Spectacular

This evening, me and my children came home from my son's baseball practice – my daughter playing with her friend, a sister of one of my son's teammates. My wife had a meeting to attend at our children's school. The particulars aren't so important as my point, a question.

We came home, and had homework to finish. We all sat in the kitchen, I recited spelling words to my daughter – she got them all correct. We made it more silly, reminding my daughter that I learned how to spell 'able' by sounding out the 'a-b' followed by 'l-e', pronounced lee: ab-le. She smiled and said that she's using it.

We made silly comments – my son joining in – about things we all knew.

While doing this, a bucket of mac & cheese heated in the microwave. I microwaved another for my son. The kids love mac and cheese buckets. I heated up mixed vegetables with rice – add soy sauce, sriracha sauce, red pepper and garlic powder, and the flavor is nothing short of spectacular to me, I'm serious. True, nights like this have a way of making everything spectacular, but I digress.

The lightheartedness continued with my son's science. In reviewing the chapter for a test, we spoke silly, came up with different ways to remember. My son appeared to pickup on everything and likes science.

As we wrapped up studying and my son finished up on a few questions of grammar, my daughter commented on the light over the stove. “It looks like the light of a campfire.”

I immediately understood the soft glow of firelight. This lead to an idea. My wife's meeting had ended and she would be driving home soon. We turned out all the lights in the kitchen and dining room. My daughter jumped up and brought a lamp with a candle as the source of light. We lit it, sat around the kitchen and pretended to sit around a campfire.

We told stories, the kids giggled throughout and, when my wife came home, it was smiles all around.

The time was later than usual, the kids went to bed with smiles, hugs and kisses for everyone.

Ever have an experience like this? Normal, ordinary life made spectacular with a little imagination and pleasant thoughts?

The only thing to make it better would be if my wife was with us. Still, there did come the moment she came home: Spectacular.

Before and after: Spectacular.