A Running Collection

It was Saturday evening. George was in Georgia visiting his parents. We were on the car carpet driving cars around. There was a knock at the door. Neighbor: "Are your sheep here, because there are some sheep out on the road." Well, they were not here, they were on the road. We've learned our lesson. Bringing sheep home is a useless task. They will come home "wagging their tails behind them" -- eventually. And they are much happier to do this if there is good corn to eat in their feed bucket. Well, we didn't have corn. George suggested loading the kids up and heading out to get some corn (It was 7:00 p.m. -- almost bedtime). I decided to grab their feed bucket. It was in my lap. Don't know why. I also thought perhaps we should take a lap around the neighborhood to see if we could spot them. Just as I gave up and put the car in reverse, Amelia spotted them. They were playing with some neighbor children a good half mile from the house. The neighbors wer...

There must come a day with all children. That day where they wake up and decide to become the road side stand entrepreneur. There is nothing that will stop a child on the mad mission of setting up their store at the end of the driveway. I'm convinced of this. Amelia has been dreaming of it for some time. She's started on it a few times and her collection of wares never made it to the road.  Today would be different. Last night she made sugar cookies, so I suggested that she try to sell those along with the very small unique hat she sewed this morning and the braided bracelets she's had piled away. She took them in a yogurt container and piled it all on a table. When I had William situated I went out to see the set up. The sign was in the road and they were huddled together in a cold sprinkling rain. They looked pitiful! We sat out there for a few minutes. It was enough. We went in out of the rain. After lunch and a bit of a rest, the sun was out. Amelia wa...

 He stands on the chair because that means he can reach us and converse with us. He speaks another language, but we are catching on. He stands on the chair because he will be eye to eye with Amelia and  closer to the pop corn and crayons and salsa and glue sticks and math problems. If I turn away for an instant, he will climb on top and plop in the exact middle of it all. His curls dance around his head. It moves all day from here to there. He practices and plays and creates and converses. He matches and puzzles and chats and sings and dances with the thump of just one foot. He wakes up looking for his sister and then a chance to cuddle with daddy. A cuddle with William involves his body perpendicular to our necks as he stares towards the sky and chats away or rolls around a bit. And he did quite a bit of rolling through the night on first William camping trip last weekend. It was camping at its finest. George Wilder is ready to set up the tent and Amelia built our fir...