Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

Friday, August 10, 2007

Rice Rice....Everywhere!!

As some of you readers may know, dinner times are almost a ceremonial like time for us everyday. We all look forward to congregate at our dinner table and EAT! Our family loves to eat and we eat with speed. We can finish a three course meal in less than 10 minutes even though it took one hour to cook and then another thirty minutes to clean the dishes. My son is well known as a very messy eater. If a stranger walks in to our home, they would immediately know who sits where at the dinner table. We are an Asian family and one constant food that we consume almost everyday is rice. Rice is sticky and it can get very messy. My son is a great rice lover and in fact we can foresee that his future wife must know at least how to cook rice which means the girl would most likely be Asian. My son would always finish his rice first, ask for more then starts on his veggies and meat.

From my other blog site, www.patientking.blogspot.com, I have stated the fact that my son has a weird habit of stopping in the middle of a meal and goes to the bathroom to make a deposit. Well he does that and the result is a trail of rice all over the place. I mean it's rice rice everywhere!! I decided to resolve this dilemma by telling him a sort of traditional story with a little twist. One night, during story time before bed, we were sitting at our regular reading spot next to his bed. Our home is carpeted so it's very comfortable sitting on the carpet floor. As I start to read the book, I notice a speck of dry up rice on the carpet. I told my son to take a look and ask him where did the rice come from. He said, he didn't know. I told him it's because you don't clean or pad yourself down each time after the meal and you leave a trail of rice. If the rice don't get picked up, then it will dry up like this one and then guess what will happen.

My son looked at me with his innocent big brown eyes and said, "what daddy..what!?" "Remember the book about ants..the ones with big shinny smiley teeth, they love rice. Do you want them to come here at night because they can smell rice all over this place and mistaken you for a big pellet of rice and carry you away? so what must we do each time after a meal or if we still see a little piece of rice on the floor?" My son stopped for a second and had a little uncomfortable distress look on his face and began to say, "I have to pick up the rice and throw it away". I told him that's right! son. Well the story didn't end there, that night my son had a hard time falling asleep. We thought it was just him being a boy full of energy. He just simply refused to go to sleep. Finally, after a few hours of battling, he finally falls asleep.

Around 3 am that morning, I was awaken by a strange noise. I went out to look around and found my little guy looking at the floor very attentively with great care as if he was looking for a lost contact lens. I ask him, "son! why aren't you asleep. It's still dark outside." He said to me, "daddy... I don't want to get carried away by the ants. They have shinny big teeth! so I don't want no more rice here".. I just gave him a smile and said to him, it's OK, if the ants come, they will carry your mommy away first since she knows how to cook the rice." He looked at me with such relief on his eyes and almost instantaneously fell asleep on the carpet floor. Around 8 am he woke up and immediately came into our room to make sure Mommy was still around.

I remember my dad told me a similar story except it was a giant gross looking bad dragon instead of ants. It was a lot scarrier and I was up several nights!

23 comments:

Anonymous said...

I remember stories as well. Great memories.

Anonymous said...

This is so heart warming. You have a great family.

Anonymous said...

I am going to try your story with my son too..but with a little twist..we don't eat rice that much..but buritos can be very messy too.

Anonymous said...

My dad used to scare me to death with bed time stories but it was great time because he would come back in the middle of night with a cup of warm milk.

Anonymous said...

I am a single dad and find your blog amusing. I love the stories. It's obvious you have a great relationship with your son because of your relationship with your dad.
You are very fortunate.

Anonymous said...

Your stories are always comforting to the new dad's like me. Thanks for posting.

Anonymous said...

I once try that with my son and he kept me up all night. It wasn't fun. I had a very important meeting that next morning in which I was almost telling them the same story as I told my son the night before.

mommy of 3 angels said...

my lil girl also love rice, but i have not told her this funny rice story. great story, scare her to eat more carefully!!! hahahaha

i tag u!

Anonymous said...

We love rice at our home but not to the point of each meal yet but you are right about the messy eating. I love your story and will be tweaking it to fit my little boy. He is scared of rats and loves his mommy.

Anonymous said...

I am going to borrow your story tonite. Hope it works otherwise I won't be sleeping much. Love your casual style of writing and sharing.

Anonymous said...

I used to tell my little one a similar story but eventually he outgrew it because he started burning the ant mounds outside our home. The fire department even came out since the smoke started building at our backyard. Ah...memories.....

Simon said...

I'm a great rice lover too. It is just too tasty to pass.

Anonymous said...

Cool graphics but even cooler sharing of your many experiences.

Anonymous said...

Bed time stories were my son's favorite time with me. It was my favorite with him as well. We try to stay away from scary stories, but sometimes we couldn't resist the temptations. Keep posting your stories and thanks for sharing.

Anonymous said...

No wonder I got ants! My son just got hooked on rice. He likes his rice very sticky as well and he is barely 13 months old. He's been crawling around the house with rice all over his face.

Anonymous said...

As a dad, I fully identify and appreciate you. Thanks for posting.

Anonymous said...

We are a family of rice lovers and we pick up after ourselves, so no issue with ants but we do have aunts that we try to get rid of. Any ideas? I don't think a scary story would do. You have a gift in writing and I enjoy it very much.

waliz said...

hey..my third daughter Nini have this habbits too..go to the toilet in the middle of the meal..i always wonder where she got tht habbits..now looks like she got herself a new clubmember..

Unknown said...

First time I'm reading a daddy's blog. It's a little strange at first to be seeing this from the OTHER side since my hubby doesn't talk about parenting much. Great job here Dad!

Anonymous said...

All your stories are very witty. In our household,it's bread instead of rice. Bread crums are a problem too and thank goodness we have a dog name vaccuum!

Anonymous said...

Good writing.

Anonymous said...

Great stories and great memories. It is so refreshing to find another loving dad who obviously loves and enjoys spending time with his son.

Good job Dad

Anonymous said...

I like how you blend the graphics to bring out your writings. Good job. We are a family of rice eaters as well. My son is 10 and he still leaves a trail.