First Day of Preschool

Bright Eyes had her first day of Preschool today.  As you can see she is FULLY ready to shine. This year has been particularly fun as age four seems to be one of the “blossom” years (she even has the uniform for it).

She gave us another great example of that growth when she came home from preschool.  She was preparing to take her shoes off and put them in her shoe cubby by the door (a great idea that Beautiful came up with).  She decided she was going to need to some help.  When we asked her why she needed help, she explained,

I got sandbox in my shoes.

Yes those bright pink shoes in the picture below, not only look marvelous, they are also useful for transporting sandbox from preschool to home.  Who knew!?

The Bright Eyes of last year would have simply walked through the house, taken her shoes in two different rooms, and left us wondering where the sand that was all over the house had come from.  These little people never cease to amaze me!

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Momma’s Little Healper

Beautiful was making Snickerdoodles today.  If you need to look that up on the Internet, I will pray for you.  If you know, then you know how much we all like them because you cannot have a fresh Snickerdoodle and not love them.

Bright Eyes was looking forward to a fresh Snickerdoodle so much, she decided she needed to help Beautiful move the process along.  Beautiful was going through the list of ingredients with her and when she got to “Baking Soda” Bright Eyes, became very excited and said, “Oh, I will get the soda!”

You can see in the picture above the result of her quest.

Momma’s little helper came through in the clutch!  It was not what the cookies needed, but it was certainly what Beautiful needed.

An honest answer to be sure

Today after dinner, I started asking the children what they were thankful for.  It is helpful to me as their father to know what is making an impression on them and it helps me gauge their hearts a bit.

I heard about all kinds of things the Lord did for the children today and things they are thankful for.  I heard about being thankful for the family, for the dinner, for school, etc.  Then P.C. had to throw us a curve.  Well, he wouldn’t be part of the discussion if he wasn’t throwing you a curve.

P.C. raised his hand with obvious excitement as he waved it back and forth and bounced up and down in his seat.  When I finally called on him, he fires off, “I am thankful for Curly Girly’s Barbie. . . because its lost.”

As funny as that is, it is even funnier when you know she doesn’t even have one.

Yes, it’s the little things that make the big difference.

You have no idea how true that is

Today P.C. was helping me put up ceiling fans in our house.  He climbed up the ladder when it was in our room and looked out the window.  When you are up on a ladder looking out a window, to a six year old that feels pretty high.

In typical P.C. fashion, he started asking me if he was higher than the various things he could see (a long list to be sure).  When he started with the trees, I had to ask him which ones since some are much taller than the house.

[BEGIN SIDEBAR] The lot was wooded before our home was built and many of the trees remain.  In addition the builder planted two more maples when the final landscaping was done. [END SIDEBAR]

He explained that he was referring to the two “family trees.”  Since the two maples were planted when the family moved in, he has decided those are family trees.  I thought the name was pretty clever, but I had no idea just how far his clever would take him.  His next comment floored me.

“We have two family trees because we have two families.  This tree is for our family and that tree is for my birth family.”

We are wide open in our house (in a lot of ways) but the family tree concept is not one we have even addressed.  Here is my little 6 year old, freewheeling it on my ladder espousing the higher concepts of adopted families and he has no idea how poignant his comments are.

When we adopt children into our home, they are becoming part of this family, but they do not stop being part of their birth family.  Both families will loom large for the rest of their lives, whether they ever see their birth family again or not.  That biological footprint and the time in their mother’s womb is their baseline.  It is their foundation.  We can build on it, and and we can help them build on it, but you cannot change it, and you cannot undo it.

Our prayer for all of our children is that they will stand on our shoulders and use what we have learned and accomplished as a foundation to rise even higher.

Today, he was taller than his family trees.  I pray that in the near future, he won’t need a ladder to get there.

2013 First Day of School

Life is filled with firsts.  First word, first tooth, first step, first bike ride, etc.  Some of them are a one time first, some are more cyclical.  School is both.

For Thunder and Curly Girly, the first day of school was the first for the year.  For P.C. it was his first day of school ever.  It was a glorious day, and as you may have guessed because P.C. is who is, he had his own first.

When Beautiful was unloading P.C.’s backpack she found all of his school supplies still in the backpack.  After explaining to P.C. that he was supposed to take them out, he informed her that he did.  The teacher told them at the end of the day to pack up their things, so he did, school supplies and all.

So on his first day of school ever he lands another first.  I feel sorry for the teachers sorting through the supplies trying to figure out how they ended up one short on everything.