Surprise grapefruit

Tate came home, vibrating with excitement.

“Hey kids!  I got you a surprise for your breakfast tomorrow!  Grapefruit!”

Grapefruit. (Imagine I’m saying that like Seinfeld used to say, “Newman.”)

“And how is it a surprise, ding dong, if you just told them about it?”  I said this to myself, I’m not the type to have silly arguments with my husband.

(On a side note, he paid $40 for these surprise grapefruit.  One of his coworker’s daughters was selling them as a fundraiser for her high school.  I just have to say that had _I_ brought home a surprise $40 box of grapefruit, Tate would have thought I was nuts.  Now, if I had bought $40 worth of Girl Scout Cookies (two boxes), he’d have jumped for joy!  We didn’t even get ONE box of  Girl Scout Cookies this year because when I tried to buy Samoas from the cute little chirping Girl Scouts at the Kroger, they were OUT.  Frankly if I can’t have Samoas, I’ll just do without Girl Scout Cookies for the year.)

So where was I?  Oh right! Grapefruit. (Newman.)

Of course, since Tate had mentioned this magical, surprise grapefruit right before Carson went to bed, there he stood at 7 AM at the side of my bed.

“G’morning, Mommy!  I’ve been thinking about eating that special surprise grapefruit!  Get up!  Carson said, bounding out of my room and down the stairs.  “I’ll go wake up Ella so we can eat!”

There’s a few things that could potentially go wrong with this whole surprise grapefruit scenarino, besides the fact that we are having to get up unnecessarily early.  1)  I’m not sure that Carson or Ella really knows what grapefruit is.  They could be thinking it’s a “grape”-like fruit and will be undesirably shocked to see that it’s a giant orange.  And 2) I’m not so sure that my two children’s palates are sophisticated enough for grapefruit.

This was a (possible) giant fiasco just waiting to happen.  “Thanks, TATE.” I thought to myself.  “So glad you’re at work and are going to miss out on their ‘surprise’.”

I was torn as to whether I should try to make this a learning opportunity or just be nonchalant about it.  I mean, if I made an even bigger deal out of these surprise grapefruits, I could pay dearly with my sanity.  But maybe the educational lesson could be just the diversion enough to make the surprise grapefruits less of a disappointment.

Because I’m a pretty awesome mom and overall human being, I decided to go the educational route.  We studied the no longer surprise grapefruit, inside and out.  We talked about how they could roll, how they look a lot like oranges, how they have seeds, and how MUCH THEY WERE GOING TO LOVE EATING THEM.

My wager paid off, they did love eating them.  They also loved the grapefruit juice that I squeezed fresh for them.  (See?  Pretty awesome mom and overall human being.)  Tate is off the hook, for now.  Well, at least until next week, when I’m sick of segmenting grapefruit and hand squeezing their juice.