For dinner the other night, my husband made tacos, the hard shell variety. Vivian and William love this meal, most likely because the shells are deep fried (well, I assume they are before they’re sealed in the box), and because it’s a meal that contains meat, cheese, and ketchup, making it a near cousin of the pizza.
It’s also the only meal that Vivian and William can eat without most of it falling to the floor. This, of course, challenges convention, because most of us know it’s nearly impossible to eat a taco without morsels flying every direction. Somehow, though, our kids heed the 32 warnings we issue and eat over their plates. In fact, they’ve come to pride themselves that they make less of a mess than we do on taco night.
So, there we are, happily crunching away on our pizzas-in-a-shell. It’s almost a Hallmark moment. Enter Ms. Fruit Fly. Evidently she’s bored with the 12-day-old banana I’m keeping around in case I make muffins for the first time in half a decade.
Ms. Fruit Fly lands on William’s taco, which is cradled by his right hand. William, in mid-bite, raises his left hand and aims to kill. He misses the fruit fly, but smashes his taco with the force someone may use on the ring-the-bell carnival game.
For a moment, bits of taco, meat and cheese hang in the air.
William’s initial reaction concerns the fruit fly. “Oh no,” he says. “I missed him.” (Note: Neither William nor I are certain of the sex of the fluit fly, and googling that is its own experiment).
William’s delayed reaction is to look from his hand to the floor and finally to me. “Oh no,” he says again, this time with a voice that threatens to break, like his taco.
Silence envelops our table. And then I burst out laughing. Gently at first, but soon laughter rolls into waves of giggles, the kind that make your eyes tear and your ribs ache. Soon, everyone is laughing. I’m sure if Ms. Fruit Fly had a larger brain, she too would have laughed.
And there you have it: The reasons I laugh at my kids are because it is fun and because it is easier than crying…for all of us.
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So, when was the last time you laughed at your child (or someone else’s)?
Ha ha …
funny post.
And you said the magic words: my husband made dinner.
So true. Those are the magic words.
Seriously?
If I found a meal where none of it fell on the floor, I’d serve it every night.
Every night.
And my kids are 11 and 13. So you’d think they’d stop spilling.
Not so much.
So I laugh at them, too.
And I eat their pasta noodles that drop on the ground (I know – it’s gross – but I have the only two dogs on the planet that won’t eat food that spills. they want food served to them. so I laugh at my dogs, too.)
Really, all this just proves is that my house is a mess. And I maybe shouldn’t be laughing so much, but instead should be cleaning.
Don’t like cleaning much, though.
But I do like you. I’ll be back. Thanks for the laugh…
Awesome anecdote, IM. When I first read “tacos” and “children,” I thought “Good, God, what are they thinking?” I struggle to eat a taco without making it look like a pinata detonated.
“Evidently she’s bored with the 12-day-old banana I’m keeping around in case I make muffins for the first time in half a decade” made me laugh. That’s good stuff. We have a whole freezer of those bananas.
Sounds like the family reaction to the taco obliteration was one of those little moments. Cool.