The Boy is a good eater. To say that is perhaps the ultimate understatement of our family. Sure, the Girl is theatrical; K is dedicated; Tata plays chess — all of these are understatements, but they are gross exaggerations in comparison to “the Boy is a good eater.”

All families, I guess, have the good eaters and the bad eaters. L leans toward the latter. True, she likes things most kids her age wouldn’t touch (beetroot soup comes to mind) but she detests things that most kids her age adore (hamburgers and hot dogs come to mind). The Boy, on the other hand, will eat just about anything he sees us eating, and his favorites are some of the very items that L detests, like broccoli. This is often advantageous to them both, for she’ll leave her three spears of broccoli on the plate for the very last minute, and occasionally the Boy, long done with his own dinner, will hop about for a while, roll about on his little four-wheeler, then abruptly jump up, dash to the table, and steal a broccoli spear.

Tonight, though, the Girl was with Nana and Papa for dinner, and the Boy had all the broccoli he could eat. He sat, holding each spear as if it were a lollipop, munching it down to the end, then simultaneously grabbing another and pointing to K’s pile of green. He ate all of his and half of hers.

For his encore later this evening, he pulled a chair over to the counter by the stove and clamored up to grab one of the remaining crab cakes we’d had for dinner. It took him half an hour of playing then eating, playing then eating, but he ate almost the whole thing. When offered the final bite, he stood thoughtfully for a moment, then shook his head. “Nah,” he squeaked and ran to the living room to look for a mess to make.