I Won An Award

I received the Bad Mommy Award this week. Monday was MLK Day, a federal holiday and a day that was noted as a day off from school. Unfortunately I found out Tuesday that the school calendar was changed in November and the children did not have MLK Day off. Apparently this information was sent home with the children around Thanksgiving time when we were in Michigan. Oh, did I feel like a dork. I apologized to Katie because she loves going to school. 

Muffs, our daughter

Katie had a pretty speedy recovery from her ear infection and she still likes to wear her ear muffs. However, yesterday when Katie was coming home on the bus two older girls told her that her ear muffs were dumb because the princesses were not real. (There are three Disney Princesses on them.) Not only did they say it once, but continued to chant, "Dumb, dumb, dumb." When I picked Katie up at the end of the driveway she was almost in tears because of those girls and because she lost a cube in class. She was also dead tired so shortly after we got into the house she fell asleep with her head resting on her daddy's chest. Rick and I talked with her about how what she thinks matters more than what anyone else thinks and also princesses are real. Today she happily wore her ear muffs to school. I am glad she did not cave into the taunts.

 Look at that concentration as she lines up her BB gun's sites

This past weekend Katie practiced shooting her BB gun. Rick truly is amazed and proud that she is a natural when it comes to aiming and firing a gun. We have a lawn decoration that is a metal rabbit. He put it on the other side of the front yard as a target. I could not hit it--no shocker there--and Rick missed a few times, but Katie...after a slow start she consistently hit it the rabbit. The fact that she did better than Rick speaks volumes about her talent.

How far away the metal rabbit target was positioned

On Monday--the day Katie observed MLK Day while the rest of her class went to school--Katie was watching her Max and Rudy DVD. In one of the episodes, Max and Ruby have a lemonade stand and Katie was bound and determined to also have a lemonade stand. Her desire was explained as follows. "Little kids have no money. I need money." Her initial plan was to go up to the road and set up her stand there. I reminded her that we are on an FM (Farm to Market) road and traffic is pretty low. She also informed me that she didn't want to sit up there by herself and that Rick or I would accompany her. After we convinced her that sitting on the edge of our road was not going to give her the many dollars that she dreamed about, she opted to set up a lemonade stand in the living room. The cost for a Dixie Cup of lemonade was $.50 and all in all, she ended up making $2.50 off of her daddy and momma.

The little entrepreneur. She decorated her table with two snow globes and a picture of her Grandma with Santa.

Her sign. Per Katie it reads, "One Katie. One Love." The yellow is the lemonade being poured into a glass.

Hobo is still around despite being locked out of the shop. Matter of fact, Hobo made himself a new home in a small chicken coup that the previous missile base owners had built against the Quonset Hut. When Rick and I went down to the shop to get the Christmas boxes--yes, I am just now taking down the yule tide decorations--Hobo opted to take a nap in the shop. Hobo is such a cautious dog and prefers to view people from a distance and from behind a cactus or tree. It is weird when you walk down to the Quonset Hut and you know his eyes are on you, you just can't see him. Inside of the shop, he lets his guard down and Rick can pet him. However, outside he is like a stealth aircraft--I swear he walks on his tippy toes to keep the noise down--and he keeps back about 50'. The other day Rick and I were in the golf cart and heading back to the house. You could see Hobo was wrestling with his choices of staying at the shop or following us up to the house. His memories of how people have treated him won over and he remained at the shop.

On Wednesdays I tutor kindergarteners at the elementary school and all that I have tutored are just sweet. The things they are proud of and their excitement when they understand a hard learned lesson is priceless. I will know those children all through their school years and it makes me sad that those same kindergarteners will lose some if not all of their eagerness to learn; their God given innocence and their wonderment of the little things. They will become blase about so many topics and learn that life is not fair and not all people are nice. Today I want time to stand still, just for a moment, so I can burn the memory into my heart of this day when those children were young, trusting and epitomized joie de vivre.
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Well, those are the highlights of the past week. Ciao.