A warm hearted thank you :)

Yesterday after having our late lunch, my hubby accompanied my son to the swimming pool. He had agreed meeting up with few of his schoolmates. PSLE (Primary School Leaving Examination) had over since more than three weeks ago. All of them could rest and relax after going through tremendous pressure over one of the important exams in their life.

They were swimming at the neighborhood swimming pool. Not many people there as there were exams going on for the rest of the primary school students. They played with each other heartily with much laughter and chitchatting around. At about 2.45pm, all of them decided to come to our home to play.

There were five of them. Only one girl was joining. The rest were boys. They were all gamers and connecting each other through the online game – such as: Growtopia, Team Fortress 2, etc. – apart from being classmates and schoolmates at the same level.

As they entered my son’s room, it was suddenly filled with chlorine smell left from the swimming pool that absorbed into their hair and skin. They immediately occupied the room and played the computer games. But since there was only one computer, perhaps the rest got bored. They asked my permission if they could go to level 2, to play at the playground. I let them go. However, in less than 10 minutes, all was coming back home. It was starting to rain despite the sun was shining brightly.

They ended up playing the Xbox game. It’s kind of cute listening to their conversation. Btw, it was first time that my son brought back such quite number of friends home. Usually there was only one or two coming. You know, it wasn’t easy to get permission from their parents in such young age. As now the exam had over, they gained slightly much freedom.

Hmm… I was thinking how if I cooked some food for them. I mean, kids usually would love to have meal after tired playing. I was asking them if they would love to have some food afterward. All of them refused shyly. Perhaps they were still quite full from their afternoon lunch and didn’t want to trouble me. But I would love to prepare something for them.

I checked onto our fridge. There was minced pork inside the freezer. There was yellow and red pepper inside the fridge too, plus white onion at our dry store. Settled! I told Baobei that I’d be cooking Spaghetti Bolognaise with minced pork.

One of his friends was vegetarian and he refused to eat. I told him that I’d cook separately for him using the vegetable and pasta, plus egg maybe. However, he kept refusing and told me many reasons, such as: that he was on diet, that he didn’t like to eat Italian food, that he didn’t like spaghetti, and so on. Haha… such a determination in such young age!! Well done boy! Your parents would be very proud of you knowing this. It was very contrary with my son who would eat everything! Yes, you saw it right, he eats everything and never refuse anything!!! Hahaha… :D

So, while they were playing, I was busy preparing the food inside the kitchen. Usually I cooked only during weekend and when I had mood. It’s been quite some time since I cooked. Sometimes I was lazy and just wanted to eat outside. But yesterday I had this eagerness to cook for them as to make them happy.

At 6pm I started preparing their meals. The sizzling sound and the aromatic garlic smell with butter was coming out and attracted them. One by one came out from the room and in a while all of them gathered surrounding the dining table. I baked the toast with garlic, butter and some salt, making delicious and crispy garlic bread using the wholemeal bread. They were no longer refusing dinner but instead holding their saliva coming down from their mouth.

To distract them, Baobei was offering drink to them. I cooked two portions each at one time to get the more flavor taste. The portion was quite big for kid like them. But it’s better to offer them more than giving them too little, that’s what I thought. So everybody had quite a big portion, except the Vegetarian boy. He requested the bread, but it’s finished already. He ended up eating a packet of crackers. I think he got hungry too looking at the food in front of him as their friends started eating.

Baobei and his friends ^^

They were once again chit chatting while eating and once I finished cooking for my hubby and mother-in-law; one of the boys came to the kitchen with stacks of empty plates. Whoaa!!! That was fast!

According to my hubby, only the skinny girl didn’t finish the food but she took few slices of garlic bread. Looked like she loved it! My son asked him what to do with the leftover food left by the girl and my hubby told him to share it with the rest of the boys. He ended up sharing the leftover with another boy and they all finished the portion. Wow, didn’t expect that they all finished it despite the big portion that I scooped! So, don’t undermine the growing up boys’ appetite!!! :)

Once finished. They all got ready to go back home. I was concentrating with my meal at the living room. Suddenly, I heard one of the boys was saying, “Thank you for the treat.” I was puzzled and thinking to whom he was talking to. I lifted up my head to where the sound came and I saw him smiling at me.

Oh… those simple words had melted my heart. And the rest of the children, before they were going out through the gate, they were also saying ‘thank you’ repeatedly.  I was so touched! I felt that my hard work was paid off. They all knew about the gratitude feeling and I didn’t expect to hear it from kids like them. I kept replying them, “Your welcome, your welcome…”, as they left the house.

I just hoped that this would leave them with simple but good memory of being together creating small circle of friendship, before they were all separated into different Secondary school in two more months’ time. Good luck all of you and all the best!!! And thank you for coming! Please come again!!! :)