You ain't foolin' me!

Caroline is a pretty good eater. She has, however, recently rebelled against raw carrots. This is disconcerting not only because carrots are healthy, but because they're my tried and true stand by for a no prep way to get vegetables into the growing bodies of my children. You can pretty much count on carrots with most any lunch we have. So you can imagine my horror when I saw Caroline spit them out recently. I thought, "What's this? You don't like the carrots? Oh, no. What does the rest of the world do at lunch time with no carrots? We have a peanut butter sandwich, a quarter apple, milk, and . . . well. . . what? We've gotta get a veggie in there somewhere. Maybe I could steam some broccoli. Or how about some yummy sweet corn? Maybe a nice side of peas. Oh, but wait. I forgot. I don't really do the whole cooking thing at lunch time. I put off that horrid practice until the evening hours when I force myself to turn on the stove. Whatever shall we do?" Hey, maybe I'll let her dip them in some peanut butter. Yeah, that's it. Camo the carrots! She'll never know the difference. Here you go Caroline. Here's some peanut butter and some yummy orange . . . umm . . . sticks! yeah, for dipping. What are you doing Caroline? No, baby. You've gotta bite the sticks. Come on Caroline. Don't just lick the peanut butter off. It's a really yummy orange STICK. BITE it! Please? Just bite the orange stick, dadgummit!! Good grief. Now I've gotta go and turn on that stove. And it's not even 5:00 yet.