.Dinner Suggestions According to my Nine-Year-Old Son.*

*Time flies!!!! Always keep that in mind.

Note to all parents and people trying to get pregnant on this planet: Parenting is NOT easy! EVER! It just slowly changes into more insanity! Many times it is not fun and it is a lot of work. A LOT OF WORK! And kids are expensive! On the other hand, it is also fun to have these rascals around because they come up with the craziest things. This for example:

Joel’s Dinner Suggestions

A French baguette, but only the inside — NO CRUST, unless it is freshly baked. (Is this the French in him?)

Seven slices of cheese

A frozen waffle, cooked

A frozen waffle, raw

The ricotta layer of an entire lasagna

Anything cheese

Half a stick of butter

Four very specific Oreos, separate the chocolate layers and lick the creme first

Pizza

Applesauce through a glass straw

Sushi

Bananas

Muffins

Organic blueberries

A cheese quesadilla dipped in maple syrup

Gum, swallowed

Carrot sticks, not swallowed

Cucumbers

Chicken noodle soup with crackers, minus the soup

The jelly half of a peanut butter and jelly sandwich

Toast cut into four triangles: one with butter, one with jam, one with mayonnaise, and one with pepperoni

Pizza, just the sauce

Pasta with meat sauce

Around the edges of a cheeseburger without ever actually biting into the meat

Hot Chocolate

Ice cream

Pancakes

Broccoli (still as much as possible)

Count Dracula cereal

Pasta

More Pasta

Parmesan cheese

One bite each of three apples

A grilled cheese sandwich, served with a cup of apple juice so he can soak the sandwich before eating it

Spaghetti bolognese with the sauce rinsed off in the bathroom sink after he pretends he needs to wash his hands

Cheez-bites aged in the car seat for three weeks

Birthday cake even though nobody we know has a birthday coming up

Chocolate

Cupcakes

Small cookies eaten from a bowl on the floor like a dog

The dog’s actual food. Just try it once

Sour cream that he thought was ice cream and continued eating to save face

Those little packets of coffee creamer they have at a café

The poisonous red berries on those bushes outside

Cheerios and milk eaten from the coconut cereal bowl, and if you can’t find the coconut cereal bowl you might as well go kill yourself

Soap and my shampoo

Ketchup licked off a matchbox car because it dripped onto it while eating (who cares about

Ketchup on everything

Chips, but only with salt and pepper

A bite of whatever you’re eating, even if you’re both eating the same thing