Wednesday, December 2, 2009

James's Thanksgiving, Age 8

Since this is my place to electronically immortalize what I cannot keep physically, here is James's Thanksgiving school project summary. They had a paper pumpkin with a pocket that they stuffed with other paper vegetable cutouts. (Don't ask me why the pumpkin is stuffed with vegetables. When I was a kid we used a cornucopia. Maybe they are harder to photocopy and cut out?) On the back of each vegetable, James was to write something he was thankful for. His list (in unknown order) is:

a home
parents
church
school
soldiers

Nice that I made the list. :) Some days, I wouldn't necessarily expect to. Especially after I have cracked the whip behind him all day. "James, put your clothes on. James, get dressed! James, eat. James, shoes! James, do you have a snack packed for school? Shoes, James!"

I am not sure how much prompting of suggestions they might have had from the teacher. The "soldiers" was the slightly surprising one to me. He is a kid who notices the body count in every radio news report that wafts by his ears. I am not sure whether to be proud of his appropriate thankfulness for the soldiers, or sad that this reflects a child born into a country that has been at war since he was 3 months old. Both, I suppose.

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