"I Love You" Paper and the Magic of Childhood

Today I wanted the girls to do some coloring so I gave them some regular white paper. Sarah Grace said, "No, not Daddy's paper" and then proceeded to say something else that I couldn't quite understand. I finally realized that what she wanted was the construction paper that we have used in the past to make cards. I explained that, for now, we were just going to use regular paper. She said, "But later will you get the 'I love you' paper?" Can you tell that we usually write 'I love you' on the cards we make?

I had a candle burning this afternoon and was trying to explain to Lainey that if she'd put the lid on top of it, it would burn out because it needs air to burn. She did and was fascinated when the flame went out. I used a match a little later to light it again (being careful to explain that only grown ups could use matches) and I wish I'd had a camera to get a picture of Lainey's face when I did it. Her little mouth made an "O" and she backed away and said, "That was cool!" I love the fascination of childhood and how everything seems like magic.

Lainey is really a great help to me from time to time and she's learning to do a little more with Abby. Today I showed her how to hold her when she was standing up. She later walked to the back of the house with her where I was talking with Lon. I got a great picture of Lainey holding Abby on the couch and per Lainey's request I'm putting it on here. Really, when I took the picture, she said, "Can you put that on your blog?" I didn't even know what a computer was when I was 4, much less a blog!