Don't judge a drink by its carton

Sydney's making great progress learning to read. She's learning the sounds letters make, and (very) slowly, but surely, is learning how those letters sound together. At the same time,she's learned a new "sight word" each week.

Unfortunately for her, none of those words has been "milk." This became apparent when, unbeknownst to me, she decided to help herself to a drink. I was on the other side of the house when I heard her gag slightly and then exclaim, "It's not milk."

"What Sydney?"

"It's not milk. It doesn't taste like milk!"

It was hard to understand her because it seemed she had her jaws clenched in an attempt not to spit out something extremely distasteful.

I headed into the kitchen to see what she'd been drinking, wondering if one of the cartons of milk I'd purchased the day before was bad.

No, the problem was that Sydney had grabbed a small carton that looks kind of like the ones they serve at lunchtime in the school cafeteria.

I looked over at Sydney who still had her jaws clamped together.

"It's okay if you want to spit it out," I told her, surprised that she hadn't already done so.

She quickly walked to the sink and spit. I then poured her a glass of real milk to help her get rid of the taste in her mouth.

At last she spoke, somewhat haltingly, "Why... would they... put it... in a carton... that looks... like milk?"

It was really, really hard not to laugh at her distress. At least it wasn't as bad as it could have been. The whipping cream is only a week old. She could have grabbed the carton of buttermilk I found in the door of the refrigerator right after this incident - the buttermilk that expired more than a month ago. Yes, it could have been so very much worse.

Yes, it's time to teach her how to read the word "milk".