week ending june 17, 2007:

Week ending June 17, 2007: I’ve been in a bit of a funk lately, so I’m behind on lots of stories. Recently we finished photo collages in each of the kids’ bedrooms. I picked out the frames and they picked out the pictures. After much debate, Alex picked all pictures that were on rides at carnivals and Disney. Chloe knew right away that she wanted the picture of her with our late dog, Ellie, and the picture of her with the rainbow sherbet, and she had to think a while before she decided on the other pictures. Chloe talks often of Ellie although Ellie died when Chloe was 13 months, Chloe still remembers her from the many photographs in frames and albums around the house. Every once in a while Chloe asks where Ellie is and we talk about heaven and occasionally Chloe cries or whines and says she misses Ellie. Chloe’s first baby-sign-language word was “dog”, and she learned it the day that Ellie didn’t come home from the animal hospital when we had her put down. I think it has been a good learning experience for Chloe to be able to talk about Ellie and ask questions about heaven (sorry Great Granddad, in our heaven there are dogs). The other day in Wal-Mart, before Great PopPop passed away Chloe was whining about how she wanted to go to heaven and be an angel “RIGHT NOW!”. As I started to answer her we turned a corner and I noticed another woman looking right at us so I had to explain with an audience that the only way to get to heaven is to die and that once a person dies, they don’t get to see the people on earth any more. I can’t imagine what that woman thought of us, but I figured it was more import that Chloe got her answer than for me to save face in front of a stranger in Wal-Mart. My story about Alex is about his piggy bank. Both kids have started to put coins into their piggy banks and a week or two ago Alex found some money on the floor early in the morning before Chloe was awake and he put some money in his piggy bank, and some money in Chloe’s. She was asleep and wouldn’t have known if he had taken all the money, but Alex likes rules and he’s noticed that if he gets something, Chloe always gets something, so he felt better giving her some money and living with his sense of justice than having a few extra coins for himself.