The other night, my wife and I are sitting at the dinner table while
our 3-year old daughter eats everything on her plate — except the carrots.
Surprise, surprise. So I cover my mouth with my hand and say in a
high-pitched voice, “Hey Julia, don’t forget me, the carrot, eat me, eat
me, pleaaase!” Julia looks down at her plate and stabs a carrot with her
fork and says, “I’m sorry carrot, don’t worry, I’ll eat you.” And she eats
it. So I’m thinking, that was too easy, right? So I try again. “No, that’s
not me. That’s my friend. I’m still here!” Julia looks down and sees
another carrot, and really studies it. “Is this you?” she says slowly. My
wife and I are trying so hard to not laugh. “No, that’s my other friend,
but you can eat him too!” So she puts it in her mouth. Of course I should
quit while I’m ahead, but I’m greedy. My kid’s eating veggies! “I’m the big
one!” I squeal. “I got you,” she says right back, and she puts it in her
mouth and starts chewing. For sure, I should have just shut up at this
point, but I can’t resist one last word. “Thank you so much for eating me,
crunchcrunchcrunch,” I say, and suddenly Julia puts her hand to her mouth
and spits out her carrot. “I don’t like eating carrots,” she says with a
funny face. My wife and I are in tears laughing, trying to tell her it’s
okay, it was only pretend, she doesn’t have to stop. And now I’ve probably
scarred her for life about talking carrots, but it was worth it.
Hopefully this story reveals more about me than my daughter. I’m a
40-year old dad in Boston with a 3-year old girl who I cannot possibly
adore any more and 5-month old boy I’m just now getting to know. I’m an
editor at a big city newspaper (yes, those wonderful things printed on
paper with ink and folded neatly in half and delivered daily to your
doorstep), an occasional college journalism professor, and a runner with a
half dozen marathons in his back pocket and maybe one or two more left in
the tank.
And as far as fatherhood goes, I’m winging it like the rest of you
out there, desperately trying to answer every “Why, Daddy?” thrown my way
without losing my patience, while keeping my wife from going insane as she
puts our little guy down for the night after another wrestling match
feeding him so we can have our 90 minutes of alone time before we both fall
asleep on the couch watching Law & Order reruns.
This blog will hopefully be as much about me as you, so I’ll be eager
to hear from other dads (and moms) about their own experiences. In the
meantime, can anyone recommend a good book to get my kid eating carrots
again?
Doug Most is a dad, a husband, a runner, and a writer and he does them all in Boston, where he is also the editor of the Boston Globe Sunday Magazine.