garbage girl

I have to write down three cool things about Hazel before I forget them.

1. Hazel has been extremely kind to Charlie lately. Don't get me wrong, she bosses him around like crazy....but she's learning to do it very nicely (i.e. "Oh, no chars....no no no, that's not the way we do it. Come on sweet heart.....like this). It's not always like that, but she always does call him "Chars" and "hon" and "sweet heart." She butters him up pretty good by sharing all kinds of things with him and sometimes even giving him things that are real treasures to her.....it's pretty darn sweet.

2. On Jeff's birthday I crawled into bed with Hazel to wake her up earlier than usual to help me with Jeff's birthday breakfast. Almost instantly after remembering that it was Jeff's birthday Hazel started huffing a little and saying...."oh man, I have a LOT to do!" She then proceeded to tell me about her plan to try to be a "garbage girl" and empty all the garbages so that her daddy wouldn't have to do it on his birthday. And that sweet little girl did. She struggled and groaned and grunted....but she did it, she emptied the garbages so that Jeff wouldn't have to do it. I've never pointed out to her that that is a job that Jeff does (and hates).....and I'm not sure how (or if) she knew his birthday fell on garbage day. It was a true joy to see your child notice a need and work really hard to meet it.

3. A few weeks ago Hazel started praying really earnestly that "Mom won't get up in the night to help the baby." (I'm pretty sure she's asking that Emmeline won't wake up rather than that I'll just ignore her cries!). Well, ever since she has been offering up this prayer Emmeline has been sleeping remarkably well. I'm sure there are a lot of reasons for this....but I'm totally not going to discount that a huge reason she's doing so well is because of this little girl's simple faith.

I love the Hazel. I love the Hazel. (even if she does still totally loose it several times a day over very little issues....a blue cup instead of a pink one....)