Today was a special day. Cody is out of town, and when he is, I like to take the kids to do things that are not the norm. Today, I told them we would go to the Old Country Store (1776!) if we all had a good day. Each kid was allowed to pick out something special, whatever they wanted (within a small budget!) Kevin had picked his out before we even entered. A pocket knife with his name engraved on it. Lacey picked out her treasure about 20 minutes later. A nice tinkerbell tin to hold all of her precious treasures. Then we inspected every object in the entire store three more times. It was during this time a kind lady stopped me and said, "I just want to remind you how blessed you are." Julia then picked out a beautiful, round, sparkly box to hold only the most important and perhaps tiniest of her possessions. They all walked out with a skip in their step and smiles wider than I've seen in awhile and insisted on a picture to remember this joyous occasion.
Upon returning home Kevin began knife safety 101 with his dear ole' mother. I do believe Julia asked, "do you even know what you're talking about?" At which point I took her treasure and chucked it out the window. (Just kidding!) of course I know what I'm talking about. My father is John, BTW! It's cold outside so while Kevin spent a good hour whittling on his stick in the sun room, I was pampered by the girls. They LOVE doing my hair. And I enjoyed having all three of them talk my ear off. Sometimes at the exact same time. Whoa!
After vacuuming all his shavings off of the floor, Kevin helped my make dinner while Julia photographed all that was insight. (I need to upload those pictures, there are some fun ones.) I was then entered into a bubble gum blowing contest, where I was the only contestant, but I had three very harsh judges. My jaw was quite sore by the time our mini pizzas were finished. And as per request, all food is served in a face or a neat creation of some sort. Whatever it takes to get them to eat, right? We then had baths and raced off to story time in our Jammie's at the library. I love evening story time.
And before I forget. Blessing #4 is a moving machine. It all happened so fast. Tuesday last week she crawled for the first time. Like the hands and knees move forward crawl. It was quite slow and very wobbly. She then learned to move like an inch worm. She'd go up into a plank, hop her feet forward with her bum in the air and then stretch her arms forward and slide down on her belly and then Repeat. It was adorable, yet very inefficient. Since then she has tried different variations of getting around and today started the army crawl which she is very efficient at. Since last week, she has eaten her fair share of paper and other non edible things. Teaching the big kids that moving it out of reach is no longer good enough has been a tough lesson. If she wants it, she gets it. Even off of the end tables. She has learned to clear the bottom shelf in seconds flat. She is also an eating machine. If someone is eating and not sharing, she is known to voice her opinion. She loves food. This last week she had pizza, spaghetti, and a jam sandwich. All of which she devoured and wanted more of. She also had her first taste of a sucker. I'm almost certain Lacey will never share with her again. It was a fight trying to get it back to the rightful owner. Elena is growing and changing so fast. She is still easy going, and just plain easy. The perfect caboose to our four greatest blessings.
Backing up... Wee have great neighbors, with children the same age as ours. It's lovely having built in friends, and they have had lots of fun times together. However, lately, anytime they are playing inside, things are turning not so fun. Weather it be fighting, name calling, or just doing naughty things (nothing crazy, but all of which we don't allow.) yesterday play time ended with Julia's heading being smashed against the tile floor downstairs. I don't have the whole story, and I'm sure I never will, but with that, we told the kids they would not be playing today. Cody and I have talked non stop since then about constructive playing and what we could do to fix this situation. We had decided that all play time needed to have purpose, weather it be to play the wii, make a project, play rescue heroes, trains, or cars, if we are inside playing, we are doing something constructive, and all inside playing will have an adult in ear shot. On our way home from The Old Country Store (1776, it's crazy to me!) the kids and I were discussing the sun and all of its awesomeness. I mentioned the Solar System to which I hear, "the solar what?" I immediately got on the horn and Cody and I devised our plan. Our beloved Library will be the new construction sight for our very own solar system. We can thank our local library for some awesome learning tools, and anytime play time is turning destructive, we will encourage work on the grand solar system. This will be an ongoing project. There are billions of stars out there after all. And once we feel we've learned all there is to learn and created all we can, we will take it down and we will turn our library into something else. (Cody suggested a mock assembly plant... Uh, we will see about that one!) this will be good, good for our brains, a good way to learn constructive play, and a good time to spend learning with our kids. I'm excited.
Ever since having left the kind lady at the Old Country Store, (1776, 210 years before I came to this earth,) I've heard her over and over in my head, "I just want to remind you how blessed you are." I know I'm blessed, I'm known for telling others on a regular basis of this blessing or that, but a reminder from a complete stranger made me look a little deeper into my four little blessings. It made me want to know them better, serve them better, and love them better. Thanks for the reminder.
We are blessed and we know it.
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