A day well spent
Sometimes my children surprise me delightfully. This morning Kiki decided she wanted to play with Polly Pockets. Since all the Pollys now belong to Gleek, this meant that Kiki and Gleek played together happily all morning long. Let me repeat that for emphasis. Gleek and Kiki spent ALL MORNING shut together in their room without any squabbles at all. I kept close tabs to make sure it stayed that way, but I didn’t need to really. It was wonderful. It was so wonderful that I folded Kiki’s laundry for her (a chore she hates) as a way to thank her for being so nice. Around lunchtime I carefully separated the two because I wanted them to carry away happy memories of the morning.
It worked out well, because at about that time Gleek’s friends started showing up at the door. Within 20 minutes Gleek had acquired three friends to play with. She held court up in her room completely happy to be surrounded by people. Kiki was happy too. She pulled out the art project that she has been working on and kept me company while I worked in the kitchen. Two of Gleeks friends had arrived shepherded by older brothers who wanted to play with Link, so he had company too. Patches played solo for awhile before joining the party in Gleeks room.
The best part for me was that they were all so happily occupied that I was on call even less than usual. While they were all playing I used our very dusty ice cream maker to make frozen yogurt. It’s yummy, but it was lots of work and more expensive than buying ice cream. I’m starting to wonder if I should bother to continue to give cupboard space to the ice cream maker. Whether or not I keep the ice cream maker, it was really nice to be relaxed enough that I was interested in experimental cooking rather than survival cooking.