Our Bastet’s Pixelventures Sunday Challenge for this week is to illustrate Jen Rosenberry’s delightful and thought provoking story and haiku mix, “Of Health Food and Butterfly Wings.”

I am really enjoying this new form of challenge!  (The butterfly picture and the red part of the NO symbols I used are courtesy of Wikimedia.)

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Of Health Food and Butterfly Wings

by Jen Rosenberry from Blog it or Lose it!

 Who doesn’t want to provide their five-year-old with healthy snacks?  Not this parent!  When my child took an interest in the pre-packaged apple slices I saw a quick and easy way to get my kiddo out of the cracker aisle.  How healthy!  How fast!  How neat! I grabbed those apple slices and “got out of Dodge” – fast!

When we got home, I opened a bag of those luscious-looking apple slices for my son.  He grabbed them eagerly.  He took a few bites – then made a mad dash for the kitchen and gagged into the sink.

“They’re awful, Mom!”

the best-laid plans /
o’ moms and five-year-olds – /
should have bought crackers //

The child has a hair-trigger gag reflex.  I knew better than to try again.  If he wouldn’t eat them then I’d have to do it.  They weren’t awful – but they were sour.  I wasn’t pleased, but I was resigned that the apples would not go to waste.

expecting sweetness /
finding lemon instead – /
face in a pucker //

The apples were more than bitter, though.  Had I managed to stuff a piece of the plastic packaging in my mouth along with an apple slice?  There was something non-apple on my tongue.

As they say in Star Wars, “I [had] a bad feeling about this.”  Like my son, I walked to the sink.  I grabbed a paper towel – and spit.

one naked wing /
from a luckless butterfly – /
stunned speechless //

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