Almost everyone in my house is over 5’5″. Almost. Five of the six of us are. My four year old daughter is not. She’s not even over four feet tall. She’s also very observant of the fact that she’s the very smallest of our family. In fact, she’s started telling strangers “I’m the only child in my family,” which confuses strangers who then try to figure out who all the teens are and what our relationship to them might be.

It’s hard being so small in such a big family. Big people can do a little more, play a little harder, push themselves a little longer. A tiny person has to expend twice as much energy just to keep up on a walk. So it’s no wonder that after our month of fun on the road, our smallest member was a little bit tired. But because she’s four, there’s no way she would actually rest. Rests are for babies.

So I got a bit inventive. Last Monday the poor kid was exhausted. She was trying so hard to be awake and have fun, but she could barely lift her head off the couch. So instead of trying to make her rest and ending up with both of us frustrated and even more tired, I decided to make her a blanket fort. But not just any blanket fort, a Move Theater blanket fort complete with mini movie screen (the iPad), comfy seats (pillows and blankets) and buttered popcorn. And believe it or not, it actually worked. She spent the entire day snuggled up watching movies and resting.

We’re not a fan of the pre-packaged microwave popcorn, it tastes funny, and even though we like stove-top popcorn, it’s so much easier to make Paper Bag Popcorn.

The directions are demonstrated below.

Paper Bag Popcorn

Measure 1/4 cup of popcorn into a paper lunch bag.

Step One:

Pour 1/4 cup popcorn into a paper lunch bag

Step Two:

Fold the bag over twice to close it.

Place bag in microwave for 3 minutes. Remove when pops are 1-2 seconds apart.

Step Three:

Place bag in microwave for three minutes. Be very, very careful you don’t fall off the counter! This works just like regular old microwave popcorn, listen until there’s 1-2 seconds between pops and remove from the microwave. Once you’ve done this a couple of times you’ll find your perfect time. Two minutes is perfect for the microwave we have now.