Even though my son Matthew bulks at beans, yucks at yams, and squeals at squash, such manifestations of distaste are mild compared to his reaction to anything less than a perfectly symmetrical, undivided honey graham.
“Look, Little Guy,” I say to the hysterical boy in the half second he takes to breathe between convulsive shrieks. “These two halves make a whole.”
Matt looks at me like he’s just seen Godzilla. There’s absolutely no way he’s going to swallow such simplistic reasoning, let alone digest a broken cracker. Recoiling from my extended hand with its sundered offering, he gives a double shoulder shudder. “I want a whole cwacker!”
So I resort to bribes: “Gosh, Buddy, I can’t help it if the grocery man dropped the box and cracked these cookies—maybe that’s why they’re called crackers. If you’ll just take one teensy little bite from each half, I’ll buy you a horse!”
For a moment my toddling connoisseur of crackers looks hopeful.
"Wiff a real saddle and a bridle?" Then seeing the gross inequity of the deal (imagine anyone silly enough to think a mere 2,000 pounds of horseflesh could compensate for a cracked cracker?), he lies down on the floor to kick his feet. He wants a whole cracker, and he wants it now!
At last, I try a threat: “Look, Mortimer, either you eat that cracker this instant, or Mommy’s gonna’ run away!”
His eyes flash an answer to the challenge.
“That’s the way the cookie crumbles,” I expect to hear him say!
 |
| What kind of mom gives a child a broken cookie? |
