Some Like It Hot

This is nuts.

This week has been hot. It's one of those jumps in temperature that happen every summer, when stepping outside hits you like a blast furnace (or as I called it in front of a bunch of HVAC folks, a "heat furnace" which is about the stupidest thing ever). The heat has a withering effect on you. If you're doing any lifting or walking, you're soaked and filthy in seconds, and generally miserable for the rest of the day, great rivers of sweat bloom in your armpits or drop from your forehead and somehow find their way into your mouth after a thorough tour of the inside of your nose. It is oppressive weather. It is Satan's weather.

But it does happen every summer. It is to be expected.

And I tend to get to this point in the summer and I want to throw in the towel. The sweat-stained, sand-encrusted, sad little towel. All my thoughts of "wait until summer, when we can finally have fun outside" have gone out the window. Or, in the window? Definitely through some kind of window of some sort.

What a waste. Summer is hot. It takes some getting used to, sure, but it's not a roadblock. It's not a mine shaft cave-in. It's tricky terrain. It's learning an alternate route. It's a taste that needs to be developed, like jalapenos or onions.

Or ras malai.

In celebration of Father's Day, (and let's be honest, because she found a recipe for it), Jenna made me a batch of ras malai, which is a homemade spongy cheese served in sweet milk, topped with pistachios. It was fantastic. Better than at the restaurant. And it's served chilled, so it's so refreshing on a hot day. We were both very excited about it. Aaron refused to touch it.

He might have been on board until he saw me shelling pistachios. The sight of that wrinkled green nut was enough to put him off ras malai and how.

Well, I reasoned, it's a dessert. And the kid eats a lot of sweets. No need to push another one on him. But at the same time, it's a new food. I know it can be tough for a four-year-old to take a chance on new foods. They've got so many taste buds at that age. They  need to be meticulous, to treat each bud like a newly blooming flower, gentlly nourishing it with chicken nuggets and chocolate milk. And the occasional half chewed candy found in the dirt at the playground. And sometimes a key. Seriously, he says he swallowed a key. He won't eat a combination of dessert and cheese, the two best things ever and he's wolfing down a key?

I don't get it. But I figured if he's brave enough to eat keys, he should be brave enough to eat a new treat. We asked him, we told him he'd like it. We offered him to have just a tiny bite from our dish. And he blanched and turned his face away and informed us that ras malai, whatever else it may be, is also icky.

The bite on the spoon got smaller and smaller. "Just try it," we encouraged. "It's sweet, like cake."

And then he did. Truth be told, I was not expecting that. But he took the tiniest bite of ras malai, prepared to spit it right back onto the spoon, but he didn't. He liked it. He seemed as surprised as the rest of us. In fact, he asked for his own bowl. Just no pistachios.

Then yesterday, while he was at home with suspected pink eye (false alarm, and I can't figure out any way that could be related to swallowing a key), he tried a pistachio. After his success with the ras malai, it didn't take much convincing. I just told him it tasted like a moon nut, which is his phrase for cashew.

Once again, he loved it. He started shelling them himself, making a neat little pile of withered green nuts to pop into his mouth. I was excited for him.

And I've been thinking about it today, and I think it's pretty significant. You've got to trust someone an awful lot to take their word that something is going to taste good. And it's not like we've never steered him wrong before. He's spit out asparagus, sweet potatoes, even Super Nerds, which are my new favorite candy. But he was still willing to give these strange looking foods a shot, and all for the better. It turns out he liked them. Two new foods for us to put on the list of Things The Kid Likes To Eat.

As a parent, I think it's easy to get caught up in the Big Things. We've been talking up him writing the words "Stop" and "Go" all day. That's a big step for him. But just as important it's the little things. He takes the time to add two new foods to his repertoire. He learns to trust Mommy and Daddy's tastes one more time. He forges ahead in a situation that would be just as easy to back out of.

Which brings me back to the heat furnace. (Good grief.) Yes it's too hot today. But then, after that, it's too rainy. And then it's too buggy. And then it's too windy. And then it's too cold again, because summer is passed and we're all a little older. Might as well play outside. Take a chance that you'll find something you like out there despite the urge to spit the day back onto the plate. Maybe you'll get to add one more day to the list of Days the Grownup Really Likes.

And if today is not that day, so be it. Console yourself with some comfort food. Just don't eat a key.