Junk Food Day

I love summers
and their laid back days
with time to play
and sleep in
without rushing to get ready.
At the same time,
I love schedules and productivity.
With boys with boundless energy,
I feel like I need to take that energy
and channel it.
At the end of each school year,
I start thinking about a summer system
that will be fun and flexible,
allow us to spend time together,
and help us learn and be productive.
This Summer,
we decide together on something we want to work for.
(For example, when we rode the new ferris wheel in Seattle.)
To earn the reward,
we must fill up a jar with stones we've earned
from completing tasks.
One stone is earned by completing regular morning chores
(brush teeth, scriptures, clean room, house help, prayers, etc.)
in a timely manner.
Usually, they have an hour and 15 min.
from whenever we eat breakfast.
That's usually more than enough time,
even when Kacin dawdles and gets distracted
he can get everything done.
Another stone is earned for reading for 20 min.
This year, I also ended up buying workbooks for the boys.
I just got the Brainquest books
for the respective grades they are going into.
Each day, they do three pages out of their book.
I check the pages and they earn a stone for the jar for each page.
The boys love the cursive, science, math,
and social studies pages the best.
But my favorite way they earn a stone is for Mom Time.
I get time with each of them by themselves doing whatever I choose.
I choose activities depending on
how much time I have and how I feel.
Sometimes we play a game together or I read to them.
Sometimes it's as simple as walking together to get the mail.
I've also done things like play a computer game together,
give a piggy back ride, go running, watch a show, or do yoga.
Just whatever I'm feeling we need that day.
What I do with one boy I don't always do with the other.
I LOVE this time.
Even if it's just a few moments,
it's uninterrupted time with each of them.
Oh, and fyi, stones also go in just because my boys are awesome,
but they also can come out for whining and back talking.

With all that said,
now I explain this.

Junk food. Happy faces.

Junk food. Sick faces.

Junk food. Crazy faces.

                         
I don't know exactly how it happened.
It was a collaborative idea when grocery shopping together.
Maybe a bad idea,
but an idea nonetheless.
The boys and I came up with
Junk Food day
as our most recent reward for filling up the jar.
All the things we never buy or eat around here,
we bought and ate.
The boys were cracking me up as we went shopping.
They laughed at all the junk in our cart
and how we did not put one healthy thing in.
And how we were all going to have tummy aches.
But how this was so exciting and so much fun
to pick out anything from the grocery store
(just not bananas, sorry my Kyler. that's too healthy).
Kacin was so anxious to go to sleep
so he could wake up and eat.
They picked out a sugary cereal, Kraft mac and cheese,
and Raman noodles for our three meals.
And then to snack on they chose lunchables, Cheetos, and Cheezits.
For treats, they chose ice cream with whipped cream
and we bought Ding Dongs, as requested by daddy.
Our junk day ended with more candy and a movie.
I don't know what kind of mother I am now.
Some may judge me
because I never get this stuff for my kids in the first place.
And some may judge because I gave it to them all in one day.
Eh, whatever.
We made a memory.

I don't know how the boys feel now,
I'm sure they would deny it anyways,
but I feel sick.
Like we need to follow today up
with Vegetable and Fruit day tomorrow.