It’s All in How You Sell It

The temperatures are rising.

And I’m not only talking about the high temperatures outside.

Our thermostat is recording higher numbers every day too as we try to sweat through summer without turning on our air conditioning.

So far, so good.

Truthfully, it’s more like – so far, so okay.

The children don’t really enjoy being overheated and sticky any more than I do, but if having six kids has taught me anything (and trust me – it has) it has taught me the value of  the up sale.  The vital importance of the big hype.

It’s all in how you say it.

For about a week now I’ve been talking about how great if feels to stick your feet in a bowl of cold water on a hot day.

This morning, lounging in bed and planning to stay home all day long and treat summer as it should be treated, I asked the kids, “What should we do that is fun today?”

(I was determined to do my best to go with whatever their answer was.)

Immediately, some one of my offspring shouted, “Let’s sit on the porch with our feet in cold water!”

Another added, “And you read us books while we do it.”

Of course London chimed in, “We should eat something too.”  (That kid and her Esau belly.)

They brainstormed together and decided that the most refreshing beverage choice they could create would be frozen chocolate milk.

Goodness, my day was looking easy.

We prepped the chocolate milk, lined the cups in the base of the freezer with strict instructions not to open the freezer to check on the milk’s progress.

While we waited for our milk to enjoy the cold climate of our freezer, we all played Legos.

Eventually, the milk was frozen, the bowls of cold water were toted to the porch, miniature feet were sunk below the chilly depths, refreshing beverages were in hand and I finished reading The Borrowers out loud to the kids.  (Just in time for tonight’s first Mother-Daughter Book Club.)

And I think all of the kids would call this half an hour a highlight of their day.

And I would too.