Two Good Things I Did For Ryan

I love it when you do something right for your kids, and you know it immediately. I don't always take the time to play super-fun, messy, or inconvenient games or activities with my kids. Last Friday Ryan asked me to play "camping" with him. He was asking me to play with his camping toys, but I went a step further and suggested we build a tent. As soon as I started getting blankets and the dining room chairs Ryan got so excited. I knew right then that constructing this tent was the best thing I could be doing with my time. Ryan had a blast playing in it on Friday. We played "camping" together, then later had some quiet reading time in the tent. When Todd came home from school he thought it looked great, and Ryan and Todd were able to enjoy it together. I kept the tent up all weekend (until Sunday night--after the kids were in bed--when I couldn't stand looking at the "mess" anymore and the boys had started losing interest).

Friday night was also the last home football game for the high school. Papa took Todd to two other football games this season, and they thoroughly enjoyed watching the games together. Ryan doesn't quite have the attention span to handle watching a full game yet; at least, not if he is expected to actually sit and watch the game. Ryan also gets tired earlier, so it is really best if he stays home. When Todd found out that this would be the last home game, he told Papa that they would be going together. Papa readily agreed.

I felt a little sorry for Ryan that this would be the third night out that Todd got, while Ryan didn't have any special one-on-one dates. So, I decided to take Ryan out for ice cream. I didn't want to go very far, so I went to a Hershey's Ice Cream less than 10 minutes away. I wanted Ryan to be able to go somewhere where he could look at a ton of different ice cream flavors and pick whatever he wanted. This was our first time here, so it was a treat for both of us. We (at least I) drooled over some of the different flavors, sampled two, and made our decision. Ryan went with chocolate chip cookie dough in a plain sugar cone (he declined the dipped-in-chocolate-and-covered-with-sprinkles sugar cone!). I went with the red velvet cake ice cream in a cup.

I don't know if Ryan regretted his choice at all. He certainly ate all his ice cream that night. But since then, he has told me we need to go back again so we (either one of us) can get the Superman ice cream. The bright red, yellow, and blue Superman ice cream is a swirl of strawberry, banana, and "blue moon" flavors. Yes, the flavor was described as "blue moon"--what is that, really?

I regretted going back into the dining room to finish our ice cream. We started eating our ice cream at the tables outside, under the protection of the outside awning and an umbrella. It had started raining earlier, and there was quite a bit of lightning (no thunder though; but enough to cause the football game to be cancelled). Ryan said the lightning was making him scared, so we went back into the (freezing) dining area inside. Unfortunately, there was a TV in the restaurant playing the Disney channel. For the rest of our date I sat there trying to make pleasant conversation with Ryan while he finished his ice cream. I found myself talking to a TV zombie who kept asking me questions about the show which I couldn't see, since my back was to it. Next time we go we can get the Superman ice cream, but we're sitting outside.