Ava does not like ketchup.
She doesn't like it on hotdogs (just mustard and cheese please) and she doesn't like it on KD. She doesn't like it on her plate to dip chicken, or anything else, in and she certainly doesn't like it on scrambled eggs.
Tristan does like ketchup.
He likes it on hotdogs (just ketchup please) and on KD. He likes it on his plate so he can dip his chicken, carrots and broccoli into it. He likes it on stew and roast beef. He likes it on scrambled eggs.
I know this about my children, so when I give ketchup to Tristan I never ever give any to Ava. Yet every single time I pull out the ketchup, like for KD, Ava says in a high-pitched, squeaky, panicky voice, "But I don't like ketchup!"
And every single time I say, "I know you don't, but Tristan does. The ketchup is for Tristan." And I look at her and think, how long have I known you? How many times have we done this? I know you don't like ketchup. You didn't like it yesterday. You didn't like it a year ago. You don't like it today. You won't like it tomorrow. I GET IT!
Ava does like cheese. Every kind and any kind. She is a cheese fanatic. I think she would marry it if she could. She'd have to be a polygamist but I think she'd be willing to risk the law for her love affair with cheese of every shape, size and kind. She even loves, and asks for, blue cheese on a regular basis. What three-year-old wants a blue cheese sandwich?
Tristan does not like cheese. What 3-year-old does not like cheese? He doesn't like cheddar in any of it's ages. He doesn't like mozzarella, colby, monterey jack, gouda, swiss, brie, or blue cheese. He doesn't like it grated, sliced, melted, on crackers, as strings or prepackaged. Well, technically he does eat two kinds of cheese. The orange powder on KD, which does not qualify as cheese in my opinion, and parmesan cheese. But I'm pretty sure he'll eat the parmesan because Ava renamed it "sugar cheese" and he thinks he'll get the same kind of rush he gets from smarties.
Tristan is almost violent in his dislike of cheese. If I make my kids sandwiches for lunch they each get half but I make it as one, putting mayo on the bottom piece of bread, slice of deli meat, cheese on Ava's half and mustard on Tristan's half. I cut it down the middle and voila! Custom sandwiches. However if even the smallest sliver of cheese from Ava's side ends up on Tristan's he goes into apoplexy. His face goes beet red and the veins in his neck begin to bulge out as he screams "BUT I DON'T LIKE CHEESE!". Which is said with the same panic and revulsion I felt when I discovered a spider crawling on me once, "omigosh! omigosh! where is it? Get it off, get it off, GET IT OFF!
Tonight at supper, in the middle of an I-found-a-tiny-piece-of-grated-cheese-in-my-chicken-wrap meltdown, and in the middle of my sighing-because-can't-you-just-eat-one-miniscule-practically-invisible-piece-of-shredded-cheese? Tristan stopped and said, "Mmm, I think I like cheese."
Pardon me? The world just tilted on it's opposite axis for a moment, what was that?
"Can I have some cheese for my wrap? I like cheese! I do! I
like cheese!"
So I'm standing at the counter, grating cheese for Tristan, reeling from this sudden exhilirating discovery, when Ava joins in shouting like it's church camp and everyone is getting saved so she might as well too, "AND I LIKE KETCHUP!
