You just don't respnd to your children...

     I took Julia shopping for an Easter dress for church last weekend.  Dressing my girls while they are young enough to let me is a bad habit of mine.  I still had a couple of perfectly suitable dresses from when Savannah was little hanging in the closet, but Julia did not like them, and I actually wanted to see something new myself.  Keeping them was a mistake as someone else surely could have benefited from them.  I have not bought new Easter clothes for the kids for the last two years and really wanted to have them dress nicely for church for a change this year.  So off Julia and I went to find a simple, inexpensive Easter dress. Julia and I have different tastes and disagreed on the proper Easter attire for church.  Julia had leggings and long t-shirts trimmed in tulle in mind.  I was thinking of a simple dress.  When we were clearly not close to an agreement and starting to leave the second store, Julia hit me with this comment, "you just do not respond to your children."  "Excuse me?"  I replied.  She followed that with, "you just do not respond to your children the way a mother should."  Now this is clearly a disrespectful statement, but you simply have to understand Julia.  She says such things with such great delivery that correcting her is not an option.  You are simply laughing too hard to do it.   In the end we compromised.  I bought the outfit pictured here and a dress along with a few other things that I did not budget for this outing -ouch!  Julia got to wear her choice to church last weekend, and she has a simple white sundress for Easter.

This has been a rough week for our family.  Shiloh was sick for two days...messy sick, and Andy is dealing with a demanding situation at work requiring looooong workdays and lots of stress.  He was on call from Christmas until New Year's and will be on call Easter weekend as well.  Julia, however, had much to look forward to this week.  Her school blossomed the cross on Wednesday.  Unfortunately, Andy could not be there because of his work.  I was going to try and surprise her, but I was too busy at work myself to leave that day.  In addition to this special school tradition, Julia was also going to have grandparents day at school.  Grandparents day is exclusively a kindergarten event at this school and a very big deal.  Julia has anxiously anticipated this for weeks.  Andy's mom came in last night to attend grandparents day and just as it was the last time she visited, Andy was on call and working on the laptop and phone for a good portion of his visit.  Julia went with my mother-in-law to school and met my parents there.  They all had a fabulous time with a hyper Julia, and it seems that the grandparents all forgot their cameras.  What?!! Cameras or not, this is just another one of those times when I remember that if we hadn't followed God's lead and stepped out of the boat, somewhere in China a little girl would grow up without a family.  It might not have been Julia, but there are still too many orphans in this world. 

One more note...as I typed this entry Julia was looking over my shoulder and trying to read as I typed.  She kept asking me to read it to her, and I ignored her in my state of concentration, so she asked me: "Are you going to answer me like a polite woman should?!" 

When we brought Julia home from China, I used to say, "she thinks life is a party and she is the guest of honor."  hmm, has anything changed?

I now have a saying for Wyatt in regard to his recent behavior at school, "why learn when you can talk?"  -yes, that was  another issue this week, I won't whine about all the details of this rough, rough week because we will make it, spring break is right around the corner