Dancing with Cinderella

She spins and she sways to whatever song plays

Without a care in the world

And I'm sitting here wearing the weight of the world on my shoulders

It's been a long day, and there's still work to do

She's pulling at me saying, "Dad, I need you"


There's a ball at the castle
And I've been invited
And I need to practice my dancing,
Oh, Please, Daddy, please?

So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms.
Because I know something the Prince never knew
Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song
Because all too soon the clock will strike midnight,
And she'll be gone.....


She says he's a nice guy
And I'd be impressed
She wants to know if I approve of the dress
She says Dad the prom is just one week away
And I need to practice my dancing
Oh, Please, Daddy, please?


So I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms
Because I know something the Prince never knew
Oh, I will dance with Cinderella
I don't want to miss even one song
Because all too soon the clock will strike midnight,
And she'll be gone....


Well, she came home today with a ring on her hand
Just glowing and telling us all they had planned
She says, "Dad, the wedding's still six months away,
But I need to practice my dancing"
So, please, Daddy, please?


So, I will dance with Cinderella
While she is here in my arms,
Because I know something the Prince never knew
Oh, I will dance with Cinderella,
I don't want to miss even one song
Because all too soon the clock will strike midnight,
And she'll be gone....
----Words and Music by Stephen Curtis Chapman
He wrote those words after losing one of his daughters in an accident when she was five years old. He knew the power of those sweet moments between daddies and daughters. We know that here, too. The dances that will never happen perhaps make the dances that do all that much sweeter.

Daddy and Miss Mouse went on a "date" to a Butterfly Ball last Friday evening. Miss Mouse had a countdown going for weeks. Weeks. This event was perhaps the ultimate in cuteness and sweetness. A room full of cuddly bunnies and ducks could not have surpassed the amount of "sweet" at the Ramada last Friday. There were proud daddies and adoring daughters lining the entire ballroom. I was excited to have captured this shot showing Miss Mouse's obvious admiration for her Daddy.

They not only danced the evening away together; they also went through a grand march which is shown above where Daddy is introducing himself and his little girl. My heart melted at how tightly she held his hand as they went through their "parade". I'm told Miss Mouse went all out and danced on a chair at one point. She told me that "they played some wild music and some calming music". Daddy told me he had to reign her in as she was flailing her arms and legs around so wildly with her eyes closed, dancing her little heart out. That must have been for one of the "wild" dances. Aaahhh, sweetness.

I have a Daddy who danced with his two little cinderellas anytime they asked. Now my two little cinderellas have a Daddy like that, too. He's creating very big shoes for some prince to fill someday!

*As a sidenote, when the song that I have written out above was played at the dance, I am told most of the men had to, at the very least, swallow really hard. On the way home, Miss Mouse noticed three deer (displaced from their riverside homes due to the water, no doubt) on the street and commented, "Oh, Daddy, I wish you had your gun, so you could shoot them. Then we could have meat!" Apparently, that was the tear-shedding time for my Prince Charming (though I just got a sideways look when I asked how the song was for him....). The funniest part, though, is that Miss Mouse didn't so much want them to be shot just to be shot, but she wanted them to be shot more to make her Daddy happy and to eat them!

First Track Meet

On April 6, Miss Mouse entered her first track meet. She called it her "marathon", but it was a kiddie track meet complete with directed stretching exercises. The partial line of children pictured is only the "age 4" line....there were also lines for ages 3 and 5. Lots, lots, of small children all attempting to follow directions. It was hilariously chaotic.

This is Miss Mouse in line for the "medal race". The four-year-olds seemed to have a lot of trouble understanding the idea of "line up"; many also didn't understand why only two children ran at once. The whole "get ready, set, go" thing, to them, meant that all of them should "go!". Miss Mouse took off with two other little boys and had to be chased down by the official. She apparently didn't understand that "Pink, come back! Come back here, Pink!" meant that she was supposed to slow down and return to the starting line to wait her turn.

And no, I didn't interfere.

When it came time for Miss Mouse to run her "medal race", she and a little boy headed out. He started before she did, and, when she was about to catch up to him, she slowed down so that he could go first. My polite little non-competitive Mouse. Again, I did not interfere....and I was proud that she wore her "second place" medal so happily. I'm not sure I was thrilled that they actually gave out first vs. second place medals to four year olds, but Miss Mouse was proud (and polite); therefore, I was proud and happy, too!

The last event was a "hurdles race". This was, perhaps, the funniest race of all in that Miss Mouse started out with her two running partners, ahead of them both. That is until she got to the approximately 2-inch hurdle bar, stopped, looked down at it, spread her legs wide, and pushed off in a gigantic jump over the hurdle. There were two sets of hurdles, so this process was repeated....both times the kids ran that particular race. She's not only polite; she's cautious, as well, and had many onlookers chuckling. Way to go, Cautious Mouse!

Afterwards I asked Miss Mouse was had been her favorite part of the events. I was shocked when she said her favorite part was getting to run with the "green thing" (baton) in "that race where we just ran to someone and gave someone else the green thing". It was an attempt at a relay race, but even the adults organizing the thing weren't sure where each child was supposed to be running. It ended up that when a child would get the baton, he or she would start running in a random direction and would eventually be intercepted by an adult who would then shuttle the baton to another child. It. Was. Chaos. It drove me batty, even though I'm usually very process-oriented. When it comes to running, I have a definite need to know where I'm going and how to get there. Apparently, Miss Mouse does not have that need.

All in all, the afternoon was a fun time. We didn't go back last Tuesday because I really am not a fan of encouraging a first and second place winner among tiny tots, but I'm glad we did go the first week. Miss Mouse still periodically wears her medal around the house.

Another Simply Saturday

We're still trying to dig out from our winter wonderland here, but it's been fun seeing glimpses of sunshine (i.e., spring, gardening, warmth, etc.). Even these simple rays of sunshine can carry me through a week of unseasonably cold temperatures!

Check out other Simply Saturday photos here:

Simply Saturday

When we splurged last fall and bought this refurbished dslr camera along with an additional used ("well" yet "carefully") lens, one of my biggest hopes was that it would allow me to see beauty at times I may have otherwise missed. This hope has been fulfilled many times over, but the past few weeks, I've struggled finding any beauty outdoors. The excitement of glistening snow and frost has long since worn off, and I've taken solace in pictures of my "Mice". Today my dry spell was broken, though, as I watched Miss Mouse enjoying the sunshine in the 20-degree backyard. She stayed outside longer than Sunny Mouse and I; she chatted with the dog; she chatted with the neighbors we haven't seen since October. As I called her in for the third time, I noticed the sunlight shining through the bird feeder. It was like fresh air into a stale room. It is simply a birdfeeder on a simple Saturday. For me, though, it was simply beautiful.

Check out others' Simply Saturday photos here

Donuts

We got a most delicious surprise in the mail the other day. Donuts arrived from Auntie Laura! What a treat to have donuts in our mailbox!

These weren't just any donuts. These were made by my sister with the same recipe we grew up eating.

Emma's donuts these were, and the minute I opened the bag, I could smell Papa's house.

The coffee smell was missing. I contemplated brewing some just to get the full effect, but considering I am not sure where the coffee-maker was put four years ago when we moved here nor am I sure that there are even coffee grounds existing in this house....I savored the donut smell itself with tears in my eyes.

Obviously someone else was savoring the flavor fairly quickly, but I ate mine slowly, my mind drifting back to the near-overabundance of Emma's donuts in my childhood, an overabundance that, back then, seemed as if it would always be around.

Then another little someone woke up from her nap and inquired what the fuss was about.


Maybe it was that her sister was running in circles saying "Donut! Donuts! I love donuts!" and telling her how "They smell just like Papa's house!"....Whatever the case, Sunny dove right into her own donut.

I think hers disappeared the quickest.

My childhood donut days are long since gone, only existing as memories of days where Laura and I looked like the faces seen here, days where we consumed the donuts, and Emma, and possibly Great Aunt Myrtle, as well, supplied them...hence, the tears with these donuts.

I tell these Mice about their great-grandpas; I told them that day about the smell of donuts and coffee, about a time and place where people had an afternoon "lunch" and actually took time to stop in and visit each other, to sit around enjoying coffee and a donut. But I can't show them. They can't actually smell that time and see it and taste it and live it. So we do the best we can, and we eat Emma's Donuts By Laura; we take an afternoon snack break; and we sit and visit.

Sunny Days & Little Ladies

We've had some sunny days here. Actually, warm, truly warm, sunny days these have been. It's been glorious to go outside without my breath being taken away by a biting wind. Spring may come here after all! Oddly enough this winter hasn't seemed terribly long to me yet. Note to Mother Nature - that does not mean that a fierce late-winter blizzard is needed. It's just that we were able to play in our shirtsleeves throughout October, and despite being cooped up now for five months, despite basically roaming sleeplessly from one cold/cough to another throughout those five months, I am not yet at the point of despondence when I look at the snow in the yard. Today it sounded for all the world like it was raining outside.....that amount of melting was happening. It was wonderful, and I would love if we can make it to springtime now without a blizzard blast or terrible flood fight.

Anyway, we've been in good spirits around here with all the sunshine, especially now that it lasts later in the day.
*As we all played in the yard today, Sunny Mouse began shaking her little behind, bobbing up and down, bending her knees. She explained "I dancing. I show Hubet (the "r" is intentionally omitted for linguistic accuracy). I dance." Hubert was impressed for sure.
*Next, Sunny decided "Hubet" needed to notice the moon. "Look! Hubet, there moon, Hubet!" For the most part, he did try to look where she was pointing.
*Sunny: "Hubet! I make snowman! (more like a snowball) Hubet, see snowman?" Obediently, he did turn and look. He even seemed to make an effort to show doggy-interest.
*No doubt, Sunny appreciated this "doggy interest" since she herself had been dubbed "Whoofy the Dog" for the day. She is fairly volatile when it comes to following directions that Miss Mouse gives, but today she decided to happily be Whoofy Dog. I had to explain that "Whoofy" had stayed in the car at the pharmacy, and the "Little Girl" was coming in with us. Together they decided she would be "Little Girl Whoofy Dog". Hmm...I don't think they quite got my point...

Miss Mouse has been loving our afternoon reading of Little House in the Big Woods. In fact, we finished it yesterday. I did censor some chunks - particularly where Laura did not want to hear the pig squeal when it was being butchered and where Laura was concerned that their calf would be butchered to use its stomach for cheese-making. Laura was fine with the arrangement when she found out it was her grandparents' calf, but I wasn't sure Miss Mouse would be, although I know she would have stoicly bitten her lip and asked a few questions at the time....and then had a crying outburst later in the day about something completely ridiculous. And so I do something I swore I would never do, and I censor.....at some point, I'll stop, but right now...well, she's only four....

She has been enthralled with anything "grown up" lately. The other day, while she was doing the dishes of her own volition, she said to me, "Mommy, I can't wait to be a grown-up. I feel so grown-up when I do the dishes!". She's actually really good at it, too!

78 Pounds

No, that's not how much Miss Mouse weighs. I think it's around the weight she needs prior to getting out of a car seat or booster for good, but that feat may not be attained until high school at the rate these little Mice grow.

Instead, 78 pounds is the amount of food the Mice collected for the food pantry in town via their birthday celebration. We hauled it all in and weighed it on a super-scale. Miss Mouse was incredibly impressed with the entire operation. The towering skyscrapers of food crates stacked as far as her little eyes could roam; the massive semis parked unloading and loading in the freight garages; the small forklift driving the food crates around the building, arranging them for easy shipping; I thought it might be a bit overwhelming for her since she was clinging tightly to my hand, but she seemed to drink it all in and be quite interested, too. She's talked about it now for several days, so I know the experience is solidifying in her developing little brain.

For me, when we dropped off our 78 pounds, although I was very impressed at that poundage, I also felt a bit insignificant when we looked at our small stack of bags on the giant scale and then turned to look at the stacks upon stacks upon stacks of non-perishable food items waiting to be shipped around the area. I wondered for a moment if our measly little 78 pounds made any difference at all, if it mattered in any way, and if Miss Mouse would feel the same discouragement and insignificance.

Then I looked down at my gap-jawed four-year-old standing in awe and looking so proud as she shook the hand of the man who took down our donation.....and I realized that our 78 pounds do matter. Someone will eat the food we donated, someone who wouldn't have had much food in their house otherwise. Likely that someone will be a child. Miss Mouse knows this. She knows she brought the food there to give to "people who don't have food". She was impressed by the amount of food in the warehouse, but that did not dimish her offering in her eyes. This is just one baby step, but we're on the road to teaching these Mice how we respond to the blessings God has given us. We're on the road to helping them understand the great responsibility that comes with great a privilege such as knowing that we don't have to go to bed hungry for lack of food.

I sent off our bags with 78 pounds of food in them with the hope that God will multiply the 78 pounds from these two little ones as He multiplied another child's loaves and fish to feed thousands of people and with the knowledge that some of that multiplication, some of that blessing, will be felt in our own home as we strive to raise children who appreciate what we have and who give as cheerfully as they play.