By Jenny Razor

Three-year-old Tyler Dailey had been suspecting something for the past year. He noticed that his mom would always prepare her food and drink after making his. That seemed a little off. “It was almost like she was hiding something from me.”

This launched his year-long study involving countless taste tests and vigilant requests for opportunities to try what it was mommy had.

“I noticed that even though Mommy appeared to be putting the same food on her plate that was on mine, when it was on her plate, it appeared much more appetizing.” Soon, Tyler found himself sampling his mother’s turnips, broccoli and her green power smoothies at every opportunity, often selflessly forsaking his own meals.

“I also noticed how reluctant Mom was about handing it over, often avoiding it or sighing while rolling her eyes. This seemed to confirm my hypothesis that her food was superior,” Tyler said while tugging on his mother’s pants, attempting to get a drink out of her glass of water. Tyler seemed indifferent to the sippy cup in his hand, also containing water.

“It really only took one taste to confirm my suspicions. I now find that I can’t eat anything that hasn’t been on Mommy’s plate or in her cup. Next, I hope to drink out of her coffee mug, but she refuses to allow me to sample it. She must have the holy grail in there.”

Tyler also found that his favorite meals could be consumed between the regularly scheduled breakfast, lunch and dinner provided to the children. Recently, after Tyler had declared himself done with his meal ten minutes into it, prompting his mom to have to clean him up and let him roam, he realized he was missing a prime opportunity. “I discovered that Mom was frantically shoving food into her mouth, almost trying to prevent me from conducting my experiment.”

Tyler soon found himself standing at her waist, tugging her shirt and incessantly whining, not allowing Mom to mess with the integrity of his research. “If I let one morsel go untested, then I will have to throw away all my research and begin again,” Tyler declared resolutely.

Tyler has even learned to hone his listening skills, discovering that the sound of opening food wrappers can be heard from nearly any corner of the house. Tyler learned this technique from the cats, who seemed to be able to respond within seconds to the sound of the tuna can opening. Tyler’s mom reports that there is nowhere safe in the house to consume her food in privacy; she is definitely a reluctant participant in the process.

Tyler has been committed to a thorough process from the beginning, making sure to include a control group by sampling what’s on Daddy’s plate and occasionally his big sister’s. “But nothing compared to Mommy’s; it was hands-down the best thing and I have to have it.”

Future avenues of research for Tyler include how quickly he can unravel the toilet paper roll, what the cat food looks like as it dissolves in the cat’s water bowl and what the different colored crayons each taste like.

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About the Author

Jenny Razor is a high school English teacher and mother of two boys. She previously wrote for the Momaha blog for 2 years.