Sunday, April 19, 2009

Popcorn & hot carrots

Just wanted to share a quick story with youJ.

A long while back I read something somewhere about an idea that I really liked & we’ve used it ever since…for probably 2 years now. Every month on the date of the kids’ birthdays, they get a “special day”. For example, Benjamin’s birthday is on Nov. 12…so on the 12th of every month is his special day. The idea was to do something special with just Mommy & Daddy without the other kids. Often it has taken the form of staying up later than the other 2 & playing a game. Anyways…recently we decided we wanted to be able to do things one on one with the kids, not just with both of us. I wanted to be able to do girl things with Manda & for the boys to do boy things with Ben. So this month we’ve changed up the routine a bit. Ben & I are going to switch each month doing one on one days for the kids’ special days. The month of May is mine, so I’m doing one on one “dates” with each of the kids. In June Ben will do the same.

Last weekend, I took Benjamin with me to take family pictures. He loves taking pictures too & posing people so I thought he’d enjoy it. Unfortunately the actual picture part was a little to scattered & quick for him to really help me, but we did have fun going to DQ for supper afterwards & he thoroughly enjoyed being able to pick whatever he wanted off the menu: hot dog, fries, watermelon slushy, & dilly bar. We were hoping to wash the van afterwards, but the car wash was closed.

Tonight was Amanda’s night. I’d really been looking forward to this because we very rarely do “girly” things together. When we watch movies as a family it’s neutral ones that everyone will enjoy. Ben took the boys for a drive so we could have the house to ourselves. We had decided to watch a girl movie (I had surprised her & gotten Tinkerbell.), paint our nails, & eat popcorn. Once the boys had left I asked her what she wanted for a snack. We had talked about popcorn previously, but I wanted her to have the chance to change if she wanted. “Do you want popcorn?” “No, let me look.” (She looked in the fridge & pantry.) “OK, popcorn.” As we started getting out the popcorn & popper, Manda suddenly got really excited. “I KNOW!!! Popcorn & hot carrots!!”

I have to admit we don’t eat a lot of cooked carrots around here because neither Ben nor I like them, but my Mom has made sure the kids have had them as they’ve grown up. Manda has always struggled with really hard crunchy foods, so she (& Kirby too) just loves them now. Often when I get carrot sticks out at lunch time she’ll ask me to make her “hot carrots”. Anyways, I can’t say I’ve ever thought of cooked carrots as a movie snack before…but who am I to turn down the 5 year old of her favorite food on her special day!?

No comments: