Penny Project is back in action

With school now back in session, my penny is rolling through classrooms and landing "tales" side up. Okay, so it is more like I am walking into classrooms with my penny in hand and sharing its tales with wide-eyed students. In the photo posted here, two students are playing the roles of characters in my story -- a theme park princess who gives her special wishing penny to a little girl who has traveled across the country to visit her. By the end of my presentation, the children have learned to engage their own imaginations so that they can each hold a penny to their ears and hear their cents whisper tales of where they have journeyed. Oh, the possibilities!

Find a pony, pick it up

As I drove up the mountain on Monday morning, I kept thinking Penny would make a good name, or maybe Liberty. Em wouldn't consent to these names with her first pony, but surely, with this second one, she'd relent. After all, my daughter was sure to still be in a state of shock and would not be thinking clearly enough to refuse my suggestions. Then again, I too was in a state of shock. Who wouldn't be upon hearing the news that the pony we'd purchased two months and ten days earlier had just delivered a baby?!

The woman who owns the stable where Brandi lives had phoned us shortly after breakfast to say that when she went to go feed our pony, she discovered the foal laying near Brandi's feet. None of us had known she was pregnant. And she'd never let on to us either! Today she has a son. A beautiful prince. Amazing.

What to name to him? Penny and Liberty certainly won't work for a boy. I suggested Abraham. No. Lincoln? No. "Mom, give it up," Em tells me. "Use those names in your penny stories. I'll take care of the pony name."

I can only shrug my shoulders. But I have not lost hope that she will notice the foal's beautiful coloring and at least consider the name Copper...