Friday highlights

Today our five year old called me one of his favorite people

Ok I might have started it by calling him one of my favorite people

And then of course I had to keep it going by asking him why I am one of his favorite people…

(This is hobby security)

His answer (as I was cradling him in my arms and gazing into his beautiful blue eyes) was;

‘Because you have a nice big warm cozy bed that I can sleep in’

To which I smooched his cheek and set him back on his feet and said

’I don’t think so...’

We are terrible co-sleepers

He sleeps sideways and upside down and puts his legs on top of the quilt and wakes up every 15 minutes to ask for a drink of my water

And his feet are almost always filthy

He drools and sweats and kicks and clobbers me

(I don’t think it is on purpose)

I don’t exactly look forward to it

And yet

When a few nights have gone by that he hasn’t come sneaking in from the bottom of the bed to squish between us

I get a twinge of sadness

And an urge to write about these days and draw them in little stick people comic stories

So I can remember

What do kids love hearing more then stories about themselves when they were little?

one day at a time

I just got a beautiful sticker from a dear friend that says ‘One day at a time’

Simple words

A great reminder

And just what I needed to hear

Sometimes I get so frustrated when my plans don’t go how I planned them

When a simple task I think should take an hour

Turns into a weeklong trial and error learning process

Sometimes I love learning, and sometimes I am all done learning and just want to practice what I’ve learned

I want to use it and create things and share them

And life says ‘Nah, there’s still more to learn’

It feels like I’m learning everything in reverse

I studied all up on self publishing

Before learning that I needed to learn how to create the book first

Then I learned how to create the book before learning that I needed to learn how to create

the content for the book

During that process I learned that I needed to learn some organizational skills and tools for

the content

Then I learned that I needed to learn how to draw some things

Then I learned that I needed to have some branding design for the content

Then I had to learn about the legal side of what I do

But today I got o put all what I’ve learned together and started over on the book

From scratch

Square one

And I’m thrilled

I have everything I need to get the job done

Now I just get to do it

I know for sure there will be more bumps in the road

There always are

And I will have to learn more

But it’s doable

I am amazed how much I can do now

That I didn’t think I could do before

I got this far one day at a time

So obvious

But so mind blowing

Sign up for the emails to get updates on book progress

And to see comics that are only for subscribers

And be the first to see every comic

and Tuesday Kid Quote

ear confection and other kid quotes

Kids say the best stuff

As we see every week with the new comics that I share via email with subscribers

And the Tuesday Kid Quotes

They are endless

Every mom could have their own book of the things their kids say

But why not leave the work to us at Chattersticks?

You share your story with me and I will share it with subscribers

And the stories and quotes will get added to the books we are working on

And everyone can enjoy them

You can let go of the pressure to write things down so you don’t forget (cuz we all forget)

Just share them with me

I will make a comic out of it if I can

You will get a free magnet of your comic

And if you want to you can order more magnets or a coffee cup or a mousepad with your story on it

These make great gifts for the kids themselves

Or their grandparents

Or yourself!

I love seeing the stories of my kids on my fridge and getting a chuckle every time

And having my morning cup of coffee in a mug with a funny or sweet kid story on it is my

favorite

Tell me a story

So we can pass it on

We can all use a smile these days

And a reminder of how awesome kids are

It’s not always easy to see

Especially if being in lockdown is raising your stress level

It sure hasn’t been all love and pancakes over here

There's been plenty of love and pancakes

But also plenty of human emotions and experiences at the other end of the spectrum

Your stories are so loved

Keep them coming

just do it

Today do yourself a favor and ask your third or fourth grade child to tell you about a chapter book they’ve recently read or are reading

At first I thought I was being told a true story because she was so expressive about it

There were lots of hand motions

Lots of using words like ‘stuff’ and ‘thing’ for describing

And I knew less about the plot of the story when she was done than when she started

I wish I had thought to record

I can’t really remember specifics

But I can tell you it was delightful to listen

I'm so lucky to be your mom

I am so lucky to be your mom.

To have gotten to inhale the scent of newborn from the top of your head for all the days it lasted

I’m so lucky it was me you woke in the night for food or comfort (or both)

And to have been cross eyed with exhaustion

I am so lucky to have ran your bath water and lathered your head with shampoo (sorry for the times it got in your eyes)

I am so lucky I got to make you oatmeal for breakfast lunch and dinner when you went through your picky stage (and lucky these things pass)

I’m so lucky I get to see you be so kind and gentle to your little brothers (and proud that you also don’t take their nonsense)

I’m so lucky to have kissed you and bandaged your bloody knees and hands and elbows and forehead when you learned to ride a bike (or were just running to catch the bus)

I am so lucky I get your artwork all over my refrigerator (or the sheetrock when you can find some tacks)

I am so lucky to have a windowsill full of special rocks you rinsed clean in the bathroom sink

I am lucky to have a muddy sink to wash up

I am so lucky to have a windowsill full of dandelions in summer

And windows and doors and walls full of dirty handprints

I am so lucky to have mountains of laundry

I am so lucky to have witnessed your height marks on the wall get higher and higher each year

I’m so lucky to stand back to back comparing height with a daughter who passed me up

I’m so lucky I get to watch you grow and learn (often the hard way)

I am so lucky there are so many different sizes and pairs of shoes scattered about the floor

I am so lucky to have a lawn littered with balls, chairs, paper airplanes (the latest rage) bikes, trikes, scooters, cups, plates, shoes, blankets and string cheese wrappers (currently, it varies)

I am so lucky to have sand in my sheets

And Cheerios to crunch underfoot

And syrup to sit in

I am so lucky to be your mom

discovery

Today I made a discovery

There is a Squarespace app that I can type these blog posts in

Thats awesome because I haven’t been able to write daily

Because our internet service is terrible

My laptop is old and cranky and will die in the middle of my typing

And will not cooperate if it is plugged in

The site was malfunctioning also

I would get an ‘error saving progress’ message randomly in the middle of typing

And lose all of whatever I had typed right on the middle of it

And when I tried to write a post through the site using my iPad, I would type and nothing would appear

It used to

I have no idea what changed

It has been frustrating and annoying and today I finally did that thing called ‘reaching out’

I went to the Squarespace help center and asked why I can’t type a post using my ipad

Literally I typed in ‘Why can’t I type a blog post using my iPad’

That is one of the coolest things about smart technology

It told me there was an app for that

Problem solved in a matter of seconds

So cool

thursday

Two of the girls overheard me say I needed to clean the refrigerator out before I could go get groceries

And they took it upon themselves to clean it for me while I made a meal plan and grocery list

It still amazes me that I have kids big enough to do those things

They go from playing restaurant in the driveway to cleaning out the fridge like it’s totally normal

Kids are amazing

Life is amazing

Even though my overall feeling this day was grumpiness about quarantine

Some days I just want to be grumpy about quarantine

That’s all

a face full of water to wake you up

Wednesday’s favorite moment happened in the kitchen, like a lot of favorite moments

The youngest was on the island counter

With his filthy jeans and dirt crusted feet

This boy figured out how to climb onto any surface by about nine months old

And we’ve never been able to break him of it

No matter how many times we give him the memo about no kids on counter tops

He will still be there every time I turn around

This time his oldest sister was smooshing his cheeks and saying to him

‘Why do you have to go and get big Evan? You should have stayed a baby’

I said I was glad he is getting so big and strong because he helps me and takes care of me

She said ‘Yeah Ev you can take care of mom until she dies’

Evan looked at me very seriously and said

‘Mom if you die, I will splash water in your face and make you alive again’

Kinda funny but mostly just adorable

Just that sweet fierce love of a boy for his mom

caramel and oranges

Tuesday’s highlights had to do with Hershey’s caramel ice cream topping and fresh organic oranges

I was going about my business in the kitchen when one child appeared

Asking for apples, paper wares, and caramel

‘We are out of apples and paper goods, but there is caramel syrup in the fridge’

‘Oookaaay, can we use oranges?’

‘For what?’

‘We are having a store’

‘Okay’

‘Do you have any other dishes we can use?’

‘You can look in that cupboard there’ (with a nod of my head as my hands were soapy and wet and holding a dish)

She got right to scrounging around in a bottom cupboard, her body almost disappearing bumping and clanging and displacing dishes until she found the treasured item

A set of espresso cups with saucers that I almost gave to Goodwill during my last pitching fit

And now I am glad I held onto them

She disappeared with the dishes and caramel

Another kid came in and filled a bucket of oranges and disappeared again

They took turns flying in and out of the kitchen gathering essentials

And then I hardly saw them the whole day

When I peaked at them, they really did have a ‘store’ set up on the concrete apron in front of the garage

A Rubbermaid bin with a leftover piece of 24” tile from the bathroom remodel laid across the top as their ‘cutting board’

A chunk of Styrofoam set up as a cash register

They had dine in option in spite of COVID-19 shut down orders

A folding table and camp chairs made up the dining room

They also had drive through option for all the patrons wishing to remain safely on their scooters bikes and trikes

‘Hello what can I get for you today?’

‘A (espresso) cup full of caramel sauce and a plate of sliced oranges?’

This kept them entertained for hours.

Just more reasons kids are the best thing on earth.

monday

The two little boys had an interesting tale for me today

They spent the majority of the day cruising back and forth from the shop to their ‘fort’ in the ‘woods’

Fort can really mean a number of types of shelters

A burrow dig into a pile of leaves

A hole cut into a blackberry bush

Tree limbs piled into walls

Boards nailed to tree limbs

At the end of the day they came into the house with a big story for me

“Mom we were just walkin on the trails by our fort and a tree just FELL and landed on neighbor Ed’s fence!’

They looked at me real ernest

Too ernest to be honest

I said ‘Um boys, trees don’t just fall down. they have to have some help. Like a windstorm, a mudslide, some lightning, or a hatchet, or saw…’

‘Oh’

‘Did you maybe help it with a hatchet or a saw?’

‘Yeah but we real careful lifted it off Ed’s fence and put it on our side’

‘That’s good, but I still have to tell dad you were cutting down tress without asking’

And the older one replied

'What can we eat?’

Moving on real fast

The ‘tree’ was tiny and the fence is barbed wire thankfully

No major damage but a good reminder to hide the hatchets in a new place

And maybe take a walk back there and see what they’re up to more often

do you have emails worth waking up for?

I did a little research this morning out of curiosity

I was looking at my website analytics, trying to figure out how all those numbers work and what they mean

And one of the statistics recorded in the analytics page is how many of the emails I send are opened

And the number given was 72%

Seventy-two percent of the subscribers to Chattersticks emails open them and read them

So then I had to ask Google what the average was for email opened in general

The average is 32% overall

We more than double the average

And half of those emails that were opened, were opened within 30 minutes of me sending them out

Some were opened immediately

They automatically send at 5:00 am

That is five in the morning

Granted some people live in other time zones, so it coud be 6 or 7 in the morning

And people are opening them that early to read the newest stories of all the darling and funny little people

That’s amazing

But not that surprising to me

Because I love hearing and drawing and sharing the stories

And people love seeing them in comic form

People love stories

Do you get emails to our inbox that you are excited to open at 5AM?

If not, what are you waiting for?

you are amazing

I am sitting here next to our ninth grade son who is currently doing his Geometry homework.

He is using words like hypotenuse and perpendicular

Trying to find the distance a lady in a parachute would be from the helicopter pad if she jumped from the helicopter after it flew from the pad at a 20 degree angle for 2.1 Kilometers…

What even are kilometers?

And you know all those weird buttons on calculators that you have no clue what they are for…yeah he is using those..and trying to explain them to me…

Heellllppppp…… cos(37) =x over 2.1 is Greek to me

I am just a mom

Not to diminish the value of being a mom

I just mean I am not a Geometry teacher

It has been 20 years since I was in Geometry

Before this I was teaching our first grade boy to read a clock

That I can do

Even tho I still haven’t taught him to tie his shoes (sorry Miss Gray!)

I still believe that I am amazing

Geometry degree aside

I am a human living the human experience and it is not easy

Trying and learning new things every day

We never know what’s coming

We don’t always have all the right tools

We don’t have all the answers

It doesn’t always go as planned

We don’t always have a plan

We change the plan constantly

We say that’s enough for one day and send everyone outside or take an ice cream break

We have full days where we do no homework at all

Where I clean and cook and just be a mom

Sometimes I just need a full day of not saying ‘If I catch you on games instead of classwork again you are going to lose chromebook privileges’

Whatever you are doing, have done, or will do to help your kids on their education route during this shutdown

I think you are amazing

You and your kids are amazing, even when the house is upside down

Even when:

The kids need a bath

Their nails need clipped

Their hair needs cut

They are sneaking onto games or other distractions on the chromebook every time you turn your back

Even when you don’t understand the homework

And the technology is confusing

And chromebooks won’t connect to the printer

And you Google for help

And while you are helping one child

Another is helping themselves to the blender for blended coffee creation inventions

aka: sticky mess of the century

Even if you can hardly keep all the teachers and assignments straight

Even when you get impatient or overwhelmed or frustrated

You are amazing for being you and living in your shoes under whatever hardship this shutdown has brought you

It has been an amazing experience

Amazingly unpredictable

Amazingly anxious

Amazingly full of memories

Amazingly full of learning experiences

Amazingly human

go team

Having this outlet of drawing the funny little characters our lives has been extra nice during this lockdown/stay home/social distancing/quarantine phase

You have given us so many stories to enjoy and given me something healthy to focus on in between the feedings and teaching at this zoo/circus/farm/school life we are living right now

Every story makes my day

Every single one is my favorite

And some I don’t even share with the public because it might be an inside story or something only that family would understand, but I still draw it for you

Regardless I read each new one and get excited about drawing it

I always want it to be perfect

I always want you to feel good about the way I portray your story

I want you to be able to see your kid in the stick figure that I create for you

Even though I am not a professional artist and I have never seen most of the kids in the stories, not even in pictures

I love when you give me extra details like freckles or curls so if possible I can add them

And I want you to know that if I share your story and you think ‘Mmmm she kinda got it wrong’

You can let me know

It is easy to fix most things

Because technology is magical like that

Sometimes I don’t quite get the essence of the story and you have to explain it a little better of give me some background or details that personalize it a little more

And sometimes you can’t see the story through the eyes of someone who is drawing it

And when you see the finished comic you realize it’s not really how you meant it

Just let me know!

I want your magnet to bring you joy every time you see it

And I want you to be excited to get the book and see your comic story in there

Portrayed how you intended, or as it actually happened

And sometimes we have to improvise because I am not a professional artist and I have limits to what I can draw, and we can reach an understanding about how to tell that story in stick figure form so you love it and others understand it

It can be challenging to fit a lengthy story into three frames

But I think we’ve done a pretty awesome job of it so far

You and I, we make a good team

Thank you for taking the time to share your stories

Keep them coming

no pressure

How are you holding up with quarantine?

I have a love/hate relationship with it all

It is the best time ever

I love having my kids home

I love not waking them for school

I love watching and listening to them interact all day

I am not saying it’s all lavender and sunshine

I get tired of the whining and tattling and teasing

I sigh and grumble

And sometimes holler

The homeschool has gotten much more challenging this last week

I knew I needed to change something after I had a tantrum in the kitchen while helping one of the girls with her Math

She was being whiny and giving no effort

I was having no patience

She was being overdramatic and I was being over reactive

I took her Math papers and ripped them into pieces

I know, so sad

And a good reminder for me

So I gave myself a brain power limit of four hours, two chromebooks going at a time with me in between the two kids who are on them

School time is only from 10am to 2pm

Monday Tuesdays Thursdays and Fridays

Wednesday is No Electronic Day and we do art and reeeaaad or go on a field trip

I removed the pressure from myself to make sure every kid turns in every assignment every week

I even did one assignment for my ninth grader while he worked on another

I would rather he was back in the shop working on his dirt bike

He will remember how to repair a dirt bike

Will he remember the dates and names of all the important people and places in American History?

Do you?

I would rather get through the schoolwork as quickly as possible and get on to what they love

And if researching how a Tesla engine works is what he would really like to do, I’ll finish that Language Arts paper for him real quick so he can get on with it

We have to prioritize and re-prioritize daily, almost hourly

And schoolwork isn’t always going to have the front burner or center stage

I give myself permission to lighten my load however possible during this time

So thankful the teachers are so understanding

And patient and helpful

And there for us

I think I understand why there are three recesses a day and parties happen often in public school

I admit I was a bit judgmental of the amount of party days they had

They are not for the kids

They are to give the teachers a much needed break

The brain power those teachers have

So much appreciation for them right now more than ever

And for the school office staff

I’m over here asking each child of mine

‘What grade are you in again?’

‘Who’s your teacher?’ (again)

While Tasha the lady at the front desk at the elementary school would say

‘Good morning Andrea! Mrs. Denney right? Your class is in Art right now, have a good day hon!’

While simultaneously writing her a pass and excusing her tardy on the computer and inquiring about our other girl who went home with an earache yesterday, and I have already forgotten about the earache

I’m in awe, thinking ‘Don’t you have like a thousand students??’

Just hats off

quarantine activities for kids

1. Put a hooded sweatshirt on the dog and spend an hour laughing hysterically at everything he does because everything a dog does in a hooded sweatshirt is hilarious

2. Tease your sister

3. Sit in the yard and pull grass

4. Make a huge pile of the grass and bury the dog and then take videos of him emerging from his grass bed

5. Then take turns burying each other with the grass

6. Tease your sister

7. Play a thousand rounds of Around the world

8. Pick up sticks, literally, from the yard and earn a pack of Now and Laters from your dad

9. Make face prints on the windows

10. Hide pieces of meat in the yard and see which dog finds it first

11. Avoid your mom because if she senses boredom she will find you a job

12. See how many of the jobs your mom assigns you can be done while seated in the wheelchair you bought off Craigslist for $20 (to practice wheelies in)

13. Tease your sister

14. Claim to be hungry and raid the pantry every half hour

15. Go through as many art and craft supplies as humanly possible

16. Invent reasons to be on an electronic

17. Get denied by electronic headquarters

18. Bag and plead to electronic headquarters to no avail

19. Tease your sister

20. Build a play barn out of scrap wood (I always thought scrapwood was one word, but the computer is underlining it in red)

21. Read the last of your library books over and over (cuz who knows when they’ll open again)

22. Ride your bike

23. Push it up the driveway when the chain falls off

24. Put your little brother’s chain back on 10x in a day

25. Organize a game of kickball

26. Get so mad because someone misplaced the ball pumper upper and you really need it

27. Ask mom to order a new one on Amazon, and add ten more items to the list while you have her attention

28. ‘Accidentally’ land a frisbee on the porch roof so someone will have to go up to get it

29. Toss the cat up there too to make it worth the trip

30. Scare the beejeepers outta your mom by dropping from the gutter right in front of her and laugh hysterically because that is even funnier than a dog in a hooded sweatshirt

    Quarantine activities for moms:

    1. Make food

    2. Clean it up

    3. Repeat

week 3? 4? 10? of quarantine

The days are officially running together

How on earth did anyone keep track of time and days before smart phone

One of our girls has been keeping a daily art journal of all her activities and food since we have been staying home and there was a big discussion last night about whether she had the date right on her pages

That led to her asking ‘Was yesterday Sunday?’

And of course we had to look at the phone to be absolutely certain

Who can trust a calendar or a journal anymore?;)

A couple days before that I had been telling a family member about our bathroom remodel

And explained all the work Shane and the boys had done in one day

They had started demolition that morning and were already done taking out two walls, the floor, the cabinets etc, aren’t they amazing?

And one of the kids overheard me and said ‘Mom you are wrong it’s been two days’

What!?

That’s quarantine for us

book

One of the recent comics I sent in the newsletter was a little boy being taught by his dad about lying

He gives a little explanation and then asks the toddler ‘Do you know what lyin’ is?

And of course the boy excitedly says ‘Yes!’

And then follows up with ‘Do you know what tigers are?’

It makes me laugh every time I read it and see him sitting on the couch between his mom and dad taking it all so seriously and then he replies and you are reminded that this is a tiny little boy whose mind works quite differently than ours!

Just another reason kids are the best thing on earth.

This particular comic is one of the 140 that of the first comics I drew that are going to be included in the first book

The long awaited and asked about compilation of the stories of the kids in our lives

Some are shared by readers and some are of my own kids

The contributors will be acknowledged

And when you buy a copy, your kids will see themselves in the story you shared and they will most likely think that’s pretty cool

I am so excited for you all to get this book in your hands and have it on your coffee table for a pick me up now and then

It has been a long process full of trial and error and learning and deciding and changing

But it is so close I can taste it

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel

And as soon as the first book is in print, there will be another right behind it

Because this is a never ending series

The stories are timeless and endless

You are going to enjoy them so much!!

Gramma Sally

Difficult and uncertain times make me think of our ancestors, predecessors, etc, specifically our mothers and grandmothers

They lived through recessions, depressions, wars, hunger, separation from loved ones indefinitely, loss of loved ones, so many hardships and challenges that I don’t even know about

Without any of the modern comforts we have in these ‘hard times’

One of my favorite stories to remember and put life into perspective is about Gramma Sally

She wasn’t my grandma, she was the grandmother of our friends’

But they called her Gramma Sally so we did too

And she treated us like we were just more grandkids

I remember hearing about how her and her husband raised their family on a farm in the country in one of the Dakotas, I don’t know if I am going to get all the details right but you’ll get the idea

They were blessed with a lot of children

And sometimes being a mother and everything that comes with it can get overwhelming

She didn’t have family that lived close

No therapist or ladies’ night out

Or Starbucks drive through

Or any restaurant for that matter

Let alone take out

No Amazon delivery

They had no telephone

That was way before internet

So when she would feel like she couldn’t do it anymore

As I remember it being told, she would walk across a field to a tree stump

And sit herself down and have a good cry

Until she felt a little better

And she’d dry her eyes and head back

And carry on

totally normal

My new mantra is ‘totally normal, totally normal’

Because what is normal anyway right?

Yesterday I cleaned out our ‘woods’

This is where the boys have built and torn down may ‘forts’ and ‘cabins’

And actually the girls have too

It’s amazing

And ‘totally normal’

How much stuff gets left in the woods during the construction and use of these forts

While they are building they get sweaty and remove coats and sweatshirts, and apparently even shoes

They bring armloads of our reusable water bottles filled with ice water out there

They must take breaks because they bring chairs and books and little side tables

They use wheelbarrows, and shovels and hedge trimmers and five gallon buckets, and ice cream buckets

Hammers and nails and tape measures and containers for their stuff

They ride their bikes out there

They use the snow sleds to haul stuff out there

That’s all before they actually camp out there

Then they really start to bring the stuff

Sleeping bags and pillows and queen comforters

Flashlights, lanterns, and headlamps

Cast iron skillets, tongs, spatulas, utensils, more water jugs, plates, silverware

I love when they come in the kitchen and ask for food for these camping trips, really

It’s a great way to get rid of bread heals, stale buns and questionable hot dogs and scrape clean the three ‘empty’ peanut butter jars in the cupboard, and use up the last little bits of jam from the bottom of the jars

Totally normal

And they bring some of it back

And leave plenty of it out there

For the entire winter

A lot of questions get answered in spring

Like ‘Why are we always short on blankets?

‘I know I had a tape measure in here’

“Where is a shovel when you need one?’

So yesterday it took me three heaping wheelbarrows full to get the woods cleaned out

I dumped it all on the back patio

Totally normal

That was my workout for the day

And today the kids have their work cut out

I am not sure what educational subject to call it yet

Home Economics? Family psychology?

Maybe I could turn it into math…

‘If mom draws one comic per fifteen minutes and it takes you three hours to get this all cleaned up, how many comics can mom draw while you guys are cleaning?’

It will take at least three hours, each item will be a distraction

“Hey I wondered where this basketball was!’

‘Who wants to play around the world?’

And I will have to make that difficult parenting decision of whether or not to get them back on task or just keep drawing comics

Until someone comes in crying

‘ITWASMYTURNANDTHEYARENOTPLAYINGBYTHERULESANDTHEYSAIDTHERESNOHOLDINGBUTTHEREISANDSHEDIDBABYHANDSANDTHATSAGAINSTTHERULESANDYOUHAVETODODOMETHINGABOUTITRIGHTNOW!!’

Totally normal

find the special rocks

One of my favorite things about kids is that they don’t know any better

Especially the youngest ones

They are totally unaware of the change around us

They have a mom who feeds and clothes and bathes them still

A dad who tucks them in and says the Lord’s Prayer

A warm home and the same toys

The same blue (or gray in our case) sky overhead

The same fears about the boogey man in the closet

The same master bed to run to from the boogey man

And this lack of knowing leaves them so much more open for discovery than us adults

They are not dwelling in uncertainty and anxiety

They are not bothered by the news

Their eyes are open to all the possibilities around their very small world

My best example of this is one of my favorite stories

It was when our second oldest girl was a preschooler

We were at the end of our driveway waiting for the bus to come pick up the school kids one early morning

It was a busy time, we had a first, second, and third grader who were running around playing tag, plus a 3, 2, and 1 year old in the triple jogger

And the 4 year old quietly playing in the gravel by herself

The big yellow noisy bus roared up and screeched to a stop for the kids to get on

They waited for the signal to cross the road

We waved them off heartily

And then turned to walk back to the house

And I would have missed it if I hadn’t had to look down to say

‘Let’s go’ to the 4 year old

She was in a crouch in the gravel

Over a good size mound

Of pink rocks

Beautiful pale pile of pink rocks

I always thought gravel was gray

But I had never told the four year old

Maybe if someone had convinced her gravel was gray she would have never taken a closer look and found the pink