Mouths of Babes

It's high time I start talking about my family.

First: Let's all do the happy dance of our own comfort level that my brother is home safe from his one year tour of duty in Iraq. Ready? Go!

While an occasion such as this merits oh so much more than the happy dance, we all do what we can in the space that we have.

Now, back to my subject. One of my goals as stated in the beginnning is to be the best aunt there is. One of the ways I attempt to do this is to give Hailey, my oldest niece and goddaughter a special gift for her birthday. My godparents always gave me a music box. It was special, just for me.

So, since Hailey's name in Gaelic means 'Hero', my brother (godfather) and I decided to find stories of real life women heroes in history and give them to Hailey, along with a carved wooden animal that would symbolize the story or the hero. As she got older, she would have a zoo of carved wooden animals. Just for her.

For example, one year the hero was Mia Hamm the soccer player. She set up a foundation to raise money for cancer awareness when her own brother was struck with the disease. The carved wooden animal to go along with the story was kitty playing with a soccer ball. Makes sense, right?

This year we decided to make Hailey the hero. We found an organization called 'Heifer International' that helps struggling agricultural families by supplying them with a needed farm animal. Not to be killed for food, but to used as a food supplier and labor. For example, a needy family would be given chickens, to be used for eggs and for supplying other needy families with offspring chickens of their own. The helped families must 'pay it forward'.

(check out www.heifer.org)

We donated a goat to a needy family in Hailey's name.

When I tried to explain to Hailey what this meant, she said to me with a frightenly incredulous tone for a 6 year old, "You gave a family a goat for my birthday?"

After trying to make it make sense, I ended up saying, "Well, I guess it'll make sense when you're older." She, the now wise 6 year old, says to me, "I am older now."

Can't argue with that.

And since we're talking about kids, my sister Julianne was telling me of a typical night in her household that I just have to share.

Apparently, around dinner time, things aren't always the quiet sharing-of-our-day that I'm sure most families long for. This particular evening Hailey, falling in the direct footsteps of her mother's legacy, spilled an entire cup of grape juice on the floor. However, in contrast to the tired mother response, Julianne kept her cool and let the child live.

Maddy, on the other hand, not ready to let Hailey off the hook so easily started to admonish her for spilling the juice. My sister explained to Maddy that accidents happen and that most likely some cake was going to get spilled on the floor, too, before the evening was over.

So, wouldn't you know it, a half hour later Maddy accidently dropped her entire plate of cake on the floor! She looked from her toppled cake up to her mom and said, "how did you know I was going to do that?!!"

My sister, the all knowing.

Must be one of those mother-things.