"Consider the Ravens..."

I've done a lot of babysitting and childcare in my 30-ish years of life and regardless of location, ages, and family cultures, one thing has been a trend in every household: the littlest kids are always desperate to keep up with the big kids.  They HATE being left out!  Sometimes Copy Cat turns into a hilarious if not dangerous attempt to do exactly what the older sibling is doing.  I often try to guess what's going through the toddler's head as they try and fail and retry and kind of get it and then retry and it just isn't the same.  Character is revealed in these moments.  The kids who are more introspective and analytical will watch longer before reattempting, but those with shorter tempers are much more likely to scream and throw things by attempt number three. :)  And it seems that the more children there are in a family, the more desperate the younger ones become to keep up with the older ones.  The sense of being left out grows with every siblin...

The other night I woke up from a vivid dream.  It's unusual for me to dream at all and if I do, it's either directly related to something I'm experiencing (like feeling too warm in a dream because I'm too warm in real life) or it's because I'm under extreme stress.  This wasn't like that... I dreamed that a small crowd of people and I got on a smaller commercial airliner and took probably the shortest flight ever: straight up, level for just a moment, and then straight down to our destination which was not known to any of us.  We disembarked and walked into the airport, only to spend our entire trip at the airport gift shop.  None of us had specific things we were looking to buy, but all of us were browsing.  I settled on some small trinket and brought it to the register to pay.  The clerk took my money, and then instead of giving me exact change, handed me a couple thousand dollar bills in return.  I looked at her in disbelief which prompted her to ...