A Girl and her Dad and Some Cookies

Maybe it's just me being a paranoid first time mom, but I have very little confidence in Rory's chewing ability. Sure, she's got a couple pearly whites, but I still think of anything that's not A. the consistency of applesauce or B. rapidly dissolveable  as off-limits for her. This is the flawed mindset that is the root cause behind "The Cookie Incedent."

Blake, a man after my own heart, has a profound fondness for Thin Mint girl scouts cookies. Knowing this, and delighting in delighting him, I bought a couple boxes from two surprisingly cute little scouts outside of Safeway. We were on our way to the Flag airport to pick up a rental car, and had been out running errands for about an hour. By the time we had acquired the car and were on the freeway heading for Satchmos BBQ for dinner, dear little Rory's patience was running out. Rory enjoys boxes, so I deftly sealed up a (open, of course) box of Thin Mints and reached back to hand it to her. Blake was instantly alarmed: "You gave her the Thin Mints?!?!" "It's fine," I assured him. "The box is closed, and she wouldn't know what to do with them anyway." Blake glanced worriedly in the rear view window, but trusted my judgment. All was well. For about a mile. Until we heard an awful sound:

"Mmmmmm. Mmmmmmm."

Panic. "I can't pull over! Is she- she can't be! The Thin Mints!"

"But she can't even chew them!" I protested desperately.

I strained my arm back to pull from her grasp a half eaten Thin Mint. I held it up for Blake's mournful eyes to see. Peering at the backseat, my heart sank when I saw the whole package spread across her lap, each cookie out of my reach. The rest of the trip consisted of me reaching back every minute or so to take the current soggy, bitten cookie from my baby's hands. With each loss she'd wail, then comfort herself with more mint chocolatey deliciousness. When we reached our destination, she was a sticky brown mess. As he paper-toweled off Rory's face, my husband graciously did not criticize my poor decision. In fact, I believe he was rather proud of his offspring's fine taste in cookies.

But I notice he hasn't offered to share the rest.