On a Roll

When Baby Brother was small, he was severely allergic to several kinds of meat, nuts, and fruits and vegetables.

One day, before she realized her son was allergic to everything, my mom gave him some carrots and told them they were good for his eyes.

A while later, Baby Brother came to her. "You were right, Mom!" he said excitedly. "I can feel my eyes growing!"

What he actually felt was his face swelling in an allergic reaction to the carrots.

Needless to say, Baby Brother existed basically on a diet of dairy and carbs and that's it.

There were two kids in our neighborhood Baby Brother's age with bad allergies. One was allergic to gluten. The other was allergic to dairy. I used to picture them eating lunch together in the elementary school cafeteria. Between them, they could consume napkins and some lettuce.

Eventually, Baby Brother grew out of his allergies. But, having eaten only dairy and carbs for so long, he had a natural suspicion and dislike of meat, fruits, and veggies and refused to eat them. Thus the world's pickiest eater was born.

Now, over the past year I've made some strides with Baby Brother. He now enjoys naan. And in July, he even tried a piece of calamari and found it tolerable. Still, I don't really know why earlier this week Little Brother and I decided to take him with us while we got sushi.

I wasn't expecting Baby Brother to eat anything, so I was pleasantly surprised when he asked me to order some calamari. He ate a piece or two of that. Then, suddenly, Little Brother was challenging him to eat a piece of sushi.

I thought it couldn't hurt, so I gave Baby Brother a piece of the Vegas roll. You can't say you don't like sushi if you haven't tried a Vegas roll. They're not what people typically think of when they think of sushi, but boy, are they magically delicious!

Baby Brother tentatively picked up the sushi with his chopsticks. He dipped it in the soy sauce as directed, then brought it to his mouth.

Then pulled it away.

Then brought it back.

Then pulled it away!

Then brought it back!

Lather, rinse, repeat. And repeat. And repeat.

LITTLE BROTHER: YOU'RE DRIVING ME CRAZY! JUST TRY IT.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Hey, trying new foods can be scary!

Finally, Baby Brother took a small bite of the breaded exterior of the roll.

BABY BROTHER: Hey, that's good!

A few minutes later, he took another bite! And another.

He was actually consuming food with nutritional value! It was a miracle.

We praised him. We told him that this was a basic roll he could get at any sushi restaurant.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: The sushi restaurant near our house puts fish eggs on their Vegas rolls.

It just so happened that one of our raw rolls had some fish eggs sprinkled on it, so we scraped off the eggs and gave them to Baby Brother.

BABY BROTHER: That's good!

He started scraping fish eggs off my share of the roll.

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: Okay, that's enough...

After we paid, Little Brother and I chewed some bits of ginger to cleanse our palates.

To our surprise, Baby Brother wanted to try some ginger, too. And he liked it!

AWKWARD MORMON GIRL: You're on a roll!

BABY BROTHER: Ha! Sushi! On a roll!

To conclude the story on a slightly different note, as we left, we thanked our waiter and said goodbye to him.

LITTLE BROTHER: Bye! Love y--

We laughed at him.

LITTLE BROTHER: IT'S HABIT!