Like Father Like Son

If you know Dean at all, you know he has some odd eating habits. He doesn't like his food to touch. At all. While I like a nice warm brownie with ice cream on top and maybe some hot fudge over that, he will ask for his brownie and ice cream on separate plates (and whether you use a plate or a bowl and choice of utensils is a whole other conversation!). He hates pickles and I've seen him send back an order from a restaurant if it comes with a pickle on the side after he asked for no pickle. He doesn't like there to be any trace of it on his food.

Apparently Tommy has inherited this food oddity. Dean's very careful not to be too picky in front of Tommy so that he doesn't influence him in any way. But last night Tommy was eating his dinner, which was a chicken casserole with rice and a bit of applesauce on the side (this was in a divided plate so there was no way the applesauce could actually touch the main meal). At one point Tommy must have put his fork down and when he picked it up again, he saw that there was a bit of applesauce on the tines. Gasp! He panicked and tried to wipe it off. Dean and I watched in amusement. When he asked me to get him a new fork, I told him to just lick it off (there was both casserole and applesauce on the fork at this point) and he cried.

Normally I would have had a talk with him about how this is completely irrational behavior and it's ok for food to touch. But I just looked at Dean, who was totally sympathizing with him at this point, and proceeded to wipe off the fork. So whoever winds up marrying Tommy can attempt to stop this cycle of food weirdness with his child. It's too late for me.