This was originally a Facebook post.
Jeremy and I both are not awesome teachers and tend to do our stuff on our own, but the kids are getting a little more involved outside. It’s interesting how different things appeal to different children. Ivy will follow Jeremy around all the time. Sadie wants to specifically do feeding chores. August wants to muck out the bottle calves’ pens. I think he’d like to do some wrenching, too, but the weather’s going to have to cooperate a little mere for that unless a shop building magically appears (along with a couple more bedrooms and a bathroom).
Palm Sunday. I feel sure I could fill this post with Palm Sunday stuff, but no, no one needs the entire contents of my daydreams. I got in big (to me) trouble twice in elementary school because of daydreams, and I just haven’t ever grown out of the habit. Sometimes I follow my train of thought and start talking out loud as if people have been tagging along in the caboose. Forgive me if I’ve done this to you. Apparently this is a problem for lots of introverts, so please forgive them, too. Kthx.
Back to Palm Sunday. Our marathon Gospel reading (good job, Daniel) was from Dr. Detail (Luke) and two things I’ve never previously realized stand out to me. First, the guy with the upper room. How did he know in advance to have that room prepared? And how did he feel about this? Second, the metaphor to wheat in Jesus’s words prior to Peter’s triple denial. Wow, to have Jesus go to bat for you, in person, that Satan couldn’t sift you like wheat. Incredible mental image for a combiner kid. There’s, like, a whole sermon in that couple verses.
I remember talking to Noni once after I graduated from Bethany and was back visiting. She and Virg and Luke had changed pew locations at Messiah. Funny how some things stick with you. We have changed pew locations at Hope for the same reason: The kids are big enough to behave well enough if we sit with mostly adults. The pews are actually more comfortable than the chairs. I think this is because we regularly tried to put seven bottoms in six chairs, lol.
If you need a reason to sweep the floor, I have three to offer.
• have back-to-back mud storms.
• allow Play-Doh.
• inadvertently turn the stand mixer up to 4 and fling flour everywhere.
We went to the library as a group of seven yesterday. We came home with 47 books. This is a) prime and b) not an exaggeration. A visit to the library with all five children is more difficult than the sum of the difficulty in the five years I worked there. Bonus difficulty points if the youth department has the Paws to Read therapy dogs on hand. Bonus awesome points if you get to see Beth.
What bird sounds like water? We have a nesting pair of them who talk to each other — but deep in a cedar tree, and I can’t see them.
Listen, if you’ve gotten to this point, you must really care about my microcosm. If you happen to be involved with a school as a parent or instructor and you want to PM me your thoughts about one-to-one iPads in schools, this is a thing I am suffering some confli ction about and would like to learn more about in terms of effects. Yes, I invented that word, and yes, I also know that teachers may be reluctant to talk about it. That’s cool. I understand.
Happy Sunday, and may you have a blessed and introspective Holy Week.
This Prairie Life. 