Happy Memorial Day!

It's amazing how three little kids, all born within 14 months of each other, all read the same stories, taken to the same parks, disciplined the exact same way and loved the same way, can have such totally different personalities. Nothing showed this more clearly than a conversation I had with them this morning. In an effort to show some patriotism to the kids we got out a flag to put up outside. In an effort to explain patriotism to my monsters I pulled up youtube. Yeah that's right. I had actually tried to talk to the kids about honor, patriotism, freedom, civil liberties, but for some reason they just kept telling me what their favorite colors were. Hopeless. So, I pulled up youtube.com and searched under "proud to be an American," the obvious choice for memorial day ditties. And they had them. Soldiers from the Army, Airforce and Navy were shown deck out in uniform, helping kids in destitute lands, running under fire. They were brave and inspiring showing raw emotion at exactly the right place in the music. I'm telling you...good stuff. And all through these little mini American pep rallies I kept a running dialogue going on just how many cool things we can do because we live in a free country. How the kids could do anything, be anything.
"Mama. I know what I want to be when I grow up." That's my Ethan...totally catching on to this little life-lesson. "I'm going to be an army man. I'm going to fly planes and pick people up and get them safe so they can be more freedom." See, I'm not just babysitting...I'm raising the next generation of leaders. "And I'm going get guns and shoot at all the naughty people. And I'm going to fly the planes and drop the big BOOMS! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! Cool man!" Ok...so maybe I'll be steering him away from anything that comes with an automatic. But my laina, I could tell she was really taking it all in. She had been following Ethan's little declaration like an star-crossed fan with a flip of her hair she managed to faze Austin and me out of the conversation. "You know what I'm going to be when I grow up? I'm going to be a butterfly and I'm going to fly all around you and fly in the sky with you. And I'm going to be pink and yellow and bootiful" Sigh...my little air-headed hippy. Peace, love and little yellow flowers. While my flower-child and her soldier conspired together I looked over at my little Austin who had been watching the whole display with wide-eyes. "And what are you going to be, sweetie." He looked at Ethan. He looked at Laina. He looked at youtube. He pursed his lips together and sighed. "I"m going to be Jesus." Okay son. I really think that one's been taken. But way to shoot high.