More chicken

This is a child who wants more chicken and is about to freak out because I am not giving her any.

"Titten!"

"You've had enough chicken. Have some Cheerios. Mmm, Cheerios!"


Failure.

It was on the way home from daycare that Lyla started talking about chicken, so I ordered sweet-and-sour from a Chinese place and drove with Lyla to pick it up.

"We're going to get chicken, Lyla."

"Titten."

"But it's going to be very hot, so we'll have to wait."

Putting Lyla back in her car seat in the restaurant parking lot was the low point of her life.

"Lyla, in order to eat chicken, we need you in the car seat so we can drive home and put the chicken on a plate and let it cool."

"NOOOO!"

During the most difficult parenting moments, the saving grace is that I am much stronger than Lyla.

At home I stripped the breading off approximately one hundred pieces of chicken, and Lyla ate them all like it was a chicken eating contest at the state fair.

"Titten peez."

"Um, you sort of just ate more chicken than should be humanly possible at your age."

"Titten!"

"Hey, how about some hummus and bread?"

Miraculously, she considered it. "Ummutz."

I quickly slathered hummus on bread, and she hoovered it and demanded more chicken, at which point I suggested the Cheerios.

Then Julie came home, surveyed the scene, and committed treason. "Why don't you just give her more chicken?"

I read Lyla's mind: Mama's home! No more mean Dada! More titten!