we named our restaurant "jackson's restaurant" because that's what he wanted. We decided he could draw a picture of all of the food i was making for dinner (after getting very upset that he couldn't make a menu of all of the foods he liked then i would just have to make whatever the missionaries ordered.) He drew a picture of meatloaf, salad, potatoes, and cake.
When I started making the salad a few minutes before they were scheduled to arrive I realized that i had accidentally bought cabbage instead of lettuce. I thought i'd improvise and cut up some oranges and cucumber to have on the side. When jackson saw me cutting up the oranges he asked why i didn't tell him that so he could put it on the menu. i told him my predicament and he was very upset about his menu having salad when we didn't have it. i told him that the cucumbers are green so it looks the same but then he pointed out that they would wonder what the red (tomatoes) was on top of the green. i told him if he wanted he could just cross out the salad and add the new items. we worked on it together and i thought it was settled but he could not get over the black scribble on his menu. he was crying that his menu had black on it and the missionaries wouldn't know why it was there. i sent him to his room to calm down and he threw his menus (i picture him doing this in a very exasperated fashion) then ran back to his room and slammed the door. he was upstairs at least 5 minutes before the missionaries arrived. When they got here he wouldn't come downstairs. i went up and explained that menus have black marks on them when the chef has to change it. he asked "do they have black marks when they accidentally draw the wrong food?"
"yes dear"
he came downstairs as happy and cute as ever. he gave them their menus. he carried their food. (he dropped some oranges but mom ate those) and was very happy with the opening night of jacksons restaurant.
in moments like those where i get exasperated thinking that i'm doing this great nice thing for my kids and they lose their temper but when it ends well i'm so incredibly thankful for hopefully a happy dinner memory we've created. i hope the positive sticks and not the negative.
