Cereal for Dinner?

I was in the kitchen, conversing with Pat, who also works with Nils. Nils and Annika were both in the room with us and it was nearing dinner time. Nils went over to the counter and picked up a box of Peanut Butter Panda Puffs, a delightful gluten-free cereal. I'm not really sure who opened the cereal, but they mutually agreed that it was a good thing to eat at that particular moment.
Nils said, " I want some cereal."
O.k. He wanted some cereal. Cereal for dinner? Admittedly, I eat cereal for dinner sometimes, but it's not normal for Nils and Annika to do so. I told them that we would have dinner soon, but did not take the cereal away. I'm glad I didn't because what happened next was way too interesting.
As Annika snacked on the cereal directly from the bag, Nils held onto the box and proceeded to tell me what he needed.
" I need a spoon."
"Good job, Nils. That's right. You eat cereal with a spoon." I was happy to hear him request a spoon. We had recently had a discussion about forks and spoons and cereal in one of our work sessions. As I commented on this to Pat, Nils went over to the silverware drawer and produced a spoon. He came back to the table and set it down.
" I need a bowl."
Pat and I both looked at him and then looked at each other. We were thrilled that he was requesting these things. Requesting missing items, or as Skinner would say, "manding" for missing items, is something that we had decided to work on with him when we had our conference several weeks ago. He really is better at this than we realized.
Of course, Pat and I were having a great conversation about his manding. Nils did not care about our conversation. He still needed a bowl. He walked over to the kitchen counter and looked up at the cupboard that held the bowls and said again,
" I need a bowl."
I went and retrieved a bowl for the child, who promptly put it with the spoon on the table. He then climbed up into his chair, looked at the bowl and the spoon- I could see the gears turning in his head-then looked at me and proclaimed, with his hand in the air,
"I need some milk."
Ah, milk- the final component- I was just absolutely thrilled at what was taking place. And then the problem- milk. Nils cannot have regular milk, and in vain I searched for his special milk.
Annika had been adding bits and pieces to this conversation, while munching on the much desired Panda Puffs. I looked at the bag she held and saw that approximately 6 little puffs were in the bottom of it. I poured them into Nils' bowl and told him that the milk was all gone. I then proceeded to make him toast with peanut butter, which he highly approved of. We'll have cereal another time.