And by the children we are led!

Just had to brag!!!!!!!!! Today as we cleared these.....

it dawned on us that we had not yet gotten our pumpkins for the big Saturday carve up! After dropping Mari.....

[or should I say Lady Gaga???] off at her dance class/Halloween Party, Julia and I headed out to the store to re-enact the annual ritual of choosing the "just right" pumpkins for our celebration. While I went to the door to get a shopping cart, Julia dove into the pile of gourds. As I wheeled up to her she was standing cradling this warped and dented specimen. Immediately I blurted out, "Remember we are looking for good strong skin and a shape we can fit a face onto to carve?" Her words struck me with more force than a train at full speed!

"But Mom, probably a million people have said how ugly he is and nobody else wanted him. I think he needs to be loved by someone!"

I cry at Kleenex commercials so imagine the effort it took to hold back my tears at that?!?!? Every cliche in the world in which the gist of "Out of the mouths of babes..." applies full force here. My mind ran down two parallel tracks at once. The first was replaying "A Charlie Brown Christmas" while the second was imagining the number of times I participated in debates about the ethics of letting adoptive couples "choose" and thus dictate what constitutes a 'desirable' child. So I smiled at Julia and said, "You are so very right and we are going to give him one heck of a Halloween!" 

 Gosh, just how lucky can a Mom be to have such a great kid?!?!?