what matters most

today i ran outside in my pjs, slippers with a bag of bird seed in my hand, begging my neighbors not to come outside and spy me filling up the bird feeder. i should just start calling it the squirrel feeder. it's kinda sorta snowing right now and im getting excited about the idea of sledding with the kids. i think we can all agree that olive will love it. augustine in his cautiousness will too but olive will be "hog wild". it is 22 out. brrr. but now that we've had several weeks consistently below 30 ive transitioned into accepting winters sting and am now full of expectation for our first real accumulation of snow. BRING IT. i shall greet you with my harf!

so for the parents out there, do you talk to your children about serious matters? if so, how? im interested in everyones perspective on how they talk to their kids about say, molestation, crime, all that sort of stuff. there is a fine line to be walked in how to talk with children. i don't want to scare my kids but i also will not lie to them and honestly im not much for kitten-gloving stuff either. we have frank discussions with augustine about what meat is. nothing graphic or age inappropriate but im not going to sugar coat something that to him might develop into a sensitivity. i guess that is the point - not closing doors to things that they might become sensitive to by simply not telling them about things. today a couple from our church are heading to liberia (i think) to adopt three children. what amazing love! they brought with them a suitcase full of donations for the orphanage and so last week i took the kids with me to the store to buy diapers and formula. it was a great spring board to talk with augustine about adoption and orphans. i won't be so bold as to assume he was "sobered" but in a 3 yr old way he sort of was. he seemed (still seems) so sad that some children don't have families. thanksgiving day we took food to a family in need and again, good discussion time about how some people cannot afford food and need to rely on the public's generosity to survive. i guess to me i've got time to do this kind of stuff with my kids so that is my modus operandi for tough discussions. but there is other stuff that i just do not know how to talk about - like someone touching them or how to explain when someone dies. he knows about beatrix and he knows about my friend renee but it's never touched him so maybe it might take something like that (God forbid) to make him understand it beyond an intellectual concept. im thinking a lot about this as we're getting closer to christmas. we agree that we failed to translate the meaning of christmas to our kids last year. they just got toys and we ate and hung out with our families. it was not Christ, hope, or joy centered. i want them to get excited about blessing others. i dont want to smoosh the child out my children and expect them to stop being excited about receiving gifts (good grief are they!) but i dont want to have a repeat of last year where it was all about the stash.