John Hard (aka CaJohn) is a genius.

He may not know it, but it’s true. The funny thing is that it’s directly due to the salsa he makes, but not because we like it with chips. Let me ’splain to you what I mean.

For months, we’ve been trying to get our younger son to eat some food out of a bowl using a spoon. We’ve tried cereal, pudding, ice cream, and a variety of other goodies…all to no avail. After each time we watch him turn the bowl over or fling his spoon across the room, we peacefully conclude that he just ain’t a fork-and-spoon kinda child. This all changed after tonight’s dinner.

So what was for dinner tonight? Chili. Not just chili, but CaJohn’s simple-as-can-be chili. For those of you who don’t know, simply add 1-1.5 jars of CaJohn’s Salsa (we use the mild black bean & corn) to each pound of ground beef (or other meat), plus a modicum of chili seasonings and water. For the seasonings, we use 3 tbsp. of the CaBoom! Chili Fixins, which provides a nice medium spice level to the chili. Making chili could scarcely be simpler than this.

So, while we were making preparations to eat our chili tonight, we had presumed that this would be another night of chicken nugget or PB&J for Joshua. Then, out of the blue, Josh made a gesturing motion like he wanted what we were eating. I offered a baby spoon-sized portion of chili to Josh, which he greedily wolfed down.

Wait…did my child just eat chili? Better yet, did he just use a spoon? I had to be hallucinating.

Letting my episode of delirium run its course, we ladled out a small bowl of the CaJohn chili and set it and the spoon in front of Joshua, fully expecting him to be wearing it within 30 seconds or finger-painting his surroundings perhaps.

What we saw defied belief. Not only did he eat the chili, but he used his spoon like never before. It wasn’t the neatest spoon-handling we’d ever seen, but he got more chili in his little mouth than ended up on his tray. We thought about trying a little hot sauce with that, but considered that discretion was the better part of valor and just enjoyed this growth process.

Wow, John’s salsa makes kids mature faster. Whooda thunk it? John’s genius was on full display. Just don’t tell him this…as we wouldn’t want him to have too big an ego about it.

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