Hal has always preferred to eat his pizza cold. Anytime we have leftover pizza and I pull it out to put in the oven – the rest of us preferring the crispy result of the oven better than the microwave, he insists he wants his cold. So I shake my head in resignation and plop the cold, hard pizza on his plate. And he nibbles away contentedly.
Well, between Daryl’s birthday party and a church pizza party, we ended up with a lot of pizza at one point. Hal decided to pack some in his lunch. Daryl helped him select two huge slices of cheese pizza. He already had a Caprisun, bag of barbeque chips, and some Oreos in his lunch box, also all leftovers from recent festivities.
I suggested that he only needed one of those slices of pizza since he already had all that other food lined up. But just like all kids, Hal did not feel that he was a big kid unless he got two slices of pizza. No matter the size. I started looking for smaller choices, when I suddenly realized that we also had some pizza left over that he had made for himself at a make-your-own pizza place.
He responded positively and we started shoving everything into the little metal box.
“But I want it heated up,” he said.
What?!
“Honey, there’s not a microwave at school. You’ll need to eat it cold.”
“But I want it heated up!”
So what’s up with that? For three years – at least! – he’s wanted to eat his pizza cold. No amount of encouragement has made him budge on that point. And now… now that the pizza is going someplace where it cannot be heated up, he wants it… warm.
mybrightspots 
Of course he does. No one eats cold pizza at school. Didn’t you know?
No one except him eats cold pizza at home either! Why is it more important to conform at school than at home?! Wait, don’t answer that. I think that’s a rather profound topic about fitting in vs. feeling safe… Which was actually (the fitting in part, at least) a major theme in the movie I watched last night. Expect to see my rambling thoughts on that very soon… 🙂