Paul and Popcorn

At some point, our family developed a bit of a habit of eating popcorn, with the bowl on a kitchen towel on the floor, during movies. It is one of the few instances when eating outside of the kitchen/dining room is permitted. This afternoon, the children watched a movie. They asked to watch the movie, which I approved and helped to get started, but no one asked me about popcorn. I was busy doing something on the computer. Paul kept coming to say something unintelligible to me, but he was very insistent. I though maybe he was saying "torn." I asked him what was torn, he ran off, and I went on with what I was doing. He kept coming back saying the same thing. Finally he insisted I follow him to the kitchen, where he showed me the popcorn popper and bowl that he had gotten out of the cupboard on his own. The light went on for me, and after I tried to get him to say "POPcorn" a few times, I agreed to make popcorn because he was so industrious. I started the popcorn popper and went back to finish what I was doing.

Before long, Paul was back repeatedly saying "butter, butter," so I went to melt some butter to put on the popcorn. When I checked the fridge, there was no butter there, so I got a stick from the freezer. When I went to get a knife for cutting the butter, I happened to glance in the popcorn bowl, where I saw 3/4 a stick of butter, unwrapped, sitting in the bowl (fortunately no popcorn had popped yet). Yep, Paul was still being industrious and taking care of the butter, too. I cut off a little butter to melt in the microwave and found some waxed paper to wrap the rest of the butter in.

All of a sudden Paul was yelling again. When I turned around to look, the popped corn was flowing over the sides of the bowl. I started cleaning it up, but Paul's eye was caught by an unpopped kernel which he grabbed and put in his mouth before I could stop him. Of course, it was very hot, but I gave him a drink, and he was alright. He was undaunted and quickly got out a towel to put the bowl on while I added butter and salt. So Paul triumphantly delivered the popcorn to the family room, which all the others devoured without even thinking about all the work he had done to bring it to them.