"Did you know smoke...kills your body?"

We live at the playground. Sometimes I feel a little sad that we roam the public places of this dear city like we are homeless. I schedule our day to allow for 1 potty break in 5 hours away from the home. And I choose our destinations according to the facilities they afford.

A new favorite place is a park that has bathrooms, is not very busy, has a lake, monkey bars... it's great. So we were there in our nomadic existence last week and another group came. Whereas I was one adult with 3 children, they were 3 adults with one child. The little girl was very interested in hanging out with the kids. Having already played on the playground for 40 minutes, we were moving on to the walk portion of the outing.

This nice group wanted to feed the ducks and so they went back and got some french fries and chicken nuggets from their car. They offered to share with my kids, and I don't know but I think my kids were torn about throwing fast food to the ducks. We joked that feeding ducks chicken nuggets was like the "abomination" spoken of by Lilo, in "Lilo and Stitch."

Later we were discussing the burned patch of trees and the arsonist who had apparently struck this park 3 times. One of the adults in the group lit up a cigarette. M took a step up the slope. "Did you know smoke..." she said.

I wasn't sure it was coming, but I figured it might be.

"What's that Honey?" asked the smoker.

with a glance at me "...kills your body?" finished M.

"I'm sorry" I muttered to the ladies.

"Oh, I know it's bad for me" said the smoker.

I'm proud of M. I try every day to make sure she know that she's smart, beautiful and loved. I'm glad that she knows smoking kills your body. I try and teach her to love her healthy body and to take good care of it.

In our other nomadic travels we frequently pass smokers and the kids run by as fast as they can. M seems more curious about it than G. G's always had a stronger sense of ok and BAD! So I try and bolster M's confidence in the ok and BAD!