Tomatoes

Last year we had a healthy crop of grape tomatoes in our garden. This year they are out of control. Apparently it's rare for tomatoes to reseed and grow year after year, but some do and ours were included. This year we have three times as many vines and about ten times as many tomatoes. I was planning on making homemade salsa and tomato sauce, and even picked up a few Mason jars for canning (jarring?). I have picked a total of forty tomatoes so far, but only 3 have made it to the freezer. I haven't made sauce or served  tomatoes for dinner. I haven't had a tomato sandwich or even eaten any myself. They have all gone to E, my little tomato monster.

P and I picked a few last night, and left them on the counter to ripen before freezing. Unfortunately, they were the first thing E saw upon waking and that was his breakfast. Nothing else, just a bowl of tomatoes. He didn't want toast or anything, and no cereal, no yogurt. When he was done all he said was "More matoes?" and went outside to check the tomato plants himself. Turns out I'd left four on the vine, and he found those. Then he had a screaming fit because the rest were green. When I told him they weren't ripe, he started yelling at them to get ripe. It was fun.

I'm glad E likes tomatoes, so I'm not complaining about that. But sometimes I wish I got some tomatoes too. If I want my own tomatoes, I have to buy them from the grocery store and hide them in the fridge. I can only eat tomatoes when E is asleep. If he ever finds them in the fridge, I won't ingest another tomato in this lifetime.

It's very similar to J and my vanilla yogurt. I get large yogurt tubs for the kids because they go through so much of it, and the small ones for me because I prefer the fruity ones. I look forward to the three little vanilla ones in each package though, because it's kind of a treat. The problem is, I can never seem to find those three little vanilla yogurts. J takes them faster than I can put them away. I don't know why my mini yogurt cups are more appealing than a bowl of his own from a large container, but somehow they are. So I have to hide those as well, and also the packaging it comes in because J can read now and if he knows there were vanilla cups in there at one point, he will tear the kitchen apart looking for them.

So I can only eat those when both kids are asleep. Mind you with J going back to school I might be able to sneak in a forbidden yogurt during E's nap time now, along with my tomatoes and coffee. I suppose I should consider myself lucky though. Most kids who sneak food are sneaking junk food. Little hands dipped into the cookie jar leaving obvious crumbs all over the place, or a clandestine date with the chocolate ice cream. My children are sneaking tomatoes and yogurt. Still, I have a right to complain when I want those tomatoes and yogurt, right?