The other morning, as my wife was still snoozing, my five-year old had a brilliant idea.

“Hey Daddy, let’s make a surprise breakfast for Mom!”

Great idea. What were you thinking?

“Chocolate covered bananas and strawberries.”

“I’ll cut the bananas,” his older brother chimed in.

Unfortunately, we were out of bananas, strawberries, too. In fact, the only fruit we had in the house was apples.

“Okay,” he said. “Chocolate covered apples!”

We washed the apples, cut them into wedges, and arranged them in a bowl, then started the search for chocolate sauce. No luck.

“Hmm,” I said. “This isn’t much of a surprise. It’s just a bowl of apples.”

“I know,” the little guy said. “Let’s do a surprise drink!”

“What did you have in mind?”

“We’ll need marshmallows.”

We found some marshmallows leftover from Christmas. They were pink and green, but seemed squishy and okay. Do marshmallows go bad? I don’t think so. I got three glasses out of the cupboard: one for each boy, and one for their momma.

The five-year old filled each one with water, dumped a handful of marshmallows in, and started stirring. The water turned pink at first, and then the green took over.  After floating a bright yellow peep (which is a sugared marshmallow chicken) on top of each one, he carried the glasses to the table.

We guided my wife to her special breakfast drink.

Now came the fun part.

She managed to keep her smile when she looked in her cup, saw the fluorescent yellow marshmallow chicken floating in the murky green water, surrounded by bobbing marshmallows.

She even managed to say “mmm, that’s delicious” when she touched it to her lips.

She didn’t however, manage to open those lips when the cup touched them.

“Drink up,” I said, helpfully. “It’s best if you take a big gulp and chew the marshmallows as they go down.”

“No,” she said. “I prefer to sip. What else did you make?”

“Apples, but no chocolate sauce. We’re out.”

“That’s okay,” she answered. “This drink is delicious all by itself.”

Satisfied that his creation was sufficiently appreciated, my five-year old took a sip from his own glass. His face crinkled up.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“It’s not very good,” he said. “It’s just like water, doesn’t have much taste.”

“That’s too bad. Momma likes it, though. Maybe she’ll drink yours.”

Heh, heh, heh.