{"id":34,"date":"2009-03-24T11:32:00","date_gmt":"2009-03-24T11:32:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.wordpress.com\/2009\/03\/24\/just-a-little-magic\/"},"modified":"2009-03-24T11:32:00","modified_gmt":"2009-03-24T11:32:00","slug":"just-a-little-magic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/2009\/03\/24\/just-a-little-magic\/","title":{"rendered":"Just a Little Magic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Years ago, when my first child was very little, I decided that I wanted to do everything I could to make my children’s lives magical.  I don’t mean in material ways or with things like trips to Disneyland (though I would love to do that with them at least once).  <\/p>\n

It’s just that looking back at my own childhood, I couldn’t really remember very many truly happy, silly moments.  I had a few flashes — feeding the ducks with my mother or the time she put on a helmet and a blanket like a superhero and acted like a crazy hunchback on my new moped — but I could count them on one hand (and have fingers left over).  And that sort of happy memory really takes so little work.<\/p>\n

It’s just a few minutes of silliness, a short walk and talk at dusk, a bottle of bubbles on a windy day… these little things make memories that make up the patchwork of a happy childhood.  <\/p>\n

Sure, that’s not all it takes.  We need to keep them safe and happy and healthy and all the biggies.  But those little moments go an awful long way.<\/p>\n

A long time ago I set a goal for myself to try to do something magical with my kids every day.  There are plenty of days where we don’t meet that goal, but I like having it as a challenge.  <\/p>\n

Last night’s magic was #4 on my list of ways to make the day magical from yesterday.  I had just a little ice cream left and decided to make the most of it.  I had the kids clear the table and then I put down 3 dish towels, one in front of each child.  I scooped 2 little scoops of ice cream on a saucer for each child and kept them out of sight.  Then I told the kids, "There are two rules for dessert tonight — you can’t make a mess, and you can’t use your hands."<\/p>\n

Victoria (who’s almost 11 and nearing that age of disliking making a fool of herself) looked skeptical.  Jack (who’s 5 and can just be argumentative) looked defiant.  Both started to protest and I told them they didn’t have to do it my way if they didn’t want to.  Anna (who’s 9 and loves silliness) broke into a huge grin and couldn’t wait to start.  The other two caught her enthusiasm.<\/p>\n

My three big kids happily licked and laughed their way through dessert, which took a surprising amount of time with no hands.  \ud83d\ude42  Victoria announced that it made a little ice cream go a long way.  <\/p>\n

It didn’t really take any extra time or effort to serve ice cream on saucers with silly rules.  It did lead to a lot of smiles (and some funny pictures) though.  Hopefully, when my kids look back on their childhoods they will have more than a handful of memories that make them smile.  I know I have a lot of memories of parenthood that are magical, which is awfully nice too.
<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Years ago, when my first child was very little, I decided that I wanted to do everything I could to make my children’s lives magical.  I don’t mean in material ways or with things like trips to Disneyland (though I would love to do that with them at least once).  It’s just that looking back…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[140],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/magicalchildhood.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}