Life lessons with ketchup

"Anyone want ketchup?" I called to the boys over my shoulder. We rarely eat lunch when we visit our local children's museum, but they were so exceptionally behaved today (and I didn't want to make lunch) I indulged us all.

"Is there barbecue sauce for my chicken fingers?" I glanced around the service station.

"No honey, I don't think so...ketchup, mustard, and..."

"Tartar sauce," he said from my elbow with a scowl. Ah crap. Such a nice afternoon about to go up in flames over barbecue sauce.

"I'm sorry, sweets." He shook my hand from his shoulder and returned to the table with a handful of ketchup packets. I admired his willingness to press on. It isn't so easy, you know. A few minutes later I looked up to a cry of anguish to see that one of the ketchup packets had exploded all over the front of his sweatshirt. I helped him remove the sweat shirt (to reveal the too small shirt of his brother's that he'd put on under) but still he pressed on. Elyas was busy babbling about what was playing at the IMAX, and what does this rating mean and that rating mean. Dev was silent and scowling. Finally I asked what was with the face.

"I'm...concerned...about my run of bad luck."

I smiled at him and assured him I thought it was changing. I went to grab some extra napkins at the other end of the service station, and there it was...the barbecue sauce. I smiled brightly. "Look, Dev!"

He looked down at the fragment of one chicken finger and sighed heavily, tears in his eyes. "At least you can have some with the last of it."

"I want barbecue sauce too!" Elyas squeaked...Dev passed it across the table. "It's not very good barbecue sauce, Elyas...I don't like it you can have it." He went back to his ketchup and brightened for the first time since we'd sat down. "So Mom, do you think my luck has changed enough that we can get ice cream?"

It meant a lot, this afternoon. My kid learning that luck changes because we allow it to change. Maybe I'm learning that too. That's cool.