sweet n sour.

A decade ago when Simon and I were in our early twenties, we spent every Friday with a group of grade 6 and 7's at our church. We were youth leaders for at least five years or more. It's not easy to get a group of 10 or 11 year olds to open up about life so we came up with 'sweet n sour', we would ask each kids to tell us their 'sweet moment' of the week (anything that was awesome) and a 'sour moment' (anything that sucked) and to positively reinforce this sharing, we had sweet candies for sharing a 'Sweet' and sour candies for sharing a 'Sour' which served as great motivators.


Now that Natallie is at school, we started doing sweet n sour with her after the end of each school day and it's been a great conversation starter and giving us great insight into her day. And she actually likes doing it that we don't even need candy. Isn't that sweet?! (no pun intended)


 These are some of things we have learned...Sweet: Grounders was so much fun. Sour: too scared to tell the teacher I had to go pee. Sweet: teacher sat in the car on the fieldtrip. Sour: didn't want to play toilet tag. Sweet: the grade 5 buddies came to eat lunch with us. Sour: didn't get a chance to go to creation station for center time. Sweet: teacher read a book that glowed in the dark Sour: mom packed oranges (loathe oranges)


Last weekend we had quite the roller coaster of emotions. Sweet: Playdate at best friend's house. Built new Lego sets with Daddy. Decorated the Christmas tree. Family movie night.

But the Sour seemed to overshadow everything Sweet: Natallie's beloved pet hamster, Cutie (which she only has had for less than 4 months) suddenly died. This was her first 'real' pet and she loved it with all her 5 year old heart. It was so devastating. She was so upset. She sobbed and I held her in my arms and I sobbed because it broke my heart to see her so upset. It meant so much to her.

She asked for another hamster but I don't really want to go through the death of another animal again. She loved that hamster so much. We buried her beloved Cutie in the yard. I told her that hamster go to heaven. Bad theology I know but parents lie sometimes. Goodbye Cutie, you were the perfect first pet for our Nallie. If there is a hamster heaven, I hope you go there.