” As a matter of fact, www.peteducation.com makes and sells a product to make poop taste bad. It advises against putting cayenne pepper or Tabasco sauce on the feces, because, unfortunately many dogs “acquire a taste for Tabasco.” The site does suggest however, that dogs be leashed, “in case a luscious pile of feces is found along the way.” Mmm Mmm, feces with Tabasco sauce; luscious.

After all this research I have finally concluded that Ginger’s coprophagia was not caused by stress, anxiety, intestinal disorders, primal carnivorous urges, or the taste of the feces. She was just a really dumb dog.

Where to Start...

I have truly spent the last month temporarily out of order. By way of example, last evening (Monday), at dinner, while discussing the pending book report of Child #2 that has been on-going for the past several days, Child #1 blurts out, “Oh, I have a Heritage presentation I have to do.”

“Oh, what are you supposed to do for this Heritage presentation?”

“You know heritage stuff.”

“Do you have a requirement sheet or an instruction sheet about this presentation that might be more specific?”

“Maybe.”

“Where?”

“In my backpack?”

“So, when is it due?”

“Tomorrow.”

“And you were playing DS and not working on this before dinner because…”

“I forgot.”

At this point the parental dam breaks and the lecture on responsibility, work ethic, video games, 6th grade, and “If I ever did this…” commences.

Ten minutes later…Child #1 and I are in his room, sorting through the papers in his backpack. Some have clearly been there since the first week of school. Others, like the ad for the Jog-a-thon, have only been there for a week and a half. As I straighten a crumpled paper and start reading about the Heritage presentation assignment, Child #1 goes to the other room and announces to his mother, “I can’t find it.” Her response? Something like, “I’m surprised you can find anything in that room.” This is going very well.

I spend much of the next hour taking turns with Julie as we try to guide Child #1 through a 3-5 minute presentation using 4-5 artifacts, while still continuing our work with Child #2 on her book report, without completely neglecting Child #3, who wonders around, singing loudly and asking me if I would like to color with her.

Attempt number one on the presentation lasts 30 seconds and involves a series of disjointed facts read aloud from a sheet of paper; back to the drawing board.

I try to help Child #3 with her reading homework while Julie gets Child #2 started typing on the computer. Child #1 wanders aimless around the kitchen.

“What are you doing?”

Child #1 begins turning over various papers on the counter. “Looking for paper.”

“Isn’t there lined paper in the drawer?”

“Oh.” After rummaging through the drawer, he pulls out a phone list. “Can I use the back of this?”

“No. Isn’t there new, unused, lined paper in the drawer?”

“I can’t find it. I think it’s in the girls’ room.”

“No, it isn’t. If the paper in the drawer is gone, we have a whole box in the garage.”

Child #1 wanders down the hall to the girls’ bedroom. I say, in a rather loud voice, “Where do you think you are going?” as I march into the garage.

Twenty minutes later, Child #1 is giving the next draft of his presentation. It lasts 45 seconds, involves an imaginary photo of a frying egg, a refrigerator magnet of an alligator, and a tomato from our garden. At least he made eye contact when presenting the imaginary photo.

Exasperated, Julie & I begin the, “if I were telling that story, I would do it like this” and I start to wonder if that’s what Child #1 was waiting for the entire time.

By 11pm, the presentation is over three minutes long, involves the requisite artifacts and can be made with some eye contact with the audience. A thought finally occurs to me, so I ask Child #1, “is this sort of like a fancy show and tell?”

“Yeh, one kid brought in his LEGOs.”

“So some of your classmates have already given their presentations?”

“Yeh, I’m kind of the last one.”

“So these presentations have been going on for the last couple of days and it didn’t occur to you that you might want to work on your presentation?!”

“Pretty much.”

“Don’t tell your mother. She may kill you.”

“Oh, and Dad, I just remembered that I have a book report due on Wednesday.”

At this point I head off to Walgreens to print out the frying-egg photos. I am demoting Child #1 to Child #0.

Changing the Subject…More Thoughts from the Fountain

Apparently the fountain in front of my office has morphed into a cool, teen-age hangout. I don’t know if this is because these youth identify closely with the homeless regulars, but their unkemptness appears intentional at this point. Watching these young people has led me to a couple of conclusions:

1) The U.S. needs to institute forced labor camps for idle teens. (Teen idols would also be well served by such a program.) If they have the time to lounge around the edge of the fountain and go for a soak and a smoke when they think no one is watching, they have time to make license plates, pick up liter along the freeways, and other life skills commensurate with their life choices.

2) If young people wear their belts around their thighs and old people wear their belts around their arm pits, I really must be middle-aged.

3) Trouble is not a destination; it’s where people end-up when they have no real destination in mind.

4) If the term “Dress for Success” has a corollary, it’s “Fashion of Failure.” In this case, it refers to the self-selected sample of youth that are drawn to public access fountains designed for the homeless to use for clothes washing and the odd, elderly couple to wade in while strolling the streets of Salt Lake City in bathing suits. Based solely on their "Fashion of Failure," I see a future as customers of a Cincinnati Sweet ‘N’ Eats and as contestants on a rehab-based reality TV show. Who knows they may eventually rise to the level of fry cook, but only until the photos of their after-hours hot tub parties in the fry cooker start circulating on You-Tube.

Indeed, these youths have been, um, something else.

The Games We Didn’t Play

The other night, after the kids were in bed, Julie and I decided to play a game. We then went through the list of possibilities:

Ticket to Ride: One of my personal favorites. Julie shot it down; we played it together once and Julie decided the 2-player version was not fun.

Sequence: This time we both agreed that the 2-player version left a lot to be desired.

UNO, Rook, or other card games: No. Not in the mood.

Yahtzee: Maybe, but it’s probably too noisy and we would soon have a five player game, in stead of two player, so not tonight.


Rummikub: It’s a dumb name. That and the fact that every time Julie & I play this game, it ends in an argument. It’s always the same argument too, but I can’t remember the exact details. It has something to do with substituting a tile in your hand for a wild or something like that. Then Julie accuses me of taking liberties with the rules, I open the rule book and demonstrate exactly why my move is complex, but perfectly legal. She compares it to all of the complex, but “legal” moves at Enron, AIG, Lehman, Bear Stearns, and every other failed, corrupt institution. I compare her views to obtuse regulators that like to kill patients in order to stop the spread of a non-communicable disease. She says I’m in Banking and know nothing about disease. I try to explain that I was speaking metaphorically and that it means that there isn’t a financial problem that regulators can’t make worse. She says I’m in Banking and know nothing about metaphors. I explain that regulators are a necessary evil, but more evil than necessary. She says that’s irrelevant.

It never ends well.

We haven’t played the game in six years. We nearly had an argument about what the Rummikub argument was about. If Julie reads this post, she will undoubtedly say that our arguments never went anything like that and point out that if we haven’t had this argument in six years, than the entire diatribe about regulators, Lehman, Enron & metaphors could never have happened. We agreed to never mention Rummikub again.

Chocolate-opoly: I don’t like this one, so I didn’t even mention it.

Every Other Game in our Closet: Need more people, not in the mood, etc.


Boggle: I always bring this one up last, because it’s the game we always play. I get the big words, Julie gets the little words. The tattered, formerly-paper-backed Merriam-Webster settles all disputes. I have at least one long, quasi-word in each round. Julie always finds a few extra onomatopoeic words of dubious quality. I suppose “dit” is a word, referring to the non-dash part of Morse code, but it’s a lesser word. If we can demote Pluto to “dwarf planet” status, surely words like “dit” can be demoted to midget-words. They would no longer count in games like Boggle and Scrabble, and would be ineligible for crosswords. They could be in dictionaries with proper footnotes, like they have for “ain’t,” that let all users know that these words are really midget-words and are only included for completeness.

By this time Julie was into her second game of Cash Cow 2 on the Webkinz site and just responded with a u-huh to every thing I said. I laid down on the bed, waiting for her to finish so we could play, *sigh*, Boggle.

An hour later, I woke up when Julie asked me if I can remember the password to one of the on-line bill pay sites. I mumbled incoherently about midget-words and metaphors. Then I drifted off again, thinking of all the games we didn’t play.

Arresting Development

As I was working with Jordan on some of his Boy Scout rank advancements, I realized that I have become that parent I made fun of many years ago. Parts of the conversation went like this:

Me: What is the first ‘R’ of personal safety?

Jordan: Recognize.

Me: Recognize what?

Jordan: Recognize that any one could be a child molester.

I did not read the Scout Handbook before hand. I didn’t know that the three Rs of personal safety dealt with child molestation.

Me: Do you know what “molest” means?

Jordan: No.

Me: It means to harass or bother or assault.

Jordan: So a child molester bothers children?

Me: You could say that.

I will end the re-cap right there. I couldn’t do it. I know that shortly Jordan will be joining a deacons’ quorum and that nearly every month there will be a lesson on chastity or purity or modesty or some such thing. I know that he is fast approaching the point when far worse will be explained in biology classes. But I still couldn’t bring myself to speed up the maturation process. I really like the idea of Jordan being very interested in video games, juvenile literature and things that explode. I like the fact that when camping with other 11 year-old scouts, they spend their time discussing “blue darts,” the best soda pop for belching, and roasting Starbursts.

It’s like the time Julie & I borrowed a book for children on where babies come from. I went to read the book and found it in Jordan’s room.

Me: Oh, did you read this already?

Jordan: Yes.

Me: Do you have any questions?

Jordan: No.

Then I read the book to see what he might have learned. I was relieved that the target audience was seven year olds.

Yes – I have become that parent.

Snow White & Gooseberries: The Awful Truth

About a year and a half ago, I convinced Julie that we needed gooseberry bushes. They would be perfect along the back fence and the gooseberries I tried on my mission were very tasty. Plus, Snow White made gooseberry pie. It would be a great new gardening experiment. In no time, I had two lovely gooseberry bushes growing in my garden.

Fast forward to late July, 2009. Harvest time for our new gooseberry bushes and I began the on-line research into gooseberry pie recipes. All of the recipes were about the same: gooseberries, sugar, thickener (usually tapioca) and pie crust. All of the recipes had the same general instructions: remove the steams, steam the fruit, mash about 1/3 of the berries, mix with the sugar & tapioca, pour into pie shell, & bake. So, Julie & I sat at the table late into the evening, removing the stems from the gooseberries. Julie tried one.


“These are disgusting. I don’t like the texture or the flavor.”

I tried a couple. Tart, nothing to write home about, but certainly steaming the berries, adding sugar and baking into a pie will do the trick. It works for sour cherries. I like rhubarb pie. This is bound to be good. Snow White made it.

Julie gave me a look. “I’m going to bed.”

Undaunted, I steamed the berries, crushed up the required amount, and added them to the sugar & tapioca mixture, all in the proper sequence. This was going to be my finest culinary moment. I was going to make the rare gooseberry pie and both of my daughters and three neighbor girls who were coming over for Sunday dinner the next morning were all going to be so impressed with the wonderful pie from Snow White.

I watched the thickening goop molt into a grey-green color. “It smells like split-pea soup.” Julie was checking in one last time before really going to bed.

Now that she mentioned it, it did smell like split-pea soup. I stirred the pot of pie filling for another three minutes & then turned off the burner. I cleaned up and waited for the filling to cool.

I tried it. I gagged. I tried it again to be sure. It still tasted like split-pea soup with three cups of sugar.

“Julie, you have to come try this.”

“Humph. Wha….I already brushed my teeth.”

“Julie, if you don’t try this, I going to start adding things like sour cream to make it taste better. I need your help. You don’t want me to waste perfectly good ingredients, do you?”

Julie was still only half-awake when she nibbled on the pie filling that sat in the pot. She was fully awake when she spit it into the garbage can.

“Too hot?” I asked hopefully.

“That’s awful. There is no saving that. There’s no point in wasting pie crust on that.”


I began to wonder whether I should have noticed that gooseberry pie was a traditional English dish. I began to consider whether Snow White were really trying to poison the dwarves to steal their vast mineral wealth and if her step-mother was actually trying to protect her height-challenged subjects from an evil step-daughter. I began to wonder if gooseberry pie is like animals that talk and clean rustic cottages. I began to wonder if anyone would buy two gently used gooseberry bushed on eBay.

I poured the pie filling into a quart-sized jar and put in the fridge.

“Why are you saving that disgusting mess?”

“Maybe I can give it to Garrett.”