Kids can say the most adorable things...

Hi, everyone! First of all, I wanted to tell you how I spent the weekend - I was SO dreading making up the family photo pages for our dossier, but finally faced my fears and did it.  I had thought I would never find a usable photo with me in it, but I decided that as long as I have a cute child as a prop for the photo, it detracts enough attention from my own face that it's tolerable.  Plus, my face looks happier and nicer when I'm being deeply mommy-like, anyway.  It's just my element. The thing turned out to several pages of collages, but I think it gives a pretty good idea of family life in the Hertz household.  So, I made a slideshow out of it to share with all of you - you can find it at the bottom of the page. For those of you not familiar with blog slideshows (yes, Mom and Dad, that's you!), you can click on the little black square at above the slideshow to stop/start. Also, you can click on any of the small images at the bottom of the slideshow to go directly to an page you want to see.

More importantly, I wanted to share with you something sweet that Lydia said to me tonight.  I was tucking her into bed, and she had a thoughtful look on her face as she stroked the back of my hand.  "Mommy," she said, "that lotion that you put on your hands - will the company go out of business sometime?"  I paused and puzzled before finally asking her what on earth she was talking about...  She told me, "Well, you said that it comes from dinosaur bones, so what happens when the dinosaur bones are all gone???"  Bless her heart, she was listening!  Last week for her homeschool studies, we were discussing interdependence among people, but also the interdependence of humans with the environment.  We learned about renewable vs. nonrenewable resources, including extensive discussion of fossil fuels (the "lotion" she was talking about was petroleum jelly!)  

I just love it - it shows that she is really learning from her lessons - not just the actual things I'm telling her about, but also learning to apply them in a broader way to her everyday experiences, and learning to think about environmental impact, etc.  Plus, the fact that she cares if the Vaseline company goes out of business when the dinosaur bones run out shows what a caring person she really is.  

Of course, I did explain to her that if the dinosaur bones run out, everyone will have a lot bigger problem on their hands than the financial downfall of Vaseline...LOL