Sparkle Girl and the Cute-O-Meter

As part of the morning ritual on school days, I inspect Sparkle Girl before she heads out off to school.

A while back, I drew a little meter to measure her cuteness. Noting that my paltry effort was clearly not up to the job, she drew her own Cute-O-Meter.

Just before it's time to take her to school, she brings in the meter, which we keep in its own envelope to minimize wear and tear, and presents it to me at the kitchen table.

I sit in a chair and place the Cute-O-Meter on the table in front of me. Starting with her shoes, I work my way up, noting such things as whether the shirt and headband are color coordinated.

Once that is done, we check out the final item - her smile. Seeing that is one of my favorite parts of the day.

We don't have an arrow for our Cute-O-Meter so I take a pen, place one end in the center of meter's base and rotate the other end through the various levels. The pen quickly moves beyond "Quadruple Cute." As the pen enters the upper levels of the meter's measuring scale, it slows down.

It goes slower and slower until it finally "breaks" the meter going into "Too Cute to Measure" territory at which point I go, "DING! DING! DING! Too cute to measure!"

Part of the ritual is Sparkle Girl being startled by the "Ding! Ding! Ding!"

The first few days, a combination of timing and misdirection enabled me to truly startle her. That didn't last long, though. So, to keep me happy, Sparkle Girl pretends that she is surprised even when I don't pull it off.

She's thoughtful that way.

Garnet and Her Babies

This is Garnet talking:

When Sparkle Girl was born 9 years ago, I carried her in my arms 23 hours out of every 24-hour day. Whether I was cooking, painting, walking or sleeping, her downy head would be bobbing beside mine.

Going on four years later, Doobins came along. He just turned 6, and, the other night, he fell asleep in my arms. It was all I could do to lift him and carry him into his bed. I'm realizing my babies are simply too big to carry.

I can't account for the time it took for that to happen. I hope I invested it well now that they walk themselves to bed.

I was standing at my studio door watching yellow leaves falling down and covering a patch of dirt where Sparkle Girl had carefully buried six holly berries. She made beautiful markers to indicate which ones will come up as roses, which will bloom as tulips and where the pansies will pop up.

This is a precious time.

Doobins crawled up into my lap the other morning for the sole purpose of looking me in the face. I put my finger in the middle of his chest and said, "Does Jesus live in your heart, my boy?"

He laughed and said, "Yes, Momma, and God does, too."

I felt like a vessel not big enough to hold what was being poured into it.

Kim and I are both very aware that these are precious days - that our family's hours together are pure gold and delivered directly from God Himself.

Imagining that it was possibly the last time that I would carry my boy into bed has been one of those blazing moments for me. It makes me sad, and, at the same time, I'm flooded with thanksgiving. I've been given a few moments to invest and to receive from two amazing children.

My biggest prayer is that God will walk beside them every step their little feet take their whole lives - that He will be as real to them as the blankets on their beds. I hope that, when they look back on these times, they will find them beautiful and filled with love.

I may not be able to carry them anymore but I can still chase them around and have a good throw-down, tickle-screaming, face-kissing minute or two.

Dancing Trees

The picture above is called "Dancing Trees." It's by Balint Birkas, who lives here in Winston-Salem.

Birkas is from Hungary, and "Dancing Trees" is one of the pictures that he has painted of his home country. It and a number of other equally wonderful pictures are on display in the lobby of the Allegacy Federal Credit Union offices at 1691 Westbrook Plaza Drive until the end of November.

Dan Nicholas Park

Dan Nicholas Park just outside of Salisbury is a kid paradise. It has a miniature train, a merry-go-round, a petting zoo, miniature golf, a lake with paddle boats, assorted playgrounds, a gem mine and a zoo with red foxes, bears and white-tailed deer.

It had been a while since we last went, and Sparkle Girl had been lobbying heavily for a return trip. Garnet's mother was going to join us for this excursion so we drove via Mocksville to pick her up.

I knew how to get there from Winston-Salem but not the best way from Mocksville, so I got directions online. In Salisbury, I couldn't find the indicated turn. When I turned around to see if I had missed it, Sparkle Girl said she sure hoped we weren't going back home without going to Dan Nicholas.

As she elaborated on her point, Doobins announced that he had had enough driving around and wanted to be back home right now. A stop by the visitors' center got us back on track, and the kids were soon trying to decide what to do first.

Both Sparkle Girl and Doobins had brought money, or tickets as Doobins calls paper money, in case they found something they wanted to buy. Both ended up with mood rings that change color.

For the rest of the time at Dan Nicholas, for the ride home, that night and in the days that have followed, Sparkle Girl has given us regular updates on the state of her mood ring.

One report led to a scientific discussion of what, in fact, the mood ring was measuring. For her experiment to discover the role of heat, Sparkle Girl ran around inside the house until she was winded.

This experiment resulted in a "look" from Garnet. What exactly that look meant, though, neither Sparkle Girl nor I could say for sure.

Both Sparkle Girl and I find ourselves in this position from time to time. The meaning of some looks from Garnet is clear. Other times, it's hard to say. More than once I have spent considerable effort trying to figure out what I did to tick her off only to discover later that she had a headache.

Wouldn't it be great, Sparkle Girl and I thought, if somebody came out with a mood ring that really did tell you the mood of the wearer? When in doubt, you could look at it.

If it was red, you would know that you were, in fact, in the soup. If it was green-black, you would know that the wearer just wasn't feeling up to snuff.

In the meantime, Sparkle Girl and I are making do with an imaginary mood ring.

When some of our recent antics elicited a look, Sparkle Girl said, "I bet that ring would be red right now."