A/N: It's a bit late, but here is the first installment of my February challenge fill. Enjoy!
Friday night in the Booth family was always 'Eat Out Night'. They would pick Christine up from Girl Scouts and rush over to the restaurant where a crowd of people would be waiting to be seated. Booth would always head off to the bar for drinks while Brennan got their names on the waiting list and kept on eye on the kids. Eventually, they would be taken back to their table and the kids would crawl into the booth, shedding their heavy winter coats, and the parents would sit on the outside. Some weeks they sat together according to gender, other times it was random; on this particular night, it was the former. The waiter would come and if Christine was lucky, she'd be allowed to order soda as her drink. As they waited, Christine would play the games on her menu, managing to beat her mom two of the three times in tic-tac-toe and fly through the word search.
As for food, Christine was like her dad: picking something different every time, always willing to try. Brennan would find the vegetarian options, and Hank, their picky eater, would get the exact same thing and if was any different he wouldn't eat it. Through bites of food, the kids kept the conversation going with tales of their day in school and daycare, and Booth and Brennan would interject with stories of their own, often talking about their current case at work.
Once the bill was paid, Booth would hand his kids a few quarters and they would dash off the with swirling gumball machine, happily squealing as their treat rolled down to them. He and Hank would split one, and biting a gumball in half was no easy task, but he managed.
"I got you one too, mommy!" Christine says, holding out the blue gumball.
"Thank you, sweetheart," Brennan replied, following her husband and son to the car.
"Daddy? Can you blow a bubble with your gum?" Christine asks as she buckles into her seat.
"Sure I can! Watch," Booth demonstrates, helping Hank into his seat. The bubble pops with a snap and Christine laughs. She'd been trying to blow a bubble for months and could never get it right. But that night, she stretched it over her tongue and blew. And slowly, a tiny bubble appeared.
"I did it!" Her face was alight, illuminated in orange by the passing street lights.
"I knew you could!" Booth says happily.
"Mommy? Did you see? I did it!
"I saw," Brennan nods.
"Mommy? Can you blow a bubble?"
"Can she blow a bubble?" Booth asks feigning offense. "Your mom was a bubble blowing champion when she was your age."
"Really? You were, mommy?" Christine asked, shocked.
Brennan laughs at the tall tale Booth was spinning for their kids. "When I was just about your age," She starts, "Grandpa and Uncle Russ and I went to a carnival. There was a table set up with prizes and a bowl full of gum. They were giving them out to people who blew the biggest piece. Grandpa told us he would get ice cream for the one who blew the biggest bubble. Well, Uncle Russ was always ready for competition, and he took a handful of gun and started chewing. After a moment, he started blowing a bubble that popped after only a few seconds. When it was my turn, I took longer chewing, and my bubble was much bigger than Russ'"
"I was as big as her head," Booth interjects.
"Wow!" Christine sighs.
"The trick is to chew it for a while longer than you think so the sugar distributes a bit more. You'll have bigger bubbles that way."
The rest of the way home, the back seat is silent as Christine takes her moms advice and tries to blow bigger and bigger bubbles.