After picking up the kids from school today, we went to the old standby for dinner, Jason’s Deli.  We have gone to Jason’s countless times after school, and Claire invariably orders the hot dog kid’s meal, while Molly gets the kid’s cheese pizza.  But tonight, Claire tried something a little different…the salad bar.  I did say to Claire, who is normally voracious after school, “So, just to be clear, your entire meal is going to come from that salad bar.”  She asked if she could get both the hot dog and the salad bar, but alas I told her that she did have to choose just one, and she went with the salad bar.

So this was Claire’s very first salad bar.  Okay, so that is not a huge milestone, but perhaps mildly interesting.  The funny thing was seeing Claire eat her salad, with no dressing, with bottled water for her drink, her clean haircut, and wearing her new glasses.  The whole scene made Claire look strikingly like a health-conscious 25-year-old woman on her lunch break.  This from the kid who usually stuffs down a hot dog and ice cream.  See for yourself…

Claire on lunch break from her new advertising job?

Molly, for her part, went to great lengths to demonstrate the crucial fours years that separate her from Claire.  Molly threw a shoe on the ground and refused to put it back on, dumped her booster seat on the ground, got out of her seat to walk around, tried to jump off of her seat, and ate only a little bit of pizza, of course with ketchup on it.