Mommy Maya Meetings

When Mike is working late teaching evening classes -- which is two nights a week minimum this semester (groan) -- Maya and I get to have a special night together on those nights when I am on the early shift and get off work early. She has dubbed these evenings 'Mommy Maya Meetings'.

During Mommy Maya Meetings, all the normal rules about dinner and bedtime go out the window. It is special time for us, so we don't have to follow the rules. We order dinner from a restaurant that delivers and eat it while watching kid videos on TV, and sometimes Maya falls asleep on the sofa and I carry her to bed. She thinks it's super special, and sometimes we do special activities too. During one Mommy Maya meeting, we made playdough. During another, we made banana bread with pink sprinkles on top. But normally, we just hang out together and Maya gets to pick what we order for dinner.

Last semester Mike only worked one evening a week and evening classes were cancelled for the entire month of Ramadan, and of course occasionally I had to work late, so we didn't have too many special nights. And last semester Maya was allowed to choose McDonald's delivery for pretty much every Maya Mommy Meeting. But this semester, with Mike working a minimum of two nights a week, that is totally not possible. No way am I going to feed Maya that much McDonalds. Yet is has been very hard to persuade her to choose something different. I mean, she is even turning down pizza saying she wants McDonalds instead. I guess I can't blame her since happy meals come with a toy.

Tonight, however, I was finally successful in persuading her to choose something else for her Mommy Maya meeting. We had chinese food -- tofu with vegetables, sweet and sour chicken, and spring rolls -- on the sofa while watching Sesame Street DVDs. Maya, however, chose to forsake the tofu and chicken in favor of steamed rice and a spring roll. It was a nice evening ... until she decided to force herself to stay awake until her daddy got home...