"Not bad, right?" Staas agreed. "I have no idea if that's a compliment to my son's pallet or if it means I am an awesome cook who can make almost anything." The warm peanut butter was actually pretty good, which he should have known, given that he liked the way it tasted on warm toast in the mornings.
Theo had finished his first pizza, and was still making smacking sounds of peanut butter enjoyment. He started t reach for his other one, but Staas asked him to have some salad first. Theo thought about it, making more Tigger-like "what-have-we-got-here" noises, and then reached for his milk.
"Salad too, jongen."
"I know, Daddy. Milk first. To make the sticky go away."
Well. Staas could hardly argue with that. There was apparently a lot of sticky, as Theo finished over two-thirds of his milk before tucking into his salad. When he'd eaten most of it, he looked to Staas for approval as the adults conversed, and Staas gave him a nod. He smiled with glee and carefully picked out his other peanut butter pizza. "Nomnomnom," he said quietly to himself with a smile.
Alida had happily been listening to Ira's story, feet swinging under the table as she alternated from salad to drink to pizza. "Maybe it's on a high shelf and they can't see it," she suggested. "There's lotsa things I can't see when they're too high up. You should move it so they can see."
Staas was instantly charmed, as he often was, by his daughter's intelligence. Apparently she had taken "little old ladies" at face value.