191. I know I’m so weird to be thankful for this…..but I was really excited that this morning when I served Jacob and Natalie some healthier waffles they didn’t even notice a difference! Woohoo!!! They each had two waffles so without even knowing it, they got 8 grams of protein right there at breakfast. Woohoo!! I love it that with the strawberry jam on top, they couldn’t even tell that these were made of whole wheat, oat, barley, brown rice, dark rye, quinoa, amaranth and millet. Sooooo awesome! And I love it that they didn’t make a peep about the organic strawberry jam. I gasped when I found out that the yummy blackberry jam I had been buying at Costco had high fructose corn syrup in it. It has been time for change. Loved it that this morning was all about organic, yummy whole grains. And the kids were smiling and happy as clams about it. 🙂 Thankful for natural foods that are readily available to us.

192. Thankful for Jacob’s humor. I asked him to explain his thinking for 4 math problems he had completed. I was hopeful to hear him verbalize his deductive reasoning while also making use of his vocabulary of three-dimensional geometric shapes. He looked at me incredulously like “mom, do I reeeeeeeally have to explain my thinking???!?! The answers are right there and I got them correct, right?!?!?!?” But I persisted- I wanted him to verbalize his thought process. Well by the time he had explained 3 of the 4 problems, I could tell his interest in this process was waning fast. I said “only one left to go. So how did you figure out this one?” And get this! His response to me was: “Mom, I’m not at liberty to talk about that.” What??!?!?! Were my ears hearing correctly? Did he really just say that? And where in the world did he ever hear someone say that? I was trying hard not to bust out laughing. I asked him if he knew what it meant. He said ‘no’. Well then how did you know to use that line in this moment? “Oh, it just felt like the right moment to use it.” Well, what do you think it means? “I don’t know. Well, yeah, wait…..Statue of Liberty…..freedom. I guess it means I don’t have the freedom to talk about that.” I assured him that he did indeed have the freedom to tell me how he had arrived at his math solution. “Yeah, mom, I just don’t feel like talking about it.” Yes, indeed, that had been pretty obvious. When asked where he heard that line used, he said very matter of fact: “In a Hardy Boys book- it was used twice and once in Calvin & Hobbes”. How in the world does this boy remember things like this?!?! And the exact number of times he’s seen it in text?! He was able to recount the exact comic strip where it had been used. Calvin didn’t feel like talking about something, so he used that line. Well, then I just laughed my head off and tickled him to pieces. We ended up laughing hysterically. He was indeed quite proud of himself for having successfully escaped the clutches of our math discourse. And I was left thankful for his mind and his ability to soak up all sorts of knowledge.