For those of you who have visited Apartment Lucy, you'll know this was quite a feat. Our apartment isn't very big, with reasonable seating for about 6 in the kitchen and 8-10 in the living room (including sitting people on the bunk beds). But the IMPACT kids had been clamoring for a pizza and movie evening, and as the only leaders with a functioning oven, we were it.
It was really fun, actually. At 5:30 precisely we heard the sound of laughter and footsteps coming up the stairs, and soon there were 20 pairs of shoes littering the entryway, smiling faces and talkative preteens passing olives and canned corn and sheep cheese onto the kitchen table. We quickly assigned tasks, setting the kids to work chopping and spreading sauce onto the five pizza pans we'd procured from friends, and soon the kitchen was abuzz with laughter and conversation and queries: how should we chop these mushrooms? Where is the grater? Could you please pass the ham?
Everyone working!
Mm... Romanian-style pizza (though we conveniently left off the eggs...)
Kelly with Roxana, Adina, and Eliza, after the crowd had cleared.
Eventually the preparation frenzy passed, and we slipped the pizzas two-by-two into the oven. As the smell of dough and cheese filled the apartment, we played a crazy game of Fishbowl, Jack slipping out periodically to pop new pizzas into the oven. (We made 10 pizzas, by the way. I used every single bowl in our apartment to hold the dough as it was rising.) Finally we ate, smacking contentedly as we balanced paper plates on our laps (we don't have anywhere close to 20 plates) and doused our pizza in ketchup (...it's a Romanian thing). Eventually we settled down to watch Frozen with Romanian subtitles, squeezed on to the bunkbeds and couches in our little living room, full and happy.
Some of the boys on the top bunk...
It was really fun. Tiring and messy, but fun. (I still haven't remade the bunkbeds in the living room -- they were such coveted locations that the sheets and pillows all got ripped off and thrown around, and I just haven't mustered the energy to start untangling yet.) Jack and I agreed, once again, that we weren't ready to have kids quite yet -- at least not 20 of them at once, and definitely not a dozen between the ages of 11 and 13. But despite the slightly-overwhelming-chaos of the whole evening, we really had fun. We're learning a lot about how to be good youth leaders -- how to provide space for fun but still maintain safety and authority, how to look out for their minds and their hearts. It's tiring, and maybe a little bit more than I bargained for -- but I'm glad for it. And super glad that this learning curve contains so much pizza.
Guess I know what to bring when we visit!! :)
ReplyDeleteWow, you found space in your apartment! It's incredible, but nothing is impossible. When I was reading the post I thought about our dinner in your balcony with the tables of the kitchen there!
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