March 20, 2007 by Barbara.

When Reid woke up on Saturday, she wanted to play in her room instead of going straight to the bathroom. In this she is like her father. I can never do anything before heading to the bathroom but Reid can wait a long, long time, especially if you try to prompt her to go. In any case, she wanted to stay and play and I had already gone and so we could stay. I sat in the rocking chair and as Reid walked over toward me, Reid stopped and asked, “Where my tradle?” The mixed up hard c threw me a bit, as did the use of cradle since we have never used the word. When I asked if she was asking about her crib, she nodded. Ken took it down weeks ago. I am not sure how it escaped her notice except that she seems to have inherited my observational skills. When I told her that “we” had taken it down (the royal we seemed a good idea so that Ken wasn’t the bad guy), since she didn’t use it anymore - okay never really used it - and that we would give it to a baby that needs it. Reid was sad to hear this. When I protested that she slept in her big girl bed anyway, she told me that she wanted to play in it. And it is true, she did like to play in there every once in a while, which was good since she barely slept there.

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March 20, 2007 by Barbara.

Is there anything nicer than unprompted mannerly word? Reid sometimes, even often, needs to be prompted to say “please”. She has a beautiful smile that she often puts on when she says it. We refer to it as the “Stepford smile”. But my favourite is the unprompted “sank you!” Last night, Reid noticed Winnie-Pooh sitting on the dryer and grabbed him close for a big hug. I pointed out that Daddy had given Winnie-Pooh a bath and wasn’t he clean? Reid immediately said, “Sank you, Daddy!” She followed me into the closet, cataloguing the changes in Winnie-Pooh: “This ear clean. ‘Nother ear clean.” The ears were *really* dirty. The belly didn’t have a tide line where the shirt stopped. Reid’s smile grew bigger and bigger. She walked out of the closet and said again, “Sank you!” with such a big smile and sincere gratitude, I loved her more than ever.

We live to serve, of course, but being thanked is nice.

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