service

A comes from a long line of doers.  Her grandparents and great grand parents are/ were military,  teachers, secret service, a social worker, a pharmacist, and a christian educator.  Her Granny J now spends her retirement serving and encouraging others to do so.  So, A has observed many people giving to others in her short life.  This weekend was my father's retirement party and instead of accepting gifts, he collected items for SERVE, the local homeless shelter.  A. helped us carry all of the items in the house and talked about how they were going to be given to people that didn't have food.  No food is a very foreign concept to my child that eats about 50 times a day.  But, it definitely got the wheels turning.  This morning, I left her at her craft table putting stickers on paper while I went up to take a shower.  When I came back down, she had post its everywhere and was "writing" on each one.  When I asked what she was doing, slightly annoyed by the huge mess, she said, "I"m doing a paper project to give to people who don't have paper."  Shame on me for being annoyed with the mess.  So, we put the pig and penguin shaped post its in an envelope and mailed it to "those who don't have paper." aka my parents house b/c 1) I don't really know where to send scribbled upon post its and 2) I wanted to save her first service project to put in her memory box.  In the spirit of A. and the words of Granny J, get out and give back!

i hate birds

Meet Frank.  Frank is a coyote that only a person associated with a golf course superintendent would be lucky enough to have on their deck.  Frank is a very scary rubber coyote with 4 half legs that now sits on a bucket.  Every time I pass him, I cringe.  A., on the other hand, yelled "puppy" and went to go pet him after coming down from her nap (hence the diaper).  The birds that Frank was designed to scare have yet to form their opinion. 

Our deck is now beautifully adorned with 2 tomato plants, herbs, a bean plant, a cucumber plant, 2 pepper plants, and a huge amount of bird poop from the birds determined to tear the plants apart.  We have a robin that runs into our window about 100 times a day.  Yes, it just sits and poops on my deck chair then rams into the sliding glass door before finally returning to its perch for approximately 3 minutes when the cycle begins again.  We also have 2 black birds eating our plants and sparrows stealing the cocoa basket liner.

I had hoped that Frank would solve the problem and not just be a scary creature that my daughter somehow came to love.  However, I watched from the window today as another sparrow stole liner to build a nest that will only lead to more birds and poop on my deck.  So my hopes are dashed, my hatred of birds has grown, and I have to come up with a new plan... Any ideas?

a traumatic balloon

Let me start this off by saying that A. was FANTASTIC today.  She did well in the church service then played with some new people in the nursery and then we headed to Costco.  We got all of our groceries and had lunch, I know, we are ridiculously suburban.  Anyway, it is the Children's Miracle Network drive at Costco.  They were selling balloon's with a lollipop for $1 to benefit CMN; these are perhaps A.'s 2 favorite things.  So, of course, she wanted one.  I check my pockets and B. checks his pockets... only 56 cents.  What do we do now?  Do we
1)tell her no and go with the explanation of generosity and giving
2)beg for a balloon for my little girl that has been so well behaved today.

Well, we started with #1... that we didn't have enough money, the money was for kids that were sick so we should give extra and not less.  Poor baby was so sad.  She cried but not temper tantrum cried, she buried her head in my shoulder and cried out of genuine sadness.  It was breaking my heart.  So, I decided to forego the lesson that I know she wasn't grasping anyway.  I took my crying child and went to the customer service desk and asked if we could have one for $.56.  She, of course, couldn't say no to the traumatized 2 year old and she even let A. pick her color.  A. was so delighted that I even saw her kiss the balloon one time this afternoon.  I, however, have extreme guilt over the $.44 and the missed lesson.  I know this is ridiculous but who denies a sick kid $.44?  I guess the answer is, me.

Anyone want to give $.44 next time they see CMN to make this silly mom feel better?

the prayer

I think teaching kids to pray is a really important part of parenting.  We started singing the "God our Father"  and then saying "Now I lay me down to sleep" simple kids prayer to A. from birth. Both are prayers that our parents said with us.  A. started saying them with us when she was about 18 or 19 months.  Then we started adding in just a little thank you to God about whatever happened that day.  Tonight, for the first time, A said her own:

Dear God,


Thanks for today and Daddy and Mommy and K. and Mommy and K.. Thank you for Rollie Pollie.


Amen.

It was awesome.

fish and frog

A. has been a fan of fish in an aquarium since well, birth.  She loves to watch them, feed them, and torment them by tapping on the glass.  So, we bought her her own aquarium for Valentines Day.  She had a gold fish, a white fish, and a frog.  Since that time, we went through 3 frogs.  The first time that our fish died, we tried to avoid trauma by telling A that it was asleep.  The frog was upside down on his back and looked very peaceful.  We left it there until B. could replace it; this just happened to be the same day that the fish began to eat frog.  The second time, A. didn't even notice for about 3 days.  B. replaced it before she even asked about it.  Apparently, she is not the most observant, or she needs glasses...  Finally, the third time, B. tried to replace the frog but apparently there is a frog shortage in all of the surrounding counties.  So, we decided just to tell her that the fish died and went to heaven to be with Jesus.  We thought she would cry or something.  She just calmly accepted that the frog was gone.  Her only questions were, "will he jump there?", and "Can Uncle Brian feed him?"  Then, I think she said something like, "oh, ok, can we read a story?"  Fast forward to today... B. was helping to feed the fish and pulled out the frog food by accident.  A.s reaction, "no, no, no, the frog is in heaven." Moral of the story, tricking unecessary, she's probably got a better understanding of heaven than me.