I just had to laugh...

My two-year-old daughter, Jennae, loves fresh fruit. She has developed this trait in response to my wife's consistency in providing it to her (and her siblings) at mealtimes. Sometimes we even have trouble getting her to eat the other things that are prepared for her.

Such was the case today. The menu consisted of roast beef and cheese sandwiches and cantaloupe. Jennae finished her first serving of cantaloupe in short order and asked for more. She was told that she could have more as soon as she finished her sandwich. After a few minutes of whining and nibbling, she asked again for some more cantaloupe. Again, we told her that she must finish the sandwich first.

As I was engrossed in my newspaper, I wasn't paying attention to my daughter's actions. All at once she came bursting into the family room (which adjoins our kitchen) and said, "I ate my sandwich! I want some more cantaloupe!"

I was suspicious. First of all, she usually asks me for more while she is still chewing whatever it was she had to finish. This was not the case. If it had been, I would have heard something like this, "Au ot mmf sumwish! Au won sum mo canalof!" The other reason I was suspicious, I cannot explain. I only know that it comes from more than four years of parenting. I think God gives parents a sensibility to know when their offspring are trying to pull one over on them.

"Did you eat all your sandwich?" I asked asI walked over to the trash can under the kitchen sink, eager to give her another chance to tell the truth.

"Yes." she said as I pulled the trash can out. I started picking through it searching for the remnant that I knew I would find.

Jennae was still in the family room and I heard her say, "It's not in there, Daddy. It's in the sink!" I looked in the sink and sure enough, there were two small wadded-up crusts of bread. I just had to laugh.