For The Love Of Pizza

My children love pizza. All of them. In fact, a pizza crust was Sarah's first "solid" food. I know, you're shocked! When the twins were babies, we read all the books about what the first solid food should be. The expert consensus was that one should begin with the most awful tasting vegetables so that the child would develop a taste for them before moving on to the yummier foods that they will certainly love. And we did that... with the twins. However, Sarah is our third child. One day, we simply handed her a pizza crust and said "Gnaw on that. You'll love it!". And she did.

We don't have pizza as often as the children would like. I swear that Bethie would love to eat pizza for every meal. Although she requests pizza frequently, she is often disappointed. The other day, as we were coming home from doing a grocery shop, Bethie asked if we could have pizza for dinner. I explained that I had just spent all of my money on groceries and I could make her a lovely dinner instead. She stated that she preferred pizza. I asked her if she had any money. Bethie pondered that question, and then replied "I have princess money!". Her delight was quickly squashed when I explained that the pizza man prefers real money.

A few days later, Bethie asked Dan if he had gone to work that day. He had. She said "Did you make any money while you were at work?". Dan told her that the only reason he goes to work is to make money. She then said "Real money?". Neither Dan nor I saw where this was leading. Dan said that he had, in fact, made real money. Bethie said "Can we have pizza for dinner tonight and you can pay for it with the real money you made today?". Although we were very proud of her for being so clever as to trick us into admitting that we had money that could (technically) be spent on pizza, we declined her request.

Yesterday after daycare, the children wanted to play in the van. That was fine with us because Dan and I could stand next to the van watching the children while having a chat. Everybody would be happy. All of a sudden, Bethie let of a terrific cry of delight. She came to the door, held up a penny, and asked "Is this real money?". I told her it was. She said "We can have pizza tonight because I have real money to pay the pizza man!". We did have pizza, but I had to chip in approximately $23.99!