The Thinking Minority

An interesting consequence of having extended family help around the house: stuff gets done differently, and your kids notice. Davis, at three years old, spends a lot of his time learning about how the world works, where things belong, and the right way for everything to be. He has discovered how to ask "why." He has not discovered how to stop.

Davis enjoys apple juice. He has recently taken to calling it ape-l juice, and delights in the notion that one must squeeze an ape to produce it. Since a single cup of AJ could provide Davis with more than 100% of his daily sugar intake, Mrs. Z and I dilute it to 50% strength. Still, he goes through a lot of it, so we buy it in the largest size available at the grocery store, which is roughly a barrel. Okay, maybe I'm exaggerating, but I think I saw Davis doing AJ keg stands the other day while his infant sister chanted "Chug! Chug! Chug!"

But I digress.

The AJ keg is difficult to pour in small amounts, so for months we kept a smaller half-gallon AJ container in the fridge, filling it halfway with straight AJ and then topping it off with water. That would keep us going for a few days, and then we'd wash it, refill it, and repeat.

This system went fine for a while, and then Sara was born, and Grandmother came to visit for a week. Grandmother was an enormous help, and kept Mrs. Z and I sane by doing everything that needed doing while we sat on the veranda and sipped juleps. (You missed a spot there, Grandmother.) Grandmother reached the end of the half-gallon apel juice container and, having recently discovered the location of our recycling bins, recycled the container. Like a sane person.

An hour or two later, I was in the kitchen filling a Davis-sized order for juice, and could not find the AJ container. After brief consultation with Grandmother and a short period of mourning for the lost bottle, I wrestled with the keg and poured half a small-sized cup of apple juice.

The apple juice container now unavailable, Grandmother had a brilliant idea: premixed, diluted apple juice doesn't have to be in a container marked "Apple Juice;" any container will do. So that's how, Saturday afternoon, I would up pouring Davis a cup of apple juice from a bottle clearly labeled, "Simply Orange." Of course, Davis noticed the change:

"May I have some apel juice, pwease?" (Davis has trouble with "l" and "r.")
"Yes, you may." [Removes OJ container from refrigerator.]
"What's dat?" (He's not so good with "th," either.)
"It's apple juice."
"No, no, no — it's owange juice!"
"It's apple juice, but it's in an orange juice container."
"But, but, but ... " [Splutters.]

Here I paused. Was I really about to say what I was about to say?

"Davis, listen to me. I know the container says orange juice, but this is apple juice. It's not the container that matters. It's what's on the inside that counts."

I'm not sure what lesson I imparted there, but I can think of three possibilities:
1. What's on the outside and what's on the inside are two different things, so you can't judge the inside by how the outside looks.
2. You can't trust what authority figures say something is; you have to experience it yourself to really understand it.
3. Apple juice is yummy, and no one gives a crap what the bottle looks like.

I hope he gets at least some measure of all three.