"We had cookie."

Okay, when you read the above statement, what does it mean to you?

Yesterday, I attended a lunch wherein I gave feedback on a physics text I used in my physics classes, and so Richie took Vivian to lunch. I had to go to the doctor unexpectedly and didn't have time to pack a lunch, so I packed some sides, two oranges and a giant cookie, to be add-ons for whatever Richie decided to get for lunch. I assumed that might be a Subway sandwich.

When Richie and Vivian picked me up after lunch, I noticed the cookie hadn't been eaten. Richie and I quietly finished the cookie without offering any to Vivian. We dropped Richie off at his job, and as Vivian and I pulled away, Vivian said, "Daddy said we were going to have cookie after lunch."

Ugh! Richie promised cookie and then ate it and let me eat it and didn't tell me that it had already been promised to Vivian! I felt disappointed with Richie and guilty toward Vivian for eating the cookie. So I resolved we'd swing by the grocery store on the way home and purchase some manner of cookie for Vivian. I told Vivian that we didn't have any cookie with us right now, but we'd stop and get some cookies. To which she replied, "Daddy said we had cookie!" She kept insisting, and I kept saying, we don't have cookie NOW, but we're about to get some...so please settle down already! By the time we were at the grocery store, her rhetoric had simplified somewhat to, "We HAD cookie!"

We got out of the car and the change of scenery seemed to quiet Vivian. We grabbed a package of Hit cookies, paid, and left. When we got back in the car, I asked Vivian what she ate for lunch. She replied, "Wrap and potato salad." I KNOW the wrap and potato salad meal. It comes from the very grocery store we had just been in, and I know the third component of the meal that Vivian hadn't mentioned (or had she?): Cookies. So I changed my line of questioning. "Vivian, did you already eat a cookie today?" She said, "You mean with Daddy?" "Yes, with Daddy." "Uh - just one cookie. I TOLD you. We had cookie."

AHHHHHH! She had already had cookie! I turned to look at her to see what sort of expression she'd be wearing after all this. She was trying her best to suppress a smile, then it sort of eeked out the side and she looked out the window as if there was something really interesting out there. She is a mess. And she got ONE more cookie before naptime.