With my family being in a different state than myself for seven days, I regret to report that I do not have a picture to post for Wordless Wednesday this week. I hope to remedy this by possibly posting a Wordless Saturday instead.

One of my favorite things to do on a Sunday morning is read the newspaper. This doesn’t usually take much time. Aside from local news relating to my county, I typically just read a couple comic strips and peruse the ads. Anything newsworthy from a national or worldly level, I’ve already read online the day before.

A recent Sunday morning found Tyler sitting in his highchair with breakfast, while I settled into my newspaper reading routine. I prepared a wonderful meal of eggs, ham, and a pancake for my little man. And ketchup. He has to have ketchup to dip his eggs into. And his ham. And his pancake. He gets his taste for ketchup from his mother. I never use it, unless it comes pre-slopped on a Whopper. Otherwise, I don’t touch the stuff. I held onto a secret hope that Tyler wouldn’t like it the first time it was offered, but after personally witnessing him grab a handful of applesauce, dip it into ketchup, and slurp it into his mouth, my little bubble of hope burst ever so silently into an infinity of nothingness.

On this particular morning, Tyler brought his bottomless pit of a stomach to the table. He eats some meals then tells us that he’s all done. And he has some meals where we seriously start to wonder if he has forgotten how to say that he’s all done and is confusing that sign with “more”. This meal was the latter.

“More more more,” he would sign.

Wiggling both of my hands, I asked a leading question. “Are you sure you don’t mean ‘all done?’”

“More more more,” he signed again. This time he followed up by pointing to the bananas on the table.

“Do you want a banana?”

“Dath.”

To drive his point home, Tyler started bouncing in his chair. I peeled a banana, cut it in half and gave one of the two pieces to Tyler. I returned to the newspaper. I looked up after a few moments as I turned the page, and saw Tyler choking. I jumped up and ran to him. Before I got close enough to smash my hand into his back, he was able to dislodge the banana-mush on his own. I pondered exactly how many years have been subtracted from my life due to Tyler’s little escapade. One would think that Tyler would ruminate on the events that triggered his momentary choking. One would be wrong. Instead, Tyler went to work in cramming what was left of the banana into his mouth. And before he had a chance to chew it, he started pointing at the second half of the banana resting on the table.

To his credit, and much to my relief, Tyler took bites and chewed the second half. I watched Tyler adoringly as he took his final bite…

“More more more,” he signed.