Filling our Bowls

My sister in law reminded me of this month's Empty Bowls event at one of our local community colleges. Our family tries to attend each year, but somehow I had missed the announcement! We made plans to meet and have a lunch of soup together. Each of the kiddos quickly picked out a bowl for their lunch. They chatted with their cousins about their choices and other hot topics of the day. It took me a bit of time to find the perfect bowl. I picked up and walked around the tables with quite a few different options. My brother offered his sage advice to go with function over form. I think I was able to find one that combined both quite beautifully.

On the way home, Eamon and Benton agreed that they couldn't wait to have cereal in their new bowls. We don't often have cereal in our home, but both of them love it. I decided to offer a variation on breakfast for dinner. We were going to have cereal for dinner, AND they could pick whatever cereal they wanted from the store. I wasn't going to check for food dyes, hydrogenated oils, non-GMO grains, or high fructose corn syrup. We were going to shop at Target not the health food store. They were ecstatic. They loaded our cart with Trix, Lucky Charms and Cinnamon Toast Crunch; I grabbed Rice Chex (can't get too out of control!). We waited until dinner time for the craziness to begin. Each of them poured their bowls of cereal and milk (except for Aine who doesn't like milk). Eamon ate several bowls before his belly started to hurt. Benton combined cereals and proclaimed it the best ever. Aine ate all the marshmallows out of her bowl. It was fantastic. They had so much fun. We have decided to make it an annual event. So now we have new bowls and a new tradition-empty bowls followed by crazily filled bowls.