Cotter's Dream Dinner

Tonight we had a gourmet dinner of grilled cheese sandwiches, tortilla chips and apples. Like any meal around our house, one boy whines about how yucky the meal is while the other boy scarfs it down. Today, unlike most days, it was Aidan's turn to whine. Aidan is generally a very good eater, but he doesn't always like typical kids' foods like mac'n'cheese, chicken nuggets and grilled cheese sandwiches. Cotter, on the other hand, ONLY likes kid fare. So, he was very excited to sit down to a meal of grilled cheese sandwiches and chips.

Well, after we had finished our meal, we retired to the family room, leaving Cotter, with no food left on his plate, still sitting at the table. It isn't uncommon for him to play around at the table in the midst of some great daydream or something. Nobody thought much of it. We hung around the family room watching the rest of a football game and playing on the computer. Life just goes on, and the boys do their own thing. Well, 40 minutes later, we hear a bit of a whine in the background. Again, didn't think much of it until it registered what Cotter was saying. He was groaning, "I'm so tired of eating all of this food!" Huh? That's strange. He had already consumed his 1.5 sandwiches, handful of chips, and apple. And then we turned around. There's Cotter with the bag of tortilla chips (now mostly empty) in front of his plate. He had, apparently, been eating tortilla chips for the past 40 minutes, like it was, for the first time ever, his duty to finish off all of the food left on the table. Hmm...too bad we weren't having broccoli for dinner Oh, well. I think somebody is going to go to bed tonight with a tummy ache! But, thanks, Cotter, for saving me those extra calories.