Meet the firefighters.

My two middle kids got to meet our local firefighters yesterday.  No, they were not on a field trip.  Neither had they burned anything to the ground.  Thank heavens for that.  They were, however, hanging loose up by the highway(posted speed:55 mph) waving sticks around enough to make passersby think that they were throwing things at cars.  My kids were unphased by being disciplined by the firemen.  In fact, when they arrived home (a full hour later) they were quick to show off the shiny stickers they had given them during their little discussion about safety.

Personally, if I had been disciplined by a person in uniform at age 8 or 10, I probably would have burst into tears.  In fact, I cried well into adulthood each and every time I was pulled over by a cop for speeding(and yes, it has been multiple times).  Whose kids are these?

I asked them if they thought hanging out by a busy highway was a good idea.  They said, "probably not."  I asked them if they needed a rule to tell them that, or could they have figured that out on their own.  They replied, "we sorta knew that already."  I asked them if they had done anything else while they were playing with friends that probably wasn't a great idea.  They responded that they had crawled into the drainage tunnel that goes under the highway.  I repeated the previous question, just to check and see if my kids needed to be commanded in all things or if they could have made a better choice without explicit guidance from an adult.  They assured me that they would make wiser choices next time.

I'm a strong advocate for giving my kids instruction, teaching them what it means to follow their consciences to make good choices and then giving them the freedom to do so.  Man, though, do I question the wisdom in that type of parenting when they pull stunts like this.  Man, do I.

Broken. But not really.

Today I was wrapping up a piano lesson with Lily when we heard a big crash in the family room.  It wasn't followed by screams or crying so I opted to finish the lesson before finding out the cause.  As it turns out, Rachel had knocked a picture of Jesus off the wall and had broken its frame beyond repair.  She and Eve had spent a few minutes trying to piece it back together before I discovered them.  The experience did the teaching, I didn't have to explain the error of Rachel's ways, she already felt terrible enough about it.  It was a tender moment though, as Rachel reflected, "Oh, I really liked this painting.  When I was sick a few weeks ago and laying on the couch, I would just stare at it,"
At this point, Eve interjected by saying, "and it made you feel better, huh?"  Rachel nodded.
I was so grateful to hear that my children know enough about the Savior and are developing enough of a relationship with Him that they could identify feelings of comfort derived just by looking at a painting of Him.  I was also thankful that I hadn't overreacted at the breaking of this fixture in our home, otherwise the mood surrounding the incident would have been altered completely, and the moment unrealized.  I don't always get this parenting thing right, but when I do...

Year of the ram.

This year's Chinese New Year party was no different from the others.  Just the people.  After eating a very satisfying meal of Cashew Chicken, Beef with Broccoli, steamed buns, potstickers, and egg rolls, we lined the kids up for their favorite food competition.  Ten rounds of Fear Factor-style eating.  On this years list: seaweed wrapped crackers, rice biscuits, red bean tang yuan, white fungus drink, anchovies, dried shrimp, and plenty more.  Someone might have barfed.  But no crying this year so it was a success!

Bring back the 80s.

Sometimes Tim and I like to dress in rocker t-shirt and acid wash jeans and go out with friends.  Just for fun.

Double digits.

For Lily's birthday party I gave her a choice between taking a bunch of friends to the YMCA (great big pool with a bunch of water slides) or booking a room at a hotel for our family and inviting a smaller group of friends to join us for dinner and games in the room and a swim in the hotel pool.  Guess what she chose?
Well, hotels are pretty much a novelty for our family...

As a side note, we did call the hotel ahead of time to arrange for permission to fill their pool with a few extra bodies and they were fine with it.  However, there was another group of girls there for a birthday party (theirs was a sleepover) and they pretty much had the run of the place(or so they thought).  Not a parent in sight for a group of eight fifth-graders.  For real.

I got a call at 9:30 p.m., long after sending our last guest home and just after putting my own children to bed.  It was the front desk.  They said they'd been getting complaints from other guests about girls making a ruckus running up and down the hallways.  No, I informed them, that's the birthday party of girls whose parents booked them a room and then took off for the night(and morning) leaving a bunch of 11-year-olds to fend for themselves.  I was a little miffed that the hotel staff got our group of excitable but well-supervised ten-year-olds confused with the other crowd.  It was altogether weird, really.  And I might have lost a little bit(a lot) of faith in parents these days...

Back to Lily's birthday.  She's ten.  It's encouraging to me that her wish list included beanie boos(stuffed animals), books, art supplies, and chapstick.  Oh, and an iPod shuffle.  Her first electronic.  In a world where eight-year-olds carry iPhones and 11-year-olds have sleepovers at hotels sans parents, I'm feeling pretty content about the innocence of my little girl.  She's grateful, spunky, talkative, imaginative, silly, musical, friendly and smart.  It's fun to watch her grow up.  Slowly.