As Chronicle readers may remember, we have an ongoing issue with my wife trying to convince the kids to share their pizzas. For those that don’t remember, here’s the story.

The other day we had a leftovers meal (cleaning out the fridge of the week’s leftovers). Leftover meals are actually kind of fun. There’s never enough of any one thing to make a whole meal, so we put it all in the middle of the table and everyone takes their favorites. In this case, there were a couple slices of leftover pizza in the pile.

My wife, however, didn’t get any. Whether it was due to politeness or slow hands, I don’t know, but she didn’t end up with a slice. As the meal was winding down, we noticed that even though both kids had stopped eating, neither had eaten their pizza crusts. She tried to sneak one off of three year old N’s plate. She loves the crusts.

The little guy noticed, however, and grabbed the crust before she could reach it. “No! That’s my pizza!”

She’s not one to down very easily, however, especially when pizza is on the line. “Are you going to eat it?”

“No…”

“Then I can. If you’re not going to eat your food, I can.”

This was an interesting argument – pretty tough to argue with. The little guy looked to me for help, but I just nodded. “Sorry, but she’s right. If you’re not going to eat your food, you have to share.”

“But I AM going to eat it!” he shouted. Then he took a bite out of one end.

His momma turned to his older brother. “How about you? Can I have some pizza?”

He had already grabbed his crust. “Nope.” he said, biting off one end. I felt like I should try to help her out somehow, talk about the importance of sharing and all that, but I guess I was feeling slow. While I was trying to come up with something fatherly to say, N held his crust out to his momma.

It was quite a moment: the three year old offering up his pizza crust to his hungry momma. She practically melted.

As she reached out to take it, however, he pulled it back. “No! You can only look at it. You can’t eat it. You can only look at it.” Then he took another bite.

From Norman Rockwell to Norman Bates in 0.2 seconds.

Needless to say, we took the pizza crust away from him.