A Good, if Incomplete, Snack

In the car on the way home from swimming, the boys were both very hungry, and we had one banana left. Daniel had eaten two bananas already, and Ian hadn't had any, so I gave Ian the banana. Daniel had a mini-meltdown at this perceived injustice, so Ian, in a fit of magnanimity-mixed-with-wackiness, offered to "mash" the banana and share it with Daniel. In the tradition of Amelia Bedelia, who famously "mashed" a banana by crushing it still inside its peel and handed it to a baby, following very literally the written directions to feed her baby-sitting charge a "mashed banana," Ian similarly "mashed" the last remaining banana from without, and then opened up the peel and shared the squishy fruits of his labor with his brother, both profusely licking their fingers.

This is a familiar "recipe" for Ian, one discussed previously, which he perfected at home, adding an extra ingredient to enhance the taste and texture of the dish, improving quite creatively on Amelia Bedelia's brilliant creation. However, in the car, he didn't have the extra ingredient to put the compelling zing into the final product, and he reflected on this in his commentary:

''I've had better-tasting ones... The better-tasting ones had sugar in them."

(July 9, 2011)