This is one of those stories about my kid that seems funny to me. But I’m not sure if it’s actually funny or funny only to me, because I’m his mom and I think everything he does is either infuriating or hilarious.
Let me know what you think: Funny, or only funny to his mom?
First, this happened:
But then, instead of getting a coconut, we stopped at a park and let the kids run around for an hour and a half to get their wiggles out. By the time we got back into the car, he seemed to have forgotten about the inexplicable coconut obsession. I was relieved, because 1) I don’t like the taste of coconut and was very unmotivated to satisfy this particular curiosity, and 2) I doubted the grocery store even HAD coconuts and I didn’t want to deal with the tantrum and try to convince him to buy a bag of shredded coconut instead. I was also naive, because what three year old has ever forgotten about anything they want, ever.
Two weeks later, my son brought up the coconut again.
I picked him up from daycare and he said, “You know what we didn’t do? We didn’t get a coconut.” My heart started pounding as I started thinking once again about the likelihood that our local grocery store would carry coconuts. My palms started sweating, picturing my afternoon/evening unfurling in front of me, driving from store to store with two kids, trying to locate a coconut.
I could have just said no. I could have driven home and NOT gotten a coconut. But would that have been worth it? The tradeoff would have been about two hours of anger and yelling and negotiations and begging me to get a coconut. I didn’t want to deal with it.
Thankfully, the first grocery store we checked had a beautiful display of full coconuts in the produce section. I tried to grab just one, but my son insisted we get two, one for him and one for his sister. I grabbed two because see above.
I Googled “how to open a coconut” and got out a hammer:
I opened it on my first try!
My son liked the part where I placed the coconuts in the driveway and used a corkscrew to drain the coconut milk. He loved the part where I smashed them open with a hammer.
He was absolutely furious when he saw what was inside:
I wasn’t sure why he was so mad. I figured it was the usual little kid stuff: He was mad because he was mad, and that’s that.
But then he said, “I want a coconut like the one at grandma’s house!”
I racked my brain. Do either of the grandmas feed him coconuts? Have either of them taken him to a tropical island?
Then it dawned on me. My mom’s favorite dessert.
He was mad because he thought this is what coconuts look like:
In conclusion, back to the grocery store we went.