My son is a little odd.  He’s 3 (and will be four “any day now!” he reminds me every morning) and does not like pasta sauce. Plain pasta is his gig, always has been. He loves any kind of pasta, but bring sauce near it and it’s all over. No dice. No airplane can fly into this hangar and he will go to bed hungry rather than eat it. He eats tomatoes, though. Loves ketchup. Just hates sauce.

So, dinner last night should have been perfect. Pasta (spaghetti no less!), some onions, salt, pepper, veal and some olive oil. Voila.

Did I mention he’s largely a vegetarian too? Very little meat passes his test for food. So, the veal was out. Fine. Onions had to be moved to the side of the plate because he was in the kitchen when they were cut and still had PTSD flashback to his eyes watering “to death!” Okay, plain pasta for the most part.

No dice. He knew the fix was in. His brother ate it all and then largely without breathing in between bites. But, M would have none of it. So, we pulled the ever-faithful trump card. No desert.

2 or 3 hesitant bites are taken. No games are getting him to eat more. There are tears. The dog thinks she is going to score big. We negotiate. 4 more bites? No, three. Okay, three. Two bites down, one more to go. And… done.

“One more bite,” mom says. One more bite is taken. Not satisfied that we have reached our original goal, the foolish parents press on. “One more bite,” mom tries again. “Then you can have desert.”

Silence. An evil grin spreads across his face (I’m sitting across from him so I know something is coming, K is unaware) and he glances at his mother out of the corners of his eyes. “I see you’ve lied again,” he announces.

There are times when you’re supposed to suppress it and have a quite laugh later with your spouse. I failed. I burst out laughing, C burst out laughing and even K was laughing at her own expense. M just smiled.

He got desert.