Among the most delightful things we learn to do in life is
eat – some of us delighting in it more than others, still others delighting
more than we should. But delight in eating – like many things in life – seems
to arrive in proportion remarkably inverse to disgust: the memory of swallowing
castor oil makes me love a rich, chocolatey cake all the more. That’s why, at
Head Start, we offer children an array of foods – so they can be disgusted and delighted, thereby having the chance
to grow into the person they’re going
to be, rather than the person we might think we’d like them to be.
So: is Isaiah delighted or disgusted? At first he was just
downright puzzled. But then, moments later, he gobbled down all the broccoli he
could lay his hands on. That’s when he was three. We wonder what another year
(or even tomorrow!) will bring.