Give us sugar-loaded carbohydrates and a few books, and my family is pretty much down for anything.

Yay!  It's Lent!  I'm pretty excited to try to get Amani into all the Lent stuff this year.  She was really into all the Christmas traditions, and seemed to really understand so much of  the Christmas Story, so now I am very excited to teach her more about Catholic holidays.  Admittedly, she may not get as excited about 40 days of fasting, prayer and abstinence as I do, but we'll figure something out.

Pancakes: I'll hook her with pancakes, and books.

I mean, come on.

     This year I am thinking of using Make Room, but I have to give it a more careful investigation.  I have found I occasionally have to do a preview of the Christian children's books I read to my kids, just to double check they are the form of Christianity I want to teach.  Some people are far more eager to discuss the gory details of the Bible with their children than I am.

     I bought The Easter Story by Patricia Pingry and I thought it would be great. It had these sweet little illustrations of Jesus surrounded by children and seemed very simple and gentle. Then, we got to the part where they  mention the Romans nailing Jesus' hands and feet to The Cross, and then, naturally, Jesus dying.  I'm not sure what I was expecting, really.  It is not as though I was unaware of that plot point; I guess I just thought that detail would be sort of downplayed in a book for preschoolers.  I know; it is a little hard to talk about the resurrection of Christ without mentioning that Christ died, but Amani's four, and pretty sensitive: Jesus' death only made the story scary, and the lesson was completely missed.

     I tried another of Pingry's Books, The Story of Easter, and I feel like that did a really fantastic job of teaching the gist of the Easter story, while still being comforting and joyful for a preschooler.

     Generally, I highly suggest Patricia Pingry books.  We have two of them at home, and they are very sweet and clear, and have cute illustrations in which Jesus is a brown person.  (Side bar: As everybody knows, each portrayal of brown Jesus in your household earns you ten points on your Social-Liberal score card.)

Anyway, there are a ton of books out there to get me started, plus like 10 million craft ideas on Pinterest.  Somehow, I am going to get this child loving Lent as much as I do, no matter how much syrup it takes.