Okay Elena, we have come full circle and are back to the first holiday that our Conversations celebrated - the 4th of July or Independence Day. So, today’s book is The 4th of July Story by Alice Dalgliesh. I love it because it gives the reason why we celebrate this holiday. It talks about the oriiginal thirteen colonies that belonged to England. After many years, the people in these colonies decided they didn’t want to belong to England anymore or to the English king. Why should men across the sea be making their laws?

They organized themselves and formed a governing body to represent all the colonies, called Congress which actually means “coming together.” There was a very great man named Thomas Jefferson who headed a small committee to put in writing all the reasons for the people wanting freedom. This document would be called the Declaration of Independence. Jefferson wrote the beautiful words, all men are “created equal” and that all of them had a right to “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.” This happened over 200 years ago and July 4th is our country’s birthday, the day we became a nation.

We had to fight a war against England to fight for our freedom. George Washington, our first president, was the victorious commander of the army. We fought very, very hard. The day the war was won, the liberty bell rang all day and night proclaiming us to be free.

And so today for the 4th of July we all come together to honor our country. We celebrate by lighting candles on our country’s birthday cake and by watching fireworks that light up the sky. Mommy likes to think that everyone watching fireworks is reminded of the sights and sounds of the mighty liberty bell when it rang out and proclaimed our freedom. We wave our flag that has 13 stripes for the 13 colonies and 50 stars for the 50 states.

So Elena, the moral of this story is to be grateful that we are free to do and think as we want. That is something many people around our world don’t enjoy. We are so lucky to have the freedom to make choices for ourselves and not have them made for us.

Dearest Elena, the best way to honor your freedom is by acting as a model citizen. We do that by always treating others with kindness, fairness, respect and dignity. If you act with love and kindness in your heart and always strive to be a good person, then you will live a life that is worthy of being an American and being free.

I love you with all my heart and I promise to do my very best to set a good example of what it means to live as a grateful citizen. How lucky I feel to be an American and be free to love you and Daddy with as much love as my heart can hold.

Precious one, join me in saying a very happy birthday to our beloved United States of America.