VIP Kira

Kira's class has a VIP each week. This child is the focus of the week and they get to make a poster, do a presentation, and answer questions about themselves. Kira picked a whole bunch of pictures to print and then had to pare down to what could fit on the board. I showed her how to use my scrap booking outlines to make the pictures different shapes and the board is what you see above. For the presentation, Kira sat in the "big cushy chair" and used the teacher's pointer.

A New Experience

Kira had her first experience of being a flower girl in one our friend's wedding. She was very excited because she had always watched her friend Zoe as the flower girl for friend's weddings and Zoe's aunt's weddings. As parent's, we were honored that they chose our daughter to be a part of their wedding. She was nervous about her role in the wedding and thought that she might make a mistake so she walked around the house for the whole week before the wedding pretending to throw down petals everywhere. She was excited to be in the wedding and she did great! There was never a more beautiful or graceful flower girl in the world. This was also a great experience to help prepare her and increase her confidence for her Uncle Larry's wedding in May.

Kira rubbing her wrists together to rub in the perfume Christy gave her.
Kira trying not to smile for the picture while she is getting her hair done.

Kira and Phoenix hanging out before the wedding. Of course, Phoenix is doing something crazy in all of the pictures of the two of them.

And Again, Kira is awesome

Driving to Bible class last night Kira asks a whopper of a question.
Kira: Mom, I have a serious question about fish.
Mom: About fish? OK.
Kira: Do fish get married?
Mom: Fish can't think the same way we do. God made people as the only ones to think in the ways that we can. We are the only ones who can make complex decisions and love the way we do.
Kira: Well, then how do fish get together? How do they get more fish?
Mom: Since fish don't think like us, they can get together without being married and make more fish.
Kira: Oh, OK.

I struggled with how much info to give Kira. It seems that I answered her question adequately and she didn't want details just yet, but I know that the day will come when she has tougher questions.

A Kira moment

So after leaving the JMC (where we had to take Patrick to catch his plane to Afghanistan), Kira notices that we have driven a bit and she can still see the building where we left Patrick. Then she said:
Kira: Today is the saddest day ever.
Mom: Why is that? (I wanted to hear how she would express missing Daddy.)
Kira: Because today is the day Daddy left. But tomorrow I will just get happier and happier because everyday means one day closer to Daddy coming home.

It was a great moment of seeing a child's optimism in a hard time.
We were handling it all fairly well until Patrick got on the shuttle bus. Kira came running to me crying and just wanting to be held. Of course that made me cry too. Then we got to see Patrick on the 10:00 NBC local news. It was like we were just there and it didn't seem so long before that we had seen him.