Dessert Resolutions

Tonight Louisa asked if we could have dessert. Between my two verbal children, the question is asked about 75% of the time. I wonder if this statistic is inversely related with the frequency of me serving dessert. I suppose there would be a definite correlation if I served dessert every night, because then they wouldn't have to ask at all. But I don't do that. Gasp, I know. I bet we have dessert about two to three days per week.

If I have a new year's food-related goal for my family it would be to serve dessert more frequently, but still without pattern, to help Louisa and Cora be less dessert-centric. Although I don't know...it's not like they throw fits when I say no, so maybe what we're doing is just fine. Maybe I should give each person a night to be in charge of dessert. That might help burn up some of the extra dessert-thought-energy. But then I might find myself baking extravagant British pastries, since Nate and the girls love to watch The Great British Baking Show together.

So back to tonight. Louisa asked Can we have dessert? and I said No, not tonight. She asked why not so I explained that she had a special chocolate bar (Krackle) in her lunch at school. But that fell on the ground, she said. I looked at her as she spoke and noticed a slight smile on her face. I asked her if she was telling the truth. Yes, I'm telling the truth, she said, still smiling. I reminded her that it's not okay to lie. A few minutes passed while we brushed teeth. Mom, I was telling a lie. I hope I thanked her for telling the truth, but I actually don't remember what I said because I had an immediate flashback to this same situation a few months ago when I believed her and gave her another chocolate after she explained that when food falls on the floor at school, they have to throw it in the garbage. I remember believing her because she told me immediately after getting of the bus, whereas today she didn't mention it until bedtime. Regardless of whether she was telling the truth the first time, I guess I not surprised that she used this angle to get dessert tonight. 

It's worth mentioning that when Cora asks about dessert, she says, We have little zert? Oh man, we're going to miss her Cora-isms when she refines her speaking skills! She uses "at" when she should say "to," as in, We going at Oma's, we going at Oma's, a song she likes to sing on our drive to Marcia's. Today she made me laugh when she complained that Peter took her water bottle. They were in carseats next to each other, but with at least 1 foot of space between, so it didn't seem plausible that he could have taken it. I asked her if she gave Peter her water bottle, and she said yes. Maybe she was surprised that he actually took it when she teased him with it? I don't know, but I laughed. And on Saturday I took her grocery shopping and as we were parking at Hy-vee, she said, this not grocery store, this mail store! Who knew that she would recognize the U.S. Postal Service logo. She also recognizes Menards and likes to remind us that she calls it Yards.