Just another dinner with our 5- and 7-year-old daughters:
Me: "T, why aren't you eating your rice?"
T (5): "I don't like this kind. I like white rice."
(This is white rice.)
Me: "This is white rice."
T: "No, I like the other kind of white rice, not this kind, This isn't real white rice. I like the kind from the restaurant, the sticky kind. The real white rice."
(This rice is white. It is at least as white as most of our teeth. It may not be as white as a person's teeth who has had three rounds of that very expensive teeth whitening that makes them sparkle unnaturally like freshly fallen snow, but it is white.)
Me: "This is crazy, T, you are getting too picky. This is plain white rice cooked in chicken broth, which you love. Nothing else is in it."
T: Shakes head firmly, buttons lips.
Me: "We really need to work on this pickiness, T. This is plain rice. I'm going to prove it to you."
(Get up, go to cupboard, get rice package with transparent little plastic window.)
Me: "See, here. Look at this rice, it's totally white."
T: "Ar...ar...arbor...arbo-rhee-a...arbor-rio?"
(Damn it, why does she have to know how to read?)
Me: "Arborio. That's white rice. It's the same as the kind from the restaurant, but that kind is grown in Asia and this kind is from Italy. Look in the window, it's white rice. Now you can eat it."
T: "I hate Italy white rice. I only like Asia white rice. I only like the sticky rice."
(Sinking into maternal despair.)
Husband, from the peanut gallery: "Obviously this lesson is just not sticking."
Pun: Sadly intended.
