In Which Abigail Gives a Gift

Abigail has a very good friend, Gabriel, who she loves dearly. As she gets dropped home from school by his mom each day, she calls out, "Tell Gabriel I love him!" This behavior isn't limited to Gabriel, but, he might be the most frequent recipient. Anyway, growing up has been hard on their friendship, at least from Abigail's perspective. Just last week she was telling me she wasn't sure they could be friends anymore since, "All Gabriel ever talks about is Batman, and sometimes I want to talk about princesses and stuff." Really, she mentioned it several times over a few weeks. Well, Gabriel had a birthday and Abigail must be gaining perspective on the give and take of friendship because she requested we give him:
-a CD of "Jingle Bells, Batman Smells"
-a coloring book of Batman
-a picture she would draw of Batman

I made the recording, just accompaniment for him to sing to, and she is so excited to give it to him. After school today, we printed off several Batman coloring pages she chose for him. After stapling them together, she made a cover for the book: CULRE GABREL and colored it all in. She drew the picture of Batman and friends--I know Batgirl was there, but there were more--yesterday. Of course, she selected her own gift bags and couldn't resist giving them to him when she saw him today.

Later I got this email from his mom:
"I just had to share with you how excited Gabriel was about the gift Abigail gave him. He loves it so much! He already colored all the pictures while he was at Grandma's tonight. Then when he was finished, he dictated a story to Grandma for each page. When he got home, he wanted me to read the story to him for bed. Daniel said that he was asking all sorts of questions about growing up, getting married and if he would remember being little. It eventually came out that he was worried that he would forget to marry Abigail when he grows up.
I just can't stop laughing and smiling at how cute they are!"

What a sweet gift from the heart.

Preschool and Avery

Avery,

You started preschool this month--September 2010. I almost waited to have you start--you are so sweet to have around, but you wanted to go so much! Every time we've visited Warren and Abigail's school before you've always been wide-eyed and engaged by all the "works." The night before your first day was Preschool Open House; W&A had already attended their open house, so I just planned to take you, but Abigail was begging you to let her go. After much pleading, you told her she could come, "If you wear Sunday clothes."

You were so delighted to find your name on a cubby, and you pointed out all the letters. You are really good at this. Often as we drive, you call out from the backseat, "I just saw 2 letters from my name! A & V" or whatever letters you saw. You ask me what signs say, and often ask, "What is this word that has a {letter} in it?"

As I watched you both, spontaneously holding hands, walking together into this new phase of life, I was so grateful you have each other. I hope you are always dear friends like you are now.
The next morning, you were thrilled to be getting out of the car at drop-off. All your life you've stayed and called out your goodbyes and I love you's. Now you were going. You were bursting with excitement.

It's been 3 weeks now, and tonight you were telling Aunt Tiffany--via email--about preschool. This is what you said:
"I did button work. [long pause] Um, you get a sponge and there is water and a plain bowl and you dip it in and you put it into the plain bowl. And I did --I know one, I know one! Puzzles! And then--that's all. No, I did another work. A hammering work, and then a pouring work where it has green things and you put it into the plain one. A pink tower. I think that's all. Oh, play time outside, and then you wash your hands when you're going inside and then you sit down at gathering again and they pick someone to get--to set the tables, and I did one time one day. They picked us to go back to gathering again after we did that and get our lunch boxes. And we didn't have to go the fridge, because some people got them out. And then we get up and we get all our dishes and put them in the dishwasher and go back to the table and we get choosed by the table leader--we go like this, we point to each other--to close our lunch boxes and line up by the door and sit on the benches and wait for our moms and dads. Oh one more thing--when we, when we, when we, hmm, when moms pick us up and then we sometimes go with Gabriel's dad, or Nicci--she's Gabriel's mom--or our mom picks us up. And that's all."
It took about 5 minutes of chatter interspersed with thought-filled pauses. You were so animated. Pure delight.

Warren, a quote and memory

"Dad, can we go to Mars together when I'm 16?" (After Andy has just explained to him that no human has ever been to any other planet)


Several minutes later, after reading how far apart the 2 planets are, Warren just asked: "When they [Mars and Earth] are only 35 million miles apart, can we go there?" [As opposed to when they are 248 million miles apart]

This reminds me of 2 years ago when Warren was sure he was going to be able to build a rocket to the moon out of a cardboard box in the backyard. He planned to take my dad along, and if he missed dinner, no worries: he'd packed an easy-open can of pineapple. This went on for weeks.

Responsibility Week

Every now and then I go on a parenting kick. The first week of April was one of those times. I don't remember what else I did, but I know there was a lot more than the story I'm about to share. My kids used to lose a lot of toys to the Gunny Sack. After a while, he got full and forgotten in my closet. I have a really hard time actually giving my kids things away, so this was convenient for me too. However, it all came to a head when Warren rationally pointed out, "Mom, it's a good thing we have the gunny sack so we can have more toys since you store some for us, too." Ouch. Solution? Sam was having a yard sale to raise money for Relay for Life. So, since the stuff was mine now, I donated all "my" stuff in the Gunny and arranged for a special "night before preview" at which my kids could go and purchase anything they wanted with their own money. And I made sure I paid them the 6 weeks backpay of allowance. And I made sure Sam charged them high prices. (Avery had saved several coins and was the exception: we just had her pay a few coins each time she bought something, but most of it wasn't hers anyway) They bought a lot of it back and chose not to purchase some of it, and nice reminder to me of how little "stuff" is really valued by kids, and adults. The "stuff" they did buy back is now played with very frequently, e.g.: Warren has rollerbladed at least a dozen times since then, more than he ever did in the previous 2 years of owning his rollerblades. I was able to donate over $20 to my brother's Relay for Life funds--through my children :)
I remembered something else about Responsibility Week: my kids missed breakfast once or twice on a school day and Warren had to take his clothes in a bag on the ride to school. Somehow he managed to get dressed before the carpool kids got in the car. And I promise he had his seatbelt on whenever the car was moving. One day when Warren disobeyed and ran back in the house to get dressed when we were supposed to be leaving, he forgot his lunch and I let him. And I didn't take it to school. And he was fine.
This last picture has nothing to do with responsibility week; it is just so funny I had to share. I was walking out of church and saw this in the back of someone's golf cart parked in the lot. Bishop's golf cart, actually. Upon closer examination, I realized it was 2 filtering masks leftover from our ward's alley clean-up the previous day, but really, can you see why I did a double take and still laugh when I look at it?

I Love Creating

These are some of my favorite creations--ones that make me smile when I look at them. I think creating things with my hands and voice is so therapeutic. I want to get the "rest of my life" better organized, so I can really create some more beautiful, permanent works for my home: words on walls, pictures in my empty frames, pictures on my empty walls...

This strawberry bouquet was a Family Craft Day, aka Friday Therapy, creation from April. I had so much fun piping chocolate on those "roses." Really, it was therapy. It was fun to give away, too.

These banners were customs for a wedding planner, and these are the photos she sent me of how she staged them. I loved her idea to hang it on a chair.

This is my latest holiday banner, and I am especially pleased how I photographed it. I've had those flags since last year, when I decided sewing them on to the ribbon was too much work. I felt guilty I had so many unused, which is so my personality. However, I am so proud of myself for thinking of putting them in my old jars, vases and cups for this display. I smile every time when I see it.