Green Eggs and Dog Chow

Finicky eaters of the world, unite!

I don't understand why he has to make such a production out of this. Eggs. The children have asked the father to cook them some eggs. He's got a bowl for the two he'll scramble, another to hold the two he'll flip over easy; the warmer drawer heating up two plates so that, presumably, the cooked eggs shall be experienced at their maximum taste potential. Now he's getting out the griddle, the one that goes over two burners. He can't use a stinkin' frying pan?

"Honey," I say. "It's eggs."

"You want some eggs, too?" he says with a small look of horror, as if I'm on the verge of seriously skewing some grand cuisine plan.

I tell him no. He tells me I'm in the way. He needs room, counter space, floor space; he has laid claim to the bulk of our kitchen real estate.

"For eggs?" I say.

"I care about the eggs," he says. "I care about our children. This is problematic for you?"

"I'm going to feed the dogs," I say.

Maybe a lot of couples share child-raising chores, performing daily tasks such as feeding and bathing and teeth brushing as a team while they whistle and sing. But in our house, it never works that way. We have different styles, different goals.

If I were making the eggs, I would crack, scramble, salt, plop. It would all be over by now. Of course, the children never ask me to make the eggs.

"Woo-hoo!" I shout, my special "come and get it!" dog call to our two hungry mutts. Actually, only one is a mutt. The other, Marley, is a standard poodle. You'd think he'd be the finicky one; poodles have that froufrou reputation for being the sort of animals that might secretly yearn for weekly manicures. But no. Marley will kill himself a groundhog for lunch. Betty, the mutt, has a misshapen esophagus, and the vet says that's why she's so finicky. He says I should put her food bowl on a little stool so she won't have to bend over so far to get to it and the food won't have to fight gravity going down.

Okay, now the father is asking the children what color eggs they want. "Green, orange or blue?" he asks. "Remember, I have a hard time getting a good blue." Long ago he started adding food coloring to eggs, just for fun. It might have been a Dr. Seuss thing, I don't know. Ever since, the children have come to expect it. I have expressed concern. I think you can make food too entertaining. You can create children who won't just wolf down the good healthy classics you put before them if you make everything special and exciting.

"Green!" says the easy child. "Blue!" says the more demanding child. "With streaks!"