Biting My Tongue

"Mom?"

The voice came as I was in the kitchen, working over the island.

"Yes, babe?" She's so cute these days, so very grown up, yet such a little girl at the same time. Transforming before our eyes, it is amazing.

"Mom, what's for lunch?" Ah, yes, these kids are definitely on a schedule. Five minutes before lunch and they are already thinking of the next part of their day.

"We're having pizza!" A rare treat, and I am just as excited as they will be.

"Pizza!" the excitement is evident in her voice, and she pauses, mouth open in a child-Oscar-performance worthy surprise, "for reals?!?"

Proud of my choice, as I love giving the kids things they think are cool, I show her the pizza-pan, straight out of the oven. "Yup, it's right here!"

She looks at it and pauses. Five-year-old judgement drips from her voice, "Wait, Mom, did you make that, or did you buy it?" And the magic has ended.

I stare her down. The stare that adults would understand as "are you freaking kidding me?!? Do you want to sass me? Because if you get picky about your pizza, you can go hungry!" But, alas, the child-like innocence in her just stares on, oblivious to the yelling at her that is occurring in my head.

"I bought it. And then I cooked it."

A huge sigh escapes her. "Mom, Auntie Jessica makes her own pizza. For reals makes it, like all of it. She makes the whole thing." A small sliver of me is proud, that I have raised my daughter to understand that homemade is better, and processed foods are not the norm. But a much larger part of me suddenly flashes to the part in a Knight's Tale, where Heath Ledger wins the joust, and his men stand over the bad guy and tell him, "You have been weighed. You have been measured. And you have been found wanting."

"Well, Auntie Jessica does not have four small children running around. Auntie Jess doesn't do two loads of laundry a day. Auntie Jess does not have to spend hours searching for stuff that you claimed that you put away, but actually didn't. Auntie Jess used to cook in a restaurant. Auntie Jess is not cooler than me just because she makes her own pizza, you little brat!"

"Mom?!?" She snaps me out of my daydream. I realize that I haven't actually responded yet. "Did you hear me?" Her voice softens back to childhood innocence. "Auntie Jess makes her own pizza. Could we do that sometime?"

I force a smile. She's still learning the right way to ask, and got it right that last time. "Sure, babe. Maybe we will have Auntie Jessica over some night and she can show us how, OK?"

Her pure delight brought her back from sassy-teenage-dom, and all is right with the world again. And we ate store bought pizza with joy.