“Hannah, get down here! It’s time for dinner!” my mom shouted at me through the two floors that separated us.
“Be down in a minute!” I shouted back. I paused my show and exited out of Netflix, but before I turned off my computer, I glanced at the time, which was only 5:32. My mom had to be at work by 6:30 and my dad would be too late to get us food at a reasonable time so on Thursdays we always ate ridiculously early. I wasn’t even hungry.

I took my time getting up and going down the stairs, the smell of reheated fried chicken, broccoli, and mashed potatoes wafting my face. I arrived in the kitchen and they had started without me, my mom wearily spooning food into Emily’s mouth, Jack shoveling it down (the only dinner food he likes is breaded chicken) and Rachel just sitting there with this obstinate look on her face, the one only three year olds can achieve properly. She might as well have been crossing her arms and rolling her eyes, as I would’ve done.

So, I approached the table warily, as if it were a bomb about to go off. If only I knew.
It was silent for a few moments after I sat, until my mom broke it by saying, “So, what were you doing all that time up in your palace up there? Homework?” I guess I should explain. My bedroom is on the otherwise unoccupied third floor, or “penthouse suite” as my parents refer to it, and to get away from my overly large family I spend a good amount of my time up there.

“Nothing interesting,” I replied.

“That means watching TV on her new computer,” mom said, turning to Emily as she spoke. Emily made no response other than to turn her face at the food she was being fed, mashed potato. As my mom tried further to tempt her into opening her mouth, she began to scream with that annoying reedy high-pitched voice only babies have while somehow keeping the spoon out of her mouth.

“What are you doing? You normally like mashed potato,” my mom said regretfully, getting up to grab something she would eat (maybe).

Meanwhile, Jack was blabbering on about how he was gonna just die because of his massive homework load and how it was just impossible and how no one would help him because he never got any attention in this family yadda yadda yadda. What I was wondering was how he expected anyone to hear him, let alone listen and comprehend him, when Emily was kicking up such a fuss.

I turned back to my mom, who was just looking so exhausted that I knew I just had to step in somewhere. My options:
1.
Jack and his first grade homework.
2.
Emily and whatever she was irrationally screaming about this time (she’d turned down all of my mom’s food options and she’d lost her patience, instead turning to her own neglected dinner).
Or,
3.
My sister and her untouched plate of food
Well, Jack’s homework couldn’t be done at the dinner table, and if Emily rejected my mom, I had no chance, so I went with option number three, Rachel.

I speared a piece of broccoli on my fork and popped it in my mouth, chewing it with gusto while preventing a wince at its dry and unattractively bland taste, and swallowed saying, “So good! Rachel, why don’t you try some?” with my voice going up half an octave in the white lie.

“I don’t like it!” she replied stubbornly, curling her little fingers into fists and furrowing her tiny eyebrows in concentration.

“Well you won’t know that until you try it,” I said, using the famous parent cop out.

She looked at me blankly, processing my words, then said, “I don’t like it. I want something else,” but with less gusto. I was winning!

“Well I know that you’re hungry, you never eat any lunch at school, and you’re not going to get anything else until you eat at least one piece of broccoli,” I said, as convincingly as I could.

“I want something else!” she whined. I could almost see victory. Though my mom was definitely facing defeat, Emily was still screaming, with my mom half wincing at every new shriek.

“If you eat a piece of broccoli, you can get a treat after dinner, but if you don’t, you won’t get anything.”

“A treat?” she asked questioningly.

“Yep,” I replied, “Whatever you want, ice cream . . . popsicles . . . cookies-

“Cookies!” she interrupted me.

“Yep, if you eat your dinner, you can get a cookie.” I replied, basking in the sun of my win.

“I want my treat!” she said fiercely.

Maybe not yet. “You have to eat you broccoli first,” I said, disappointedly.

“But I don’t like broccoli!” she said, bringing us back to square one.

And Miracle Mom steps in, having subdued Emily for a short moment, saying, “Rachel, if you don’t eat some of your dinner, you’re going to go to bed right after dinner with no story, no treat, and an empty stomach. Trust me, that’s not going to be fun. So just make it easy on the rest of us and just eat your dinner.”

“But I don’t like it,” she said, back to the whining.

While she was saying that, Emily began screaming again, and I, who was personally very done with the whole screaming thing, took off the high chair tray and unbuckled her to pick her up and rock her, which generally calms her down. But of course, because I wasn’t mom, she struggled like I was trying to put her in handcuffs.

“Come on Rachel, its good, you’re gonna like it!” I encouraged best I could, as Jack got up and went to the bathroom.

Rachel’s head falls forward, facing the food on her plate, and an unforgettable expression of disgust ripples over her face. Nevertheless, she picks up her hand and skewers the miniscule piece of broccoli with her fork, bringing it up to her mouth.

She looks up, and her face said, “Do I really have to?” yet she somehow managed to put the fork up to her lips and take a bite the size of a pinch of salt. Then, she chewed it and, grimacing, swallowed it, or tried to.

While me and mom were busy celebrating, (Rachel, eating broccoli? Nothing short of a miracle) Rachel was gagging, struggling between swallowing and regurgitating the broccoli. Mom noticed in time, and said, “Rachel, do you need to go to the bathroom to throw up?” She nodded, and my mom brought her to the bathroom as quickly as she could, but it wasn’t quick enough.

Thank god my mom was behind her because she was in her nice work clothes, and Rachel poured foul smelling vomit with skill I had never seen and have never seen since.
It went right directly in front of her, she didn’t even get it on herself or struggle and convulse as Jack did. It might as well have been a perfectly symmetrical circle for the talent Rachel showed in producing it. Yet, it was still a disgusting mess to clean up.

Emily was still struggling and screaming irrationally in my now restraining arms. If I let her go, she would probably find a way to get in the throw up somehow. Mom was looking frantic, desperately keeping a now dumbstruck Rachel out of the pool of sick while trying to guide her to the kitchen sink where she could be cleaned up. And Jack, oblivious, unnoticed Jack, walked out of the bathroom and right into the vomit puddle.

So now we have me, who still hasn’t eaten any dinner (and unsure that I still want to) confining a screaming Emily as she kicks and hits me in the face, which I assure you isn’t pleasant; Emily, who obviously isn’t happy with the whole situation; Rachel, who honestly just looks hungry; my mom, who has to be at work in less than half an hour and who smells like vomit and looks so stressed and full of tension that at any second she could just shatter like china; And Jack, who is standing confusedly in a puddle of what used to be the contents of his sister’s stomach.

Everything seems to stop for a second, as if to commemorate the absolute chaos of that one moment.

Then everything jumps back to reality and I’m yelling at Jack not to move while attempting to bounce and play with Emily and my mom is frantically mopping up the vomit with a towel and wiping Jack’s feet best she can before sending him to go to the sink to wash. Finally Emily stops freaking out when I give her to mom, who sent me to go put on Dora for Rachel. As soon as it started, mom brought in Emily to watch too, and they were both happy as clams. But before I left to help mom clean up, Rachel said, “I’m hungry!”

Suppressing a laugh, I said, “What do you want Rach?”

“Toast!” she said, and I went back to the kitchen, where mom was finishing wiping up the floor. I went around her to get the bread off the top of the fridge for Rachel’s toast just as Jack got out of the bathroom, looking relieved to be vomit-free.

Then, as mom literally had just finished cleaning the floor with bleach and throwing the towel in the laundry, dad burst through the door like the returning hero and said, “Hi, I’m home!” with his booming voice, and got a “hi daddy!” from Rachel. Though after leaving his bag in the dining room, he came in the kitchen to look for us and upon seeing our haggard faces, he said, “What happened?”

Half laughing already, mom said, “Hannah can tell you, I’ve got to go.”

He turned to me as mom left shouting goodbye while slamming the door, and all I said was, “Guess.” And I put Rachel’s toast in the toaster, laughing and shaking my head.



“Hannah, get down here! It’s time for dinner!” my mom shouted at me through the two floors that separated us.
“Be down in a minute!” I shouted back. I paused my show and exited out of Netflix, but before I turned off my computer, I glanced at the time, which was only 5:32. My mom had to be at work by 6:30 and my dad would be too late to get us food at a reasonable time so on Thursdays we always ate ridiculously early. I wasn’t even hungry.

I took my time getting up and going down the stairs, the smell of reheated fried chicken, broccoli, and mashed potatoes wafting my face. I arrived in the kitchen and they had started without me, my mom wearily spooning food into Emily’s mouth, Jack shoveling it down (the only dinner food he likes is breaded chicken) and Rachel just sitting there with this obstinate look on her face, the one only three year olds can achieve properly. She might as well have been crossing her arms and rolling her eyes, as I would’ve done.

So, I approached the table warily, as if it were a bomb about to go off. If only I knew.
It was silent for a few moments after I sat, until my mom broke it by saying, “So, what were you doing all that time up in your palace up there? Homework?” I guess I should explain. My bedroom is on the otherwise unoccupied third floor, or “penthouse suite” as my parents refer to it, and to get away from my overly large family I spend a good amount of my time up there.

“Nothing interesting,” I replied.

“That means watching TV on her new computer,” mom said, turning to Emily as she spoke. Emily made no response other than to turn her face at the food she was being fed, mashed potato. As my mom tried further to tempt her into opening her mouth, she began to scream with that annoying reedy high-pitched voice only babies have while somehow keeping the spoon out of her mouth.

“What are you doing? You normally like mashed potato,” my mom said regretfully, getting up to grab something she would eat (maybe).

Meanwhile, Jack was blabbering on about how he was gonna just die because of his massive homework load and how it was just impossible and how no one would help him because he never got any attention in this family yadda yadda yadda. What I was wondering was how he expected anyone to hear him, let alone listen and comprehend him, when Emily was kicking up such a fuss.

I turned back to my mom, who was just looking so exhausted that I knew I just had to step in somewhere. My options:
1.
Jack and his first grade homework.
2.
Emily and whatever she was irrationally screaming about this time (she’d turned down all of my mom’s food options and she’d lost her patience, instead turning to her own neglected dinner).
Or,
3.
My sister and her untouched plate of food
Well, Jack’s homework couldn’t be done at the dinner table, and if Emily rejected my mom, I had no chance, so I went with option number three, Rachel.

I speared a piece of broccoli on my fork and popped it in my mouth, chewing it with gusto while preventing a wince at its dry and unattractively bland taste, and swallowed saying, “So good! Rachel, why don’t you try some?” with my voice going up half an octave in the white lie.

“I don’t like it!” she replied stubbornly, curling her little fingers into fists and furrowing her tiny eyebrows in concentration.

“Well you won’t know that until you try it,” I said, using the famous parent cop out.

She looked at me blankly, processing my words, then said, “I don’t like it. I want something else,” but with less gusto. I was winning!

“Well I know that you’re hungry, you never eat any lunch at school, and you’re not going to get anything else until you eat at least one piece of broccoli,” I said, as convincingly as I could.

“I want something else!” she whined. I could almost see victory. Though my mom was definitely facing defeat, Emily was still screaming, with my mom half wincing at every new shriek.

“If you eat a piece of broccoli, you can get a treat after dinner, but if you don’t, you won’t get anything.”

“A treat?” she asked questioningly.

“Yep,” I replied, “Whatever you want, ice cream . . . popsicles . . . cookies-

“Cookies!” she interrupted me.

“Yep, if you eat your dinner, you can get a cookie.” I replied, basking in the sun of my win.

“I want my treat!” she said fiercely.

Maybe not yet. “You have to eat you broccoli first,” I said, disappointedly.

“But I don’t like broccoli!” she said, bringing us back to square one.

And Miracle Mom steps in, having subdued Emily for a short moment, saying, “Rachel, if you don’t eat some of your dinner, you’re going to go to bed right after dinner with no story, no treat, and an empty stomach. Trust me, that’s not going to be fun. So just make it easy on the rest of us and just eat your dinner.”

“But I don’t like it,” she said, back to the whining.

While she was saying that, Emily began screaming again, and I, who was personally very done with the whole screaming thing, took off the high chair tray and unbuckled her to pick her up and rock her, which generally calms her down. But of course, because I wasn’t mom, she struggled like I was trying to put her in handcuffs.

“Come on Rachel, its good, you’re gonna like it!” I encouraged best I could, as Jack got up and went to the bathroom.

Rachel’s head falls forward, facing the food on her plate, and an unforgettable expression of disgust ripples over her face. Nevertheless, she picks up her hand and skewers the miniscule piece of broccoli with her fork, bringing it up to her mouth.

She looks up, and her face said, “Do I really have to?” yet she somehow managed to put the fork up to her lips and take a bite the size of a pinch of salt. Then, she chewed it and, grimacing, swallowed it, or tried to.

While me and mom were busy celebrating, (Rachel, eating broccoli? Nothing short of a miracle) Rachel was gagging, struggling between swallowing and regurgitating the broccoli. Mom noticed in time, and said, “Rachel, do you need to go to the bathroom to throw up?” She nodded, and my mom brought her to the bathroom as quickly as she could, but it wasn’t quick enough.

Thank god my mom was behind her because she was in her nice work clothes, and Rachel poured foul smelling vomit with skill I had never seen and have never seen since.
It went right directly in front of her, she didn’t even get it on herself or struggle and convulse as Jack did. It might as well have been a perfectly symmetrical circle for the talent Rachel showed in producing it. Yet, it was still a disgusting mess to clean up.

Emily was still struggling and screaming irrationally in my now restraining arms. If I let her go, she would probably find a way to get in the throw up somehow. Mom was looking frantic, desperately keeping a now dumbstruck Rachel out of the pool of sick while trying to guide her to the kitchen sink where she could be cleaned up. And Jack, oblivious, unnoticed Jack, walked out of the bathroom and right into the vomit puddle.

So now we have me, who still hasn’t eaten any dinner (and unsure that I still want to) confining a screaming Emily as she kicks and hits me in the face, which I assure you isn’t pleasant; Emily, who obviously isn’t happy with the whole situation; Rachel, who honestly just looks hungry; my mom, who has to be at work in less than half an hour and who smells like vomit and looks so stressed and full of tension that at any second she could just shatter like china; And Jack, who is standing confusedly in a puddle of what used to be the contents of his sister’s stomach.

Everything seems to stop for a second, as if to commemorate the absolute chaos of that one moment.

Then everything jumps back to reality and I’m yelling at Jack not to move while attempting to bounce and play with Emily and my mom is frantically mopping up the vomit with a towel and wiping Jack’s feet best she can before sending him to go to the sink to wash. Finally Emily stops freaking out when I give her to mom, who sent me to go put on Dora for Rachel. As soon as it started, mom brought in Emily to watch too, and they were both happy as clams. But before I left to help mom clean up, Rachel said, “I’m hungry!”

Suppressing a laugh, I said, “What do you want Rach?”

“Toast!” she said, and I went back to the kitchen, where mom was finishing wiping up the floor. I went around her to get the bread off the top of the fridge for Rachel’s toast just as Jack got out of the bathroom, looking relieved to be vomit-free.

Then, as mom literally had just finished cleaning the floor with bleach and throwing the towel in the laundry, dad burst through the door like the returning hero and said, “Hi, I’m home!” with his booming voice, and got a “hi daddy!” from Rachel. Though after leaving his bag in the dining room, he came in the kitchen to look for us and upon seeing our haggard faces, he said, “What happened?”

Half laughing already, mom said, “Hannah can tell you, I’ve got to go.”

He turned to me as mom left shouting goodbye while slamming the door, and all I said was, “Guess.” And I put Rachel’s toast in the toaster, laughing and shaking my head.









“Hannah, get down here! It’s time for dinner!” my mom shouted at me through the two floors that separated us.
“Be down in a minute!” I shouted back. I paused my show and exited out of Netflix, but before I turned off my computer, I glanced at the time, which was only 5:32. My mom had to be at work by 6:30 and my dad would be too late to get us food at a reasonable time so on Thursdays we always ate ridiculously early. I wasn’t even hungry.

I took my time getting up and going down the stairs, the smell of reheated fried chicken, broccoli, and mashed potatoes wafting my face. I arrived in the kitchen and they had started without me, my mom wearily spooning food into Emily’s mouth, Jack shoveling it down (the only dinner food he likes is breaded chicken) and Rachel just sitting there with this obstinate look on her face, the one only three year olds can achieve properly. She might as well have been crossing her arms and rolling her eyes, as I would’ve done.

So, I approached the table warily, as if it were a bomb about to go off. If only I knew.
It was silent for a few moments after I sat, until my mom broke it by saying, “So, what were you doing all that time up in your palace up there? Homework?” I guess I should explain. My bedroom is on the otherwise unoccupied third floor, or “penthouse suite” as my parents refer to it, and to get away from my overly large family I spend a good amount of my time up there.

“Nothing interesting,” I replied.

“That means watching TV on her new computer,” mom said, turning to Emily as she spoke. Emily made no response other than to turn her face at the food she was being fed, mashed potato. As my mom tried further to tempt her into opening her mouth, she began to scream with that annoying reedy high-pitched voice only babies have while somehow keeping the spoon out of her mouth.

“What are you doing? You normally like mashed potato,” my mom said regretfully, getting up to grab something she would eat (maybe).

Meanwhile, Jack was blabbering on about how he was gonna just die because of his massive homework load and how it was just impossible and how no one would help him because he never got any attention in this family yadda yadda yadda. What I was wondering was how he expected anyone to hear him, let alone listen and comprehend him, when Emily was kicking up such a fuss.

I turned back to my mom, who was just looking so exhausted that I knew I just had to step in somewhere. My options:
1.
Jack and his first grade homework.
2.
Emily and whatever she was irrationally screaming about this time (she’d turned down all of my mom’s food options and she’d lost her patience, instead turning to her own neglected dinner).
Or,
3.
My sister and her untouched plate of food
Well, Jack’s homework couldn’t be done at the dinner table, and if Emily rejected my mom, I had no chance, so I went with option number three, Rachel.

I speared a piece of broccoli on my fork and popped it in my mouth, chewing it with gusto while preventing a wince at its dry and unattractively bland taste, and swallowed saying, “So good! Rachel, why don’t you try some?” with my voice going up half an octave in the white lie.

“I don’t like it!” she replied stubbornly, curling her little fingers into fists and furrowing her tiny eyebrows in concentration.

“Well you won’t know that until you try it,” I said, using the famous parent cop out.

She looked at me blankly, processing my words, then said, “I don’t like it. I want something else,” but with less gusto. I was winning!

“Well I know that you’re hungry, you never eat any lunch at school, and you’re not going to get anything else until you eat at least one piece of broccoli,” I said, as convincingly as I could.

“I want something else!” she whined. I could almost see victory. Though my mom was definitely facing defeat, Emily was still screaming, with my mom half wincing at every new shriek.

“If you eat a piece of broccoli, you can get a treat after dinner, but if you don’t, you won’t get anything.”

“A treat?” she asked questioningly.

“Yep,” I replied, “Whatever you want, ice cream . . . popsicles . . . cookies-

“Cookies!” she interrupted me.

“Yep, if you eat your dinner, you can get a cookie.” I replied, basking in the sun of my win.

“I want my treat!” she said fiercely.

Maybe not yet. “You have to eat you broccoli first,” I said, disappointedly.

“But I don’t like broccoli!” she said, bringing us back to square one.

And Miracle Mom steps in, having subdued Emily for a short moment, saying, “Rachel, if you don’t eat some of your dinner, you’re going to go to bed right after dinner with no story, no treat, and an empty stomach. Trust me, that’s not going to be fun. So just make it easy on the rest of us and just eat your dinner.”

“But I don’t like it,” she said, back to the whining.

While she was saying that, Emily began screaming again, and I, who was personally very done with the whole screaming thing, took off the high chair tray and unbuckled her to pick her up and rock her, which generally calms her down. But of course, because I wasn’t mom, she struggled like I was trying to put her in handcuffs.

“Come on Rachel, its good, you’re gonna like it!” I encouraged best I could, as Jack got up and went to the bathroom.

Rachel’s head falls forward, facing the food on her plate, and an unforgettable expression of disgust ripples over her face. Nevertheless, she picks up her hand and skewers the miniscule piece of broccoli with her fork, bringing it up to her mouth.

She looks up, and her face said, “Do I really have to?” yet she somehow managed to put the fork up to her lips and take a bite the size of a pinch of salt. Then, she chewed it and, grimacing, swallowed it, or tried to.

While me and mom were busy celebrating, (Rachel, eating broccoli? Nothing short of a miracle) Rachel was gagging, struggling between swallowing and regurgitating the broccoli. Mom noticed in time, and said, “Rachel, do you need to go to the bathroom to throw up?” She nodded, and my mom brought her to the bathroom as quickly as she could, but it wasn’t quick enough.

Thank god my mom was behind her because she was in her nice work clothes, and Rachel poured foul smelling vomit with skill I had never seen and have never seen since.
It went right directly in front of her, she didn’t even get it on herself or struggle and convulse as Jack did. It might as well have been a perfectly symmetrical circle for the talent Rachel showed in producing it. Yet, it was still a disgusting mess to clean up.

Emily was still struggling and screaming irrationally in my now restraining arms. If I let her go, she would probably find a way to get in the throw up somehow. Mom was looking frantic, desperately keeping a now dumbstruck Rachel out of the pool of sick while trying to guide her to the kitchen sink where she could be cleaned up. And Jack, oblivious, unnoticed Jack, walked out of the bathroom and right into the vomit puddle.

So now we have me, who still hasn’t eaten any dinner (and unsure that I still want to) confining a screaming Emily as she kicks and hits me in the face, which I assure you isn’t pleasant; Emily, who obviously isn’t happy with the whole situation; Rachel, who honestly just looks hungry; my mom, who has to be at work in less than half an hour and who smells like vomit and looks so stressed and full of tension that at any second she could just shatter like china; And Jack, who is standing confusedly in a puddle of what used to be the contents of his sister’s stomach.

Everything seems to stop for a second, as if to commemorate the absolute chaos of that one moment.

Then everything jumps back to reality and I’m yelling at Jack not to move while attempting to bounce and play with Emily and my mom is frantically mopping up the vomit with a towel and wiping Jack’s feet best she can before sending him to go to the sink to wash. Finally Emily stops freaking out when I give her to mom, who sent me to go put on Dora for Rachel. As soon as it started, mom brought in Emily to watch too, and they were both happy as clams. But before I left to help mom clean up, Rachel said, “I’m hungry!”

Suppressing a laugh, I said, “What do you want Rach?”

“Toast!” she said, and I went back to the kitchen, where mom was finishing wiping up the floor. I went around her to get the bread off the top of the fridge for Rachel’s toast just as Jack got out of the bathroom, looking relieved to be vomit-free.

Then, as mom literally had just finished cleaning the floor with bleach and throwing the towel in the laundry, dad burst through the door like the returning hero and said, “Hi, I’m home!” with his booming voice, and got a “hi daddy!” from Rachel. Though after leaving his bag in the dining room, he came in the kitchen to look for us and upon seeing our haggard faces, he said, “What happened?”

Half laughing already, mom said, “Hannah can tell you, I’ve got to go.”

He turned to me as mom left shouting goodbye while slamming the door, and all I said was, “Guess.” And I put Rachel’s toast in the toaster, laughing and shaking my head.