Wishbone

We had a wonderful meal at my mother’s-in-law house yesterday. Ham, turkey, sweet potatoes, mashed potatoes, green beans, apple pie, and ice cream, oh yeah. All the foods that I and Wifegrit grew up with and love, but stuff that our boys just aren’t interested in. Calfgrit10 said when he grows up and has Thanksgiving at his house, he’ll serve pizza.

The boys played inside and outside most of the morning, after they lost interest in the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade. (What’s up with that TV presentation nowadays? More than half the show is talking with celebrities, show clips from concerts or Broadway plays, etc. They hardly spend any time actually showing the parade itself.)

At one point Calfgrit7 asked if the turkey had a wishbone. I don’t know where that question came from. “Yes,” we said, “turkeys have wishbones.” We talked about the process and purpose of breaking the wishbone, and he got really excited at the idea of getting a wish. He kept talking about it and asking when he and his brother could break it. He declared that his wish would be for a horse. (The boy loves horses.)

Right after taking the turkey out of the cooker and getting all the meat off, we let the boys try to break it. We explained how they have to hold it, and they can’t look at it.

I remember my brother and I breaking a wishbone just about every Sunday after lunch after church. We’d hold it under the table and break it. After several times, I think we both had little secret gimmicks for breaking it in our favor. I don’t know how well the tricks actually worked, but the process was fun none the less.

For my boys, we covered the bone and their hands with a dish towel. They pulled on it, but their hands kept slipping off the the moist bone. After a few tries, all they could do was bend the bone a bit. So we set it aside to dry, (to make it easier to grasp and brittle to break). All during the meal, Calfgrit7 kept asking about the wishbone. His interest and anxiousness was cute at first, but after a while, geez, it got tiring.

They tried breaking it again right after the meal, but although it was drier and they could keep a grip on it, it would just bend. They couldn’t get it to break.

So we came up with the idea of putting it in the still warm oven and letting it dry out more in the heat. We put it in and set the timer for 15 minutes. Calfgrit7 asked about how much longer it would be every 30 seconds. (That kid has got to learn some patience. For my sanity.)

At last, the timer told us the bone should be dry and brittle. Calfgrit7 ran to get his brother for the breaking.

I told the adults that I needed to handle the bone breaking, as I had noticed, when the boys tried earlier, how the bone would probably break. I wanted to make sure CG7 got the end most likely to result in the biggest piece. Both boys held their end of the bone, I put the towel over their hands, and they pulled.

Snap! They pulled their hands out from under the towel, and sure enough, CG7 held the biggest piece. He stepped back, closed his eyes, and made his wish. He was silent, but his lips moved with the words in his head. I’ve never seen him do that, even when blowing out birthday candles.

He gave me the bone and ran from the room. A minute later he came back, frustrated.

“I messed up my wish,” he said. “I forgot to say which stairs.”

OK, that’s a bit weird. He said earlier he was going to wish for a horse. And now he’s lamenting his failure to be clear about which staircase he’d find his wish? He never told us what he ended up wishing for, (a horse or something esle?), but he kept complaining that he messed up his wish. He wasn’t real torn up about it, but he was disappointed. We explained that there are other wishbones, and who knows, he may find his wish come true in a surprising way because he was specific enough. (No, we are not getting him a horse.)

It might be fun over the next weeks to point out stairs he can check out to see if his wish came true on them. Or maybe it might be cruel. Hmm. I’ll have to think about that.

Bullgrit