Which makes sense, unless you think about it

This morning I overheard Anaya in the other room talking with Skyler. "OK, so we can make a deal then...."

Suspicious of deals between seven-year-olds and four-year-olds, I came into the room. "What deal are you making?"

"Well, you see," my daughter began with an ingratiating smile, "Skyler got five dollars for his birthday. And then he bought this gum with some of it. But I love this gum! So he is going to give me the rest of his five dollars, and a piece of gum. Then," she rushed on, "when I go to the store, I will buy more gum. Then I can have some too."

Little Mr. Gullible was sitting here meekly agreeing to this whole thing, so I asked incredulously, "So you mean you're going to take his money and his gum?"

"Well, yes. that's the deal."

"But that's his birthday money. You just got birthday money a few months ago, and you could have bought gum. You bought toys instead."

She began to wail. "But that was before I knew how yummy this gum was!"

Heartless

This morning Seth came to me with a stethoscope in his ears, asking to listen to my heart. He put the stethoscope on my chest for a moment and listened. "Well, I'm sad to say this, Mommy," he pronounced, "but it looks like your heart isn't pumping. But don't worry, lots of other things are working!"

The righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees?

This morning Anaya came to me clutching her Bible and solemnly announced, "Today is the beginning of my work for God."

"That's wonderful," I enthused. "Jesus can be with you all day long and help you be kind and loving. Then you can be like Jesus."

A couple of minutes later I stopped her midway through a chase-Skyler-down-demanding-a-toy episode. "Anaya, I thought you were going to start today to be like Jesus. Did Jesus chase his brothers demanding toys?"

"You don't understand, Mommy!" she said, exasperated. "I don't mean I want to be like Jesus that way. I just want to sell things for Him."

Naturally sweetened

"Should I eat you, or just kiss you?" This is an ongoing game Skyler loves to have me play with him. This morning I promised, "I won't eat you. I'll just suck all the sweetness out of you." I hugged him and kissed his little neck while he giggled and squirmed in delight.

"You didn't get all my sweetness!" he squealed. "I still have more! Jesus has filled me up with yots of yuv."

At least he's honest

This morning I sent the boys to their room for fighting, only to hear another outburst. I opened the door to see Skyler attempting to whip Seth with his blanket.

One solid spank, many tears and sobs later, I came back into the room to find Skyler spilling his woes to Daddy (conveniently leaving out the details of his own guilt). "Tell Daddy what you did," I prompted.

After initially declaring his innocence, Skyler at last could not hide his wrongdoing. "Didn't we tell you not to hit?" Alan rebuked him.

Skyler lifted his big brown eyes to Daddy. "You didn't tell me this day."

Eyes on the back of my head

This morning I called Skyler to finish drinking his water. "Skyler, come here."

He came reluctantly down the hallway. "Mommy...Sethie did it too."

I love it when they make it so easy to ask the right questions.... :)

Learned THAT lesson!

We had a huge snowstorm this week, thoroughly blanketing our yard and even keeping Alan home for two days from teaching. It was wonderful, but the kids aren't used to getting that cold. (Plus, we hadn't unpacked our hats, gloves, etc. yet so it was hard to play in it.) Last year we built a snowman and went sledding, but this time we did neither; we only went out to enjoy it in short spurts.

At one point, though, I asked Skyler if he wanted to build a snowman. "No," he replied decisively. "We did that before. It melted."

Follow the Leader

Yesterday at the aquarium Skyler and I were examining coral together. He pointed to a ball-shaped one with what looked like a maze all over it in ripples. "Yook, Mommy," he exclaimed, "that's where the fishies can pyay fowwow the yee-der!"

Heading in the wrong direction

My sister Annette works for the Air Evac Lifeteam, as a flight nurse. A highlight of visiting Arkansas is going to see Auntie Net and clambering around in the rescue helicopter. However, visiting this last time took an interesting twist when I led the boys down a hallway toward the bathroom.

There was a pile of medical supplies at the end of the hallway, including two mannequin heads used for intubation practice, which I didn't even notice until Skyler stopped in his tracks. "Mommy," he whispered in horror, "are those p'etend?"

First comes love, then comes marriage...

This morning Anaya came to me with her doll stroller packed full of dolls. "Mommy, look! I have four children!"

"Wonderful!" I responded. "But where is your husband?"

"Well, I don't have one," she admitted. "But I had one! And he was a good man. I married a pastor. But then," she paused to think, "one of his friends persuaded him to drink alcohol. And then he became bad, and didn't care about God. So I had to break up with him. But," she assured me, "I did marry a good man!" (Apparently all of the conversations around our house about how important it is to be careful who you marry have sunk in!)

"My husband just left me yesterday," she went on brightly. "But we had all these children before he started to drink alcohol. This one is ten months old," she explained, pointing to the doll in the front of the stroller, "and this one is one month old. This one is two months, and this one," she pointed to the one on her back, "is three months old."

Midnight musings

I learned a bunch of things just before midnight last night:


1. How much laundry a 5-year-old repeatedly vomiting in bed can make. (Well, depending on your definition of bed, since we don’t have any beds right now—vomiting on blankets on the floor.)

2. How far the shards of glass fly when you drop a Pyrex bowl on the floor while attempting to take it to said vomiting boy.

3. How dirty my kitchen floor was, when wiping it with wet paper towels to pick up remaining glass.

4. How many times a seven-year-old can pop out of bed after she has been told to stay there.

5. How tired my poor husband was, who fell asleep midway through this adventure.

6. Most of all, how gracious God is, filling me with peace in the midst of everything. I found myself singing, “He is good always, in big and small ways; He is working all things together for our good…” throughout it all. While this has been an incredibly hard week, He really is so good. Someday I know I'm going to be grateful for all I'm learning now (besides these things, of course). :)

Freedom is coming...

“Grownups get to do whatever they want,” Skyler grumbled this morning.


“That’s not true,” Anaya interrupted (having made similar accusations herself recently and been informed otherwise). “Like, Mommy would like to be going out on a date right now with Daddy. But she can’t, because of us.”

Skyler was not convinced. “She could just take us all with her on a date with Daddy.”