100 marshmallows for 100 days

(Image by Stuart Miles/FreeRangeStock.com)

Today’s elementary school kids have a whole lot more to celebrate than they did back when I was in school. My classmates and I marked the big holidays — Halloween, Thanksgiving, Christmas and Valentine’s Day — with in-school parties. My daughter’s class acknowledges all of the above as well as Red Ribbon Week, homecoming week, Dr. Suess week and the 100th day of the school year. And those are just the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

But I will say this: All of those festivities keep her excited about going to school. For the weeklong celebrations — Red Ribbon, homecoming and Dr. Suess — the students do something different each day, such as wear their PJs on Monday, dress as their favorite superhero on Tuesday, etc. Some days, my daughter says she’s not interested in doing the activity, and I don’t force her to, because I know there will be something during the week that she’ll be looking forward to doing.

This past week marked the 100th day of class. The teacher assigned each student to bring 100 things to share with their classmates. It could be anything from beads to Goldfish crackers as long as 100 of them would fit in a quart-sized zip-close baggie. My daughter insisted on marshmallows.

I bought a package of the multi-colored kind. Even though they don’t seem to taste different from the white marshmallows, I personally always liked them best.

From the moment I showed her the bag of marshmallows, she was more than eager to sit down and count out 100 of them. She asked to do it before she did her homework.

“Homework first,” I said, but once she had completed her assignment, I sat out a baggie, ripped open the package and shook a decent amount out onto our kitchen table for her to count.

I held open the baggie for her, and she dropped in five marshmallows at a time. At one point, we got distracted and lost count. She thought we were on 60, and I said 65. So I emptied the baggie back onto the table, then told her it might be easier to count them the way I count pennies from my penny jar: By making piles of 10 and leaving them out until all the counting is done.

“So how many piles of 10 will you need?” I asked.

“Ten!” she said, and started counting.

And of course, once she finished, she was very happy to see that there were more than a few marshmallows left over.

The next morning, she hopped out of bed and said, “Today’s our 100th day! I can’t wait! ”

And later, as she headed out the door with her dad as he went to drop her off, I said, “Have a good day!”

She responded, “I will! I’m going to have the best day ever.”