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“Easy pea-zie, lemon squeezie.” -what Callie claims Math is.
“I ain’t gonna study no, no more! Ain’t gonna study no-no more…” – Anders’ rendition of the latest song Callie brought home from school for us. We’ve had Down By the Riverside on the brain all week! Oh, and he is now a worthy opponent in Battleship and Uno. Even though Callie always opts for Life, her all time favorite game.
Nate claims someone mysteriously stole his band book. YIKES!! Now how can that poor boy practice?! One wonders. He is scheduled to play at the ice cream social Saturday in spite of the devastating loss.
Jack is on the move; an official crawler. His specialties: the line up of shoes by the door, the bottom shelf of all bookcases, & the magazine basket. He’s also been know to try to juggle cans found on the bottom shelf in the pantry.
We’re working on getting family pictures taken for a belated Mother’s Day gift. We are in need of a sunny day, time to go to the park with our nice clothes assembled, and a third party to snap the shot to all converge at the same time. This may take us well into summer to accomplish. Better late than never, huh?
Our home is officially on the market. Had several people through it this week. I thought I’d really hate that part, but so far, it’s forcing me to keep the house presentable at a moment’s notice & I really like that. Wish me luck in that area when school’s out!!!
Just discovered two things: 1) There’s a British isle called Mann – never knew that. The people there are Manx and I guess it’s a great place to make movies. Who knew? 2) Come to find out, Moondog, the quirky nickname Keith gave Nate years ago, was actually a real blind composer/inventor who lived homeless on the streets of NYC & apparently wore homemade clothing to resemble Thor, the Viking god. Fascinating. Oh, the wealth of information you collect when surfing while your sons sleep in.
This is Ander’s favorite rendition of our latest song. He says she looks like Grandma. My only question is which one. You be the judge…
“You’re gonna make a cute grandma when you grow up, Mom.”
“Jack is going to be a great man of faith! He just loves Bibles & always reaches for them.”
My sweet little visionary & encourager! Always thinking ahead. Wonder where she gets that?
I love my oldest boy’s sense of humor; always have. But I am especially enjoying him as he gets older & all the more sophisticated in his presentation. I just had to write down a few for memory’s sake…
“Here’s my imitation of music class, ‘Okay, Class. Today, we’re watching Elf.’ (Nate turns around to make this sound imitating a teacher hiding a pop can) – kerchunk – s-s-s-s-s-s.” (That’s the sound of a pop can opening, in case you don’t recognize my spelling there.) “Oh-h-h-h-h! He makes me so-o-o-o thirsty!” Does Nate know how to pull his momma’s chain or what!? I SO want to hop up on my soapbox here on various fronts with that little skit (& he knows it, I think that’s why he tells me, just to see if I can listen without going off about how he at LEAST could show a musical for crying out loud)!! But I bite my tongue & he skips right along to, “My music teacher makes weird shapes with his hands. He says he can’t help it.” Me: “Is this the same band teacher with the pop addiction? The one who can’t make it through a class without opening & chugging a can? Might that have something to do with the weird shapes his hand involuntarily makes, you think?”
“Here’s Mrs. C during our country reports. POOF! zzzt-zzzt-zzzt-zzzt-zzzt. Zzzt-zzzt-zzzt-zzzt-zzzt… ‘Wait a minute class, I need to change cameras.’ She forgot her camera, so used a couple throw-aways with really bright flashes. It was annoying.” It hadn’t really dawned on me until then that he doesn’t know anything but digital cameras! He has no memory of the outrageously bright lights Dad’s movie camera used to have, or the sounds of film forwarding in the case let alone the dreaded manual forwarding wheel (didn’t we think those throw-aways were pretty slick a mere 15 years ago?), or of having to wait to see what your pictures look like! Wow, cameras sure have come a long way. I do get a huge kick out of the descriptions of teachers from a student’s perspective again. : ] We teachers are pretty quirky folk, aren’t we?
“Dun-dun-dun!!” – That dramatic little song (baritone, or is it a trombone?, menacingly descending by two & a half steps between notes) you hear in shows where it first hits a character’s brain that something really bad is going to happen. You know the one – where they zoom in on the face real tight & show the look of shock in the eyes. Well, Nate has started doing that little tune at the most hilarious moments: during the climax of a sappy Little House episode while little brother & sister are sitting nearby on the brink of tears, when told it’s time to do dishes, that type of thing. Keeps me chuckling every time! Like I said, his timing is getting pretty good.
I’ll add here it did me a world of good to go in to watch his presentation the other day. It was good for me to see other 6th graders. I may be too quick to worry about Nate sometimes as far as running off to school with unkempt hair & a beloved tshirt worn three days in a row. Keith’s been telling me not to worry so much (remember, he works with this crew & sees them every day) & I now see he (Nate I mean, not Keith) fits right in there with sixth grade, at least where my boy is. Sweet kids, but worried about their hair, clothing, etc. they are not. I had the bar set a little too high in my mind. Sixth grade. What an interesting time in life!
As dawn was breaking this morning, a little voice coming from Anders’ bunk: “Mom? I need you! And bring the scissors.”
The expression on his face!!
After I stopped laughing, and took pictures…
Last night, Anders & Daddy had a special basketball game outing. They came back with a “gum treat”.
How many times have I said!
Oh, never mind. Get the scissors.
Anders often leaves little calling cards around the house in unsuspecting places. Here’s one found in the hall windowsill this morning. After carefully lining up my deco houses, he ran out of sheep to have knocking at each door, so he put a knight head at one. He told me he wanted to surprise “them” when they came out. BOYS!!
My kids surprised me a month or so ago. For some reason, the topic of Satan came up in devotions one night & I asked what they thought Satan looked like. Now, I think we’ve had some good conversation & all through the years & like to think we are grounding our kids in Scripture well enough that this question would get them thinking, but I did not expect the answers they gave. They gave me stuff like “red”, “horns”, & “mean”, etc. I hadn’t given them that! Where did they get that idea? Our children’s Bibles don’t really give a picture of him, so where were they getting this stereotype? After thinking, I’m guessing Looney Tunes or some such nonsense. I asked the same question in Club on Wednesday night & got the exact same responses.
Anyway, this really disturbed me. Even as careful as we are to train up our children, watch what they put into their minds, give them plenty of Scripture, have them in church, etc. this simple & very important truth had not gotten to them yet. Troubling implication: If they are looking for Satan to be this mean, ugly, scary looking creature, they are not on the defense when he tempts them with all those beautiful & fun things called sin! Satan was at one time the most beautiful creature in Heaven next to God Himself & he still is attractive – sin is!! If he wasn’t, we wouldn’t be tempted by him. Our children need to be keenly aware of this fact if we hope for them to be successful warriors in the battle. They need to know what the enemy looks like so they can keep their spiritual eyes open for his tricks & attacks.
So, that got me on a hunt for a systematic, intentional catechism type book to go through with my young ‘uns. A quick google search netted me plenty of the traditional catechism questions but I was shocked to find not one of them gave the Scripture to back up their answers. I know the answers are right & all, but I don’t want my kids to just take a rote answer for granted if there’s not Scripture behind it & I want them to know beyond a shadow of a doubt it’s in the Bible. Who cares what tradition deems the right answer! I want the kids to have the answer from the Answer Book, not just regurgitate the “right answer”.
Solution: 801 Questions Kids Ask About God is a great book with tons of great questions for parents to go through with their children. It gives Scripture to back each up & the questions cover topics like prayer, the Bible, friends, money, Heaven & angels, etc. We’ve been using it for the last week with the thought we’d do one question a night, but one leads to another to another & we always end up having to cut off the discussion after like twenty minutes. Good stuff! And the kids are really thinking & listening. Check it out & consider adding it to your devotional time if you have children ages 4-15 I’d say. You might even be surprised at your kids older than that or yourself – do you know the answers?
To hear a recent broadcast on the topic from Family Life Today, click here.
Time for a few new quotes heard around our house. This time, it’s the boys who’ve had some zingers lately, so I guess I’ll call these “Nate & Anders-isms”…
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Anders: “Mom, is it tomorrow?”
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Nate: (trying to explain a little hand held toy a friend of his had at church) “It’s like a play station in your hand, but with excellent graphics…you know what graphics are, don’t you Mom?”
M: “Yes, I think I now what graphics are, Son.”
N: “No, I just thought you’d think ‘violent’, like graphic content. It’s not that.”
Just mere moments later, working on Study Island…
N: “Mom! Something’s wrong here! It won’t let me answer! It opens a new mozzarella window every time I click the answer!” (meaning Mozilla)
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Anders: (singing his heart out on the bar stool beside me) “I love dis girl…who’s next to me!”
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This morning, I awoke to Anders staring at me. He snuggled up into our bed, stuck his arm up next to mine, & said, “Look, Mom. We have the same arms!” (I often point out our similarities. This one, however, goes no further than that we both have skin & bones as far as I can see. That and a hinge in the middle called an elbow. So, yeah, I guess we have the same arms.)
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A: “MOM!! Nate hurt me!” (yelled up the stairs – didn’t sound really hurt at all.)
M: “I’ll be down in just a minute.”
A: (to Nate, rather loudly) “Mom said she’s gonna paddle you when she comes down!”
Now that’s what I call a loose interpretation.
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Nate & Anders , enjoying a TMNT video together including busting all the great moves on each other, numchucks swinging, plastic sabers clanging, etc.
N: “Anders, you are not so bad, ya know that? You are not so bad.”
A’s response: (in a sing-songy voice) “My bottom stinks!”
Such a bonding moment. Brings tears to the eyes, doesn’t it?
Oh, my Nate; He’s my buddy. I have so enjoyed having him back home this school year. He’s growing up so fast! Here’s a few funnies from the last week…
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The OHVA teacher on the other side of the phone asks, “Can you give me some different kinds of graphs?”
Nate answers without missing a beat, “Bar graphs, phonographs, paragraphs,…”
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“Playing with” the two younger ones…
N – (Announcing his newest animal identity) “My animal’s the cyclone cheetah. What’s yours? …My cyclone cheetah came up from behind & attacked you…”
C – “Now Anders, this is where you get crippled.” (with ace wrap bandages in hand ready to get busy)
A – Ignoring them both & playing with a toy drill on the toybox.
N- “Pew-pew” (gun noises at Anders) & “NG-G-G-G!!” (Chewbacca-esque loud calls for no apparent reason)
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At least 5 times a day I hear…
“Hey, Mom! You like my ___________?!” The blank is either one of his trading cards he’s been staring at the last 15 minutes, or one of his vast array of unique Lego creations that always start with something like “turbo charged” or “razor-toothed”, some Lord of the Rings lingo, or droid something or other.
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I have to share that for all the teaching I try to impart on Nate, he teaches me often. I should have known this, but it was he who taught me just recently that spell check will pop right up when you right click on a red underlined word giving you choices to correct the word. All this time I’ve been doing it the hard way!
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And lastly, a picture is worth a thousand words…
N – “Well, you told me to clean the blue schoolbox out! It’s cleaned out.”
Okay, Nate. Now let’s clean up all the crap you just put all over the floor.
Where do you think he’ll put it? Three guesses & the first two don’t count.
My daughter is one funny little bunny. Here are a few conversation snippits from this week alone…
C – “Mom, do you feel like making something?” (while I was at the kitchen counter chopping veggies)
Me – “I am…soup!”
C – “Not stove making. DOUGH making!”
Me – “Callie, you’ve just got your momma’s sweet tooth. Sorry. We are going to have lots of treats coming up with Valentine’s & all. We do not need to bake something.”
C – “Well, anyway. My sweet tooth is just a molar.”
(Is this supposed to change my mind?)
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C – “Momma, your child has a GIFT.”
Me – “Which child?”
C – “ME! I have a gift!” then “I have a gift, I have a gift…” in a sing-songy voice.
C – “Your child has a GIFT, I tell ya!” (while she sat at the counter & painted away.)
Note to self: I guess I needn’t worry about her self esteem.
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C – (to Anders) “Do you know about the Valentine’s Fairy? If you’re really GOOD, she leaves you a valentine. Last year, I delivered them for her. This year, I make them & she delivers them.”
A – (back to Callie) “The Valentine Lady’s not real. She’s a bird.”
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C – (Again, to Anders. She fills him full of all kinds of wisdom as he stands at her elbow frequently.) “First comes God in command. Then angels. Then Dad & Mom, then giants, then kids, then cats.”
A – (doubtful response back to Callie) “No they’re not! Giants aren’t real!”
It seems kids are the same all over the world. Exhibit A = Harry & his baby brother, Charlie. This is funnier the more times it’s watched. Charlie’s reaction gets me every time. Cute!
