June 22, 2026- “I don’t WANT it!” With two bites left of pureed beef, my granddaughter said she was not happy with the fare. She tried to take off her bib and wanted out of the high chair. I told her it was okay and we would go to the bottle feeding, which follows the solid food. I took the bib off, cleaned her face and took her out of the chair.

Hana is too much of a Clean Plate Club member to refuse food without cause; so when her parents got home, we discussed the matter and determined that heating up the beef at the same time I defrosted a cube of rice was a bad idea. They will be prepared separately, going forward. Hana is likely to be okay with the meal, tomorrow.

I encourage her to be discerning, but outspoken, when something seems wrong. A reasonable adult will hear the child out and either explain why something is so or make the effort to correct anything that is amiss. Sometimes, fatigue will set in, and she won’t know what she wants, so it’s nap time. She knows that Papa’s-and her parents’- response to her bad mood is to check the diaper first, then determine if she needs a feeding, then put her in the crib. She was more than happy to lie down for a rest, three times today-and still went to bed at 7:30 p.m.

She likes to share her ‘sphere inside a cube’ toy with me, so I shake the cube and bounce it off the playpen mat, with a moderate amount of gusto. She is delighted that I play this with her for ten or fifteen minutes. Then she goes on to something else, just periodically checking over her shoulder, to make sure I am still there. I leave my cloth slippers outside the playpen. As I was sitting in a recliner, with the slippers just outside the open playpen gate, Hana took a cloth that was sitting on the pen floor, and started to wipe my slippers. I don’t know where she got that from, but it is just another small thing that endears her to us.

My father passed away, forty years ago today. He would have been over the moon with this little girl.