This is similar to stories I’m sure you’ve heard, but I had to tell it, because it’s true. The only thing that would make it more perfect is if the breakfast was actually served on Mother’s Day, but it was on Saturday.
This past saturday, our daughter MilliCal (who normally cannot be roused from bed on a school morning by anything short of nuclear explosives) got up early and made us breakfast. Then she got us out of bed.
“Daddy,” she said to me, “Get up. It’s morning. I made you and Mommy breakfast.”
“Ohhh, thank you MilliCal. What is it?”
“It’s a surprise!”
She got my wife up, too, and we stumbled over to the table, where she had placed bowls at our places. There were sanwiches in each.
“What are these, MilliCal?” asked my wife, sensing possible disaster.
“It’s a surprise!” beamed our daughter. The sense of impending doom increased. Our daughter, I should point out, had taken a cooking class. Her creations in that class (designed and superintended by the teacher) had been pretty good. She had also come up with her own desserts and such that were occasionally weird, but usually pretty good. But this breakfast was a first.
We inspected the sandwiches. They seemed to have ham. And peanut butter. We remarkecd upon this.
“Oh, there’s also a Secret Ingredient!” enthused our Favorite Offspring.
So we took bites. I have to admit that ham and peanut butter actually makes an unexpectedly decent combination. But my wife spit hers out.
“What’s the secret ingredient?” she asked.
“Vanilla and Pepper!” announced MilliCal. My wife, PepperMill, had gotten a big mouthful of both that I had miraulously been spared.
We told MilliCal that this breakfast was, alas, a failure. The peanut butter and ham was OK, but vanilla and pepper really didn’t go well with that and was, like her attempts to create new “knock knock” jokes, just not working.
As a Mother’s Day present I took MilliCal away for the day, down to Plymouth Plantation. MilliCal made up an Indian costume out of a paper bag with armholes and a head opening cut into it, and she impressed the staff with her creativityy and her intelligent questions. But part of the price of a creative and intelligent 6-year-old is the occasional peanut butter-ham-vanilla extract- and pepper sandwich.