Not too long ago a gourmet popcorn shop opened up in downtown Kalamazoo.

As someone who enjoys supporting local businesses, I had to pop in on my way to a work-related lunch last week. They have some outrageous flavors but with my 3-year old in mind, I picked up some fruit-flavored rainbow popcorn. She loves fruit, she loves sweets, and she loves popcorn. How could I go wrong?

I was so excited to show her the special treat, but my excitement was dashed the moment she tasted it:

“Mommy, I don’t like this popcorn,” she said with a grimace, shoving me back her handful.

“Maya, it’s yummy! Why don’t you like it?”

“I want the frozen popcorn! Not this.” (Which of course led me to think of Violet saying “Daddy, I want an Oompa Loompa now!”)

I had no clue what she was talking about. Frozen popcorn?

“At the movies, we ate popcorn. I want frozen popcorn.” (for the record, she says “fwozen”)

<lightbulb brightens>

“Oh honey, you mean you want the kind of popcorn we ate when we saw Frozen?”

She nodded furiously.

Aaaahhhh … We saw Frozen in the theater back in February. Yet here she was, nearly three months later, associating a memory with a time/place. I guess I shouldn’t be so surprised; she does this a lot — for things from well over a year ago; stuff I don’t think she could possibly remember … but she does. Still — it was a one-time thing; she has only seen one movie in the theater to date. I was definitely surprised she remembered. And I was also not so sad she didn’t like the rainbow popcorn; more for me 😉

Of course, I didn’t have any buttered popcorn on hand and we weren’t going to hit the theater that night, so I did the next best thing I could do to make her happy: I found a bag of pretzels and cracked that open for her and all was right in the world.

Next time I go to the popcorn shop, I’ll get her the good old-fashioned buttered variety … you know, the fwozen kind. 😉