Break through (almost)

So, Tali has this thing where she is completely grossed out by thought of food mixing, or touching, or otherwise becoming contaminated by the texture or flavor of another food... which means that she cannot keep herself from wiping her fork off between bites, especially if she is switching from one food item to another. Naturally, this handicap combined with the fact that Tali eats like a bird anyway, means that Zach almost always wins the clean-plate contests in our house.

But not tonight. It was a changing of the guard of sorts. The triumph of the underdog. And a break through for Tali as she realized she COULD eat a piece of potato and ...gasp... take a bite of scrambled eggs without doing dishes in between! This was such a big deal that she actually exclaimed "Look! I didn't wipe my fork!" And I pointed out that for the first time in recent memory, she was actually beating Zach in the clean-your-plate-contest.

But as with everything involving Tali, there's a catch. Apparently, her OCD will allow her to eat a piece of hash brown potato and then move on to the scrambled eggs without wiping. But it doesn't work in reverse. When I pointed out that she was cleaning her fork after a bite of scrambled eggs she looked at me incredulously and said "Couldn't you see all the ketchup on my fork?"

Uh, sorry.

The end result, however, was that Tali did defeat the Titan. She did get to pick the after-dinner-viewing for the evening. And Zach was okay with that. He promptly proclaimed that he let her win because he got to pick last night... or so he thought (see last night's entry). And Tali got to have her picture taken for my blog. Which I secretly think was her motive for wanting to win tonight anyway. I'm not sure what gives me that idea, the sudden change in heart... or her standing up in the chair with her clean plate and saying "get your camera, mommy".