Full disclosure: I did not write this. It just seems apropos, given yesterday's post.

The Toddler Diet

Day One
  • Breakfast: One scrambled egg, one piece of toast with grape jelly. Eat two bites of egg, using your fingers; dump the rest on the floor. Take one bite of toast, then smear the jelly over your face and clothes.
  • Lunch: Four crayons (any color), a handful of potato chips, and a glass of milk (three sips only, then spill the rest).
  • Dinner: A dry stick, two pennies and a nickel, four sips of flat Pepsi.
  • Bedtime snack: Throw a piece of toast on the kitchen floor.

Day Two
  • Breakfast: Pick up stale toast from kitchen floor and eat it. Drink half bottle of vanilla extract or one vial of vegetable dye.
  • Lunch: Half tube of "Pulsating Pink" lipstick and a handful of Purina Dog Chow (any flavor). One ice cube, if desired.
  • Afternoon snack: Lick an all-day sucker until sticky, take outside, drop in dirt. Retrieve and continue slurping until it is clean again. Then bring inside and drop on rug.
  • Dinner: A rock or an uncooked bean, which should be thrust up your left nostril. Pour Grape Kool-Aid over mashed potatoes; eat with spoon.

Day Three
  • Breakfast: Two pancakes with plenty of syrup, eat one with fingers, rub in hair. Glass of milk; drink half, stuff other pancake in glass. After breakfast, pick up yesterday's sucker from rug, lick off fuzz, put it on the cushion of best chair.
  • Lunch: Three matches, peanut butter and jelly sandwich. Spit several bites onto the floor. Pour glass of milk on table and slurp up
  • Dinner: Dish of ice cream, handful of potato chips, some red punch. Try to laugh some punch through your nose, if possible.

Final Day
  • Breakfast: A quarter tube of toothpaste (any flavor), bit of soap, an olive. Pour a glass of milk over bowl of cornflakes, add half a cup of sugar. Once cereal is soggy, drink milk and feed cereal to dog.
  • Lunch: Eat bread crumbs off kitchen floor and dining room carpet. Find that sucker and finish eating it.
  • Dinner: A glass of spaghetti and chocolate milk. Leave meatball on plate. Stick of mascara for dessert.

Start over with day one.