her mother's daughter

This evening after dinner, my girls were swinging in the back yard while I pulled weeds from my small garden between underdogs. My husband had been sent to the store for milk, and I was postponing bedtime for a few more minutes until he returned home. It had been a long day and should have been an early to bed kind of night. And it would have been had the five year old not heard the ice cream truck.

I'm not the kind of mom who keeps a purse full of change; getting me to buy ice cream from the ice cream truck is something even the two year old gave up on long ago. However, today I had drug them around the Heights all afternoon on a fruitless bout of garage-saling and did, in fact, have a purse full of change for a change. No sooner had we heard the tinkly music and I nodded at the five year old in a vaguely positive manner than she leapt out of the swing and ran through the gate to the front yard to flag down the truck. I grabbed the two year old and went through the house to get my purse. The whole time, the two year old was chanting, "ice cweam, ice cweam, ice cweam, yay..."

But upon reaching the front yard, I faced a terribly downcast eldest child coming back toward the house and saw the bumper of the ice cream truck as it rounded the corner and headed down the side street. I couldn't let it end like this, so I said, "Well, hurry. Go get it." And off she went after the ice cream truck. I grabbed the two year old I had put down just seconds ago and who had changed her tune ever so slightly to "hurry, hurry, ice cweam, ice cweam...," and we were off too, though at least half a block behind the five year old by this time.

Three and a half blocks later, we reached my girl pointing victoriously at the ice cream truck parked by the curb. One Great White Lemon Ice/Mississippi Mud Pie/Dora Sundae with bubble gum eye balls later, we walked the three blocks home. My husband had returned home with the milk by this time and joined in the fun, which culminated with ice cream kisses on his head and an arms-akimbo-two-kid-carry upstairs to the bath tub.

Dora--the early stages

Dora's eyeball--the aftermath

As I was tucking her in for the evening, the five year old was ruminating on her day and waxing philosophical as she's known to do: "Mom, on a different lemony day I'm going to get the same kind of ice cream again. Okay." My guess is she'd run five blocks if she had to.