Fortune Cookies, Cakes, & Memories

I sometimes wonder how I can spend all day with my children, and yet not have spent any time with them. This is how it often seems to me. We are together all day long. We are together while we are schooling, preparing meals, eating meals, riding in the car, etc. Yet, somehow it doesn't feel like enough. I feel like I need to make an effort to really talk to them, making eye contact. Working alongside one another is wonderful, but sometimes we need to slow down, and enjoy the ride. Today, I did that.

Early this morning I told my 8 yr old daughter, Abigail, that we were going to spend some time together. Her face shone as she smiled up at me. It occurred to me at that moment that she had been feeling the same things that I had. "What are we going to do?", she asked. I told her that we were going to bake a special dessert for Daddy, and that we were going to read together. She couldn't wait to get started.

Now, the thing is, we have dessert almost every night. Homemade. And we home school, and are always reading. But today, we took our time and really enjoyed one another in the process. We donned our aprons, and made a dump cake. I mostly supervised while she did most of the work. Her eyes twinkled as she worked. "Daddy is going to be so... happy."

Next, we tried to make homemade fortune cookies. For this, I enlisted my 12 yr old son, Collin, and 14 yr old daughter, Autumn. We all sat around trying to think of *fortunes* to tuck inside the cookies. This was most fun. Unfortunately, the cookies didn't turn out quite as well as we had hoped. Autumn was crushed. She had high hopes for this brand new project. We'll try another recipe soon. If I get one to work, I'll post the recipe.

After lunch, I read aloud to the children as we snuggled on the couch. It was special time spent together. I think that we enjoyed it so much because I *announced* that it was going to be time spent together. It made us all think about what we were doing instead of just plodding along.

It's curious how something that you do everyday can become a wonderful memory if you take the time to cherish the ordinary instead of just going about the routine. I'll try to remember that more often.