Say Cheese!

A few weeks ago, our oldest child, Boo, donned her Disney Princess backpack and lunchbox and walked hand-in-hand with her dad down the sparkling-clean, creatively decorated halls of our new community school to start first grade. She bounced right into her classroom, sat at her desk, and immediately started catching up with her friends, many of whom she already knows from church and other neighborhood gatherings. After snapping several pictures, Brett went to the back of the room and chatted with a handful of other camera-laden parents, until he realized that all the parents—himself included—were actually hanging around the classroom for themselves, not for their children. The kids were all perfectly fine, thank you very much. (What a difference a year makes!) So he finally waved good-bye and headed home.

From day one, Boo has absolutely loved her class. It helps that the new school is Western-themed, so for our horse-loving daughter, it’s a dream come true. (Horses, horses, everywhere!)

At the end of the first week, Boo came home with a note from the teacher saying she had been selected as “Ranch Hand of the Week” and could bring a few pictures to share with the class. Not surprisingly, she made a beeline for my closet, in search of the dozens of photos we took during our summer trek to Aunt Jude’s horse farm in North Carolina.

As she was sorting through the pile of pictures and deciding which ones to bring to school (the one of her riding gentle Tessie... the one where she’s grooming the more rambunctious Bill… one of her helping walk the feisty foal Jake back to the stable…), she said to me, rather offhandedly, “You know what, Mom? If Ms. F’s class was like a body, then Ms. F would be the brain. Right, Mom?”

You'd think I'd be used to these totally off-the-wall questions by now.

Um, where on earth did THAT come from? Did Brett preach about the Bible’s analogy of the church being a body recently? Deciding to just wait and see where this was headed, I commented, “Sure, honey. That sounds about right. Your teacher would be the brain of the class.”

Boo was quiet for the next minute or so as she continued to sort through her pictures. Then she looked up at me and said, “Well, if Ms. F is the brain, I know what I would be.”

“What’s that, honey?” Since we were looking at pictures of the horse farm, I was thinking, Maybe the cowboy hat? The spurs?

Instead, I was completely surprised at her answer:

“If my class were a body,” she continued, “I’d be the smile.”

I thought my heart would simply burst with pride.

Yes, honey, that’s exactly what you’d be.