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“Yellow!” he screams, pointing at his sister.
She shakes her head, holding the crayon to her chest and says, “U-hu. I need it, pick another color.”
“YELLOW!” he screams louder.
“No!” she screams back, and I’m really considering just grabbing them both and leaving this place without the cake pops, just cutting my loses.
“It’s okay, go get your things. I’ll keep an eye on them for a second,” a voice emerges from outside the screaming match now on full swing between my kids, and there’s Kenna, the young woman I’d met in line, taking a napkin to clean up the sugar mess on the table and talking to the kids.
“Eli? You have such a beautiful drawing, what is it?” she asks, and their eyes fly to her simultaneously. She is smiling and his eyes shily move down to the drawing in front of him.
“The sea. I want to paint a fishy. Yellow.”
“Wow, a yellow fish?” He nods. Her soothing voice is working wonders and both kids are now just calmly looking at her.
“That’s a good idea. Wanna hear another good idea?”
He nods again and his eyes slowly go back to her again, eager to discover whatever might come next.
“While Maggie uses the yellow, we can do a green fishy to be yellow fishy’s friend. How about that?”
His eyes widen in wonder and his little hand immediately grabs for the green crayon.
“What about me?” Maggie asks shily.
“Your drawing is beautiful too. What is it, can you tell me?”
“It’s a princess castle. I need the yellow to paint it because we have no golden, so this is the gold. Princesses have golden palaces,” she states proudly.
“They do. Their castles also have a lot of pinks and purples, so maybe we could use those too?”
Dropping the yellow, she makes a grab for the pink crayon, and in less than a minute, the coveted crayon now sits abandoned on the table and both kids are happy again. It’s like I just witnessed real magic happening in front of me.
“Thank you,” I say, and I go grab my order. When I come back to the table, they are still calm and quiet, painting away.
Eli sees me and grabs for his cake pop.
Maggie looks at me and I set her cake pop and smoothie in front of her. She smiles at me grateful and goes back to painting after a sip on the smoothie and a cake pop.
“I appreciate this so much,” I mumble, not knowing exactly what to say. She’s been a lifesaver, really.
“Don’t worry about it, really.”
“Let me buy you another coffee?” I offer, thinking that throwing money at a situation usually helps, but she shakes her head.
“No, thanks, can’t have too much caffeine or I’ll be bouncing off the walls.”
“Please, I have to do something,” I insist.
Kenna bites her lip, giving me another crooked smile. “Maybe a cake pop?”
“A cake pop?”
“Maybe I have a little problem with sugar,” she says, holding up her fingers to indicate a small amount.
I laugh and leave her again with the kids at the table while I go and order her cake pop, bringing it back for her.
She sticks it into her mouth immediately, smiling.
