Tuesday, May 3, 2011

The Best $8...

...I ever spent. Well, maybe not EVER. Especially since it wasn't on art supplies but still a very worthwhile purchase. Saturday, my family and I were heading to the grocery store when I saw a stand selling flats of strawberries for 8 bucks. I made my husband pull over and I bought a flat of beautiful, red strawberries (don't you just love spring?). I brought them home and began the task of cutting them up and getting them ready to make strawberry sauce to store in the freezer. I had my trusty sidekick (my son) next to me helping when a sort of miracle happened. You see, my son, is quite possibly the pickiest eater I have ever had the "opportunity" to deal with. He refuses to try anything (even a cookie if he hasn't eaten one that looks like it before) and dinner generally involves tears. I, being certain that I could fix him with all the parenting tricks, threats, and my fierce talent of standing my ground, have discovered that I know NOTHING! Turns out that my son has (of all things) inherited my fierce talent for standing my ground! ARGH! Well, for some reason, he decided he wanted to try a piece of strawberry. I was shocked and cut him the tiniest of slivers, certain that he would barely touch it to his tongue and declare it "gross". He nibbled that tiny piece for at least a minute and liked it. I tried to remain stone faced and not let him see me do the "happy dance" as he asked for another piece. I gave him one and then another, and another. Pretty soon I was starting to worry about overwhelming his stomach with the sudden introduction of fruit that didn't come in a box with a straw, but I just let him eat as many strawberries as he wanted. I was seriously dumbstruck. I don't know what got into him but I am sure glad I kicked down the $8 for strawberries. I had to journal about it (it was that big of a deal).

In fact, it totally made my other purchase that day pale in comparison. Inspired by Sabrina Ward Harrison and Pam Garrison, I have always wanted to try a dip pen. So I bought one and used it to journal my strawberry page in my altered book. I was trying to go for "sloppy sophisticated", but mostly it's neither. It's something that I still need to work on. That's what I love about an art journal. It can be whatever it ends up being and that's OK.

5 comments:

  1. So cute, I remember eating strawberries as a kid just like your son.. Too funny. I am glad you got some art out of it.

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  2. Dang. I wanted to stop and get those too, but Josh was wary (one too many flavorless purchases) and we didn't stop. I'm so glad that J-Man branched out and you have one less thing to "fight" about. ;) My kids would live off of strawberries if I let them.

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  3. Love your strawberry story.
    This is my first visit and I arrived because of a post on SCS. I read you have a great cupcake pattern and searching your site saw your generous offer to share your pattern. I would LOVE a copy.
    Thank you. sbhayes424@gmail.com

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  4. Go Jake! Glad he tried it, maybe he will branch out from his full carb diet! Funny kid!

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  5. Woo Hoo! Cheers for the $8 flat of strawberries! It's so funny...in our house my little one will only eat fruit. Nothing else. Just fruit. Of course, if there's no fruit in sight and she's hungry enough, then she'll eat other foods too, but we have to be very sneaky to be sure she doesn't see fruit anywhere. And I complain about this?????

    Hope you had a great mothers day!

    Blessings,
    Rosann
    http://www.christiansupermom.com/

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