Real Live Fruit Ninjas

Blondie picked up a cucumber, tossed it in the air, and yelled, "Fruit Ninja!" as she pretended to slice it in the air with the pretend knife she was holding in her hand. I watched as she did this a few times. She would get down in a crouching ninja pose, toss the cucumber up, and hop up to whack at it with her pretend knife, catching the cucumber in her other hand. Imaginary cucumber pieces rained down on us, as Blondie would smile at me like she was the best Fruit Ninja ever. 

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After watching her for a short while, I did what any sane mother would do...I asked, "Wanna play real Fruit Ninja?"

Without looking at me she said, "No." 

"No, not the game. For real. What you're doing now but really slicing it." 

I discovered something that day. When the kids think that Mama has lost her mind and is even hinting at the possibility of making an epic mess in her clean kitchen, they come flying out of the woodwork. I was suddenly surrounded by many children with big eyes asking, "Really? She gets to be a real Fruit Ninja? In real life? In the kitchen??" And then..."Wait...do you know how messy that would be?"

The kids watched in awe as Blondie slowly picked up her cucumber, her eyes on me the entire time. She was waiting for me to suddenly snap out of whatever stupor I was in and realize what I had just given her permission to do. The kids held their breath when she tossed it into the air. No one moved when she slowly reached out to slice it, unsure that she was actually supposed to do it. They laughed hysterically when the real pieces of cucumber rained down on the floor, the table, us. 

Once she realized that I was not kidding, that girl opened up and really got into the game. Blondie was quite acrobatic with the positions she would get in before jumping up to slice at the air. Sometimes she appeared to have more arms & legs than she started out with. Like a tornado made up of blonde hair & extremeties. Then it was the other kids' turns & everyone had their own technique. Big D would just stand there and wait for it to come down towards him and fall across his knife. Ginger Girl did karate chops. Little Blondie...well, she needs a little help with the hand-eye coordination department, so she missed all of her shots but hey, she got an A for effort. 

In the end, we had cucumbers, tomatoes, and grapes, all sliced and tossed together on my floor--a giant mixed salad on plate large enough for all of us to eat off of. You wouldn't believe how well a kid-safe blade-less knife cuts up fruits and vegetables when it's whacking through the air at them. 

Fruit Ninja, real life version.
I've never seen my floor so
disgusting.

It's fun to step outside of my neat little box that doesn't allow for flying food and surprise kids once in a while. It was fun to watch the shock they had of hearing their Mother tell them to play with food, & it was priceless to watch them get into being Real Live Fruit Ninjas.