A Momentous Occasion

I could be talking about the fact that Chet is now 29 years old. Or I could be talking about the fact that he just finished his last exam of the year, marking the half-way point in his degree. But I'm talking about something that could quite possibly top all of this and might even go down in history...

Ladan ate real beef for the first time in his whole life!!! (I'm not counting the baby food version that looks and smells like it should be labeled refried beans. Plus, he hasn't eaten that since he was barely a year old.) And it wasn't just one bite... it was something like 6 or 7 whole bites that he actually chewed AND swallowed!!!!

Before tonight, he has only eaten chicken in surprisingly small portions and usually only in the form of poppyseed chicken. There have been about three or four other occasions where he's eaten popcorn-like chicken (i.e. from Chick-Fil-A), but other than that, it's poppyseed chicken or nothing. So I'd say that he's probably eaten chicken a total of about 20 times in his life. And I have to remind you that, outside of a few successful poppyseed chicken meals, he's only eaten about three bites total at each of these 20 sittings. But he has ALWAYS spit out his beef, turkey, pork, fish, etc. He even finds it in spaghetti sauce, eats around it, and spits out the meat.

So you can see why we were shocked when we sat down for our meal at Cheddar's (in celebration of Chet's birthday and the end of the semester) and Ladan asked for a bite of Chet's steak. Chet actually told him that he probably wouldn't like it. He wasn't being selfish. You'd say this too if your kid spit his food out in public all the time because he didn't like the texture. It's disgusting, and it's why our almost-three-year-old still wears a bib when he eats. Anyway, when he asked a second time, Chet agreed... and the kid ATE IT!!!!

Chet and I concurred that this was quite possibly the best birthday surprise he could have received... a son who is no longer a carbetarian (we couldn't call him a vegetarian, because we struggle to get him to eat veggies too--thank goodness for fruit!). I felt compelled to document the occasion with a few photos so we could prove it to those of you who know Ladan.

There IS meat on that fork!

Eagerly waiting for ANOTHER bite!