Love is Blind

A couple of months ago CJ fell in love with a giant zucchini. My former boss brought in a whole basket of really large squash and zucchini that she'd grown. I really like zucchini so I picked up one and brought it home eager to cook and eat it. The next morning, Saturday, the boys spotted it on the counter and decided to play with it. They took it into the living room and played with it mixed in with their real toys. Quickly CJ named it Squash and began carrying it around in the crook of his arm, like a baby. He carried it around and talked to it all day long. That evening as I planned my dinner, the included "Squash" I started to gather my ingredients together and went to retrieve the zucchini. Unfortunately when he discovered my plans for "Squash" included cutting it up and cooking it...he freaked. OMG, I hope he never discovers where his beloved chicken nuggets come from...well, for the time being. It would be ridiculous if say by 17 he still didn't know. So, my dinner plans changed. I figured in a day or two he would forget about it. The next obstacle came when he wanted to take "Squash" to bed with him. And, lets face it, I'm not up for that mom of the year award anyway. If it came to a fit or peacefully drifting off to sleep cuddled up to organically grown produce, I didn't see the big deal. But Jay put his foot down and said we couldn't let the kid sleep with vegetables. Fine. "I'm sorry sweetie, daddy says no." Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know parenting 101 the whole united front crap. Well I lay down the law a whole lot more, so let him take the fall for once. So, "Squash" sleeps in the kitchen where he belongs. And a couple days later CJ is still in love with it. So the third night, Jay hides "Squash." And sure enough the next morning CJ looks around for his beloved vegetable but gets side tracked before locating it and memory of it fades. Fast forward to this past Friday. I move the breadbox to clean and what do I find? That's right a shriveled, dusty, gross and no longer impressive zucchini. I cried a little.