Julia worked really hard making the paper trail around our house with all of the loose coloring sheets they have laying around. It reminded Mama of the Yellow Brick Road. After a while Mama asked if Julia would pick the paper up. Her answer to that request was, "but I laid it down for Jesus to walk on". What does the Mama say to that? I guess she is ready for Palm Sunday a few weeks early.

Oh Julia, how you make Mama laugh! When you went to bed last night you wanted to lay on top of all of your blankets. It is January and chilly, so Mama figured when you got cold you would just climb underneath to warm up. This is not what you did. You got up and found the pile of play blankets and drug three of them to your bedside and wrapped yourself up in one of them. Also with the blankets looked to be the clothes you had selected for yourself to wear the following day. Mama came in to check on you after you fell asleep and chuckled as she covered you with another play blanket to be sure you would be warm all night. Mama hopes your dreams were good ones, with your morning organized and your body toasty.

A couple of weeks ago, Daddy had to perform some light plumbing to one of our toilets. I asked Emily if she wanted to help/watch me fix the toilet. Being the ever so curious girl she is, she said yes.

She was very helpful at fetching paper towels and a cup for Daddy when I needed them. She watched as I flushed and drained the toilet and emptied the remaining water into a bucket with the cup. And she was curious as I changed the leaky pipe to the toilet and put everything back together.

Flash forward to tonight. Sometime between this recent plumbing fix and the present, our toilet started continuing to run because the rubber flapper inside the toilet would remain open, until we took the lid off the toilet and pushed it closed.

So this evening I decided to tackle this latest development–with Emily trailing close behind. I opened the top of the toilet, then flushed the toilet and began working on adjusting the length of the chain that lifts the rubber flapper when the toilet handle is pressed. As I was doing this Emily left very excitedly. She returned a few moments later with a roll of paper towels, saying “Here are your paper towels, Daddy.” She then left very quickly, so I followed her out wondering why it occurred to her to bring me the paper towels.

It’s then that I see Mommy getting the cup and bucket out from last time. Emily had remembered that I needed these things the last time I fixed the toilet, and she went to Mommy to be helpful and get them for me. What a wonderful helper for Daddy to remember these things and then to fetch them with her own initiative.