Playing Pretend with Demon Baby

This child's look says it all. He lives life with imagination and mischief.

So last night, Demon Baby and I played "restaurant." He cooked. I was the food taster. He has a lot of plastic food, an apron, a few utensils, and a play stove. He cooked me an assortment of food.

"Taste!" he commanded.

"Delicious."

"Quantify. How many stars?"

"How many stars?"

"For your review?"

"Oh. Five stars. I quantify this as a five-star meal."

"I need a BILLION lady."

"Then you better cook more food."

He went about cooking even more gourmet meals.

He fed me.

"Now how many stars?"

"A hundred thousand." (I mean, if I had to get to a BILLION . . .)

"That's better."

He cooked more. I had to feign rapture over each dish. "Delicious! . . . My compliments to the chef."

"You need to eat faster."

"Why?"

"Before a bomb explodes in my restaurant and sends us all to smithereens." (Only Demon Baby would combine worldwide destruction and playing restaurant.)

"Um . . . that's not a nice thought."

"These are not nice aliens, lady."

So I ate faster. "I'm really getting FULL, chef," I said after about a half-hour.

"I have JUST the solution for situations like these."

"What?"

"Open your mouth."

"But I'm full."

"Just open your mouth."

He approached me with his tiny pretend dust-buster vacuum. He held it up to my mouth. "This device sucks all the food out of you so you can eat again. You won't be full in about one minute. Just hold still."

So he sucked out all the food. "How very Roman of you, Demon Baby."

"It's not Roman. We just need to finish all this food before the aliens destroy our planet. It would be a shame to waste a five-star meal."