Creative dessert

We had great weather for Memorial Day weekend, and we ended up inviting ourselves to Marielena and Marina's house. The girls had a blast together, playing with Marina's American Dolls, running in the playground, etc.

Go back in time, a few years, and you'd see little Marina coming to our home where we frequently had a dish with m&ms or other treats. The kids, of course, loved them, and it was our prerrogative as childless uncle/aunt. Ultimately, the parents ended up putting the chocolate on a higher/out of sight place.

Fast forward again. Marielena has this cute and creative m&m dispenser. The girls had eaten some, and after the regular dessert Lorena announced that she was going to have more m&ms. We gave in to ONE last piece; she complained but took the offer. A while later I caught her with her mouth full of chocolate; and even later she grabbed some right in front of Pablo. Pable felt good about having stopped her, but Marielena had seen her eat some from her other hand. The following day, I came downstairs to find Lorena eating a huge lollipop courtesy of the Polish grandparents, before breakfast. Without any words I had to toss it away. The worse part of the crime for us, had been her directly disobeying us. I explained later that next time we were to have dessert, she wouldn't have any since she'd already had sweets.

Our weekly dinner with the Davila's was at our house this Tuesday. We grilled some burgers, and we were prepared for a lot of drama when dessert was brought out. I sat with Lorena and hugged her, while everybody else enjoyed their frozen treats. She tried to negotiate "a little tiny taste" out of everyone with no luck. The kids continued playing outside and having a good time. That is when we saw this:


"This is my dessert! Broccoli is my dessert. I am having dessert." And so she did, she thoroughly enjoyed it, went up and down the slide with it, and she even asked me to save it for her while she played some more.


Today, Lorena had her long day at school, and she always comes home exhausted from not taking a nap. She ended up falling asleep on her little couch while waiting for our dinner guests to arrive.



ARantxa found her asleep a little later and this is what she did...


When Pablo's friend and his daughter arrived, what they saw was Arantxa marching in front of Lorena, playing a loud flute; so not exactly the "sweet, tender big sister" we had just seen. In her defense, having guests for both of them is super exciting, even when you don't know them; Arantxa wanted Lorena to share in that moment of greeting the guests, and share her joy, like she usually does.