POSTED BY JESSE

One thing I have learned in the past year of living in the Tanner house: kids are fascinating. I hold no degrees in doctoral science, but I feel like I’m always studying the behavior of the Tanner girls. And I’ve concluded they are unpredictably fascinating.

Most mornings the routine is that Danny wakes the girls, gets the lunch order straight, starts his coffee, and hands off the lunch order to me so he can go get dressed (unless I’m slow rising–then he starts making the lunches). I come out and and make/finish the lunches and, depending on who comes down in what order, aid in the breakfast prep (aka cereal distribution).

Much like making lunches–where I know who will take what sandwich, and which fruit, and which snack–I know what to expect when it comes to breakfast: DJ will have the most sugary cereal in the cabinet, with milk. Stephanie will usually have the same sugary cereal, though she may have a less sugary cereal, also with milk, sometimes with a glass of milk or a glass of water. Michelle will pick from any array of the available cereals (though Lucky Charms is typically a lock) and she eats it dry, with a glass of water.

Always. Every breakfast of every school day I have been here, Michelle has eaten her cereal dry. Until yesterday.

She came down for breakfast, the first one down. She poured herself a bowl of Lucky Charms. And she asked me to pour the milk for her.

“What?” I said, in a dramatic, shocked voice. “You’re having milk on your cereal?”

“Yeah,” she replied. “I don’t know, I just…thought I’d try it.”

And she repeated it today. And she announced it to my parents when we had dinner at their house last night.

I don’t know exactly how long her habit of eating her morning cereal dry stretches back–she says she can’t remember either. So why the change? Who knows?

And that’s what makes me marvel at watching these ever evolving mini-people. Who knows what they’ll like or dislike tomorrow or why? What spurs change, even small ones, in kids? Does it mean she’s starting to try to be more like her big sisters? Did she wake up that morning knowing she wanted to try it? Or did it just hit her as she poured the cereal? Or had she been thinking about it for weeks and finally made the decision?

And also, is there something I do every day that I could do a 180 on and like just as much?

I suppose calcium advocates vs. weight nutritionists will have to determine whether the additional milk is good for Michelle’s diet.