A little glimpse of my morning.

As I fixed Sophie's hair this morning, Izzy comes in holding the charm off of one of my necklaces, a charm that I had replaced with one that Judy, my mother-in-law, brought me back from Egypt.

He holds it up and shows me, and says, "I was going to give this to you, but since that letter wasn't about YMCA, now I'm going to keep it."

See, I wrote a note to his teacher asking her for tips on getting Izzy to write his letters the right direction (he still has trouble with b, d, p, and z) and for advice on Chris and I learning the Saxon coding that Izzy has to do every day.

"You don't join the YMCA through school," I tell him, as Sophie is talking in a low voice while rummaging through the hair barrette drawer. [Sidenote: Yes, I have an entire drawer in her chest dedicated to hair accessories. This is the life of a very hopeful mom whose sister is a beautician.]

"I mean the YMCA after school," he tells me.

"That's for kids whose parents work, honey," I said.

Sophie says indignantly while holding up a giant pink dinosaur barrette, "Then why is it in my hair barrettes?" I tell her that's for when she has more hair, and that I was actually replying to Izzy.

"But did you know that Mrs. Hickman works there too?," Izzy tells me. Mrs. Hickman is his first grade teacher and he drew her a picture during recess the other day of three giant hearts, telling her that it was a picture of his love for her.

"Ah ha," I say, "That's why you want to go."

"Yes!," he says. "When you find your job again, can I go?"

"Sure," I tell him as we walk up the hallway on our way outside. "When I start working again, we'll put you in the YMCA after school program."

We stop to grab back packs and the basket that I keep at the top of steps to fill with things that belong downstairs, and Suzi grabs three sheets of construction paper. Yes, three sheets. Three sheets that she carries very carefully out to the van with her, and then yells in a panic, "MAMA, MAMA, MAMA!" every time that she drops one as we're waiting for the school bus.

The kids get on the bus and we come home, where she once again very carefully carries in her three sheets of construction paper, climbs up on the chaise and proceeds to read a book, all while holding her paper in one hand.


Just now, as I typed this up, she came over and started taking all of the kids books off the shelf and handing them to me one by one. I tried reading one to her, but that's not what she wanted. No, she just wanted me to hold them all, and since I refused, she's now laying beside me on the floor, head on the dog pillow, bottom lip pushed out in the cutest pout, kicking the dining room chair over and over.

My quirky kids. They keep my life interesting, to say the least.