Chocolate Factory

I think parents should attempt to capitalize on the random interests their kids have in the moment, don't you? Ben is currently obsessed with chocolate and factories. We happen to live about two and a half hours from the Hershey Chocolate Factory. Since we didn't get ourselves to the beach or camping a single time this summer like we had planned to do we are feeling pretty bad about ourselves as parents. Brian has earned some hotel rewards points again for all the business travel he has done so last night he booked us a one night stay near Hershey and we're heading to the chocolate factory with the kids on Friday afternoon or Saturday morning. I'm pretty excited too. I love big machinery, engineering and chocolate. This morning I told Ben what we were planning and he, being the pessimistic guy that he is, was full of negative questions like: Why can't we help them make the chocolates? I want them to give me a Reeses Peanut Butter Chocolate at the end, no other kinds. Can I help put the wrappers on the candy? That kid is such a glass half empty sort of guy. We swear he must be Uncle Anthony's kid, not ours. The whole world is just out to get him in his mind. Luckily, later in the day Ben had been thinking it through and become a lot more enthusiastic about the idea of a chocolate factory tour. He told me he is going to watch very carefully all the parts of the factory so when we get home he can make the same kind of chocolate in his chocolate factory in the boxes in the living room. For the last week or two he has been using his amazing imagination to create a chocolate factory in our living room. He currently has two huge boxes that are the factory building. He uses smaller boxes and laundry baskets as the cooking pots. The chocolate is made from crumpled up packing paper. I have a pile of mats we used for preschool last year that he lines up outside the building and uses them as stoves. There is a row of "buttons" on the couch he uses to turn the stoves on and off as he moves the boxes and baskets from one burner to another. Everything he does is methodical and deliberate. It is fascinating to watch the detailed thought he has put into his play. Everything goes well until Maddie or another playmate decides to use their own imagination and does something not in his plan. He freaks out. The chocolate gets burned or isn't cooked enough when Maddie moves the baskets or takes a piece of packing paper, excuse me, chocolate from the pot too early or late. There are tears and screaming and a lot of parental intervention. I love that he is so imaginative, just wish he was more open to other peoples ideas. He is terribly bossy and I'm not quite sure how to massage a nicer personality out of him. One of my favorite things he has done so far is make three signs. Brian spent a long time helping him spell out each one. They had to be on paper that he trimmed himself because the corners needed to be "not sharp". Then he glued each sign to a different side of the factory so he can turn the building to tell the customers what sign to look at each day. We had to glue the signs after Maddie was in bed so they could dry before she woke up and pulled them off. The signs say: Closed for Church Closed for Vacation Workers Only (meaning they are out of chocolate and the workers are cooking more, so no customers today) What a great imagination he's got.