Dinner Last Night

The girls get up on their stools on either side of me as I prepare to make grilled cheese sandwiches.  Noemi had already explained to me with an exasperated sigh that she didn't want "grilled cheese."  She wanted "grilled cheese sandwiches."  

I give them each a small piece of the swiss cheese.  Nodding of heads.  "My like it." "My like it."

Then a small piece of cheddar, a cheese with which they are much more familiar.  More nods. More grammatically incorrect, but oh so cute "My likes." 

"Which one would you like on your grilled cheese sandwich?"

Fingers (many of them) point to the swiss.  "This one."

Great.  Trying something semi-new.  Small victory.  We'll take it.

I make the sandwiches.  But since we had agreed on the correct name for grilled pieces of bread with cheese inside, there had been some modifications to the dinner order.

They had both decided they didn't want the bread grilled or toasted at all.  "So just sandwiches?"

"Yes."

OK.  Then Zora decides she wanted hers dressed up.  Slowly she has become our food risk-taker, though in the world of three year olds and especially our three year olds, our family wasn't even  pushing Martha Stewart out of her comfort zone.  Zora asks for ham, pickles and mayonaisse in addition to her cheese and bread.

Great. I make  the sandwiches, the girls start in on them. Zora picking up and munching the whole thing with two hands.  Noey leaving it all on her plate and deconstructing it.

After a few bites, "Daddy.  Why you give me this cheese?  My no like this cheese.  My like cheddar."

"But, Noemi, you said you wanted the swiss."

"No."

"Remember, we did the taste test and you chose this one."

"My no like it."

"Could you just try it again?"

I lift it to her mouth, she opens her mouth, the cheese moves towards her mouth.  There is the slightest possibility that the cheese actually touched her tongue, but if so, only for a split second, before her head starts shaking and then is tipped to the side with a sad expression on her face... "No... No, my like it." 

Argh.

A another small victory is vacated from the records of one Michael Evans.