Eat Your Greens

Well, it's Thanksgiving again, and my four year old charge is celebrating with out-of-town family members and friends.  The house is full of hungry people and buzzing with lively activity.  Proud Grandparents are doting on expectant children, and the enthusiastic tots screech and clamor for their attention.

My charge, who has been bellowing like some sort of injured animal, while simultaneously banging his older cousin over the head with a cardboard paper towel tube, suddenly stops in the center of the activity and begins to thoughtfully and aggressively excavate the contents of his nose.  After a good deal of burrowing, clawing and dredging, he locates a hidden treasure and holds it proudly upon his forefinger for all to admire.

At this point, there are clearly only two choices available to any four year old boy on earth:

1)  Eat it.

2)  Wipe it on one's neighbor.

He is undoubtedly weighing his options as he looks back and forth from the gelatinous glob, to the back of his little sister's holiday sweater.  However, number one most assuredly wins out, being the more tasty and most popular choice among most red blooded, American boys between the ages of two and ninety-six.

He slowly consumes the gooey treat right in front of the frozen, gaping group of family and friends.  The child's achingly proper, southern grandmother clutches her chest in horror.  "Sweetheart!"  She gasps, "Don't do that!"

He looks at her, a little startled by her dramatic reaction, and very calmly notes, "Nanny says if I want to grow big and strong, I have to eat all my green stuff."

And there you have it...Another case of:  Right rule -- slight miscalculation in the application thereof.