Magic Tea

A couple Saturdays ago, Heidi and her friend Christine had a yard sale.  That left me with our Elaina (two and a half years old) and Christine’s Malia (three years old).  

What to do to entertain two little girls?  For starters, lunch needed to be a picnic.  It was a beautiful day, and neither girl was keen on going back inside.  I figured I could pull Elaina’s Fisher Price picnic table out onto the deck.  Problem solved.  But I was a wondering how I was going to keep them in-sync with respect to lunch—not having one wanting to run off while the other is still eating.

And then inspiration struck.  When my sister Anne and I were kids, our older sister Linda used to babysit for us, and sometimes she’d make us “magic potion”.  Magic potion was 7-Up with food coloring in an exotic-looking genie bottle.  Anne and I were impressed enough that I think we continued doing this for ourselves, even after Linda stopped babysitting for us.  Magic potion:  a perfect, fun thing to pass on to Elaina.

Well…I didn’t have a genie bottle…and I didn’t have 7-Up…nor was I really sure I wanted to pour soda into these two little girls anyway.  What I did  have was a princess tea set.  (Actually, Elaina has a princess tea set—I  don’t have a princess tea set.)  And I had food coloring, water, and a couple little girls imaginative enough to have been playing “Dinosaur Jungle” outside with me that morning.  So, instead of magic potion, we had “magic tea”. 

It did take a little selling though.

Malia chose the first color.  I mixed and poured pink magic tea.  Both girls took tentative sips. 

“It’s not very good…” Malia declared, looking at me expectantly.

Elaina’s watching this unfold, reserving her opinion for the moment, but clearly willing to follow the older girl’s lead.

“It takes a bit for the magic to take hold,” I explained.  “Wait a second….  Okay, take another sip, and see if you can tell me whether it’s watermelon or raspberry.”

Malia takes another sip.  “Watermelon,” she announces, brightening.

"I love watermelon,” chimes Elaina.

“Oh good,” I replied.  “Pink is tricky that way—I’m never sure I’ve mixed it right.  I’m glad it came out watermelon.”

The girls had quite a lot of tea in the time that followed, trying a few different colors and eventually settling on watermelon pink for Malia and lime green for Elaina.  Of course, since it was tea—in a princess tea set at that—there was a lot of “please” and “thank you”, and “ma’am” and “sir”, and discussion about what did and did not constitute ladylike behavior at an afternoon tea. 

This kept the girls entertained and in one place for quite awhile.  It’s lucky Linda taught me the formula for magic potion all those years ago.