The Raindrop
Refreshing parents, one blog at a time.

Boxes and boxes of candy filled two huge rooms and the children's eyes widened at the sight.  This wasn’t a scene out of Willy Wonka and Chocolate Factory, but rather a delightful store my kids, Christopher and William and their cousins, James and Abigail, found themselves in yesterday afternoon.  

Such are the perks of running a video store – candy runs!
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When my husband John walked into our local video store a couple of months ago, he was disappointed to see it was closing its doors.  

Upon hearing the news, my first thought was, “That’s really too bad.  Now where are we going to get our movies?”

John’s was, “Let’s get together with others and save it…as a service to our community!”

And so, just two months later, our video store, SixSeeds Video, is open for business.

Yesterday at dinner, we sat around discussing the phrase, “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”.  I was trying to explain it to my six year-old. 
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I was snorkeling all day with the children and far, far away from my iPhone and the Drudge Report.  So when my husband met up with us later for the afternoon, I hadn't heard about the death of Michael Jackson.

"Oh," I said. "How sad."

"Who's Michael Jackson?" the kids asked.  If you are an American Idol fan, you may have seen Adam Lambert when he sang "Black and White" this year.  That night, my daughter asked me about that song and today she remembered my description of him.  It apparently wasn't flattering.

"Oh, is Michael Jackson the guy with the nose?  Or rather without the nose?" she said.
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It’s been difficult for me to blog regularly this spring, partly because of my own lack of discipline, but also because our four children were on nine teams – five soccer, two baseball, one lacrosse and one track.  Some weeks they were in eleven games and meets.

I say this somewhat sheepishly, because I know it sounds excessive.
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I remember when I was in fifth grade and a new girl from England joined our class.  The teacher asked her some general questions and she answered, “Well, I’ve got two brothers and one sister,” in her very charming accent.  She had us from “Well, I’ve got….”. We were mesmerized.  We all wanted to be her new best friend.  My friend Maria repeated that line in her best fake English accent and we’d giggle about it as she tried for weeks to perfect it.  That was over thirty years ago and I still remember.
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If your daughter reads the American Girl books, you probably already know that Rebecca is the new doll debuted recently by the company.  If she plans on reading this new series, here is a snippet from their website:

Rebecca’s family brought their Jewish religion and traditions with them to America, and also traditions and special items from Russia. For example, they have a samovar, which is a large brass urn Russians use for making tea—that’s a Russian tradition. And they collect money in a pushke, or charity box, to help others in need—that’s a Jewish tradition.
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