Losing Lucy…

Cool…a new national holiday!

Not exactly.

It’s a new holiday at our house…and one I can really support…Duh!

The genesis of this new holiday is that both Nine and Eleven have Valentine’s Day activities scheduled with Dad but not Ten.

Tonight is Daddy’s night at Eleven’s preschool.

Tomorrow is the Daddy-Daughter Valentine’s Day Dance with Nine.

We needed an event for Ten, and being very creative, Mom created a new holiday.

We celebrated yesterday…at Chuckie Cheez-its!

Note I said Chuckie Cheez-its not Chuck E. Cheese’s…see Ten calls it Chuckie Cheez-its because Cheez-its is her favorite snack.

So the place will forever be known as Chuckie Cheez-its in our family!

Having your own family vocabulary is important and we do have one.

Hey…great idea…I think I’ll add a family dictionary to this blog!

Well, back to the story.

We started our lunch date at our favorite restaurant…I say our because it isn’t the place I would go without a child…McDonalds.

I told Ten I had a big surprise for her.

Claire’s? she said, hopefully?

Better, I said.

So another first…and I was so privileged to be the one experiencing it with her.

There is a ride in a toy car sitting next to the “host rat” himself. It think it lasts about 30 seconds and the car hardly moves…but Ten rode it four times. The ride takes a black-and-white photo as a bonus. She collected four pictures.

There is another ride…a large rocking horse…that garnered about six of our precious tokens.

I encouraged her to play some games which she reluctantly did…that is reluctantly until she realized you could win tickets that can be redeemed for toys (actually junk but…they are kids).

We found a game that all you had to do is press a button and a ball randomly bounced into a hole that yielded the number of tickets painted next to the number.

Ten hit the jackpot and won 200 tickets.

You may not realize that Ten has difficulty making choices…flash back to Halloween…curses on the homes that offered a choice of candy…Nine and Eleven were all the way down the block before Ten chose the right candy bar!

Well, we spent almost as much time cashing in her 487 tickets as we did playing the games.

Fortunately she chose a toy that cost 300 tickets and that sped things along.

Wonderful memories…cute photos…lots of laughs…all for about $20.

Life is good!

Oh…lest I forget…a new holiday!