When life hands you lemons...

I will tell a story that we laugh about at probably every other family gathering.  Since my brother is one of my four faithful blog followers....

My little brother was a tyrant during his toddler years.  He was infamously clever beyond his two years, and this fact, combined with his devilish personality, earned him a custom made name tag that read "The Terror".  He chased me with a saw once while wearing his footsie pajamas.  That story doesn't involve food, so I won't tell it.  Oddly, he has turned out to be one the most easy-going, non-confrontational, mellow adults I know.  Seven years his senior, I tortured him from time to time.  Not in a mean way, but in a subtle, "I can outsmart you" sort of way.  Was it my superiority (hehe) or his evil streak that was responsible for the few incidents that we both recall very differently?

When he was about...oh, I don't know....four or five maybe....I called him into the kitchen.  How easy it was.  Too easy.   "Here," I said, handing him a tupperware cup with a small bit of liquid in the bottom.  "It's soda.  Have some."  Looking at me with the suspicious expression of Charlie Brown looking at Lucy, he gave in to the call of the sugary bubbles and downed what was only a mouthful.  It doesn't take more than a mouthful of bottled lemon juice though to make a five year old provide his sister with a good three or four minutes of laughter, satisfaction and pure entertainment.

Ask him, of course, and I've scarred him for life.  But that wasn't the last time that getting a mouthful of soda got him in trouble....