Lily and the Onion

As everyone, who has met her, knows, Lily is a very bright, adorable little 2-year old. Fewer people know that said toddler is sometimes battling with what I call "Futterneid": As soon as you get something to eat, she wants it as well, no matter if she already has something on her plate, or has just eaten. Most of the time we do the right thing and teach her to respect other people's food, sometimes we just give in to avoid the ensuing tantrum. This last week, however, Lily was taught an important lesson, which brought much amusement to us: just because it's on the table and half is missing does not mean someone is trying to hide the good food from you! Richard and I were preparing meat loaf for dinner while Lily was taking her afternoon nap. Unfortunately I forgot to put the onion half I didn't use back into the fridge. After her nap and a snack, said onion caught quickly Lily's attention, who considered herself safe with Mami and Daddy relaxing on the couch; she climbed on the chair to retrieve the onion. Expecting the inevitable, I notified Richard, whose first reaction was to try to stop her. However, we decided to stay put and watch the scene unfold: as expected, Lily felt confident of having outsmarted the parental party once again and took a small bite out of her "treat". I think I don't have to tell anyone how precious her face looked once she noticed that this was not something we tried to keep from her out of selfish reasons. Sometimes I wish I had a ready-to-shoot camera for moments like this. She put the onion down very quickly and called for us to complain. Of course, we laughed our butts off and retrieved the onion from her. Looking at her face lets us hope she learned her lesson, but only future will tell :-)

PS: A 2-year old with onion breath is priceless!