Can't Fool Her!

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Sass loves bologna. Would eat it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner loves it. I don't mind that she eats it, but I don't keep it in the house much, mainly because I don't want to serve it for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, or argue about not eating it at every meal. She gets it as an occasional treat, when we're traveling or really busy, and of course, at Grandma's, because it is a grandmother's job to make sure favorite treats are always on hand. (I remember going to my grandma's house and filling up on Pepsi and all the National Enquirer I could read.) So it's not like she's deprived of this much loved thing.

Today, I gave her tofu bologna for lunch. I figured she would be getting nutrition from a kind of food she doesn't usually eat, and get to eat one of her favorite foods. I was not overly confident, as I served her a tofu hotdog last week and she turned up her cute little nose the orange, oddly squishy link of soy protein.

I didn't mention it was new, or made of tofu. I don't like to deceive her, but this child does not change old habits lightly, so I knew if I did that tofu would be snubbed, just like it's hot dog cousin. I put it on her plate with some Jellied Toast with Buttered Jam, and some strawberries. She picked it up to take a bite, and paused.

"Is this the same as our bologna?" Intuitive little sprite. She's on to me.

"Mmm..what's that honey?" Selective deafness. A diversionary tactic. It works, and she takes a bite.

"It almost tastes like my bologna," she says, and moves on to the strawberries. She goes back for a few more bites, and doesn't say anymore, but I notice she doesn't finish it. I call it a partial success, and decide to serve it again tomorrow.

Later, Grandma comes to pick her up for the afternoon, which Sass eagerly anticipates. (At lunch, when M. came home, she sidled up to me and said quietly, "I thought it was Grandma that was here, but it wasn't." That girl loves her Grandma, she does.) Grandma had just stocked up on all of Sass's favorite treats and was telling her all about them.

When I went to pick Sass up, Grandma said she'd eaten three slices of bologna. I told her about my lunch time trick, and she laughed out loud. She said when Sass took a bite of her bologna, she said, "Our bologna is old Grandma, but your tasted good!"

I can't put anything past her!