Education

Yesterday we took a family trip to IKEA in Philly. It's becoming our yearly tradition for Paige's birthday. That's what she requests. How easy is that? We get a cheap meal and then sign the two oldest girls in to Smaland. Nice!
On our drive home, we had so many conversations based on curious minds in the back seat.
I love being a part of the exploration process of these little girls.

Here's a looksy into our conversations:

• "Mom, what are they doing! Why are they screaming at each other! Do they live under this bridge?" So this led to a discussion about how some people end up on the streets and how they do things that hurt their body and their brain. Take home message: Don't do drugs (to 3 and 5 year olds?). Obey your mom and dad.
• "Dad, what are those big blue things by the water" Driving across the Deleware river, you can see shipping docks. We explained how goods are shipped on the crates from all over the world so that we can have clothes, cars, toys, etc. It was fun for us to explain about our friends who recently moved to Singapore and how they didn't have chairs, beds, tables, or anything because all their stuff was in crates on a big ship crossing the ocean. Leah's jaw dropped when we explained this.
• Paige was reading a runner's world magazine and asked if dragons were real because she would "never run that close to a dragon with fire in it." The picture was of the Disney marathon. We told them dragons weren't real but there are lizards we call dragons.
• "Mom if things are real, they are pretend. But if they are for real then they are real." Huh?
• "Dad look at the cloud, it is a little red. Why are some clouds red and other ones just white?" We got to teach about the light of the sun and things in the environment that influence the sunset. Take home message: "oh clouds are red because the sun is so hot."

I'm so glad I took a moment to not be annoyed at all the questions and take advantage of such great conversation with our little family.

What great girls these ones are!