Shattered Dreams,Lessons Learned

At the beginning of the school year, Aliza brought home a Scholastic book order form (we love these!) and started looking through it. She wanted this cash register that was in it. Generally, I buy a book or two, but if they want the silly games and stuff out of it, it is like any other toy. If they want it bad enough to spend their own money on it, they can. So Aliza went to her piggy bank and counted out some dollars and a bunch of change and put it all in a baggie and ordered the cash register. Well, it has taken forever to get it, but yesterday she came running in with the announcement, "the book order came." She could hardly get it opened fast enough. I am not sure what it was about this cash register that she thought was going to be so cool, but this is what it was:

Turns out, it 's for learnin', and she didn't want to learn. She was very disappointed and asked me why they made the picture look so cool when it wasn't. I think she was expecting a plastic cash register with working buttons and a "ding" when you open it! But, alas, it was a cardboard box. With plastic money. And flash cards. (If I have 6 coins that equal 24 cents, what coins do I have?) A couple years ago, Parker and Aliza were very disappointed when they ate Fruit Gushers and their heads didn't really turn into big raspberries.

So, it got me thinking philosophically. Isn't that just what the world gives us? False advertising. The advertisers show the athlete drinking the beer and the hot girl drooling over him, but they don't show the beer belly, the mean drunk or the alcoholic. They show the stud on the horse smoking the cigarettes, but they don't show the guy hacking up a lung or lugging around the oxygen can everywhere he goes. They make immorality look glamorous, but they don't show the teenage pregnancy, the STD's or the destroyed self-esteem. It is hard to remember that their job is to shine an unrealistic light on things to get us to buy, but the aftermath is our problem. Anyway, it all ended well. Last night all three of them were playing store with the cash register, and maybe, without trying, Liza will even learn something!

Last night I made 5 batches of red salt dough for Parker's class. They are making maps of Texas. Parker was lamenting yesterday to Tyler that Utah was easy to do because it was all straight lines, but Texas is going to be hard. I love my counter tops, the red food coloring on them just wiped right off!

And, finally, if you look REALLY close, you can see some changing colors on our trees out back. Where, you say? Look closer! We see what we want to!

And, one of my favorite parts of Texas is the sky...look at those yummy clouds!