My heart just goes out to Eden tonight, because of a little thing during dinner. She was eating breaded salmon with us, but what she really wanted was to eat some Cheerios. We gave her a couple of them at first, but then I wanted her to eat more of her dinner. She had tried one bite of salmon and I guess she didn’t really like it. To get her to eat, I told her, “First salmon, then Cheerios.” I gestured back and forth to the salmon and the Cheerios. This is a little game that she started to figure out last week, except last week it was “First potatoes, then jellybeans.” So I think she understood what I was saying.

She looked at the salmon, and she really didn’t want it. She started to bring the fork to her mouth. She grimaced and then she started to cry. A tear rolled down one cheek. But she slowly arced the fork right towards her mouth the whole time. She ate the whole bite. She just looked so mature, forcing herself to do something she didn’t want to do. And as soon as the salmon was in her mouth, she looked at me, just knowing that she deserved some Cheerios. So we treated her really well for the rest of the night. She got all the Cheerios she wanted, and then angel food cake, and eventually a jellybean. That little girl trusts us so much! That’s a privilege we don’t want to take for granted.