Mr. Potato Head

Children's eating habits are so enigmatic.

Dora is like a little chick pecking around the barnyard; she only eats a bite or two at a time, but she does it all day long. Rare is the meal where she doesn't want to sample off my plate. The exchange is usually thus:

D: What's that?
C: It's herb-crusted lizard brains in prickly-pear butter.
D: Can I have some?

If I sat down with a bowl of dirt, she'd want a spoonful.

Lovett, on the other hand, is like a python; he eats one dish all in a big lump. We used to have a rule that he try everything once and what he didn't like he didn't have to eat. He just had to try it. We figured that if exposed to an assortment of foods he would build a vast menu of favorites. We were wrong. Were Lovett a condemned criminal, his last meal request would be:

Chicken fingers
Spaghetti noodles (with butter)
Grits (with butter)
Potatoes (with butter)
Butter
Gatorade

It has been an exasperating experience for someone who enjoys food as I do. Growing up, I had a cousin who would circle my grandmother's potluck-laden table every holiday meal to score a piece of ham and a roll. I didn't understand picky eaters then; now I'm raising one.

Yesterday at lunch, Lovett ordered a plain baked potato (a little cheese, a few chives, some bacon bits, and lots of butter) at [chain deli with the great salad bar]. Later in the afternoon, we were knocking around town when he reminded us of a play he wanted to attend. It was too short notice to take him home, feed him supper, and get him to the play, so Zelda wheeled the family wagon into the parking lot of [chain faux-fifties ice cream parlor]. The drive-thru was backed up, so she handed Lovett six dollars and sent him inside to buy his supper. He returned with drink and bag in hand, handing his mother two-seventy-five in change.

Dora, of course, wanted a sample of Lovett's meal, which he, of course, declined to offer, so Zelda intervened by ordering him to pinch off a bite of chicken finger for his sister (Zelda reached the obvious conclusion that he must have ordered chicken fingers based on years of precedence).

L: I don't have any chicken.
C: (shocked) No chicken? What did you order?
L: Large fries.
C: Large fries! You paid three-twenty-five for a coke and LARGE FRIES?!?
L: It's not a coke. It's sweet tea.
C: (bellowing) THAT'S BESIDE THE POINT!

I then gave him an economic lesson.

C: Your potato at lunch was six dollars, rounded off (actually, it was two small potatoes crammed together to look like one large potato). Your potato at supper was three dollars, rounded off. So I paid nine dollars today for THREE potatoes. THAT IS THREE DOLLARS PER POTATO.

I was a raving lunatic on a spud-induced rant, the vicarious starch coarsing through my veins, raising my blood sugar to dangerous, apoplectic levels.

L: (with a twenty-five-cent french fry dangling from his greasy lips) Sorry.

And Dan Quayle thought he had potatoe problems.