This evening, in between bites of freshly baked homemade brownie, Joe turned to me and asked, "are we supposed to give Moses chocolate?" I glanced at Moses, who was standing at Joe's feet, earnestly begging his Daddy for a morsel with an outstretched arm. "Sure," I replied, "that brown stuff that's all over his hands is the chocolate chip I gave him earlier while I was baking."
About half an hour later, I walked out into the living room to find Moses, alongside his big brothers, hovering over a bowl of grapes, nonchalantly popping them into his mouth. God only knows how many hours of my life I've spent peeling and meticulously quartering or halving those infamous little choking hazards for my two first-born, but here was 12-month-old Moses feeding himself whole grapes like an old pro.
So this is what it's like to be the third child. I don't think Joshua and Caleb had their first taste of chocolate until they were at least two years old. I don't think I let them feed themselves whole grapes until they were close to three. Yet Moses, at the tender age of 12 months, is all too familiar with chocolate and whole grapes, and a whole slew of other delicacies that I won't mention lest we be judged unfit parents. I can only imagine the kinds of things a fourth, fifth, or sixth-born child would get away with! And now when I think of the story about the time when Mimi (who was the youngest of seven children) was a baby and had a near-fatal encounter when her well-meaning big sister Sooja mistakenly gave her a drink of alcohol, it makes total sense! :)
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