Little House in Suburbia

Sometimes my girls remind me of Tom Sawyer and Huck Finn, the way they love adventure and love to use their imaginations. I almost laughed out loud when we were at Silver Dollar City and the Tom Sawyer area had a big bucket labeled, "for washing rocks." My kids ask me to send a bowl out with them nearly every time they're outside playing. The bowl has to have warm water with 3 squirts of soap so they can wash rocks for their collection.

Lately, though, we've been more of a Little House on the Prairie family. I started reading the series with Big Sissy a couple of months ago, and she has added some additional pioneer stories to the mix that we borrowed from a friend. I think we've gotten a little confused about where they end and we begin, though. For example, the other morning I woke up to find Big Sissy in my bed. Since that is unusual at our house, I probed until she told me that she dreamed that she was being chased by a pack of wolves (sound like Pa Ingalls?). Another day Little Sissy told me to stop talking about Indians because she didn't want them to hear us and come in our house. That led to a long discussion about not judging people, even though Caroline Ingalls did. Another time she spontaneously burst into tears. When I asked what was wrong, she said, "Mommy, I don't want you to churn all of our milk into butter. I really really love milk." The funniest so far, though, was this morning when I was giving the kids a bath. Since Big Sissy is the oldest, I'm ready for her to start doing more by herself. I was drying off Little Sissy and I told Big Sissy to drain the water and dry off. Pretty soon I heard her yell, "Mommy, can you bring me my towel? I'm freezing cold in this CIVILIZATION bathtub!" I'm sure she would have been much warmer sitting in a bucket filled with water heated over the wood stove, but I'm doing my best. I better go google how to make lye soap.