Idiosyncrasies

My little family is wonderfully quirky.

Take my little Princess, for instance:

Princess is a very picky eater. Some things are typical "little-kid" picky things: she doesn't like "binchtables," she hates watermelon...all of these I can accept. But Princess takes picky to a new level.

She only eats the "good parts" of the food.

When she eats a peanut butter sandwich, she will return to me two absolutely clean pieces of bread carried in hands festooned with peanut butter.

When she eats a corn dog, the "shuckings" will be piled neatly on the plate with no trace of the hot dog that was in the center. (This is actually okay with me, as I continue to believe that the corn dog is actually a prank gone too far.)

She only eats the buttered side of her toast.

She sucks every noodle clean of alfredo sauce.

All of this I can accept and live with. But I can no longer be silent on the matter of kolaches.

A kolache, for those of you so unfortunate as to reside outside the land of Texas ("Land of the Free and Home of the Armed") or any other Bavarian-influenced cultural center, is a filled pastry. Here in Southeast Texas, the kolache is a savory pastry primarily consumed for breakfast and sold in most doughnut shops.

Imagine the kolache thusly: a warm, buttery yeast roll baked around savory cheese (which may or may not contain jalapenos) and sausage. (I know some people think kolaches can have ham or bacon, but I ignore them in public. I also know some people prefer their kolaches cheese-less, or "dry," and for them I believe jail time is warranted. Furthermore, real kolaches are only available at Snowflake Donut in Baytown, because they label their "hot" ones with a piece of jalapeno baked into the top of the roll, so you know what you're getting instead of the "surprise" hot ones that slip into your purchase elsewhere. But I digest.)

Princess only eats the "hot dog" out of her kolache, leaving the amazingly good and crusty bread and the savory warm cheese discarded on her plate like so much corn dog shuckings. This, of course, makes it necessary for Mommy to consume said leavings, lest they "go to waste."

The kicker: last night at dinner, Princess consumed her weight in calamari. Apparently there's no "yucky part" to deep-fried squid.

As for Dexy:

He will eat anything in the world, as long as it's not on his own plate. You can picture him easily, huge smile on his face, flitting from plate to plate, taking the choicest morsels, stuffing them in his face, and running like the wind. He is very protective of his own plate, though. The other day, Dexy took a Cheeto from Princess' plate (ignoring the pile on his own) and, chortling, ran off to eat it. Princess very calmly got up, went to Dexy's plate, and took two. Dexy cried for 30 minutes at the affront to his authority.

Dexy didn't care for the calamari. He did consume all of the bread.

As for Sven and me, our quirk is a simple one, but one that has been with us throughout the decade-plus of our relationship. I call it the Law of Groceries:

If both of us go to the grocery store and make a purchase designed to allow us to eat at home for a time period greater than one day, we cannot eat at home that day. It's just that simple.

Last night, we went to Sam's Club and stocked up on our "bulk" food needs. 50 bags of Cheetos, 48 bags of M&M's, and Q-tips. On the way out, we were ambushed by the Sample Lady who had prepared a chicken-and-four-cheese ravioli with fresh pesto. It was not only delicious, Dexy loved it, so we told ourselves, "Let's get it and we can have it for dinner when we get home." It would be quick, just heat-and-eat, really. I even bought some French bread to do some garlic toast (or Crustini, or whatever they're calling them now).

We spent between $3-400 at Sam's. On the way home, we were congratulating ourselves on how much money we'd save in the long run, that we had enough to make lunches at home for weeks and dinner at home for days, we'd even gotten breakfast foods the kids liked! Yes, no more eating out for us, no sir. Not for a long time.

Then we hit traffic.

By the time we got home, we literally left the car running while Sven and I hurriedly put the groceries away, then headed to Antonio's Italian Restaurant. The children were hungry enough to be well-behaved, and other than the guilt oozing from our pores at spending $50 on a meal out when we had just spent over $300 on groceries, a wonderful time was had by all.

We did skip dessert. I can sacrifice.

Sometimes.