Ben Quotes and Cooking Adventures

“Mom…..I feel like Virginia was an ice land like in the movie Ice Age because it was so cold there. And below Virginia is a WHOLE NEW WORLD!! It’s called Singapore and there is no snow there EVER!”

While I was blogging and the kids finishing dinner, “Ewwww! Food just came out my nose when I sneezed. That’s weird. Hey, are you typing that on the blog?” “Yep.” “Okay, I’ll try to do it again then. Before you finish you need to write, ‘Ben got carrot on his chair and arm.’”

Also said today. “Mom, I know what I want for snack tomorrow. Carrots.” Uhhhh…say what? That coming from the boy who typically sheds tears over the thought of eating a tiny baby carrot. Today he was starving after school. He asked for a snack. I said he needed to come up with an idea. For weeks he has shot down any idea I give him and flops on the ground because whatever terrible food I dared mention makes him so upset. I ask and ask what he wants me to have in the house that isn’t candy or ice cream for snacks. Not once has he provided an answer. We have almost nothing under the sun that he will take to school for snack beyond pears. When we go on Saturday family outings we pack lots of water and several snack foods and I ask before we go what he wants, offering up to six or seven different things. I think he’s chosen to go hungry every single week so far. This kid is picky beyond belief. No granola bars, no pretzels, goldfish only sometimes, no banana, no apple, no oranges, no raisins. Just forget even trying vegetables. And now apparently he’s having carrots for snack tomorrow. I think it has something to do with the fact that he prepared them and they were just a slight touch sweeter than the normal big carrots. In any case, I’ll cross my fingers, but I’m not holding my breath.

The net result of his hunger today was that he chose a single slice of bread for his snack and ten minutes later was asking if it was dinner time. It was 4:20. I asked what he wanted to eat for dinner. He asked if we had mac'n'cheese, which we did. He got it and began preparing to cook it. Seizing on the odd opportunity that was currently presenting itself, I helped him read the instructions on the box, supervise to make sure he got all the right tools and watched him cook a dinner he was really excited to eat. It was awesome! Knowing the water would take a good while to boil I told him this is the time you use to get other things ready. I showed him the available vegetables in the fridge. He chose carrots. He peeled them and I chopped them up. He plated them. We read the next instruction to drain the noodles. I asked if the sink was ready. He understood the problem of having all the carrot skins in the sink so he cleaned it up. What a great day. I do think it was the best dinner I've had in a while. Just don't mention to him that we had mac'n'cheese for lunch today too. It was totally worth eating again for him to take such pride in his work.

After dinner Ben continued to be fantastic. This kid usually whines about any tiny amount of homework. Not today. He did his math on the bus and was just fine with doing the corrections I had to have him fix, mostly it was 5, 6 and 7 written backwards which is terribly frustrating to him. Then he did make-up spelling journal exercises because we swam and had a pizza party on Tuesday instead of homework. Then he did tonight's spelling homework. I asked him to read two books because no matter how many we return each day, he gets two new ones each and every day. We had a back log of 9 at the house now. This nut job decided to read four. Then since he was halfway through anyway, he finished the entire pile. We were up an hour past bedtime so he could do it, but it was totally worth it. He's a good boy that Ben. I think we're going to keep him around.