The Promise and The Reality

The Promise:

and the Reality:

Believe it or not, the little white tray with the balls and squares contains baby food. Joel gobbled up his 1970’s avocado-green-kitchen-colored peas with gusto. The spongy pasta pockets were wolfed down as well.

But wow! How guilty I felt foisting that mess on him. When first confronted by the disparity between The Promise and The Reality, I was in denial: I must have microwaved wrong. I must have misread the directions. Peas can’t possibly be that color. That color doesn’t exist in the spectrum. It was a newly invented color, by God, for this tray of peas on this day. The color will then be retired for eternity.

Then I felt anger–how could Giant Baby Food Company produce peas this color and LIE about it with such a pretty representation of peas on the box? Those peas on the box practically snapped with green goodness, luring me into dropping the big bucks ($1.39 or so!) buying it. Giant Baby Food Company should be investigated by the FCC, the CIA, the FBI, the FDA, the GSA, the RNC, the DNC, CBS, CNN, ABC, and FNC. Throw the book at ’em!

The next step is naturally sadness…as I watched Joel dig in to his peas and pasta, I mourned for a time when Joel was content to nurse and would never chow down on something the color and consistency of pond scum. I mourned for a time in my life when the picture on the box meant something–when the macaroni and cheese was a brilliant, blazing orange, instead of a weak American cheese color. When advertising was not false. When I wasn’t willing to buy toddler food in a box.

Finally, acceptance. As I took Joel out of the highchair and wiped him off, he smiled at me. His tank was topped off for another few hours, enabling him to crawl and cruise around the house. It didn’t slow his magazine-tearing, dog-food sampling, lamp-tipping, and screeching by any discernible degree. He survived his first, and last, serving of peas and pasta.