jam or ham or cucumber, any type will do...i like sandwiches how about you?

Cooper has been having a growth spurt for the last couple of weeks and eating everything in sight. As soon as he wakes up he asks for a snack to hold him over 'til breakfast. While he watches me prepare his lunch he begs for anything to nibble on while he waits. As soon as he finishes a meal he asks for dessert, while he's still chewing! It's been getting very, very old. Sometimes I get so sick of fixing food I could scream!

That's what happened last Friday. I had just finished cleaning up the lunchtime mess when he asked for dessert. I put him off a while, hoping he'd forget about it but he didn't. He just kept nagging and nagging. How could he possibly be hungry??? He just had a huge lunch! "No more food until dinner!" I told him. He burst into tears.

That's when big brother came to the rescue. "I'll fix him a sandwich," Clayton said. Yeah, right, I thought. No one in this house has ever fixed a sandwich except for me and my husband. Cooper's eyes lit up and he followed his brother downstairs. I waited, expecting to hear whining about 'where was this or that' and how he couldn't reach something. But no whining came. A few minutes later I went to see what happened and there was Cooper chowing down on a peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Clayton was perched on the counter-top making sure everything was to Cooper's liking. "Do you want it cut?" he asked. "Yes, please." Cooper said. Clayton grabbed a butter knife and split it down the middle.

Cooper ate every last bite and proclaimed, "Clayton, that is the best sandwich you ever made me!" Clayton mumbled that it was the only sandwich he had ever made him, but I could see he was very proud of himself. I congratulated him and made a big deal over it so he would hopefully be likely to do it again (I need all the help I can get).

For the rest of the day, every time I saw Cooper, he had some kind of food in his hand, provided by five year-old Clayton. He had discovered the joy of feeding someone else, a joy I'd lost a few years ago (somewhere in the middle of wiping food off walls and hosing highchairs down in the backyard to prevent roach infestations).

Later on at bedtime, I said, "Clayton, I think I'm going to call you Ratatouille from now on. You may end up being a cook like your Dad."

"But I can only make sandwiches," he said in his raspy little voice.

Well you gotta start somewhere, and he had reminded me that a good attitude is the first ingredient in making a meal for anyone. Especially for the people you love.