#65

Jack doesn't like anything on his face. No halloween masks, no make-up, and if you want a kiss from Jack, it's going on YOUR cheek, not his. And don't even think about going for the lips...

Jack also has a nearly constant appetite for sunflower seed butter. It's a great alternative to peanut butter, which makes his face blow up like a balloon. For reasons long forgotten, it has come to be known as "sunshine butter". Sunshine butter sandwiches are such a constant presence in the story line of our little tribe, that they have come to be known by their shorthand moniker: SSBS.

The third character trait of my eldest that figures into this tale is his propensity for eating like a beaver. You would think that such a fastidious young man would be a tidy at mealtime, but in that you would be profoundly mistaken. The space under Jack's chair at the table must be swept after each meal, and sometimes raked. His chosen method for devouring an SSBS, which he does several times a day, is to start at one side of the sandwich, and chew a path to the other side, creating two smaller sandwiches and leaving a Joker smile of SSB along the sides of his face. My wife and I have been fascinated/horrified by this habit for some time, and Rebecca recently decided to stage an intervention. Assuming that pointing out the mess on his face would get more of a reaction than the mess on the floor, she tries this gambit:

"Hey Jack, do you like all that sunshine butter on your face?"

Jack: "YEAH!"

(uh-oh...)

Mom: "Um...why?"

Jack: "Because THEN, when I want some MORE...I don't have to ask you for it!"

(Note: Jack has now been furnished with an auxiliary dish of sunshine butter, and is attempting to eat from the corners of his sandwich.)