Last Hoorah!

Believe it or not, we finally took our first official road-trip with Bella, who is now 3 1/2 years old. Since i'm imminently pregnant (36 weeks), we made the trip a short and sweet trek to Tahoe for a wedding. The outing was particularly special because it will really be our last vacation with just Bella-boo. Soon we'll have our second edition! (I'm as curious as others are about the sex of the baby).

To make our road trip as authentic as possible, we stocked the car with junk food: pretzels, gummy worms, pistachios, almonds (jin's idea to keep it healthy), juice boxes, and of course Cheetos. We tried to hide the bag of Cheetos from Bella in the front seat as long as we could because we knew the second she'd spot them, she'd pounce on them like a starving animal.

Eventually from the back seat, Bella noticed the top of the distinctive orange bag and asked curiously, “Hey, are those Cheetos?” she asked in an accusatory tone.

I imagined bright neon orange fingerprints all over the back seat and decided to stay silent. She asked again. “Yeah, they’re Cheetos” I replied, “But we can’t open them yet.”

“How come?” she asked.

I had to think quickly, “Because it’s only 11 o’clock. In one hour we can eat them during lunchtime.”

“Fiiiiine!” she retorted. Thirty seconds later, she asked again, “How about now? Can I have the Cheetos now?”

What followed were several annoying rounds of negotiation where she asked in at least 10 different ways if she could have Cheetos and I answered in 10 different ways that she had to wait. One round brought her to tears as Jin threatened to toss the bag out the opened window. “No, Daddy!!! Don’t throw away the Cheetos!” she cried. She was only consolable after showing her the bag to prove that Daddy didn’t really throw it out.

After some time of silence, we thought she had forgotten about the Cheetos when out of the blue:

“Isabella’s mom, can we have the Cheetos now?” I turned around to see that she was holding up her stuffed animal, talking in the third person through Teddy Bear.

Annoyed, I answered, “Bella, stop asking or else we’re going to throw away the Cheetos.”

“But Mom, I wasn’t asking, Teddy wants to know.” She said with a mischievous grin on her face. “Ok, Teddy, you heard my mommy.” she said. “We have to wait. And don’t ask again or else they’ll throw away the bag.”

Jin and I tried to contain our laughter. Finally, she was quiet again.

“Mom?”

I paused cautiously before answering, “Yes….”

“Can I just hold the bag of Cheetos?”