Sweet …

My friend Wendy sent me this email and I asked her if I could post it and she said I could. So here it is.

So, I'm a sub for the after-school program.  Basically, I'm to keep track of a bunch of youngsters while they occupy themselves between school and the time a parent picks them up.  I tend to bring stuff to do and they know this.  They like the telephone wire and frequently ask me to make animals for them.  I'm conscious of not wanting to waste the wire because I don't know how I'll get any more (what I have was a present from the park), so that day, I told the children who asked for wire that they could make anything they wanted as long as it could be worn on the head.  There were a few who questioned the limitation, and I said it was a challenge, that there were all sorts of ways to decorate the head or attach something to the head.  Several crowns were started immediately.  Aerawen, dear 3rd grade (she's the first one in the alphabet poem) straight-shooter who knows her own mind and doesn't mind that hers is a little different, didn't like the limitation.  She asked over and over why it had to be that way and sincerely conveyed how much she didn't like it.  She wanted to make a bracelet, and then a cat, and then back to a bracelet.  I suggested there were lots of ways to make what she wanted and rig up something so she could wear it on her head, then take that thing away later.  It was just a challenge.  She was still dissatisfied.  A little while later, I spied Aerawen with a piece of wire, making conjoined circles, and pretty soon I recognized a pair of spectacles.  She then asked for my help fashioning lightning bolts that were to cross the lens area of the spectacles and explained why:  "Those lightning bolts," she said, "are to show how angry I am that I have to make something that goes on my head." I helped her make them and she went away happy.  Aerawen is a wonderful being.  I want to see her grow up.