Panilla

We had our first ice cream of the season tonight (well, as a family . . . I've already had some recently . . . and it's not as if we haven't had ANY ice cream since last summer . . . )

OK

We had our first, family, Dairy Queen visit of the 2006 ice cream season. It was delicious. We all had cones. Since it was 45 degrees (or at least felt like it) there were very few drips to clean up on the kids' cones, which Flannery appreciated. I didn't. I like cleaning up drips. How else am I supposed to eat half of their ice cream. We sat outside eating for a bit and Collin gave us a running commentary of everything going on around us.

"Panilla. Mama eat panilla. Queso eat panilla. (car drives up) That man gonna get ice cream. Panilla. I eat panilla. (man walks up) That man gonna get ice cream. Panilla. I eat ice cream. (car drives up) That man gonna get ice cream. Panilla, panilla, panilla . . . . "

Collin began crunching on the cone when he still had a significant amount of ice cream left above the cone. This resulted in a very vanilla-coated nose. However, Cayla got more ice cream on her coat than Collin got on his face. It was just too much work to hold the ice cream in front of the coat. Cayla also kept trading cones with Flannery. The game ended when Cayla tried to keep Flannery's cone. And of course, Cayla needed to try and wipe up every ice cream drip that she noticed, which significantly slowed her down. Collin finished his ice cream before all of us and tried to "borrow" mine. He had no idea who he was dealing with. After a few moments he said, "Where's my ice cream." Then he responded to his own question, "In my tummy!!!!" And thus ended our first, family ice cream trip of the season.

And now, as I "check my e-mail" and Flannery puts the kids to bed, I've just heard a report that Collin has a tummy ache from all that ice cream. Forget letters and numbers. I will not rest, until I can teach my son to "hold his ice cream".