Last week while at the daycare I was sitting at the Yellow Table for lunch time. Lunch this day was macaroni & cheese with a side of diced veggies. The veggies consisted of carrots, peas, and corn. The boy sitting to my right kept telling me story after story about his DS and his sister's DS and his favorite X-man, etc. I noticed that the kids at the table were well into their meals and so I said, "Hey, pal, you have to start eating." He seemed to disregard my comment as he was not finished telling me about his video game system. About two minutes later I tried again and was told that he was not hungry. This happens often enough to know that you have to encourage the kid to eat, "just a little bit, please?" This typically works, especially if you break out the number of bites or spoonfuls they need to take.
But in this case, it was not working. I was told that he does not care for this food. "I don't want macaroni and cheese." I said that he needed to eat something, what about your vegetables. He said, "I don't like peas, they are made of pee." Trying not to laugh at both what must seem obvious to him and the general comedic value of his misunderstanding I said, "Peas don't come from pee." He said, "Well, if peas don't come from pee, then why are they called peas, because if they are called peas they must come from pee. Why are they called peas?" I found myself, once again, without an answer. I actually do not know why they are called peas. I told him this but assured him that they do not, in fact, come from pee. Unfortunately, I had not changed anything for him, and so this reassurance did not help.
Then something awesome happened. He convinced himself. Not only did he convince himself, but he used more basic, not necessarily sound, logic than I would have ever though to use. He explained to me why peas are not in any way related to pee, saying, "Oh, peas don't come from pee because pee makes the water yellow and peas are green so peas must be different." I don't care if this is not sound logic, though, it was the best explanation anyone was going to give him and he figured it out all on his own. "So," I said happy to be out of the woods, "will you eat your veggies for -- " "No."
Before I could even finish my question he decided that now that he figured out this color association, he didn't like corn.
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