Ask anyone in my house if they want a vitamin C and you’ll get
an earful. Just ask my husband. He’ll chuckle and eagerly accept
the offer and chew it up with a smile.
”
See, it’s fine
”
he’ll confirm. Uh
… yeah, easy for him to say.
Ask anyone in my house if they want a vitamin C and you’ll get an earful. Just ask my husband. He’ll chuckle and eagerly accept the offer and chew it up with a smile. “See, it’s fine” he’ll confirm. Uh … yeah, easy for him to say.
Not too long ago he decided that the kids needed a boost of vitamin C and brought home a big bottle that he got “a really good deal” on. I think he was rather proud of himself for taking the initiative to offer them a healthy supplement to their diets. He strutted through the house with the bottle in his hand rattling out two tablets at a time and handing them to the kids as he called out to them. “Here you go, eat these” he said as he opened his palm. “It’s vitamin C.”
The kids are familiar with this popular vitamin and each in turn eagerly popped them into their mouths and scampered off to wherever they came from. For a few moments everything was as it should be. My husband looked proud of what he had done and relished in his fatherly contribution to their health. Then my 13-year-old daughter, who by the way never complains about anything unless it’s very serious, wandered back into the room, still chewing very slowly and said, “this doesn’t taste very good” with a funny look on her face. I didn’t think too much of it. She’s usually a pretty mellow kid and I figured it just didn’t blend well with the taste of a piece of gum she may have taken out of her mouth while she chewed her vitamin. I was willing to let it go without comment when I heard my 15-year-old daughter charge to the bathroom choking and gagging. She articulated her discontentment with the taste and spit into the sink many, many times, uttering graphic descriptions of the unsavory flavor in between. Now I have to get involved and Dad is slightly annoyed at this point wondering why they had to be so dramatic. “Maybe it’s a different brand” he announced in the midst of all kinds of commotion, with one child racing to the kitchen for water and the other gulping desperately from the bathroom faucet. I started wondering if they really were just being dramatic or maybe the tablets were expired.
Suddenly it dawned on me what the problem was and I asked my husband if had bought “chewable” vitamin C. He looked offended or maybe surprised and asked, “Is there any other kind?” Then he took a closer look at the label.
Well folks, there are indeed nonchewable vitamin C products out there and my children can tell you exactly how they taste. “Oops” he said. And then he laughed. Actually we both did. What else can you do? I offered the girls mouthwash and let them verbally pound on their Dad for a while. Boy did he get it. “Dad you tried to poison us.” Oh they went on and on, and he took it like a trooper. We all got a good laugh out of it and then I realized that my 8-year-old son was in another room and had never said a word. When I asked him if he had eaten his vitamin C, he apathetically answered,” yep.” Because of his lack of repulsion, I ask my second question with a combination of curiosity and apprehension. “Did you like it?” I softly asked. He casually replied, “It was good.”
OK, this is not right. I started to panic a little thinking that something was wrong with him. Both girls appeared in the doorway and before I could say anything they told him it was not a chewable vitamin … and he didn’t care. I literally stood there with 50 things going through my head about dead taste buds and how that explained why he hated my meatloaf. His taste buds were dead. I decided in that moment to just walk away. I didn’t need to know why he liked the nonchewable vitamin C. I opted to savor the moment as it renewed my motivation to serve delicious, baked, meaty meals.
To this day, you better believe that any time someone hands out the vitamin C around here, at least two voices pipe up, “is it the chewable kind?” prompting my husband to snicker, grin and apologize for the umpteenth time for doing something the “Dad way.”
