Four tiny bites of carrot ruined my night.

I’m annoyed with my daughter tonight. Had she eaten four tiny pieces of carrot, she could ended dinner with a delicious black and white cookie, straight from William Greenberg Desserts on Madison Avenue, makers of the best black and white cookies on the planet. But no. She refused, rather vehemently I may add, and therefore she gets no dessert.

It wasn’t the whining or the crying or the overly aggressive shoving aside of the plate or even the lack of vegetables in her diet that bothered me.

It was the inability to see the pure joy that she experiences while eating a cookie. I love a black and white cookie, too, but I love watching my daughter eat one even more.

The smiles. The laughs. The chocolaty fingers. The extreme focus on the cookie itself. The repeated declarations of love for the cookie.

Bearing witness to this display of sheer happiness is better than any dessert that I could consume myself (except maybe ice cream cake). Yet I was denied that pleasure tonight because she refused to eat four stupid little carrots.

As soon as she is in bed, I’m going to go downstairs and eat a black and white cookie.

And it’s going to taste even better than usual because it’s going to be served with a heaping side dish of spite.