No, wait. I don't think I'm explaining that very well.
Okay, look: I went by Sonic to get dinner for myself and the three-year-old last night. The three-year-old told me that he wanted milk ("wif a straw and a lid") when we got home. So, when we got home, I naturally went to pour him a cup of milk, preparatory to putting a lid on the cup, and a straw through the little hole in the lid.
Easy, right?
Something is... wrong... with the milk. There are... clumps of dark sediment... floating in it.
This looks suspiciously like what happens when you try to mix the hot cocoa powder into cold milk.
Don't ask me how I know that. Trust me. I. Know.
And, in precisely the same way that I know that this is chocolate, I know exactly how it got into our milk jug. I know, beyond any reasonable doubt, exactly who put it there... and, contrary to what some people might assert, it was not the cats.
This means that person who put the chocolate into the milk is the very same person who is now asking for a cup of milk. Which means that it doesn't really matter whether he poured the chocolate directly into the jug, or whether he had a cup of chocolate(d) milk that he poured into the jug. Whatever germs are in there, they're his.
So I go to pour him him a cup of his homebrewed, chocolatish milk.
It is at this precise moment, with a cup on the table before me and a jug of milk tilted to pour, that I discovered that the chocolate was not the only thing in the milk jug.
There was also a straw.
I discovered this as it emerged from the top of the jug, carrying its own special, randomly-aimed stream of slightly chocolate milk. It was a matter of purest luck that I noticed in time to prevent utter catastrophe.
Secondborn has agreed never to put chocolate in the milk again. I have explained that this will make me very happy for a very long time. Secondborn has decided that that will make him very happy for a very long time.
Whether he'll remember that vow tomorrow is anybody's guess.
Chocolate syrup makes for much better homemade chocolate milk than hot cocoa mix. Still not as good as pre-chocolated store-bought, but better.
ReplyDeleteOr, if you're willing to have it take longer and be more complicated to make in exchange for it feeling like more of an accomplishment, soak Cocoa Puffs in the milk until the Puffs have been reduced to tasteless mush. Eat the mush, taking as little milk as possible with it, then put fresh ones in to repeat the process. (Two or three bowls of cereal per bowl of milk should be about right, depending on personal taste.) This is the sole purpose of Cocoa Puffs.
I fear the day when Secondborn discovers Cocoa Puffs.
ReplyDelete