Chicken Fingers are for Babies

It's been a while, no? Actually, more than a year. But the itch to blog has returned. So, here I am, with my emo boys. Who are more emo than ever.
Today it's Jesse turn in the barrel. Jess, the smaller and fiercer of my two nine-year-olds, has fewer than a dozen foods on his preferred menu. And most of them are white or beige.
In the not-quite-white-food category are chicken fingers. And Jesse is quite proud that he's become an elementary-school connoisseur of these in recent months.
Not the pasted-together-from-unimaginable parts McDonald's chicken fingers, but those served at restaurants, made from chicken breast and usually served on a plate. With lettuce.
The other night, while dining at our favorite thin-crusted pizza eatery at the beach, Jesse requested chicken fingers. I scanned the kids' menu and ordered the $5.95 meal for the 12 and under set. Reasonable, I thought.
Until Jesse's dinner arrived.
As the waitress set Jesse's plate down before him, his lower lip began to tremble.
"These are the baby chicken fingers!" he wailed. "I'm not eating these—they're for babies!"
The problem? The chicken fingers bore a deliberate resemblance to dinosaurs. Even more upsetting, the French fries were shaped like smiley faces.
Because Jesse has the appetite of a hummingbird, and because, well, I just wanted to eat my dinner and enjoy it, I called the waitress over and explained the situation. She promptly fetched Jesse the more grownup version of chicken fingers, which did not resemble any creature that ever walked on the earth.
Jesse dug in happily.
My husband shook his head. "Pathetic, aren't we?"
Then my 12-year-old flipped a plate of spaghetti on the floor.