Phonetics, Lars Style

We had Adventure Lunch at The Yellow House today. Second snow day in a row, and I was out of ideas. Grilled cheese, quesedillas, soup, mac & cheese and sandwiches were all vetoed for lunch. On the verge of losing it with them in a big and ugly way (ok I did it a small and ugly way, but do I get points for keeping it small?), I sent the kids out of the kitchen while I prepared "A Super Surprise Lunch".

Saw this on good and happy day - lunch in a muffin tin. Throw in a few pieces of chopped salami, a few kidney beans, some crackers, apple slices into each little hole, and VOILA: Adventure Lunch.

With great ceremony I ushered them into the kitchen for my 'big reveal'. Plopped the muffin tin down between them, and you would have thought I made them roast beef & Yorkshire puddings. Sample of responses: "OH WOW!" "Just like Lunchables but better!"[like that would take much] "This is such a cool lunch!" These are the same naysayers who felt that nothing in our cupboard would make a suitable dejeuner.

But this was my trump card: I left two holes empty. Told them if they managed to empty all of the cups of their 'healthy' lunch they would find out what would fill the Surprise Cups. This kept us guessing all through lunch. What does it start with? 'F' What would it feel like in my fingers? Hard. What ELSE does it start with? 'L'.

They couldn't guess. I bet my readers out there could. What is my go-to treat after a long day with the kiddos? What is the comfort food of all comfort foods for the Mom of the Yellow House? You got it: FROOT LOOPS.

So they finish lunch. They get their Surprise Cups filled. They spend a few happy moments munching and commenting "ooh, orange tastes just like oranges!" "oooh, and blue tastes just like blueberries!" mmmhmmm, yeah kids.

Then Lars looks up: "Hey! You said it started with F! There's no 'ffffffffffff' in Froot Loops!" Yes there is bud, there's an 'ffffffff' sound in 'Froot' "No! There's not!" Yes there is. F is for Fruit. Or Froot, as the case may be. "Well there's not that sound in MY mouth."

Consider me told.