Why We Have Family Meals

It's Sunday and we are all in the backyard, eating mac and cheese (thank you Joyce Packard for teaching me how to make the real stuff!), swinging, talking and climbing on the fort. (My kids also tell me there is a worm garden somewhere, but I haven't seen it yet.) I am lying on the trampoline, silently laughing at Warren's latest question:

"Why is a bowl of macaroni and cheese the opposite of a swimming pool?"

Really?! What is going on in there? He explained, a bowl of mac and cheese is hot at the bottom and cold at top, but a swimming pool has it's hottest water at the top and the coldest at the bottom. (To her credit, just moments before, Abigail informed us to "Always take from the top, and not the bottom." I thought she meant like in the grocery store--don't take the cabbage from the bottom of the pile. But she meant mac and cheese.)

On Monday we were eating breakfast together and Warren asked, "Is that company that McKane's brother owns going to put the Christmas video on YouTube this year?" (For the past 2 years Scrapbook.com has made a Christmas video featuring employees kids answering Christmas questions. Our kids still think they are supposed to give the "right" answers, not realizing how funny the "wrong" ones are. Like the first year, the cameraman sat W down and said, "We're going to ask you some questions," and W queried, "Are the math problems?" Last years video is the one at the top of the page) Anyway, back to story. Andy replied, "No, they're going a different direction this year." Warren looked a little sad and Abigail protested, "But I know better this year!"

Shorts

from Warren as I lay in bed next to him after reading "Geronimo" together:

"The only hard part about staying awake is my eyes; they just want to shut. My body is full of energy but my eyes can't stay open."

from a stranger as he held the door for Avery:

"She is a really beautiful child."

I used to worry about Avery because she looked so much like me.

A sweet moment with Abigail:

We went to Maricopa Stake's Evening of Excellence to hear some music I helped notate and ended up staying. We sat side by side for an hour. I had my arm around her. After a few minutes, she freed her arm from my side and stuck it behind my back. It didn't even reach all the way across. I can still feel the warmth of her small hand.

Madeleine is talking so much, but her singing is even better. She sings along with the kids' LPM CD's, and not just on the normal words--she does the sol-sol-do and mi-re-do parts. She loves to sing. She is fearless. I took her on the climber at the Children's Museum of Phoenix and she went all over, gaining confidence to go further each time, despite seeing the ground 15 -20 feet below, or being up against a wall of clear glass.

This reminds me of family night on Monday. I blindfolded each of the kids one at a time--in the dark, outside--and walked them at least 100 feet from our house. In Warren's case, across the street by a cactus-filled yard, then asked them to find their way home. I asked each if they wanted help and offered directions. As I watched them stumble in the dark, hands outstretched, W with a goofy grin and Abigail with tiny nervous steps, I was suddenly overwhelmed with humility for the trust these children place in me. Not one of them gave up or got angry with me; they trusted every direction I gave them, even when they didn't understand. I wondered if I was worthy of that pure trust.

Why am I blogging again? I can't let these moments be forgotten.