It's President's day, and all across this great nation kids are learning about our founding fathers. This can bring up many great topics of conversation at the dinner table. One of mine asked tonight, "why does only bad history repeat itself?" Good question, maybe all history repeats itself and it's just so much easier to notice the bad. I say we stop giving the bad so much attention and start focusing on all the good. Let's find some good history repeating itself! I'm pretty excited about the way this conversation is going, making some good points, doing my part in raising responsible citizens. Then the little throws out with a big excited grin on his face, "does that mean your gonna stop being bad to us when do bad stuff?" He cuts right to the point doesn't he? So much for my philosophical lesson for the day. That's history;)
At our neighborhood elementary school tonight the fifth graders put on a living history museum. The kids are assigned a character from the revolutionary era in American history. They write a short biographical sketch, find a costume and are stationed around the school for people to listen and learn about their person. At the museum, the middle kid was John Paul Jones, a famous naval captain that coined the phrase "I have not yet begun to fight!" Btw, this is the perfect character for him! ;) They stationed my John Paul right smack dab in the middle of the media center, which in this particular school, is the center of the universe. The kids all had on name tags with a star on it...push the star and hear their story. He said he had his button pushed no less than 500 times, which I'm guessing equates to about 25 times. ;) His button was pushed by the assistant principal, principal, and the superintendent of schools, which he felt was particularly news worthy. When we were done, all he had to say was, "Jeez, my armpits are sweaty!" :)) Love him! Not sure where that kid will go in life, but I can tell you it will be amazing, and he will be totally lovable and laughable the whole way there!
After school today the little one is eager to tell me all about his day. They talked about several Presidents and what each one did for our country. He concludes his daily wrap up with, "I don't like our President." (Don't panic, this is not turning into a political blog or my personal soap box, but this story is worth sharing because in it's simplicity it is so right on.) I decide to take a neutral response here, I want to see what his reasoning is, and what prompted this line of thought, "Why not little one?" He responds with, "he just wants to take some people's money and give it to other people." At this point I'm starting to wonder how this lesson was taught today, but I just calmly say, "And you think that's bad? What if someone needs help because they are sick or hurt, shouldn't we help them out?" He's 8, so there are no prejudices, no tainted views of the world or of people in general, he takes things at face value. It is what it is...good description of how these three are being raised and this one has got that down. He says, "Well, people shouldn't need the President to tell them to help those people out, everyone should just help them because they need it. I mean if someone falls down you would help them get up without the President telling you to." There is nothing else to say here, he is right. How wise of his little 8 year old self. If everyone started helping others just because they can and it's the right thing to do, many yucko things in this world would cease to exist. That is just good common sense, if someone needs help....help them. I told him he should start the common sense party (which is what I like to think I belong to) and then run for President. He said, "ok, but I'll have to do that after I've played football for the Sooners, basketball for the Thunder and baseball for the Yankees. Maybe when I'm like 30 or something.";) He's got my vote! :)
The wine for the day is Monticello Presidential Merlot. Let me just say, there is no better way to kill 30 minutes before afternoon carpools start than at the wine store doing "research" for this blog! Have you ever noticed how friendly people are while shopping for wine? Sharing suggestions, asking if you've tried something....I made 3 new friends just today! I'm going back tomorrow, by the end of this week I'm going to know 20 new people! This is exciting!
Happy Monday!
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