From the Lips of a Four Year old Friend

Our neighbors across the street have three very wonderful children. The oldest is Riley, he's 13 and a good older brother to his two younger sisters. Anne, is 9 and Mary is 4. They are all very sweet and like to talk with Jer and I when we see them. I like to take them little gifts on random holidays, cookies on Christmas, Sparklers on 4^th of July and sweethearts for Valentine's Day. Anne beat me to it this year and when I got home from work on Valentine's day there was an invitation to her Karate School's Valentine's party. Promised on the invite was a

meeting with Po "The Kung Fu Panda" and learning to break a board. My name was on the invite, and Jer said, "Make sure you ask if I can go too!" as I ran across the street with the sweethearts I'd gotten for them.All of the kids are in Karate, and they were totally excited that we'd be there. In the end we were the only adult friends invited, so we were spared sitting on the floor and learning how to do the whole board breaking thing, Anne was a little disappointed that I didn't go out there to do it, but her mom convinced her that it was ok, because there weren't any other adults doing it. I would have done it if she'd really wanted me to, but I got to help in other ways, I held the punching target and then some boards when they asked some parents to assist.

When we were getting ready to leave, the girls gave us hugs, and Mary, looked like she had something to say, and she looked at me with her pretty hazel eyes and said, "I know you're going to have a baby soon, but I don't know if it's a boy or a girl, cuz it's a doll right now." I thought it was very sweet of her to say that all on her own. And earlier Jer asked her if she could beat him up and she replied, "No, because I'm only 4". But I bet Anne could do him some damage! I really enjoy it when children invite me into their lives. I've been very blessed by my child friends these days.

And we did get to meet Po, who *whispers* must have been one of the instructors, because they smelled the same as "Mr. K." J.