Vegetable Monster

Dylan,

We've recently forbidden you to eat anything healthy, particularly any "grown-up vegetables" like asparagus, beets, and romanescu. Funny thing though, all we have to do is tell you NOT to eat it and you'll wolf it down and laugh like you've just pulled one over on us.

You get it. You know it's a game, but it's just so much fun that you practically beg us to put the roasted rutabegas on your plate and instruct you not to eat them. You love it when we remind you that if you keep eating vegetables like that you're going to grow up to be huge--maybe more than a hundred feet tall! And you also love to remind us of all the foods which are "grown-ups only" so you can savor the conquest of forbidden territory.

You are a self-proclaimed "vegetable monster".

No plant material can be considered safe in your presence. It is a wonder to see a boy your age so consumed with the consuming of vegetables even when you come across one you clearly dislike (such as the roasted parsnips tonight that you pulled back out of your mouth once the taste hit) that you go right back at it, spitting that parsnip out a second time(!) before finally getting it down on the third attempt. Such vegetable-related determination I have only before seen under threat of severe corporal punishment. It is an absolute spectacle.

You are a wonderful and very special boy.


Dad