The Ice Cream Shop

Iced coffee.

Undeniably my favorite drink in the whole world.  I’ve got some close seconds–hot chocolate and Dr. Pepper are right up there, too.  But there is nothing like that rich dark coffee mixed with my favorite creamer (right now, the simple French Vanilla) and some ice cubes.  I have a pitcher in our fridge right now and it takes some pretty cold weather for me to switch to the hot stuff.

One thing that I love about iced coffee is that it instantly takes me back to summertime.  Every morning before I left for work, I had to pour myself one of those tumblers full of the cold “liquid gold”.  I worked at a daycare where we spent the majority of our days outside playing or walking to field trips, so that cool drink was always so refreshing!

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One of my favorite memories from last summer at the daycare was a field trip to the zoo with the oldest group.  My coworker and I got the kiddos ready and before we left, our director gave us some “secret ice cream money” if the kids behaved really well.  We were under orders to not tell them about this prize they would earn if they were good; rather, we were to encourage them to obey and let things work out how they would.

The walk to the zoo was wonderful!  The kids hardly complained or lagged behind—we were all having a good time.  Icecream for sure.

Of course, not everything was perfect… there were some moments when we were ready to pack up and head home.  BUT, we wanted the kids to succeed (I mean, who doesn’t want ice cream in the middle of a July afternoon??), so we encouraged them to change their behavior, and they did.

There is a little icecream shop on the way back to the daycare and as we got closer, the kids started asking us if we could stop and we said we’d think about it.  The closer we got, the more the kids implored of us to get some icecream.  I was impressed with how persuasive they could be!

Once we were across the street from the shop, we stopped the line of kids and gave them a little speech.  Now I don’t remember the exact things we said, but we told them how before we even left the daycare, Miss Lynda had given us ice cream money.  She wanted us to watch your behavior today and if they were really good, to stop for icecream.  We also told them that there won’t always be a reward like icecream for good behavior, but that shouldn’t stop them from being good either!  The field trip to the zoo was so much better when everybody got along and was kind to each other.

Then, we told them how proud of them we were and let them get their ice cream reward.  They sure earned it!

Now how much of that did they hear and really understand when they were just staring at the icecream shop?  Hopefully a little bit 😉

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Maybe that’s why I love iced coffee so much.  Sure, its wonderfully delicious, but it also takes me back through so many great memories of meeting up with friends for “coffee dates”, working at the daycare, and learning how to make it… And I do love reminiscing.