If you ask you must be prepared for the answer.

 

Sometimes you ask the kid what they want for dinner and they say "Ice Cubes!". In that case we can kindly steer them in a different direction, because we are not trying to raise any eating disorders over here. But sometimes they say "Cereal!" and you think, "Hey, that is a really good idea." And so it was, dinner last night was two big heaping bowls of cereal. Hers is the healthy looking bowl, mine is the peanut butter puffs (the hippie kind, gluten free, no artificial blah blah blah).

The point is, sometimes cereal for dinner is the best idea. Sometimes we can leave the sautéed kale and beet green tartine at the door and just curl up with a good old fashioned bowl of cereal. Because it's ok to just chill out. To not keep up. A lesson that a bowl of cereal apparently is helping me learn. Plus, she's at this age where she is starting to really have opinions and it's nice to be able to give her a little of what she wants once in awhile. Cereal for dinner every night is not an option, so I just don't ask every night. But once in awhile it's nice to see her flex her opinion muscles. Really nice. Tonight we had a black bean, corn, and spinach pasta. I didn't let her pick dinner but she did pick the yellow dish over the red. She also stirred the sauce. A little bit goes a long way. Another lesson learned from the kid.

One of these days I'm going to cave and when she responds to the what's for dinner question with "Ice Cream!" I'm gonna say "Hell Yes!" And I'm sure there will be a lesson learnt in that as well.