letter from Jen
“Mom, look! Mom, Mom, Mom, looooook! Mom, come quick!” My oldest kid charged through the back door, yelling like a banshee. Fearing she’d severed a limb or, at the very least, been bitten by a giant, poisonous snake, I dropped the dish containing our dinner and raced down the stairs. Out of breath and flushed, she proudly held aloft a teeny, tiny chick. Stopped in my tracks, I was instantly thinking of the families we knew
who kept chickens and who also had kids at my daughter’s middle school. I was suspecting a pint-sized smuggling operation. No one that I knew had chicks right then, so I listened closely to my daughter’s insistence that it had hatched from under our Plymouth Rock hen who had been sitting on eggs for weeks, brooding. Now this may seem like the normal order of things but, you see, we didn’t have a rooster and I’d been nagging my dear children since the beginning to get rid of the eggs, as I knew they’d never hatch. But the kids had refused to give up, and kept on hoping and showering the mama hen with extra attention. After careful consideration, we named the chick Faith. A few hours later, still questioning the tiny miracle, I realized what had hatched wasn’t a chick at all but a guinea keet from our pair. I just hadn’t thought of them and, to be honest, I was very surprised that as newly hatched babies they looked just like sweet, adorable, fluffy chicks. Because as adults they, well, turn out rather homely. The excitement at our house was extreme, as it always is when there
are new babies, but Faith has taken on special significance because she was the living, breathing testimony to the fact that Mom Was Wrong. I’m grateful I didn’t push the issue about the eggs, though. Allowing the kids to have an experiment wasn’t a big deal. After all, the worse-case scenario was that we’d have to deal with stinky eggs in the nest. I don’t really mind when the kids tease me about Faith, either, because I am grateful that I was only wrong about an egg — there are so many other things I can get wrong every day! And I’m very thankful, too, for inquisitive, adventurous, brave children who see the world full of possibilities.
Happy Thanksgiving,
volume 11 issue 11 PUBLISHERS
november 2010
Robin Johnson Bethke Jennifer Bryerton
CREATIVE DIRECTOR Robin Johnson Bethke EDITOR-IN-CHIEF Jennifer Bryerton TECHNICAL DIRECTOR Peter D. Bethke EDITOR Brian Murphy EDITORIAL ASSISTANT Lauren Bell Isaacs GRAPHIC DESIGN Kathleen Capshaw Jennifer Jones Janet McCormick
SALES MANAGER Michele Durham ADVERTISING SALES Michele Durham Susan Powell Beth McLaughlin Kirstine Sigloh Pam Whorley
CONTRIBUTING WRITERS Sarah Blech, Kim Connolly, Kevin Daniels, Rick Epstein, Holly Ford, Sharon Harrigan, Jennifer Heyns, Sarah Jacobson, Lynn Pribus, Kathy Sena, Bob Taibbi
ADMINISTRATIVE MANAGER Amy Duprey ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT Marylyn Kenney
DISTRIBUTION Ray Whitson
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Community Award Winner
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6 November 2010
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