Friday, September 20, 2013

The figurative carrot, literally

The other night Theo went to bed as usual, but unusually after Jon left his room he started crying out. Jon had to home teach, so I went in to give him what he always asks for, water. But he was not asking for water.

"Carra... I want a carra!"

I tried to figure it out--"Carra? What does that mean?" I asked him the only word I could think of that made sense. "Carrot?"

"Yeah."

"You want a carrot?"

"Yeah."

"Why?"

"Because... I want a carrot."

"We can't eat a carrot right now. We need to go to sleep," I said, very confused. I didn't believe him. He's never asked for a carrot in his life. Instead I tried to give him a toy wooden carrot on the floor. Maybe he wanted to sleep with it? But it seemed to make matters worse. I left him, thinking that like a midnight delirium, he would forget all about it after I walked away. But he didn't, wailing for a carrot for ten minutes. I went back in, and the tears were real, the carrot still desired beyond all else in that moment. I figured that giving in to a toddler's very unusual request for a nightcap vegetable wouldn't be the worst thing in the world.

So I got him one. And in the dark I heard a silent, content crunching, followed by sleep.


2 comments:

naomi said...

I hope you tell this story at his wedding. This is one of my favourite toddler stories ever told. Especially the quiet crunching in the dark.

Lorrie said...

you do what you have to do! Oh, Theo!