Ruth Michael, the other day you told Papa, "I love Jesus, I just don't like church that much." haha! I can't really complain about that. I have always wanted so badly for you to love Jesus, so that makes my heart happy. The fact that you don't like church... well, can I blame you? Either it looks like an African church where you don't understand the language, can't eat your snacks, have to sit on hard benches, and have a million little kids staring at you, or it looks like a big, scary church in America that you aren't familiar with where mom and dad may or may not try to force you to go to Sunday school where you don't know anyone, or it looks like watching kids church on our TV which is much less entertaining and "lower budget" than any other show you have ever watched. There is nothing about church that conjures up good feelings in you. I hate that! When I think of the church of my childhood I think of potlucks and friends and playgrounds and worship nights and puppet shows and animal crackers. I have no doubt that, if you were experiencing that, you would like it, too. But right now, I just don't have the ability to offer that to you, so, as long as we can hang on to "I love Jesus, I just don't like church that much" I'm gonna be one happy mama!
When Dan and Mel were here we were joking about the way people still signal to role down the window in a car using the old fashioned, crank-style role-down gesture. Of course, it's not much of a gesture to just push an imaginary window button. You said, "Well we role down our window like this!" and you pushed and imaginary button with one hand and used the other to pull the window down manually! haha! we really laughed about that one... That is the way windows go up and down in the beast!
Sofia, the Italian girl in your class, used to cry every morning when she came to school. She didn't speak any English at first. One day, when she was crying, you talked to her about how it was okay, and how you used to cry at school, but now it's okay. The teacher told me about it later and said that talk had really helped Sofia. When you were swimming one day there was a little girl that looked funny (I don't really know the situation exactly- I wasn't there- but you said she looked funny). Some of the boys were making fun of her, but you went and got the teacher and told her, so she made the boys stop.
One night JJ got super sick and his parents had to rush him to the hospital. Nora was crying unconsolably, and we had kept her with us at our house, so we needed to calm her down. You talked to her very calmly, telling her everything would be okay. You told her you had gone to the hospital before and you were very scared, but it had been okay. You went over to the dinner table and fixed her a plate of food. Then you asked if we could turn on a show for her to watch to distract her. She calmed down very quickly. (Iddy helped with this a great deal, too). I was a proud mama!
Now that you are learning to spell, you like to try to spell things to me that AJ won't understand (I can't blame you here, we have done this to you for so long). AJ also really likes to tell the same stories over and over or repeat the same ones that you have told. She was doing this at dinner one night, and you looked at me and Iddy and Papa with a knowing look and said, "She thinks we don't already 'n-o-e-t.'" You were trying to spell out "know it." That one gave us a good laugh, but I was very proud of you for using your newly found love of words and letters and phonics. You are doing great with reading, and the more you practice in every day life, the faster you will learn!
One thing I love about you is that you are color blind when it comes to race. One day you asked me if it made Iddy feel bad when people talked about him being adopted. I didn't want you to talk to him about it too much, so I said it didn't bother him but he probably didn't like talking about it a lot. Then you asked if other people even knew that he was adopted. I just smiled and said, "Well, it's not a secret." ;)
Papa wanted to go on your school camping trip with you, and you didn't want him to go at first. I asked you why, and, tearfully, you explained that your dad was different than the other dads. I asked what was different about him, and you said, "All the other dads are American and they speak English!" I couldn't help but chuckle a little at this. I asked about Sofia, and that she probably felt different, too. But you just said that there were several other Italian kids in class, too. Then I said, what about Eliza (she is a Kenyan child being raised by an Italian mother), don't you think she feels different than the other Italians? You said, "No, why would she feel any different?" You know you are different, but skin color still hasn't come onto your radar, yet. I reminded you that you didn't want me in your classroom at first, but then you were okay with it. You said, "That's different because you just told me you were going to do that, you didn't ask me if I wanted you too. Papa is asking me if I want him to go." You are so smart, you already recognize the difference between something that happens to you, and something that is your decision- you carry the weight of that decision. So much for such a young child! You amaze me!
