I Scream, You scream, We all Scream

For ICE CREAM!
Oh, summer and all of it's little joys.
Daytrips to the swimming pool, camping, catching lighning bugs, staying up past bedtime (my children's personal favorite, since during the school year they are in bed by 8), playing outside with friends, sleepovers, and the infamous ICE CREAM TRUCK. My children have their ears perked at all times for that familiar sing-song chime of the ice cream truck. I know the feeling, my brother and I also listened to far away noises hoping that out of the hazy, Memphis heat would appear the Ice cream truck. Most days it was comparable to a mirage in a desert; we kept thinking we heard it, ran in to beg for a dollar, but it never actually came. Those times it did roll through our little nighborhood gave us a jolt of excitement like no other and kept us going for days. God forbid if we came home one day to find that it had come and we had missed it? There is no other devestation like it for an eight year old.

Now, the truck that rolls through our neighborhood now is a bit ridiculous-looking, but the one from my childhood was probably also . Kids do not notice that kind of thing though. The one that graces our neighborhood now with it's presence is bright green with a ridiculous bell on top. It has silver rims that spin and of course plays a silly little sing-song to alert all children of it's arrival. Now, my kids will run into the apartment wild with excitement and begin frantically searching for their money. Of course, they can't ever find it, so I have learned to head them off at the door with a few bucks and send them right back out. This small expenditure is certainly worth my sanity later, should they actually miss the opportunity to have a $2.00 cup of colored ice from the ice cream man. Yes, $2.00 cup of ice. I suppose the little tiny bubble-gum ball in the bottom of the cup costs $1.90, because most certainly the ice cream man wouldn't try to rip of these little innocent children, now would he. Hmph.

But alas, price is not an issue when it comes to the ice cream man, so they gladly fork over two weeks worth of allowance to have fifteen minutes of joy sitting outside in the heat on a sweltering summer day, with their friends, eating their treasure. Now I must say that the ice cream man also offers, well, treats with actual ice cream in them for those more inclined to have a sticky substance sliding down their hands and off their face within minutes. Because that is way more fun. This was the choice of my little Journey yesterday. A Dora The Explorer ice cream treat. On a stick. With bubble-gum eyes. Wow. Serenity "chose" a less sticky option--a small red popsicle (for $1.25. The same kind one can purchase 50 in the store for the same price or less). I am not sure why I chose red. Her fingers and face are still red, despite the long, bubbly bath last night. But it was soooo good, she would tell ya if she could.