Today our children jumped on me in bed, wanting to know "what will we do today?" My wife had left hours earlier to take a relative to an appointment, so I was on my own. As we entered the kitchen, I saw it: a bowl heaped to overflowing with Ontario Peaches, and I had the day planned.
We began by peeling enough for 3 large bowls worth, and then I went to get a book I'd been meaning to try with the girls for a few weeks--Dahl's James and the Giant Peach. I've read almost all of his other books, but for some reason, never this one. The girls and I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in one sitting last summer, so I was hopeful I could get them hooked again.
People love to talk about how children today can't enjoy simple things anymore, that their attention span is only minutes long. I don't have anything more than personal experience to offer in response, but here is what it says: Give them something to eat so delicious it must have fallen from Heaven, and read to them with a passion and love for reading. We didn't intend to finish it all in one sitting, it just sort of happened, and none of us saw it coming. The screened porch has swallowed many afternoons this way, and hopefully will do so again.