Chinese New Year

It's Chinese New Year.  2012 is the year of the dragon. 

My kids are really into Chinese New Year.  I have no idea why.  I have never mentioned anything about it.  Although, I once worked with a woman from China and she took the entire office out for lunch to celebrate the new year.  It was fun.  She explained what all the different foods meant and why it was all lucky and would give us good fortune.  I can't remember most of it, but as I look at my stack of unpaid bills I wonder if I should have eaten more oranges.

Anyhow, my kids are really excited about all things Chinese.  They are thrilled when they realize that a toy they have is made in China.  You would think the novelty would wear off since practically everything is made in China, but it doesn't.  They believe in their heart of hearts that they have something very ancient and special from the other side of the world.

A few weeks ago I saw those kids chopsticks in Wegmans.  They were on sale, so on a whim I picked up one for each of them.  We ordered Chinese take out for dinner that night.  The kids did surprisingly well.  I thought that half-way through we would have to break out the forks, but they ate the whole dinner with chopsticks.  They liked it all so much that they even at the vegetables!  I mean, who doesn't like vegetables drenched in that yummy sauce?  I'm considering serving all vegetables with chopsticks and calling it Chinese food. 

The thing that prompted this whole post was breakfast this morning.  All the kids were complaining that they didn't like the pink cereal that they begged me to buy.  They sat there, their shredded wheat with the sickly-sweet, artificial-strawberry-flavored, pink frosting getting increasingly soggy and gross.  And that's when it came to me.

"Cereal for breakfast is good luck in China,"  I lied.

Yup.  That did the trick.  The whining stopped and the kitchen was filled with the sound of slurping and murmurings of who was going to have the most luck.

Don't judge.  Tonight we're having Chinese food for dinner and my kids will eat their vegetables.