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Summer Reading Programs for Petites & The Whole Family

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As a former teacher, I spent a lot of time encouraging families to read over the summer even if just for 20 minutes a day over the summer.  There are so many really amazing and FREE programs out there that help make reading accessible.  Public libraries are a great place to start also some bookstores do fun reading programs as well.  Here are the reading programs happening in and around Seattle.  Happy Reading!

King County Library 

  • Starts June 1st and ends August 31st
  • Head to your local library to get all the documents you need to sign your petites and yourself up
  • Or you can download and print all documents from home and get started reading right away

 

Seattle Public Library

Astounding Tales of Nature! 

  • Starts June 27
  • Get your free Explorer’s Handbook filled with fun activities
  • Place your name on the Wall of Astounding Explorers by:
    • Completing 5 activities in the Explorer’s Handbook
    • Reading 30 or more days over the summer
    • Solving the Super, Secret Mystery Challenge
  • Attend free programs (one-offs and series) all summer long
    • Some programs will require pre-registration. Registration will open 2 weeks before the start of each workshop or series.

Barnes and Noble

Summer Reading Triathlon starts this weekend at all Barnes and Nobles’ nationwide.

  • Saturday June 4th at 11
    • The Opening Ceremony will feature such engaging activities as puzzles, code breaking, and other fun inspired by Chris Grabenstein’s Mr. Lemoncello series
    • along with giveaways (including stickers and bookmarks) based on beloved children’s books, while supplies last.
  • Pick up your reading journal
  • Read three books over the summer and earn a book from B&N for grades one – six
  • Here is the link for more information
  • ends on August 27th

 

University Bookstore

  • Its already started and goes through August
  • Pre -K to Grade 8
  • Get started by picking up your Summer Explorers reading log at our U District, Bellevue, Mill Creek, or Tacomastore.
  • Stock up on summer reading with a coupon for 20% off your next kids books purchase.
  • After you read five books, bring your reading log back in to pick out a fun prize.
  • Read ten books and bring your completed reading log back to get a FREE book, cool button, and a coupon for $5 off your next kids books purchase.
  • Share your favorite books with others by writing your own reviews in your log or on our Young Readers’ Review cards.

 

 

 

 

 

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It’s Back to School: Homework Station

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Oh my goodness, as a teacher this is one of my favorite times of year.  This year, like last year, I will be sitting it out.  Being a stay at home mom is incredibly rewarding, but I will be honest, I miss seeing my “kids” and that first day of school, that feeling when all is new and possibilities are endless.

With that said, this is a big year for us. The Petite has started kindergarten!  Words cannot even begin to describe how I felt sending her off that first day.  She has been my co-pilot for the last year and it is a strange feeling to not have her around during the day.  Good news is that she loves her new school, friends and teacher.  Yay!

I don’t like kindergarten, I LOVE kindergarten!

These were the petite’s words on the first day of school.  I am in love with her enthusiasm and joy for learning.  One thing that as a mom, who happens to be a teacher, is that there are a few recommendations I would make on back to school night that now I actually get to do myself.  The first one is setting up a homework station or area.

Homework Station

This is something that will save time, stress and headaches in the weeks to come.  Having an area where all of the items you need to complete assignments helps students to be responsible and organized.  It shows them that homework and learning are important and gives them an area or place where doing homework is the expectation.  Can you tell I’ve talked about this to parents before?

A homework area varies greatly depending on the age of the student.

Homework Station Items

Pre-K through 2nd grade:

White computer paper, ruler, eraser, glue stick, pencils, crayons, highlighters, scissors, writing paper and a timer for tracking reading times (I just use my phone).  Items that can be helpful but aren’t necessary: dry erase board and markers, and whiteout.

3rd grade – 5th grade

White computer paper, ruler, eraser, glue stick, pencils, pens, markers, crayons, highlighters, whiteout, scissors, binder paper, dictionary and a timer.

Middle School

Binder paper, pens, pencils, calculator, dictionary, highlighters, post its.

High School

Yikes, I’m guessing its been years since you’ve been able to convince your teen to do homework out in the open….and they’ve made it this far so…keep up the good work.  🙂

 

Now is a great time to get all of these items, because they are still on sale.  The critical part to all of this is to have something to hold it in so that it is easy to access.  One of my main goals for recommending these things is  to make doing homework less of a scavenger hunt and more so a learning experience.  Starting a routine around when homework is done, also where it is done is so helpful.  If there is a routine it helps kids to be accountable even kindergarteners.  After all, kids love routine, even if they tell you otherwise.

I hope this helps ease you back into the school year, start a homework routine and have stress free nights while helping the kids get homework assignments completed.

Erin

 

 

Starting Seeds Indoors in Egg Shells

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photo 5

Kentucky Wonder Green Bean

As spring rolls around in most parts of the country, here in Seattle, we usually have a few warm days and lots of rainy days intermixed.  I don’t mind the rain for sleeping in, lounging and reading a book, sipping tea etc.  For planting seeds, it is often too soggy.  A few years ago I had a student who made me a grow light and stand in wood shop – awesome right?  However, I have no idea where my precious light went.  So this spring I have decided to try a new way of starting seeds inside.  Egg Shells.

I had seen and read about people using egg-shells, and I wasn’t really sure how this would work, in the past I’ve used the little peat pots, or the starter discs that fill up with water.  Last spring, I used those little discs and the batch I got was infested with bugs and once I started watering the plants the bugs hatched – super gross.

I also really am not a fan of paying for things that have temporary uses  – like those little dirt discs or peat pots.  My thinking is that we eat a ton of eggs, probably should have chickens we eat so many eggs.  Since I have an abundance of free egg shells I thought I would give it a try.  Let me tell you, I am so glad I did.

I was able to grow seeds in  lightning speed.  Within one week the seeds were doing amazing and some were even overachieving like the one on the left.  Okay let me tell you what we planted in our egg-shells.

Going from left to right:one week in

  1. Kentucky Wonder Green Beans
  2. Tender Green Beans
  3. Straightneck Yellow Squash
  4. Zucchini
  5. Cucumbers
  6. Kentucky Wonder Green Beans

After two weeks some of the green bean seedlings were getting so big they needed a larger space, so I put a few of them into smaller pots.  It is still in the low 40s at night, sometimes still frosting and I am planning to keep them inside just a little bit longer before the hardening off process will take place.

Cucumber

Cucumber

What I thought was so interesting about using the eggs is that the roots seem to be so much more extensive than I have seen in the past, I don’t know if it is the thin membrane on the eggs, but look at those roots.  photo 2The petite and I had so much fun pealing the egg off of the new little plant and putting them into bigger pots.

After already planting these little seeds I read that sometimes smaller seeds do better (oh well, mine did just great), so now I just need to make a frittata, quiche or something to get some more egg shells to start my next batch of seeds, as you may have seen me mention the petite wants to grow “salad” in the gutter garden, so we need to get seeds sown to make her gardening dreams come true.  I loved doing this project and it is really so easy to do.  The hardest part is remembering not to demolish the egg-shell when you crack it.

A really great blog that I am loving to read about all things garden related is Gardening Betty, she has given me some amazing ideas on using found items at home and ways to shop the local dollar store for items that I don’t have around the house.  I am most jealous of her amazing avocado tree, if only one would grow in Seattle.

Yay for Spring!

 

A Veritable Shit Show

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photo 1Over the last few months we’ve been working on getting my girlies’ epilepsy meds sorted out…what this means is that my lovely daughter who was always terribly sweet, empathetic, polite and charming turned into a wild, loud, rude, angry, aggressive, overtly emotional kid.  The type of kid that you may see in Target screaming because you won’t let them buy those cheap  princess toys at the checkout line.  Or maybe you just happened to see us at Target.  Everything became a battle, literally almost everything was a bargaining session.  There was door slamming that was tantamount of my teenage years.  (sorry about that Mom) There were moments where I would pretend to go to the bathroom just to escape.  Sometimes I would go in there and just silent scream.  You know where you scream and no sound comes out and somehow that makes you feel better.

Worse yet it was the effing meds.  So she couldn’t even begin to try to control it, so getting frustrated seemed incredibly ill placed.

Right after this was taken the strolled was kicked into the gorgeous painting behind it. Umm...Shit.

Right after this was taken the strolled was kicked into the gorgeous painting behind it. Umm…

Now that the meds are more controlled when we see these behaviors, we are always wondering is it residual issues with meds, is it the anxiety that we’ve seen come before having a seizure, or is it just plain old 4-year-old behavior?  Not sure.

I don’t know about other families but when one of the four of us is in a foul mood or having a rough time, it seems to spread rampantly.  We had one of these days a few weeks ago while we were at the art museum of all places.  My petite, kept crossing the line into exhibits, getting damn close or even touching the art.  To the point where the staff was following us from room to room, at one point I swear I even heard over the walkie talkies, they are coming your way.  We left moments before I am sure they would have kicked us out.  A few days ago they were giving our free tickets to the museum, but since I am pretty sure there is a picture of me and the petites on some back room wall, we opted to stay home.

No big deal just having a timeout in an art museum, complete with a foot stomp.

No big deal just having a timeout in an art museum, complete with a foot stomp.

All of this makes me laugh a little because now that the meds are getting sorted out we are seeing a lot less of this craziness, but you know it still happens and it’s really all about how you react to it.  I have a really hard time not being mortified when we’re in public and she throws a fit, I feel like it’s a reflection of my parenting.  This of course doesn’t help when bitchy people (sometimes even other moms, WTF?) give you snarky looks – like control our child;  wow, what a brat; ugh, glad my kids are so perfect.  I also love the parents that give me the look like I’ve been there, those parents are my favorite.  I’ve really tried not to freak out about what other parents or people think.  My handsome hubby has really helped me to let it go and not worry about this.  Now my mantra is: do I know these people?  Do I really care what they think?  If I did know them what would they do?  Odds are if I was out with my friends when this happens, well I was at the museum with a friend.  She laughed hysterically with me, then we went to a local brewery for a mid-afternoon lunch/mommy beer.  Don’t judge, we deserved it, we were basically kicked out of an art museum.

My not so expert recommendation for veritable shit shows, try to keep your cool and if you can’t get the hell out of there and laugh about it with a friend.

E

An English Majors Daughters

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One of my very first memories as a child was reading a book, it was this book (the exact book my petite is reading), I loved all of the pictures that werephoto 3 in this story so much, plus it is a huge book.  I remember sitting on a chair and holding this book looking at all of the amazing illustrations when the book started to slide off of my lap, I tried to hold onto it and in the process ripped the page.  I remember being horrified that I ruined the book.  My mom reassured me that it wasn’t ruined and a little tape would sort it all out.  Now, my daughter pulls it out and the rip is still there…but she doesn’t seem to mind.    Now that she is almost five she doesn’t want to take naps anymore, boo!  So we have a quiet time rule, she lays in bed and reads books.  It is pretty cute to see what her top choices are.   She takes quite a large pile of books to bed with her each day.

I think by now everyone has heard that reading with your kids has amazing benefits, time spent with them, time modeling being a reader, spending time talking about illustrations, or favorite parts of stories.  As petites get older they can read to you, it’s basically a win-win situation.  As a teacher I am always recommending to parents who ask what I can do at home with my kids – read!  Be a voracious reader, surround yourself with books, magazines, comic books, whatever.

Since I’m a bit of a nerd my petite has had books galore before she was even born.  I religiously read books to my belly and when she was born, I continued even before she was able to hold her head up let alone a book.  I think one of the first items we bought for her nursery was a bookcase and it was over flowing by the time she arrived.

One of my favorite things about this petite is that she has an amazing memory for things like stories and songs, and she has photo 1a few that she knows all the words to and she now will read them to her little sister.  Recently a good friend of mine introduced us to these amazing books – A BabyLit – they are an English majors dream come true for their kids.  These books are so incredibly cute.  My friend went on a mission to get all of them for her petite.  When holidays, birthdays or births would happen my very literary pal would get ones for my girls.  A-Mazing.  Love like-minded mommies.

Recently, I was at Costco and they had these gems in two packs for under $10 – WHAT?!  The only problem was the way the packs were divided I already had one of each in the pack.  I should have just bought them all at the time, Costco remorse (the feeling when you think it will be there always and you go back three, no kidding, three days later and they are all gone).  Anyway, they are just really cute primers that are easy for bigger kids to share with smaller ones and well if you are an English Major or book lover they are even more fabulous.  photoThere are a ton of them and they can all be found on Amazon so that is awesome.  There are new ones all the time so you can pick which baby versions of your favorite classics you like the best.  Or like me and my pal just try to buy them all, however, I need to get shopping because I only have six at the moment and I believe there are 14!

Just to share a little more about my love for Jennifer Adams BabyLit books – she has other totally cute products that I covet.  Check out these incredibly cute totes – so cute for a trip to the library.  After perusing her site a little more I found these cute little play sets that go along with the books – could these be any cuter?  Oh buddy, then if you’re looking for decor, the illustrator sells the prints from these books!  Lovely!

Basically, I am in love with these books and so are my petite’s.  I usually give books to expecting mommies and now these books always make it into the Petite Stag’s favorite book list/gift.  If you know another book lover I am sure that these books will not disappoint.  Also, how cute would they be packaged in a little tote!? Come on, cutest gift ever.

Happy Reading!

E

The next time you come, you’ll be home.

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When my petite family went to Ireland in 2011 we didn’t really know what to expect, it was our first trip overseas and we were so excited.  We had planned out our self driving tour of Ireland – two weeks to cover the entire country, Irelandeven though our travel agent really advised us not to move so quickly.  Little did we know that what he said would mean something else when we returned.  It was not about seeing everything, it was about being in the moment and being able to take the time to get acquainted with this remarkable place.  In retrospect it was perfect for us to get a small sampling of so many different areas, because in all honestly, once we saw the lovely fields and all of the green we were sold.  We were greedy and took all that we could get of this amazing place.

Top Five in Ireland

I couldn’t commit to finding just five attractions that I liked the best so we are going with places…here goes…

In Dublin, we did all of the touristy things, we got a pass to ride the hop on hop off, best deal, when we did take a cab – the asshole, not an Irishman took us on a long journey through the city, when we were essentially a handful of blocks away.  Boo!  I think my top three of Dublin would be 1. Kilmainham Gaol; 2. Long Room @ Trinity College; 3. Jameson Distillery Tour – I was an official taster.  Awesome!  My Hubby’s top three were 1. walking the streets over the bridges of the River Liffey (although there were some super sketchy people as the sun went down – I am a bit of a wuss though) 2. Jameson Distillery – he wasn’t a taster 😦 3. Trinity College seeing the amazing long room.  You could spend a ton of time in Dublin and still not see everything.

In Wiklow, oh my goodness, when you think of Ireland and see the green fields and the lochs with the misty mountains in your mind, IDSC_0576 am pretty sure you’re dreaming of Wicklow. After leaving the grit of Dublin it was our first “country” experience and it did not disappoint.  Go to Glendalough!  Seriously, go, right now, I think I might have even cried I was so overwhelmed with the immense beauty of it all.  The pictures cannot capture it all.  The old monastic settlements just standing there for you to walk through, there is a loch to go and stand and look at the gorgeous beauty of it all.  In fact it is so lovely that tons of movies have been filmed in Wicklow – Braveheart, PS I love you, Becoming Jane, there is a whole website about doing film drives in Wicklow.  Had I known this before hand the hubs and the petite and I would have been reenacting FREEDOM!!!

Cobh and Cork, so if you happen to be one of the 35 million people in the US who claim Irish heritage odds are your DSC_0063people last touched the shores of Ireland in Cobh pronounced “cove”.  Before we left I had done a ton of genealogical work about my Irish ancestry, I even have relatives still in Ireland (stay tuned), so it was an important stop for me to see what my great grandpoarents last saw.  It is a gorgeous little town.  On to Cork, see how I really have six favorites, but I put two together…sneaky…Cork is awesome, I loved it there, made my hubby go shopping with me at this totally fun store Oasis, the open air market was awesome – we picked up goodies to eat on the road so much fun.

County Kerry, I would move here in a millisecond, seriously, I would pack up the petites and go to Kerry, more DSC_0424specifically Portmagee felt like home.  My family is from Portmagee, has lived in the same parcel of land for hundreds of years, and some still live there, we had the opportunity to randomly meet them, but that’s another post.  Kerry is like Wicklow in the sense that it feels like the purest form of Ireland.  I was so nervous and excited to roll into Cahersiveen and then into Portmagee, for me it was all about where my people had come from and how even generations ago impacts who I am today.  What made Portmagee so amazing was the PEOPLE!  What amazing people, seriously, you felt like you were meeting old friends.  People say that kind of thing all the time, and I had previously thought yeah right, strangers aren’t that friendly – no in Ireland they are – okay maybe just much more so in Kerry.

Clifden, I used to have this calendar, you know how you buy a calendar of places you’d rather be then where you are, well I DSC_0079ripped out a month and saved it like 10 years ago and it was Clifden.  The place looks like a postcard.  We splurged here and took our 16 month old out to a fancy dinner, haha, she was so good, previously she would fuss a bit because she wanted “real food” – as in not boiled veggies.  We stayed at this B&B that was our favorite in all of Ireland, Ardmore House.  As I write this I am thinking of the place we stayed the night before, the B&B house dog was so cute and the petite wanted to see it, she also wanted to see the cows (working dairy farm – should have known better) and the dog jumped all over me and covered me in shit.  I mean I smelled, well, I smelled like cow shit. Sorry I digress.  Okay, back to Clifden, some of my favorite pictures from Ireland and memories are from this lovely place.  Behind the B&B were cliffs, what?  Cliffs in Clifden – say what?  So I laid down in the grass by the cliffs and it was just this completely serene moment I will never forget.  And my hubby actually captured the moment, how sweet is that?

Ireland is all everyone says it is, so amazing, we miss it, it is a place where I felt like I was at home, in fact after chatting with a local historian in Portmagee about my family he looked at me and said, well dear, the next time you come, you’ll be home.  Until then…

Our Favorite Valentine’s Day Books

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valentine booksI love books, from the time the petites were in the womb working on growing little ears, I read books to them.  They have amassed quite the collection of books.  I have a book tub that I keep holiday and seasonal books in, this has worked really well for us.  We have quite a few Christmas books, one for each day of the month.  But for Valentines day we have just selected a few favorites.  What is neat about having a hidden book tub, is that when the books are pulled out around the holiday it is almost like having a whole new set of books.

The books in the image above are my petite’s favorites, not all of them are specifically about Valentine’s Day, some are about love or kisses, which we like just the same.  There is one that I think we will add for next year when the littlest petite can open flaps. Fisher Price Little People Valentine’s Day is Here!

Valentine Friends, If Animals Kissed Goodnight, The Biggest Kiss, Minnie’s Valentine, The Night Before Valentine’s Day, The Best Thing About Valentines, Crocodiles Need Kisses Too, Amelia Bedelia’s First Valentine

What are some of your petites favorite Valentine reads?

You’ve Got Mail

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My petite got a little mailbox from her Nana for Valentine’s Day, she loves getting and sending mail.  In fact she has 5 steps you must follow to send a proper letter.Envelopes

  1. Write the letter
  2. Get an envelope
  3. Get a stamp
  4. Address the envelope
  5. Take it to the post office

This is a routine ritual that we’ve been doing for months, so I thought it would be fun to make her some envelopes that she could use with her new mailbox.

To complete this project you don’t need a whole heck of a lot of things.

  • felt (5 pieces)
  • sewing machine
  • scissors
  • ric rac (optional – use a light to burn the edges so they don’t fray over time)
  • Velcro (optional)

It is rather amazing that this whole project took one nap time (with interruptions, probably 1 hour)

I love that this whole project to make four envelopes of all different sizes took 5 pieces of felt (that’s about $1.25), the rick rack was from another project, but it’s such a small amount less than half a yard I am sure.  I used Velcro on the back to hold it together, but you could sew the envelopes so that they don’t pop back open.

Steps:

  1. Cut the size you want and fold into three parts
  2. Cut the ric rac and burn the edges so they dont fray
  3. Sew the ric rac on or use the zigzag stitch to sew the address
  4. Then sew on the stamp (I totally messed up sewing the heart on one of them…oh well – I’m guessing the petite is not going to mind)
  5. Sew up the sides, I did a back and forth on the ends so that it won’t come apart when she opens it
  6. Put the Velcro on (I did this after I sewed them because I forgot about it, might be easier to do before you sew the sides)

I love the finished copy they are so cute.  I also cut out hearts to go in each one of them from the left over pieces.

Happy ‘almost’ Valentine’s Day.

Erin

Reflections on Consumerism and Raising the Petites

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My Sunday morning was spent drinking a cup of tea and reading about this amazing Mom in Britain: Hattie Garlick.  She created this blog to chart her journey of a year of opting out of “kid consumerism” after reading about her journey, it really got me thinking and reflecting on my spending for the petites and what it means and the implications of kid consumerism.

I reflected about the money that we spend on “things” (as you can see, the petite doesn’t lack things) , how going Target to get the necessities can mean spending close to a hundred bucks and how many of those bucks are spent on things that we don’t need, that aren’t nourishing foods, are poorly made, or just simply over indulgent – over time these things really add up.  How it is almost impossible for me to walk past the children’s clothes section and not just grab a cute onesie or pair of jeggings.  Rationalizing these choices with false need or inflated reward.

What I mean by inflated reward is that now whenever, and I mean seriously every time, we go to the store my 4 year old wants something.  A snickie (snack item), or small toy, whatever, she now, through my own creation will throw a fit if she doesn’t get something.  I also know for a fact that I say if you are a good girl while we are running errands you can have _____.  So now, I have created this little petite who has been conditioned that good behavior in a store is not expected, but is rewarded.  So now that I am aware of what I’ve done, comes the process of undoing it.  We, as a family, have spent a lot of time talking about earning things.  The petite has a Responsibility Chart and when she does the items on it she can earn something from a prize bag (mainly Target dollar Hello Kitty Items). I wish I could say that I didn’t need to break it, that I didn’t have moments where I just wanted to take the easy road, but that isn’t the case.  But breaking the “what do I get” now is imperative.

Just this week I was chatting with a friend who is still teaching and she was saying that her kids always say well “what do I get?”  Turning in homework, showing up on time, being polite and kind, participating – what do I get?  It is funny to me, because even when I was in grade school which wasn’t that long ago, I graduated from high school in 1998,it wasn’t like that.  Honestly I don’t remember thinking when there were team challenges in class, I wondr what does the winning team get?  Umm…the WIN!  You turned in your homework or you got in trouble.  What you got was a grade.  Somehow now that is not enough.  There were consequences, now in place of accountability and responsibility we have entitlement.

What got me really thinking about Hattie Garlick’s journey to opt out of child consumerism and if there is a link to this entitlement.  I don’t have the answers I am just one mom trying to do what is best in a realistic way for my petites to ensure that when the are older they don’t firmy believe that the world owes them something.  That instead they believe that they can contribute something to the world instead.

-Erin

Bravest Petite I Know

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As part of my petites ongoing testing to get her medications sorted out and the seizures to stop she has to have the occasional blood draw.  Since she is four it is pretty hard for her to really understand this process fully especially since she isn’t aware that she has epilepsy.  She is aware that she doesn’t feel well all the time, but not the specifics.  Well, she had to have a blood draw and when I picked her up from her preschool I told her we were going to go to the doctor and that she would be getting a shot.  She burst into tears and yelled that she didn’t want to get a pokey poke.  That it would hurt and that she was scared.  All while this is happening I usually forget, until later, how incredibly lucky I am that she can articulate all of her feelings about this even if sometimes it’s done by yelling on the side of the street. Once we got to the hospital she told me she was scared and didn’t want to go.  We talked about being brave and what that means…that sometimes we have to do things even when they are scary and we aren’t feeling brave.  My petite took a deep breath and said she was starting to feel braver.  When it was her turn they called her name and she got right up and walked to the nurse and introduced herself.  She saw the sticker basket and chose her two stickers and put them on the counter saying that they were for when she was done.  She hopped into the chair and held out her arm.  The nurse showed her the tourniquet and how it made her veins come out and the petite felt her veins.  This is when she started to get a little nervous…she took a deep breath and watched the nurse draw her blood.  She didn’t even cry.  When she was done she hopped down and thanked the nurse for taking her blood grabbed her stickers and walked out. photo Sometimes I forget she is only four years old.  I forget how articulate she is and can tell you how she feels even when she is really mad and really frustrated.  But she is still four, she is still in so many ways my baby girl.  It is in moments like this that I am astounded by how brave she is.  How polite she is to thank the woman who just drew her blood.  She is so much braver than I was.  In fact, there is a story about when I was 8 years old and getting some teeth pulled and I was terrified.  I got to the oral surgeons office and said I needed to go to the bathroom and promptly barricaded myself in the bathroom.  I think it must have been that smell, you know the dentist smell I’m talking about?  There was no amount of talking that was going to get me out, no bribery to be had, and no demands to be met.  I was content to live the remainder of my days in a bathroom at the oral surgeons.  Unfortunately for me, they had a schedule to keep and a key. I don’t know if bravery skipped a generation, but my petite is the bravest girl I know.