Special Treat

Things are going a little crazy in our house --- I'll post on that when I have chance to actually sit and think while I type (those moments are rare... having a chance to hear my own thoughts, without something going on --- as I type right now the three big kids are cleaning the toy room, well, suppose to be cleaning. All I hear is a toy fire truck and toy guitar going off, Shortie singing, and Zekie's giggles. The little two are sitting at the table with me eating some dried cranberries. It seems I never get to finish my thought process)

Jon is out of town and I wanted to do something special with the kiddos. Even though I'm the one that's always home with the kiddos, I still feel that I need to do extra during the day when he's out of town. Maybe its because I know they know he's not coming home tonight to give them good night kisses, or to give them hugs in the morning before going to work - not sure, but I feel like I need to fill their time with even more Mom love in hopes maybe they won't miss him too much. 

This morning I told them I had a special treat planned out for them. They were so excited, even as we loaded up in the car they were trying to guess from everything under the moon  what it could be. To some it might seem like a really silly special treat, or not much of treat at all - but I still had some money left on my Starbucks gold card, and since we've stopped drinking coffee, I figured it would be great to use on the kiddos. So went to the drive thru Starbucks and each kiddo got their own little bag filled with oatmeal - yup, oatmeal from Starbucks was their special treat, and they were thrilled. As soon as we were home they all ran to the table and started mixing in all the berries and nuts, and gobbling down the "goodness". Shortie said it was an awesome special treat and she hopes we surprise her with it again. (on road trips we get the oatmeal from Starbucks for the kiddos, so I knew they loved it, but we've only ever got it for them when traveling across the country).

side-note --- I don't remember where Jon heard this story, I'm a little vague on the details of the conversation I just remember how we related it back to us. It was about how a family that had raised their kids to not feel entitled, something about how going to a fair and the children were told they could go on one ride only and that was so special to them because they didn't expect to do any. That the children were so thankful for the one ride that other  parents were amazed because their children were doing dozens of rides and being so rude and spoiled expecting more. I related it back to us and how we could do that, and then I realized that we were trying to implement that with our kids and sweet treats, or special treats. Dessert is not a meal that follows dinner, and its certainly not part of dinner. Its for those special nights that we want to give them a treat. Well, anyways, this morning their thankful attitudes and excitement for oatmeal showed me that we are moving in the right direction in this area (not to mention seeing their thankful attitudes for oatmeal, humbles me to be more thankful for things that are just 'basic/normal' kind of things)

Ezekiel always making silly faces, lol. 

Bubs opening his dried berries

She was very excited to eat the oatmeal

Grae looking for hers

ha, love this picture - he was eating it right up, and boy does he need a hair cut