For your Sunday reading pleasure...

A helping hand creates a pancake genius

By Terry Miller Shannon

"Sure you can," Liam insisted. "Come on. Anyone can." My grandson handed me the pancake flipper. I put it back in the drawer.

"How about scrambled eggs?" I said. "Or polenta?"

Liam opened the drawer. He pulled out the spatula again.

"I told you," I said. "I am not a pancakemaker. Your mom is. Grampie is. But I can't make pancakes. Seriously."

"Have you ever even tried?" he asked.

"I did try. Well, once. But it was such a big mess, no one could eat it."

Liam blinked at me. "Once? You tried just once?"

I shrugged. "It was a disaster, Liam. I'm telling you."

I was staying with Liam while his parents were off on a little trip, and we were negotiating food issues. For example, the polenta. Liam had been aghast that I'd served him yellow polenta instead of white. He wanted only Parmesan cheese on his cheese sandwich, not cheddar. He liked his cold cereal without milk, thank you very much.

Now I opened the refrigerator. "How about a smoothie?"

"Once is just practice," Liam said in his most reasonable voice. "Trying something once barely counts. You'll never know until you do it at least one more time."

Well, it was impossible to argue with that bit of wisdom straight from the mouth of a 7-year-old. What was I going to say: "Persistence is nothing in this world, Kid. Give up early and give up often"?

Full story at The Christian Science Monitor