A few weeks ago, we took our son to Gallery Hop, a monthly event down town where you walk around to all of the galleries, sip wine, and pretend you are all sophisticated. Well, things are a little different now that we have a 3 year-old. The word “sophisticated” is no longer in our vocabularies unless we are referring to our son in jest.
So, rather than sipping wine, we went to a fancy chocolate shop. You know, one of those candy shops where one piece costs the same as a bag of chocolate anywhere else. We told Edison he could pick one piece. Without pause, he pointed to a chocolate butterfly, painted with an iridescent blue foil.
“Blue butterfly,” he told the chocolatier.
The woman behind the counter, obviously a little taken-aback that a little boy would choose a butterfly, assumed he hadn’t seen the other options.
“Oh,” she said. “Did you see these?” She pointed to a batch of chocolate Frankensteins. (It was around Halloween.)
“No,” Edison said firmly. “Blue butterfly.”
Then, she directed his attention to some chocolate balls that were painted to look like eyeballs.
Edison raised his voice. “No. Blue butterfly!”
The woman finally acquiesced. My husband and I chose our own chocolates, trying not to read too much into the fact that our son wanted a butterfly instead of something a little more boyish.
We sat down, and Edison excitedly grabbed his butterfly. He pretended to fly it around a bit and then finally took a bite. His face fell and his smile melted into a frown.
“Oh…” he said disappointedly. “It tastes like chocolate…”
We never even considered the possibility that he thought it would taste like butterfly. I guess this explains why he didn’t choose the eyeballs.