It’s been awhile since I’ve shared a few snapshots of family life. Here are a few moments that have stood out of late:

• Channeling the Inner Teenager

  Now that Morgan’s 4 she has chores and we’re expanding her responsibilities. A few nights ago, we were asking her to do her job of picking up all her toys before watching a little bit of a show before going to bed. Here’s the exchange I had with her after she was being a little sassy and throwing some attitude my way:

  Me: “Morgan, you’re not being very respectful. You know picking up your toys is one of your responsibilities now. (At this point I go Aretha Franklin on her) We need to see a little R-E-S-P-E-C-T from you.”

  Mogan: “What’s that mean?”

  Me: “R-E-S-P-E-C-T is how you spell respect, which is what you need to show us or else there are going to be consequences. “

  Morgan: “Well I need some S-D-O-R-N!” (she spells it out)

  Me: “What’s that mean?” (trying not to laugh)

  Morgan: “That the word that means I need you to stop asking me to pick up all my toys before I get to watch something!”

  I got tough eventually, but lost my credibility momentarily because I couldn’t stop from laughing fairly hard.

• Channeling Her Inner Brit

  Over the last several months when we’re home and it’s just our family, about 50% of the time Morgan will refer to us when speaking directly to us as “Mother” and “Father” in a British accent. I’m not sure where that came from, but apparently she picked it up from the Peter Pan movie or Mary Poppins or something. Sometimes it gets a little creepy.

• Going Cross-Cultural and Global

  Ever since the Olympics in Beijing I think she’s been fascinated by China – specifically the fact that it’s night there when it’s day here and vice versa. She’s asked probably once a week for the past 6 months, “Dada, is it night in China right now?”

  Her viewing of Mulan increased her fascination. It led to several conversations about various cultural differences. Last week I came home late from a meeting and she had waited up for me. The first thing she told me was, “Dada, if I lived in China my name would be Virtue Morgan Joy, not Morgan Joy Virtue.” We had briefly talked a week earlier about the way the Chinese use family names first and apparantly she had been thinking about it.

• Channeling Her Inner Philosopher

  We’ve had some intense conversations over the past month, it being Easter season. Morgan’s been asking a lot of questions. A couple days ago Morgan saw the cross to the Crystal Cathedral from the freeway and asked Christine in the car out of the blue, “So why did Jesus have to die?” She also asked at a dinner, “How do we follow God when He’s in Heaven and we’re down here?” There’s been many more, but we continue to recognize and learn how much her mind is always going.

We love Morgan and we love Colin too. We look forward to when we get to see more of how he sees the world, but in the meantime we’re thoroughly enjoying him as he’s rapidly exploring the world, adding to his beginner vocabulary, and either trying to climb or destroy or hug everything in his path.