Yesterday turned out better than I thought it would.
Our mission was to get the older grandlad, Alex, to eat a proper meal for dinner. "It's not my fault I like junk food," he declared. "God made me that way." Sheesh, at eight years he's already making excuses and blaming others for his own faults, just like his mother.
Alex's problems with cholesterol aren't as bad as Mommy had let us believe. He's a borderline case, barely in trouble, but Mommy is bullish when it comes to red flags. So, der Brucer decided the best way around the problem would be for us to get him lots of fruit (which he would help pick), and a couple of steaks (cutting out the extra fatty parts) and mashed taters with reduced fat sour cream, and some baked beans. Oh, and biscuits. William, the five-year, will eat almost anything, of course.
There would be no mac and cheese, now on the verbotten list. No grilled cheese sandwich. No hot dog. The foods he thinks are the only foods he likes are the ones he now won't be allowed to subsist on.
Der B involved both lads in making the fruit salad, cutting the fruit into reasonable chunks (with regular table knives, not sharp ones). They liked that. Mommy won't let them join in preparing dinner.
Then, as the lads and der Grampa settled in to watch The Music Man, I got the rest of dinner going. I chopped up a small onion, which I cooked slowly in a pan before adding a squirt of mustard and the beans. I got the instant mashed potatoes made. I got the corn steamed. I baked the biscuits. And I sizzled the steaks.
Everyone to the table. (The salad had been served in front of the TV, acceptable for a first course I guess.) Alex spotted the onions in the beans, and demanded to know what "that stuff" was. We explained that it was onions, and that I'd made them exactly the same was as I had for his birthday. He was suspicious, and was about to refuse to eat them, but changed his mind when I growled at him. I don't growl often, but the lads know it's a signal to pay attention.
They both ate well. I had to cut William's piece of steak for him, which he ate and then asked for more. Alex enjoyed the potatoes, and the corn, and some of his steak, and even the beans. The biscuits went over well. And then, when it was time for the strawberry dessert, he was willing to wait patiently while William finished his plate of food...but we didn't make Alex wait longer, because William wanted seconds on the taters. There are limits, after all.
After dinner, they both dashed back to watch the rest of The Music Man. I'm not sure if Alex liked it all (there's all that mushy stuff with Shirley Jones), but he stuck it out and enjoyed a lot of the film. William was already asleep when Mommy and Daddy returned from their date nite (spent shopping for a four-wheeler for Daddy). And all was well.
