Norah was talking to her dad one day and she said, "Boys and girls are different. Like... they have different jobs. Mommy works for the paper and you go to work to make money."

"Let's go look at the pretty flowers," I said to Avril, who was fussing and ready for a nap. We had been playing at the park and I was trying to distract her while her big sister was saying goodbye to all her friends.

I didn't mean for her stroller to bump into the hydrangea bush on my way over to see it, but in doing so, it uncovered this little pod. "It looks like these leaves were sewn together deliberately," I said to myself. "But, there's no way..." I took a quick picture of it and when I had a minute later that day, I searched online.

Turns out, certain caterpillars will "tie" leaves together with silk, so they can hide inside while they feed. Incredible! These "leaf tiers" are usually considered pests, since they ruin the look of hydrangea bushes. In fact, most of the information I could find about them online was on gardening websites where people wrote in to complain that it looked like a bug had tied the leaves of their bushes together. "Yes," the expert would say, "a bug did tie your leaves together..." And then the expert would proceed to tell the people how to kill it. And, even worse, the people would just say thanks and then go kill the bugs.

Not that beautiful hydrangeas aren't incredibly important. I love these flowers. But, I mean, no one, not even the experts, took a second to register the fact that a half-inch long, green larvae not only has the inherent ability to make it's own thread, but it can use it to sew.

"For since the creation of the world God's invisible qualities--his eternal power and divine nature--have been clearly seen, being understood from what has been made, so that men are without excuse." Romans 1:20

"I'll make the work interesting and discipline will take care if itself."

-Stuart Little

"Much of the naughtiness in school is the result of a child's lack of interest in his work, augmented by a physical inaction that results from an attempt to sit still. The best teachers try to obviate these causes of misbehavior rather than to punish the naughtiness that results from them."

Handbook of Nature Study by Anna Botsford Comstock

We're headed to Boston for the day!

We just finished listening to EB White's The Trumpet of the Swan and we've also been reading through Make Way for Ducklings by Robert McCloskey. Both of these celebrated children's books are associated with Boston's Public Garden and they both mention the Swan Boats there, specifically.

So, Dwayne took the day off of work and I've packed a cooler and a picnic basket. We will drive into the city early and park right across the street from the Boston Common. We will stroll through the park and see all of the noteworthy sites, including the Make Way for Ducklings statue.

After we finish our stroll, we plan to have a picnic under one of the giant willow trees and take Norah on the swan boats and feed the ducks. Then, we'll walk over to the Frog Pond on the Boston Common and let the girls play in the water until they get tired. And, finally, we plan to go to Chipotle's, one of our favorite restaurants, before we drive home in the evening.

You won't believe me when I tell you (I hardly believe it myself). But, when I checked these books out of the library over a week ago, I did not know anything about what was in them or that both of them were associated with the Public Garden. I wasn't even planning to take a trip to Boston.

But, as we were listening to EB White's beautiful description of the Public Garden and the Swan Boat rides, I thought it would be nice to go for a visit and let Norah ride them. So, I sat down one evening to look up information about the Public Garden and noticed, to my delight, that the book "Make Way for Ducklings" was mentioned in the park's information. I immediately called to Norah and had her take the book off the shelf for the first time since we brought it home from the library. We read through it then and you can imagine my surprise when I saw that the story was set in the very place that I was just then planning to visit!

You may call this kind of thing coincidence, but I call it providence! I was only planning to check out The Trumpet of the Swan, in the first place, but as we were leaving the children's section of our library, Make Way for Ducklings caught my eye. It was in a crate right by the door. I thought to myself, "That books on the 'Five in a Row' reading list and it's a medal winner. It's got to be good." So, I grabbed it and just threw it in my bag.

But now I'm convinced that God guided me to get both books, smiling to Himself the whole time, knowing what I'd soon discover that they had in common. He is unfailingly kind to me in little ways like this and He always makes my life a whole lot of fun.

I am thankful to be taking this trip. I am so excited to share this beautiful place with my family. It makes me feel like a kid again myself! I'll post pictures of our trip in a day or two.

From where I was sitting on the couch, I heard Norah whimpering and grunting, expressing general frustration over whatever she was working on in the other room. That's my cue that she wants my help, so I get up to go see what's going on...

"What's all this mess?! What are you doing?" I ask.

"I'm trying to make a pirate hat out of this empty box and I need help getting the knot to stay on the back. But, anyway, the box doesn't even stay on my head, so it's not going to work..." Her voice trailed off in disappointment.

I smirked and said, "Come with me." I led her to my bedroom and opened my the hidden drawer on the top of my dresser where I keep all my old handkerchiefs and scarves and what-not. Her eyes lit up like Christmas lights. "You have pirate hats in your drawer?!"

I closed my eyes and reveled in the brief moment of adoration. It doesn't happen often. She's generally kind of hard to impress. So, I nodded my head solemnly and said to her through a grin, "Yes. Yes. I do, Norah. And, I was saving these pirate hats just for you."

Those old days when the balancing of a yellow butterfly over a thistle bloom
was spiritual food and lodging for a whole afternoon.

-James Russell Lowell