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Health & Fitness

We All Scream For Ice Cream!

A memorable date with daughters...melts my heart faster than the ice cream did that day...

Springtime! When we all jump for joy as the local ice cream shops open their doors! A few years back, on my daughters spring break from school, I thought I'd do the 'good mommy' thing and bring both girls out for their first ice cream cone of the season.

"Where are we going now, Mommy?" Kayce asked, as we hopped in the car on what was undoubtedly the most beautiful day of the year. "Well," I told her, "if everyone is good, we could go somewhere special!"  "Yeah! Yeah! Where!?"

Kids don't really care where you take them. If you're going to grocery store for the forth time that week, all you have to say is "This time it's a special trip to the store because YOU get to help me pick out a new dog food!" That usually convinced my then seven year old that the sole purpose of the errand was to bring HER some kind of joy, and that...was good enough for her. She's now eleven and continues to think that each time we leave our driveway, it should benefit her in some way. Ha! Silly girl.

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Kamryn, who was four at the time, screeched happily in her car seat all the way there, for no other reason than we were going SOMEWHERE. And, she could see that her sister was excited about something. That's the beauty of being four. Four years olds see someone happy, and right away, they're happy, too. They don't question it, they don't ask, "What are THEY so happy about?" They just giggle right along. We could learn alot from four year olds.

We reached our destination. A quaint old house converted into an ice cream shop, with rocking chairs along the wrap around porch, beautiful landscaping, picnic area. A great place to relax while we enjoyed our treat. 

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After the ten minutes it took for the girls to decide what they wanted, it was our turn to place our order. How is it that, for an entire summer a child will insist on having chocolate ice cream, then the next spring, you take her out for her first cone and when you ask her what she want's she says, "Not chocolate. I don't like chocolate." (grrrrr.....) That was MY internal response. "You don't like WHAT?" I asked. "Perhaps you could have decided that last summer before you stained every T-shirt you own with chocolate ice cream. "

Three not so small cones later, with colored sprinkles of course, we were off to find a perfect place to sit. It was a beautiful day and I was spending it with my two most favorite people on the planet.

We found a spot in the shade, formed the best circle we could, with just three of us, and sat in the cool grass. At that very moment, the day took a very wild turn. That 'great spot' in the shade turned out to be about 40 degrees when the wind blew. Our napkins rode the wind like Arabian magic carpets, ice cream dripped down our forearms, horizontally held cones were on the verge of becoming something I was SURE to sit in, and my babies clung to me in a panic as the Gale force winds descended upon us.

Now, before I had children, I was told that being a mother was the most rewarding job I'd ever have. What I was NOT told is that some times, those rewards are handed out by adorable little guilt fairies, complete with "You could have set a better example" dust.  

"Mom Guilt." That's the WORST! You feel bad if you have to say no when they want M&Ms for breakfast, or if you don't feel like pretending that she's the Princess and you're the Prince, and you're getting married...again....or, if you lost your patience at the ice cream shop just because some napkins took on a life of their own.

Instead of taking all three cones and throwing them over the fence, into the street in a fit of rage like I am genetically predisposed to do... I somehow managed to remain calm and we were able to finish our treats.

There are so many things I want to teach my children, but it looks like they are the ones teaching me a few things. Like when your napkin blows away and there's ice cream dripping down your arm... Go ahead... lick it off! Who cares!? And when someones asks if you want to go somewhere special, don't ask questions! Just get in the car and go! And laugh all the way there.

I pulled into the driveway, turned the ignition off and sighed in relief that I was home and that the day was coming to an end. I was wearing a baseball hat as usual and there were spots of smudged sprinkles on my shirt. My legs had small, sticky handprints on them, first made by the ice cream, then covered in the powdery dirt that the wind had stirred up.

It had been quiet in the backseat for more than four seconds so I knew that one of two thigns was true. Either my two beautiful children had fallen into a dreamy slumber, or...they had fallen out of the car. Hoping the latter wasn't true, I looked into my rearview mirror. There, in the rectangle of reflection was... my whole world. Two happy, healthy, amazing, sleeping little girls. Sweaty hair stuck to thier faces, and ice cream stains down the front of their shirts. Not chocoloate, of course. Not for Kayce. She had moved on to black raspberry.

There were bands of black dirt around their ankles where thier sandals used to be, and the remains of a missing ice cream cone on the seat between them. As I looked at them I thought to myself..."My God, they are the two most beautiful things I have ever seen in my entire life... and I'm the luckiest mommy in the whole wide world."

 

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