The Election, Field Trips, and Dirty Bellybuttons?

Sorry for the delay in blogging, but I was too caught up in the election coverage last night. Though I am thoroughly disappointed with the outcome, I know that the Lord is sovereign over all things and is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords no matter who happens to be at the helm of our government. To paraphrase a very gifted pastor I heard on Sunday, we can pray just as fervently for a president we didn't vote for as much as we can one we did vote for. And now, as believers, that is our job. The election and its outcome has given us opportunities to have some good conversations with Lainey about how even though we don't agree with Obama on much of anything (if anything at all) we still have a biblical obligation to pray for the leaders in our country. She asked why we didn't agree with him. As our number one reason for not voting for him is his stance on abortion, we discussed how he thought it was okay to kill babies if a mommy decided she didn't want it before it was born. Dear, sweet little Lainey seems to get it better than most any politician and provided the most straight forward answer I could have ever hoped for. On her own, she said, "Well, if you don't want a baby, the best thing to do is to give it to someone who does." Thank you Lord that, at age 5, she already values the sanctity of life and sees adoption as the better option when faced with the decision of abortion.

Yesterday, Lainey's class took a field trip to the fire station and the library. All of the moms went as well and I thought it was great fun. I think Lainey enjoyed it as much as I enjoyed my own kindergarten field trip to the fire department. One of the firemen put all of his gear on so the kids would know what they looked like in case they ever needed help from a fireman. They got a grand tour of the fire trucks and even got to sit in one. They were able to help "clean" one of the engines and even got to get in the back of one of the ambulances. They each got their own fireman's hat before they left and were all really cute walking across the street to the library. I wonder if passers-by thought the library might be in danger with all the little firefighters running over? We had a tour of the library and got to see how they check books back in and get them ready to go to all of the other libraries in the county whenever they're needed. All in all, the library tour made me say, "Oh, I want to work here when my kids get older." I'm a book nerd and think I would be in hog heaven if I was surrounded by them day in and day out.

Today we had lunch with some dear friends from church. They are surrogate grandparents to all of us and we love them dearly. The girls know where she keeps her bag of toys and her children's books and so they made themselves at home and started playing. Lainey found a new book in the collection called "What is a bellybutton?" She asked what the name of the book was and when I read it to her, she stuck her hand under her shirt and said, "Is it this? Is it this hole right here?" I told her it was. She said, "You know what? When I put my finger in my bellybutton, it's all yucky inside!" I think it might be time for a bath and a good bellybutton cleaning!