Cafe con Leche

What do you get when you let a two year old try Cafe con Leche?

A Coffee addicted 5 year old.

We're not really a coffee drinking family.  Cafe con Leche is an occasional treat but a tradition none the less. 

Cuban kids and I suspect quite a few other Hispanic children drink coffee and milk from their baby bottle.  Many Hispanic parents don't see anything wrong with this at all.  They are in fact drinking milk.  "Growing kids need their calcium".

It was not my plan to follow through with this tradition.  I figured when the subject came up I would pretend that chocolate milk was coffee.  It has worked well for one of my best friends.  They are a heavy coffee drinking family but the kids are none the wiser as they sip on their hot chocolate.

Then there was that fateful Saturday morning trip to Grandma's.  I only discovered what had happened from a picture.  A picture of a sweet two year old grinning from ear to ear with bread crumbs on his cheeks and few droplets of Cafe con Leche on his shirt.

The chasm had been crossed.  The point of no return. 

I typically pass for "gringa".  But the way you know I'm Cuban for sure is to put a nice hot cup of Cafe con Leche in front of me and a half a loaf of heavily buttered flat toasted cuban bread "tostada" and see them both quickly disappear.

So it became a Saturday ritual.  The visit to Grandma and the Cafe con Leche.  I wouldn't actually let him drink the Cafe con Leche.  He would only dip his bread, but I would have to rip the coffee cup out of his tiny little hands as he hung on for dear life with mouth open hoping to catch just a drop more. 

He could smell the coffee a mile away.  It was hard for mom and dad to sneak in a cup without him knowing.  "What are you drinking?"  "Nothing Buddy"  I smell coffee.

Little by little it was every other Saturday and then just once a month.  Now it's just once in a while.

With ash brown hair and blue eyes, I guess you could say he could pass for "gringo", but place a steaming cup of Cafe con Leche and Tostada in front of the boy and watch it disappear.

The Cuban in him comes out just like his mommy.  He is 3/4ths Cuban after all and tomorrow is Saturday.