I have shared before that the children and I pray on our way to school every morning. Recently, MK has decided that instead of talking during the majority of our prayer, she wants to join in. So, yesterday, I asked the children who wanted to begin and MK pipes up "I do, me!".....moving onto our prayer, one of the boys usually prays for things that often do not coincide with our everyday life, random things that open my eyes to subjects I should be praying for. He will pray for those traveling on the road, for those who are sick in the hospital, for those who are "going through rough times"....yesterday his prayer was for all prisoners in jail. It went something like this "Dear God I just hope that you will be with those prisoners. I pray that these people will talk to you and that you will talk back to them and they will hear you tell them they did very bad things....they need someone to tell them they were wrong...." now, as serious as this prayer could be, I sat there thinking, "where do you come up with these things?"....he is six!

On another note, we are driving home from school yesterday. Despite all testing that is taking place at the boys' school this week, they did have time to acknowledge Earth Day in their classrooms. So, we are driving along on a pretty busy, two-lane, curvy road. I look in front of me and there is this child, probably 11 or 12, with what looked like a pretty heavy backpack, walking practically in the middle of the road. I went into "mother mind" and said "what is that kid doing, is he crazy, where is his mother?! He shouldn't be walking home from school on this road." The boys immediately take note of this kid and one says, "well, mom, what do you expect? I mean it is Earth Day, he is enjoying the earth....you know, a car puts out a ton of pollution and your van is killing our air, I think that kid is doing a good thing by not contributing to pollutants in the air that we breathe!"....I was quiet after that, it was a battle I was bound to lose.

And lastly, we had a first last night. The boys, all three of them - big and small, were off playing golf together. So MK and I headed to one of our favorite shopping places, Target. We are in line to check out when this lady comes up to me, puts her hand on my hand, smiles and declares "She is absolutely precious! Adorable. She looks just like you!"....ya think? I laughed, of course, and said that I saw the resemblance as well. To some, this would have been offensive. For me, I was happy this lady recognized me as MK's mother. Funny, though, that this happened because all week I have been thinking about what does offend me as far as MK goes. And what does offend me is probably one of the smallest things, something that others may not even take note of. It is the reference to MK being Oriental. That word makes me cringe. She is ASIAN, not Oriental. To date, we haven't experienced any negative references or awkward situations with MK. Everyone smiles and notes how pretty/cute she is or how beautiful her skin is or how healthy she looks :) or what a sweet child she is....very positive experience. BUT the Oriental thing gets me.

Juggling

One year later, we are still learning. At this time, we are learning how to juggle the schedules of three children. Well, two schedules, three children. We do limit them to one sport per season each but even then we juggle. Gone are the days that we would say, you take that one and I will take this one. These days, it is you take those two and I will take this one, and at some point we meet up again. MK does not have a say in the matter and sometimes it goes along with her own schedule and other times, she is not the happiest of toddlers.

These are the good times......