Lemonade

Alex adores lemonade - I mean, he LOVES it. He would drink it morning, noon and night if we let him. It's the closest he gets to soda, which he asks for daily and we know if we relent it's just a slippery slope this 5 year old would send his parents down and watch from the top giggling as we struggled to get back to the top.

So this afternoon I had to leave work early to get the boys after school as our friend who was going to babysit had a sick child. We went to one of the boys' favorite places, the Newbury General Store to get the weekly "Friday treat." Jack quickly chose the Peppermint Patty and explained that next week he'll be getting the Reese's Peanut Butter heart. Alex took his time, looking at every candy option in the store. I mean he looked at everything - "can I have two things Mama?" "NO." "What about . . ." "NO."

We learned that new people are buying our favorite general store and Alex declared "I want to by this Great General Store. If owned this store, then all the candy would be mine and I am a sugar hound." Truer words were rarely spoken.

Upon leaving the store we went to get groceries. How lovely to go to our grocery store on a day other than Saturday or Sunday! No crowds, everything pretty freshly stocked - it was a joy (as grocery shopping goes). As we went by the frozen food aisles Alex asked if we could get lemonade. I said "sure" as I knew I hadn't bought any in awhile and we probably didn't have any at home.

When we got home and I finished bringing the groceries Alex went to the refrigerator and pulled out a can of lemonade concentrate.

"Mama, just so you know, I asked you to buy lemonade as a back-up. I knew we had this lemonade in the fridge and I thought - you know, what if we make this and then someone goes crazy and just drinks lemonade all day? We needed a back up - I needed to know we had a back-up lemonade."

What do you say to that? I said, "gotcha - let's make that lemonade."