My little tomato

Big Dog is kind of a funny kid.  Sure, he'll eat up ice cream or cookies given a chance, but you know what really moves this kid?  Tomatoes.  He loves them. This kid will eat a good tomato just like an apple with big bites right into the round red orb.  He'll eat them any size, but the ones he likes best are the tiny little oval tomatoes I buy at Trader Joe's.  He eats them for snacks, munches them with dinner and even eats them along side his cereal at breakfast.

One Easter at Grandma's house, Big Dog sat at the table after the big Easter brunch slyly popping something into his mouth.  If you went solely by the look on his face, you'd assume it was Easter candy because he looked like he was getting away with something.  You'd be wrong.  It was these little tomatoes.

Sometimes I do my grocery shopping on my lunch break.  On those occasions, if Big Dog notices a package of these little tomatoes in the bags in the back of the station wagon, I can be assured they will be gone, the entire pound of them, by the time we make the short trip home.

Yes, my son loves tomatoes.  Maybe this was partly influenced by the small vegetable garden we had near the entrance to our house when we first moved in.  As Mr. Dog would walk past the garden with Big Dog on the way into the house, they'd linger and pop cherry tomatoes ripe from the vine right into their mouths.    Anyone who has ever eaten a ripe tomato, still warm from the sun knows that this can be a transformative experience.

I'm happy his food of choice is healthy and I let him eat them whenever the craving strikes him.  Why wouldn't I?  If you had asked me a few days go, I might not have come up with a good answer, but I have one now.  The other morning when Big Dog woke up for school, there was an odd crinkling in his bed.  Unperturbed, he fished around under the blanket and pulled out a container of little tomatoes he'd swiped from the kitchen during the night.  "For snacking if I got hungry," he says.  There was another pack of them in his bed the following morning.  And while I may be supportive of his tomato addiction in general, I keep thinking that this is going one step too far.  Apart from just being odd, I can't help imagining the laundry should a few tomatoes go astray in the bedding until laundry day.  That's not a challenge I wish to take on.  Maybe he could just have them right when he wakes up.  I don't think that's unreasonable.  Do you?