We parents eat an awful lot of our words throughout the years. If (1) you talk as much as I do and (2) you like to eat, you have to eat even more of them than most. But I thought I could do worse than follow some excellent examples that I had known. Here’s one: when I was six or seven, my grandfather Pa Jay gave me a pinch of snuff—in order to teach me never to get hooked on tobacco, like he was. It worked! I reeled, and I can’t believe I didn’t vomit, it was so so so so gross. When I was offered cigarettes and/or pot as a teenager, I quickly turned down all such offers.
So when my firstborn was two years old, she asked for a sip of coffee (not quite as dramatic as chewing tobacco, I’ll admit, but this is my story), and I thought, “Yeah, I’ll give her some, and she’ll hate it, and then she won’t get hooked on coffee.”
It worked!
Tah-DAH! I’m a great parent!
A year or so later, I have another two year old, and Krista asks for a sip of my coffee. Knowing now that I am in fact a fabulous mother-and-teacher, I say “Sure.”
And she says “Yum.”
Uh-oh! But no matter; after all, I had a cup with lots of cream and sugar (Ken always says that we like our coffee the way that, if you were to freeze it, it would be coffee ice cream), so I gave her a sip of black coffee. A little cruel admittedly, but desperate times call for desperate measures.
And Krista says “Yum.”
Oh no! Pa Jay’s method is failing me; what to do, what to do? So I give this beautiful baby, who has barely passed her second birthday, a coffee bean to chew.
And Krista says “Yum.”
Now that’s a real coffee drinker—and she has been all these years.
5 comments:
So is coffe with all that cream and sugar on our diet uH fast?
Gayla
I think Krista and I are the most die-hard coffee peeps in the family. I love that story. NOT that coffee is in line with tobacco or disgusting slurping tea time.
I am re-thinking visiting based on the 5-6 times ritual communal slurping. I don't think I'll survive...
Hi Derek! It's nice to hear you! The students here at the school don't slurp, thank the Lord, because here you make mate in your cup and drink it yourself.
Tori could be heading that way as well; time will tell.
David was the most die hard coffee drinker. Black, no sugar, no sissy flavored coffee. He never washed his cup - he figured the coffee was hot enough to sterilize any gunk growing.
I drank it that way for a year after he died. Then I woke up and decided I didn't miss him THAT much to go through that to feel closer to him. :)
Lisa is also a hardcore coffee drinker. When we're at the lakehouse for our scrappin' times, she's always fixing it and she drinks it straight up strong and black. Her coffee scares me.
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