Breakfast With The Birds

I’m trying to get Kai, my three-year-old granddaughter, to eat breakfast.

It’s not going well.

She spears bite-sized bits of pancake, and smooshes them into her maple syrup.

Coaxing doesn’t help — neither does scolding.

I make up a story about Minnie Mouse coming to Kai’s for a sleepover. She listens wide-eyed. I play “Wheels on the bus.” She sings along.

But she doesn’t eat.

So, I wheel her high chair to the back door, where she can look out into the garden.

She stops singing.

She cocks her head this way and that. She peers at the grackles rooting for worms in the grass. At leaves shimmying in the breeze. At squirrels skipping along the fence.

She picks up a morsel of pancake. And puts it in her mouth —

Mother Nature has tricks up her sleeve that I don’t.