Morning Stories

The topic for today's Wordfull Wednesday is "Caring for your Family - How do you let them know you care about them? What do you do as parents to show your children they are loved?"  Visit Chocolate on my Cranium for more Wordfull Wednesday entries or to participate yourself. 

Back at Christmas time Miss Banana went through a kind of rough time.  Her very best friend moved away.  She really, REALLY, missed the structure and the keeping busy of school while we were on Christmas break.  And it was winter.  The sun didn't come up until 7:30am and then had set again by 4:00pm.  She was miserable.  The whole family was feeling the effects and I knew that we had to do something to help her, but I just couldn't figure out what that something might be.

I noticed that if her day started out good, things were always a little better.  By starting out good I mean what happened in the first 10 seconds of her being awake.  If she could have a good thought in those first moments, her day was happier.  But if in that short time any negativity was able to creep in, the day was lost. 

This sounds pretty dire, and really it was.  Mr. Wonderful and I prayed and prayed for Miss Banana and what we could possibly do to help her.  One night when I was at book club, I got one of a few answers we received.  A friend there mentioned, without knowing about our situation with Miss Banana, that when her girls were younger she would wake them up by reading to them.  A light bulb turned on in my head.  No, not just a single light bulb.  I was practically seeing fireworks!  I knew I had to give this a try!  I chose a book that night.  I had always wanted to read A Little Princess to my girls and I thought that this was the time to do it. 

So the next morning I went into the girls' room (they all three share a room) about 5 minutes before the normal wake up time.  I stood in the doorway so that I could use the hallway light to read by.  I gave a simple, "Good morning, Girls." and started reading. 

That was a beautiful morning!  Miss Banana was much happier, and so was everyone else.  Reading in the mornings did not take care of the whole problem, and we still had some rough mornings at times, but it did help.  

After getting a couple of chapters into it, I was suddenly afraid that when we got to the sadder parts of the book, all our happiness in reading in the mornings would be gone.  But that has not happened.  All three of the girls really enjoy the story and our morning reading time.  

Of course, it didn't take long for Kiddo to hear about what was going on in the girls' room.  He wanted to have a little morning reading time too!  Since I was keeping the time to 5 minutes or less, it wasn't hard to add another 5 minutes in the boys' room.  For them I chose How To Eat Fried Worms, by Thomas Rockwell.  When we were about a third of the way through the book, Kiddo stayed up one night and finished the whole book.  I had been trying to get him to read that book for a few months, so I was not too disappointed.  The next book I chose was Snow Treasure by Marie McSwigan. 

I can't say that I read every single morning.  But it is becoming a very nice tradition that I hope we will stick with for years to come. 

All Girls Outing to the Quilt Show

On Saturday I took my girls to a local quilt show.  It's a tradition I'm trying to instill.  They do think quilts are very pretty things and were way excited to go.  They even counted down the days!  . 

It was fun for me to see how each girl acted at the show. 

Miss Banana really wanted to study the quilts and take time to look at each one.  She had some definite favorites.   (sorry for the blurriness)

Miss Bear liked every quilt, but wouldn't look at one quilt for longer than 5 seconds.  I couldn't tell if she was bored or really excited.  I wasn't able to get a picture of her because she did not sit still even once.  I should have told her that I wanted to take her picture.  I think that might have stopped her for a minute.

Miss Monkey loved every quilt with any pink in it. She was mostly just happy to be out with the girls.  She did find a cute little monkey to adore.  And yes, she did dress herself and do her own hair.  She is 4, you know.

We didn't stay very long, but did enjoy our time together and we are all looking forward to next year.

What I Saw in a Split Second

Every now and then someone will tell me that Miss Banana looks just like me. I always smile and say, "You think so?" but I never see it. Until the other day at the park. I looked at her and saw myself. I wanted to tell her to freeze or something.

I took this picture as quickly as I could, but didn't quite capture it. It was only there for a few seconds, but it was most definitely there. The look in her eyes, the shape of her face, even the way she walked. I saw and remembered my 7 year old self. The feelings, the energy, the awkward teeth. I was so surprised to see so much of myself in her. Surprised and excited. And grateful for the memory and understanding that came in those seconds.