Her major award

Lana's school has an end of the year BBQ at a local park. Its a potluck kind of thing and the kids have a huge playground for burning energy. Each year the school raffles off the ginormous baskets of goodies. Each class donates items around a theme, so there was an art basket, an outdoor fun basket, a family game night basket, etc. The parents are pretty generous, so you can imagine that these baskets are pretty amazing. The teachers spend all week explaining the concept of a raffle--that there are only 6 baskets and 60 families--so you might be disappointed if you don't win, etc. Last year, there were many tears after the raffle (Lana was one of them), so this year we talked a lot about it and that we would buy some tickets, but we probably won't win.

So there we are, at the BBQ and they get to the much-coveted art basket and they call Lana's name! She just sat there--like a statue. They repeat her name, looking around for her. She sat, still as a statue. Finally, I called for Lana to stand up already! She did and accepted her HUGE basket of art supplies, which was bigger than she was--she could barely walk with it and to say she was excited is a gross understatement.

The whole ride home, she said--"I can't believe I won the art basket. I can't believe I won the art basket." Over and over again, like 100 times. When we got home, she tore into it, like its Christmas morning (which is why I have no photo) and I had to rip her away from the crafting to go to bed.

The next day, she says, "Mom, what if Miss Y read the wrong name on the ticket and I didn't really win the art basket after all. What if its all a big mistake and the name on the ticket was a different name that begins with L." After a giggle and some reassurance, she went right back to work, creating and drawing and making a holy hell of a mess of glitter.

I thought it was so funny that Lana acted like she won an academy award and that it was so amazing that she felt like she didn't even deserve it, like the honor should have gone to someone else. Its also funny that something like winning a raffle is like a MAJOR thing when you are 5. I mean, we all buy raffle tickets and then don't even give it a second thought because really its nearly impossible to win and if you do, its just dumb luck. For her, this was something she will remember for a very long time. I love the innocence of childhood.