Chinese Food

Yesterday during dinner my daughter and I were talking about our plans for later that evening. We had recently found out it was possible to get Chinese take-out in a neighboring town, so we were planning to do that for a late evening snack on a Saturday night. Meanwhile, we were having our regular dinner in the pen with  Bow.

Bow had already had his red apple and his green apple, and the only things left for him to ask for were a pork dish in a bowl and a banana. Usually when he sees these dishes, he just calls them "meat" and that is good enough for me. But Bow took my little finger and spelled:

 "תני לי אוכל סיני". "Give me Chinese food."

I looked at his choices on the little white table. The only thing that even vaguely resembled Chinese food was the pork dish, which consisted of little pieces of pork stir fried with diced potatoes and onions and some lemon juice thrown into the mix. Admittedly, my recipe is a little Asian inspired, but it was hardly Chinese food.

"Fine, here's some Chinese food,"I said and handed him the bowl. He took it and ate it all, but when he returned the bowl to me, he spelled angrily:  "תני לי אוכל סיני". "Give me Chinese food!" There was only a banana left on the table.

I looked into his eyes, and I realized he was angry that we were excluding him from our late night snack which this time would consist of Chinese food. We always have snacks together in my room on Saturday night after Bow has gone to bed,  if we are not going out, and Bow does not seem to mind. But he does like Chinese food, and I guess we should not have discussed that in front of him.

"Okay, Bow," I said. "If I have any leftovers from tonight, I will share them with you tomorrow." This satisfied him.

We ended up getting "General Chicken", which is what they call  General Tso's Chicken on the local menu. I can only finish about half of a normal serving, especially if it is my second dinner of the night.

Bow liked the chicken very much when I let him have my leftovers today, but he did not eat the rice.

For the really big morsels. he bent low over the food, so as to avoid dropping it.

All in all Bow is a pretty clean eater. And does like his Chinese food!