who are you...and what have you done with my e?

Monday is John's day in Baltimore...so I get the girls fed and John and I eat after they go to bed. Last night, I served them up the Slacker stand-by -- Pasta, Peas and Parmasean Cheese. John's Aunt Kathleen had sent the girls some cute summertime dinnerware, so the girls got their pasta in the melamine bowls with the matching ladybug forks.

As I put the bowls down in front of the girls, the rumblings of trouble began.

"Mommy, which bowl do I have?" E asked me.

"Uh...the orange one?" I answered. I didn't know what she was getting at, but I knew it wasn't going to be good.

"No, Mama. Do I have the butterfly bowl or the catepillar bowl?" E asked.

"E, I have no clue," I honestly told her. "I guess you'll just have to eat all of your dinner to find out."

Because, really, I hadn't noticed what, if anything, was on the bottom of the bowls. But E totally notices crap stuff like that. For months she would ask if we were going to the "green" Target or the "blue" Target. We had no idea what she was talking about until one day I realized that, lo and behold!, one entrance was green and one entrance was blue. Go figure.

"Mommy! I have the catepillar bowl! I don't want the catepillar bowl...I want the butterfly bowl!"

"Why not?" I ask...trying to stave off the impending tantrum.

"Because, Mommy! I like butterflies! But I don't like catepillars!"

"But, E," I reply, "don't you know that catepillars are baby butterflies? Just like in The Very Hungry Catepillar, when the catepillar eats and eats and eats and turns into a beee-you-tiful butterfly? So you both have butterfly bowls...yours is just a baby butterfly."

Then, the most amazing thing happens. Instead of insisting that I switch her bowl with A, E turned to me and says,

"Oh. Okay, Mommy. I guess I'll just keeping eating out of the catepillar bowl."

Crisis averted. All the while serving a healthy and nutritious dinner AND teaching the girls about science.

I am SuperMom.