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Thursday, June 14, 2012

Is Flag Day a forgotten holiday?

Certainly not in these parts! My Poppy loved this country - and always proudly flew a flag in front of his house (until Obama took office anyway..). A flagpole was a requirement in home ownership for him. I have memories of staring at the spotlight that shown on the flag at night - and completely blinding myself for minutes at a time. I also know that I thought it was "Poppy's flag" well into Elementary school. I learned to salute, and honor the flag from a young age.

So I'm trying to use Flag Day to educate my children on these principles that I hold so dear.

This morning Olivia and I made our own recreation of the American Flag. We talked about Betsy Ross, and colonies, and England. It was a lot of fun. But Olivia really wanted to make her own flag, her own way. So I had the idea of letting her design her own flag for "Olivialand". Which she decided to name, "Texas".

In "Texas" there are no rules. You can do anything you want. And if you want money you just say, "Money please" and money falls from the sky. If you want hot dogs, you just say "Hot dogs please" and hot dogs fall from the sky. She went on and on with every thing you could think of, and that it would fall from the sky. If you want it to be sunny, then it will be sunny. If you want it to rain (so you can go to Chuck-E-Cheese) then it will rain. If you want a rainbow, that you can touch and hug and take to bed with you - then you can have a rainbow. I thought it was hilarious and so innocent. I tried to make her see the challenges that could come up in this type of scenario - like what if I wanted a piano and said "Piano please"... and she said, "Oh! When that happens the fire-fighters come, and they will catch it for you and put it down carefully, so no one gets hurt, and the piano doesn't break" I then addressed the weather. "What if someone wanted rain and someone else wanted sun." And she explained it's only the weather around you. If Abigail wanted rain, then it would rain on her. And be sunny on Mommy. Also if you want to be president, then you can be. Anyone can be, who wants to.

I just wanted to write about this little moment because I remember thinking like this as a kid. Just so innocent.

I think I want to move to "Texas".

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