Veg Out

Short history on The Dad: He Does Not Eat Vegetables.
Annoying, right? Me? I love me some produce.
The lil' dude, well, she'll eat anything. Just last weekend, she was trying to fist the white cotton-y looking stuff that was billowing into our house when we had the sliding door open. I advised her that would not be a good idea. Never eat pollen, lil' dude.
So yeah, back to The Dad. I should clarify, he does eat some vegetables. Corn, carrots ( likes them cold with peanut butter, ewww), and potatoes. Yes, arguably a starch, he doesn't care.

The skill with which he can dissect a meal and remove the microscopic pieces of vegetable is amazing. If we are having a meal in a restaurant or at a guest's home, he does this without anyone really even noticing. He's been fine-tuning his veggie removal tactics for the last 28 years. His mother loves to tell the horrifying story of the The Dad at age 2, removing the bun from his McDonald's cheeseburger, and scraping the onions off the patty . . . "just like Daddy," how horrifying indeed! So by the time I got my hands on him 23 years later, there was no coaxing him into trying sauteed mushrooms with his ribeye, or having a chicken Caesar salad. Too late.
In my house? You ate your vegetables. I mean, we ate our vegetables: pan-fried cabbage, tomato sandwiches on toast, marinated beet pickles, grilled veggie kabobs, and even carrot cookies with orange icing. Love me some produce for sure!
When my mom found out I intended to marry the anti-vegetable, she said immediately, "What are you going to do when you have kids? Your kids will eat vegetables!" And yes, Internet friends, my kid will eat her veggies.
"I know," The Dad said one day when the lil' dude was probably 2 months old, "I will tell her I met my veggie quota already."
"Excuse me?" I asked.
"You know, that since I am a grown-up, I don't have to eat my vegetables anymore because I already had 10,000 vegetables, that I no longer am required to eat them."
He had obviously been preparing for the day when I grab him by the ear and shove him back down to the dining room table shrieking, "EAT YOUR GODDAMN PEAS IN FRONT OF HER RIGHT THIS MINUTE, SHOW HER THE PEA-LOVE YOU BASTARD!"
But I had a question. "I will always eat vegetables though, what will you tell her when she asks why Mama still eats them?"
"I will tell her the truth."
I smiled, "You will?"
"Absolutely. I will tell the lil' dude that you are crazy."