Glitter.

"We do not inherit the Earth from our ancestors...we borrow it from our children."

~ Native American Proverb

Happy Earth Day!  We've been celebrating all week and talking about ways we could be kinder to our planet.  Instead of throwing a party like we did last year and the year before, we challenged ourselves to do one earth friendly activity each day this week.  When I asked the boys for ideas on what we should do, Sullivan's first suggestion was... 
"Let's pick up all the GLITTER!!!"

Sullivan calls all trash on the ground "glitter".  

"Yes, I see, someone LITTERED, " I always emphasize in my reply.  

But, no...it's still glitter to Sully.  

The way he says "Oh no, someone glittered!" in a horrified, how could a person do such a thing, voice always makes me smile. You better not glitter or Sullivan will make you feel awful about it.  He's the glitter police.  And he'll point out every. single. piece. he sees on our way anywhere.

For as often as we talk about the glitter we see, we haven't often done much about it.  "Yes, that should have gone in the trash..." I say as we continue on our walk.  But this week in honor of Earth Day our apathetic regard for the trash we pass came to a stop. And we started with our beloved Trolley Trail. 

"The Trail" as the boys call it is the path we take almost daily in good weather.  It leads to the market, our favorite Mexican restaurant and many friends houses.  It is frequented by runners, dog walkers and strollers.  For as busy as it is, it happens to be fairly clean, but there's always room for improvement.  So Monday the boys picked up their "grabbers", put on their mud boots and were ready to conquer the trash...

It was like a treasure hunt!  They had a contest to see who could pick up the most and the largest piece of litter.  People would stop along the way to give them a high-five or wave "thank you" as they ran by.  The boys felt like little super hero's saving the planet. We came home and sorted everything into our recycling bins.  It was cute to see them feeling so accomplished :)

The boys' other ideas for the week included getting books about the earth from our library, planting seeds and handing seed packets out to their friends, among other things.  Here are a few of the things we've done so far this week... 

Snack time/work time.  Gluing a special message on each pack of seeds.

Planting seeds in their root grower they got for Easter.

Reading new library books about the earth.

 We have a few other things on our agenda this week and plans to implement some ideas into our regular routine.  It's fun to see the boys getting involved and making their own little strides to make the world a cleaner and better place.