I’m not a wizard in the kitchen, but I know enough to know that ‘beaters’ are not the guys you call when you have an ice skating competitor you need removed. Or a group of teenage boys that hasn’t had feminine contact in a few weeks. And I’m not afraid to say I make a mean pot roast, though it’s hard to take much credit for that; sear a side of beef, chop up a bushel of veggies, throw it all in a pot and let it cook for the day and you have several meals worth of meat and potatoes. I’ve stuffed a few shells. Made some pretty tasty blackened steak, too.

(Aside: My very first cake baking happened a couple months ago when Diane took the kids to see out-of-state family for a few days. The cake was part of a welcome home party I threw for them. I was once told by a mason that when mixing mortar, you know you have the right consistency when it’s just like frosting. One might then assume that if you had frosting, it’s properties might resemble that of mortar; able to build things up and stick things together. But one would be wrong if one were to assume that. Nat, I coulda used your help.)

Disaster cake aside, I walked into the kitchen with no trepidation. Tonight we were making eggs, in what might be my favorite dinner: breakfast. Typically Diane will make a batch of scramblies for all to share, along with some fruit, a little bacon (ooh, but it tastes so goooood) and toast. Not being satisfied with the status quo and with both of us having been disappointed in the kids’ eating habits lately, I decided to go big: omelettes for everyone. And to improve on the diet, each kiddie omelette would contain finely chopped broccoli and cauliflower. They both eat it raw with some dressing anyway, so why not add it to the omelette? They’ll never taste it. I’ll even mix in some mozzarella.

Earlier in the day we’d been to the grocery store to pick up a few things. When we arrived Agalia and I raced to the baked goods section of the store to see if they had any pies. Blueberry and Cherry were on display. Agalia decided on blueberry, but we still had one big hurdle: Diane. We had to convince her that although a pie was clearly not on the shopping list, it would be a worthy addition to our cart. Dad scoured his healthy food databanks…That’s Right! Blueberries can prevent or fight cancer. Knowing Agalia can sell Diane on things way better than I can, with far fewer words and no bartering for reciprocation, I have her do the dirty work, selling the pie idea to Diane. I send her with pie in hand to meet Diane at the deli, along with a short script to follow.

“Hey Mom! Blueberries, and um, cancer?”

Hmm, I didn’t remember giving Agalia license to riff. But as it turned out it didn’t matter, because we’d caught Diane at a weak moment; one of those moments that comes after being pummeled wit 6,000 requests for “Popcoh?“, having two non-napping children hell-bent on home demolition, and one adorable but talkative daughter who’s laid out 83 swimming showdown scenarios between Olympians Michael Phelps, Jason Lezak and Ryan Lochte.

We got the pie.

It can be dangerous, but in the carrot and stick game that is healthy eating bribed by dessert, the pie was my carrot, though I was pretty sure I wouldn’t need it. After all, the omelettes I was making were golden, slightly brown at the edges, ketchup swirled over the top for presentation’s sake.

Agalia has this thing she can force herself to do. It’s a thing that if Fear Factor is still around when she’s an adult, she could pay her way through college. If we tell Agalia she needs to eat a certain thing she may not like in order to get to something she knows she’ll like, she can force herself to eat it. And quickly. Having learned this from when she was much younger, we try not to dangle that carrot often, because we want her only to eat when she’s hungry. Of course you know this means that in turn she will peck at her dinner but be capable of packing away an entire ice cream sandwich afterward. Screwed if you do, bum-surfed if you don’t.

After Agalia spent a few minutes pushing pre-cut pieces of omelette around her plate, we laid out Parameters for her receiving blueberry pie: eat most of the one-egg omelette in front of her. Immediately she grabs a piece of omelette in each hand (a fork had been made available, btw) and stuffs it in her mouth. Diane and I start chatting over an odd client of mine and we briefly lose track of what Agalia’s doing. A few minutes later, she lets out a huge belch, the kind you hear from a person with a nasty stomach flu, usually coming just before she expels the full contents of her abdomen for display across your room. Feeling awful ourselves for her Kobayashi-style consumption, we took the plate away and replaced it with a tiny salad and a few pieces of leftover chicken, which she gobbled up without issue.

So then came the big prize, right? Blueberry pie? Even DJ had changed his tune from “Popcoh?” to “Pah?”. I slice up a couple small pieces for each and place them in front of each child. After I see Agalia take a bite I turn to DJ, who’s trying pie for the first time. I give him a bite. He chews, swallows, then looks at his mother.

“Popcoh?”

A minute later and Agalia’s asking about the bylaws and contingencies of the aforementioned Parameters, and whether reward substitutions are allowed.

Two minutes after that, two kids have mini bomb-pops in hand, dripping in fructose and food coloring. Everyone is happy. Everyone except Dad, who made a dinner that nearly made his daughter throw up, then served up a dessert nobody wanted. Born to lose.