If I Was One of the Kids

Generally, the kids at the daycare aren't allowed to be picky about food. Occasionally, some of the newcomers try protesting or raising a fuss about the food on their plates. Much like I did when I was young, however, they learn very quickly that such behavior will not be tolerated. In fact, some of the parents are downright amazed at the things that their kids end up eating at our house. I kid you not, I have watched one and two year olds eat brussel sprouts, broccoli, and durian with nary a peep.

However, there are limits to what my mom will make for the kids. For example, one of them is allergic to peanuts, so she completely avoids making anything with nuts in it. Sure, she could feed peanuts to all but one of the kids, but that would require making two sets of food. Frankly, that's just not worth the trouble. Spicy food is also barred from the children's diet, for what I hope are obvious reasons. Basically, there are some pretty reasonable boundaries that she doesn't cross when it comes to the "you're not allowed to be picky about food" policy.

Now, these are little kids, so it is fairly easy to figure out if they like a particular dish. Combine this with the fact that most of these kids have a couple of meals at our house for five days out of the week, and we have a pretty good idea of what each kid's favorite foods are. Since these are well-behaved kids (they don't like trips to the crying room), they are often very charming. That kind of behavior tends to encourage adults to be nice to them, so it's not unheard of for my mom to prepare food with a thought like, "one of the kids is really going to like this" in mind.

Of course, my siblings and I have noticed this. I'm sure we got fairly similar treatment when we were younger, but we don't remember the random Tuesdays where our favorite dish appeared on the dinner table. No, we tend to remember the general "come y calle" (read: shut up and eat it) rule and the fact that it has served us well over the years. So, we think it's pretty funny that the kids get pampered.

In fact, one of my siblings thought it was so funny, that she once exclaimed, "man, if I was one of the kids, I'd get [some dish she wanted]!" She was being facetious, of course; we didn't have any of the ingredients available and she didn't seriously expect all of us to cater to her whims. Still, it was funny enough that we all started cracking up. And just like that, a new family gag was born. There was just enough of a (very small) grain of truth that it wasn't the last time the joke came up. I'm also dead certain that it will take a very, very long time for that joke to get old.

I was reminded of this all because my grandpa is in town to visit us. This is my maternal grandfather, so my mom is always trying to look out for him and generally take care of him. That extends to his diet, as well, so we've been preparing more healthy food than usual. Even so, I did notice that my mom is not taking requests for what he wants to eat. On the one hand, that has a lot to do with the fact that he doesn't want to be a bother, and he'll get more out of his stay if he eats things that he wouldn't normally get back home. On the other hand, I don't see any "this one is grandpa's favorite" dishes on the dinner table.

Those kids have it good, I tell you.