Veggie tales

This is a story about a boy and a tomato. 

Like many his age, this boy did not like his vegetables.  His mom would place them on his plate and they would be the awkward dinner guests, looking around only to find out they were the last ones at the party.  The mom didn’t push the issue, rarely resorted to bribes, and hoped the boy would come to feel veggie love on his own.  Of course, since she herself did not love vegetables and the boy’s father even less, this was a stretch.

One night, she placed a cherry tomato on his plate, along side pasta, chicken, and other food which he hungrily consumed.  The tomato sat untouched.  His mom asked the boy if he'd like a treat at the end of the meal, and predictably, he nodded.  “All you have to do is eat that tomato, and you’ll get a treat,” the mom chirped.  She hoped to avoid the threating nature of having to force her children to eat food that she herself faced as a youth (although she is, of course, better for it today) and wanted to provide him with a choice. “If you don’t want a treat, you don’t need to eat the tomato.”

The young boy slowly placed the tomato into his mouth and the mom did a silent victory dance. 

But it soon became evident that the battle to get the tomato to its final resting place had just begun.  The boy sat unmoving, the tomato in his mouth, equally as still. “Chew the tomato, please,” the mom asked politely.  The creature sat stone-faced.  She repeated her request.

No problem, the mom thought. I’ll just clean up the kitchen, and ignore the boy while he decides to chew the tomato.  As she walked around the kitchen, she stole sideway glances, but his jaw was set and his expression remained unchanged.  The boy was not defiant, if he had been the tomato would have been spat out. He was not mischievous, the mom knew that look well.  He was simply sitting...with a tomato in his mouth.

She politely asked a few more times.  He didn’t refuse, per say, he just didn’t respond.  He just sat.  He was strangely quiet.  He looked at her with kind eyes, perhaps wondering why her face was beginning to flush.  With nothing else to clean and a baby that was beginning to get fussy, she began to get impatient.  Her tone changed.  If he spit the tomato out, the game would be over…no vegetable, no treat, no biggie.  But it was still in his mouth.  Maybe he wanted to eat it, but was nervous about what was inside, she thought.  Maybe she just needed to let this play out.  He certainly couldn’t keep the tomato in his mouth forever, right?

Ok, mom thought, I will be as cool as the cucumber he refuses to eat.  I’ll just pretend like it doesn’t bother me.  Let’s use positive reinforcement.  “You’re eating it! You’ve almost finished!  Your treat is going to be so yummy when you finish that tomato!” She was met with a stone face.  She got close to him and he reached out playfully to unzip a pocket on her jacket.  She pulled back quickly.

Alright, no more Mr. Nice Guy.  “Chew the tomato!  Do you hear me??!” She began to feel like a crazy person.  The stonefaced little boy sensed her frustration and extended his thumb and gave her the thumbs-up sign.  It's always worked on women before, he must have thought.  She found this to be 60% infuriating and 40% hilarious.  She resisted the urge to bite his thumb and show him what she meant by chewing.

The mom looked at the clock: 6:50.  The little boy had been sitting with the tomato in his mouth for at least 20 minutes.  His brother needed to go to bed.  She needed a drink.  It’s just a tomato, she reminded herself. I could just make him spit it out.  But we’ve come this far, her other voice countered.

She walked over to the microwave and shut it.  Ok, she might have slammed it. “That hurt my ears,” the boy said innocently, the tomato tucked carefully in the pouch of his mouth.

"She marched over to him.  "Open your mouth," she demanded.  He complied.  She reached her fingers in, crushed the tomato against the boy's back teeth, finally letting loose the seeds and juice and things that make the tomato a tomato.  She felt exhilaration.  She knew the seeds and juice wouldn't be able to stay in the boy's mouth for long. 

She was halfway there,  but the tomato's outer shell was still comfortably settled in the boy's mouth.  She placed the small treat in front of the boy, hoping it would inspire a few chews and a swallow.  He reached his hand out, but retreated when he figured out that the tomato must go down before the treat can go in.

So he sits.  His mom takes deep breaths.

"I'll just eat the treat myself!" she exclaimed, and she reached for the treat.

His stoneface crumbles, his eyes bulge.  "No!" he says and his jaws begin to move.  One time, two times, three chews.  A swallow.  Vegetable ingested, a treat to follow, and an exhausted mom who wonders how they got to this place.

The boy is asked the next day if he likes tomatoes.

"Yes!" he answers cheerily.

Of course you do, Brady, of course you do.