See this little dude? The search for him sparked a rather fun day and some interesting conversation yesterday.

The alzheimer's ward my Grandma is in has little shadow boxes outside each room. The rooms can be decorated any way they like but the boxes are just a way to pretty up and personalize the outsides. Grandma thinks she's staying at a fancy resort (at least that's what she told me) so she hasn't wanted to decorate anything yet, including the box. So we decided to get some little things for her - things that could easily be temporary so they won't upset her (when she told me she was "leaving tomorrow" anyway, I told her no problem, just pack them when you leave - that satisfied her).

So last week I had asked on a local homeschooling list where I might find something like this. I got a lot of suggestions so yesterday we sent off to the closest store.

On the way Bridget was in the back seat reading her Wizardology book. We were having a good time, talking about the difference between witches, warlocks, wizards, sorcerers, sorceresses and evil magic, good magic, whether magic even is real, etc. We had just finished talking about Warlocks and how they seem to always be evil when we pulled up to the Jesus Book and Gift Store.

Oh.

So very delicately I said you know, not everyone thinks magic is ok and some people think *all* magic is bad. Some people won't let their kids read books like Harry Potter because of that. As far as Christians, not all of them feel this way but a lot do so . . . . maybe you should leave the Wizardology book in the car?

Thankfully she just shrugged and said ok (phew!).

Once inside we wandered around for a bit. The kids found the Veggie Tales videos and then Owen found some Bibleman costumes. I had never heard of this guy before. Interesting idea.

Unfortunately it was mainly a nondenominational Christian store and what I was looking for was Catholic. So I asked the woman at the front desk if they had any of these little guys and she gave me the phone number for the Catholic school down the road.

The Catholic school gift shop was so cool and the woman running it was very nice and helpful with my obvious lack of Catholic knowledge (at one point she asked me "Is there a particular aspect of Our Lady that your Grandmother likes?" and I felt like she was speaking another language). We found the infant pretty quickly and it was next to a lot of other really beautiful statues by the same company. I picked out three prayer cards to go with it, thinking they'd all look nice in the decorative box.

While checking out the woman asked if we'd like little needlepoints of the word JESUS. One of the nuns there does them and they hand them out free with purchases. Bridget politely said no thank you but Owen didn't respond so she took that as a yes.

On the way out, there was a really nice tile mosaic of Mary and Jesus on the wall. The wall was curved so when we went up to it we found our voices echoing. The kids were saying hi and then we heard another voice saying hi. I'm pretty sure it was someone in the building ;-) but when we went there again (after having to run out to find an ATM because they didn't take plastic) Owen asked if it was going to talk to us again ;-)

On the way home Bridget said I should put the Jesus sign on the dashboard so I did. I'm sure I looked like the properly religious homeschooling mom then, driving home with Jesus as my co-pilot ;-)

We talked about religion for part of the drive home. I don't subscribe to any particular one (anymore) but I like learning about them. I think religions are interesting, the art and music tend to be beautiful and ceremony and ritual can be almost like magic. Bridget agrees and on the way home we chatted about all the different people we know who are of different faiths.

Then I mentioned her Dad is an atheist and she sounded really surprised! I guess it never came up before but it seemed like she didn't know that not believing was even an option. I've pretty sure I've mentioned that some people don't believe in Gods. Maybe I just never put a name to it though.

All in all, we had a good time. One of those days that really reminds me how much fun it is to have older (well, relatively older) kids :-D