What makes a family?

Right before Christmas break, Joshua and I were doing a lesson about "family". One of the objectives of the lesson was to name the members of his family. So I asked him what a family is, and Joshua's answer was that a family is made up of people who love each other. Interestingly, when he began to make his list of people in his family, he didn't start right out with people that live in our house. His list included Grandma and Grandpa, his cousins in Florida, our neighbors (the Dorvals and the Koehlers). I think it's sweet that he includes everyone he feels safe and happy around as parts of our family. He clarified to me that the Dorvals and the Koehlers do no have our last name, so they aren't really part of our family, but they love us like family. I thought that was a pretty interesting point for a 5 year old to make. One of our objectives this month is to work on a very basic family tree. Homeschool starts back up in the morning.


I went to a small baby shower for Beth today. We are so excited for them, they are leaving soon to head to Guatemala to pick up their son, Gabriel. Keith and I have been talking to Joshua about Gabriel, since Joshua has a pretty good grasp (or at least the 5 year old version) of where babies come from. Joshua knows that Gabriel grew in another Mommy's belly and Beth's belly grew Donavyn.

We watched Meet the Robinsons tonight, to continue our discussion about different families. Joshua asked why the boy's mother left him in a box at the door of the orphanage. I told him I really didn't know. I guess I could have given some well thought out politically correct answer, but I don't think there is a one-size-fits-all explaination. So I gave him the only answer I could, "I don't know, honey, let's see if the movie tells us". So we continued to watch the movie. And just as Joshua was trying to find out why the boy was left at the orphanage, the boy in the story was trying to find out the same thing. I really liked the movie, I liked the characters (there wasn't any one weird person, they were all weird), I liked the message, and I liked the general positive plot of the movie. I didn't like the overuse of the word stupid.
These are little shirts made with potato stamps. A princess for Donavyn and a prince for Gabriel.