Cuckoo for Cocoa

I know this is a topic we revisit constantly, but getting Alex to Try Things is an uphill battle. Take cocoa. Delicious, homemade hot cocoa. Nothing better on a cold afternoon when your hands are freezing and you’re hungry and you can’t remember the last time you

Photo courtesy of Just SallyRye (flickr.com)

felt really warm. Take, for instance, Sunday afternoon, when Jeff and Alex went out to run errands and I stayed home to potter around the house and feel glad I was inside a warm apartment.

When they came in, Alex looked chilly and a little unhappy, and I had the inspired idea of making cocoa. It seemed like a natural. He drinks chocolate milk. In fact, he loves chocolate so much he now enjoys chocolate ice cream. What could be better than cocoa? Ned loves cocoa. Why shouldn’t Alex? I made some, and I made sure it wasn’t too hot. I had him warm his cold hands on the warm mug. He seemed to like but not love doing that. Why? Doesn’t a nice warm mug feel wonderful on cold hands?

He wouldn’t taste. I told him it was chocolate milk, but a little warm. Finally Jeff reminded me that I could stick Alex’s own finger in it and he’d automatically stick it in his mouth to get rid of the stickiness or, as Jeff thinks, to control how much or how little of the poison he ingests. The first taste went well. Brought a brief flicker of smile. I stuck his finger in again, twice more, and soon Alex was gulping from the whole cup and laughing, possibly at how good a warm chocolatey drink tastes on a cold afternoon.

The one thing he would not do was slow down, savor it, incorporate it into some drawn-out moments of his life the way Ned does, as if he is painting a scene: This is me, drinking cocoa and savoring the moment. At first I think that it’s as if Alex can’t remember the past or envision the future, but then I remember how he constantly rewinds videotapes. So maybe the cocoa is just so delicious he can’t keep from gulping it all at once.