Warning: Cute Videos of Grandchildren

What I wonder is: How's his kindergarten teacher going to handle him this year?

Here's a conversation between Zaya, who is five, and Mim, who will turn four this month.

The Last Lazy Days of Summer

Art and Carina are taking two days of real vacation at the lake. I'm keeping the kiddos. They are industrious and leave little time for computer blogging...right now, however, Mim is watching a veggie tale movie and Zaya is playing on the wii--Super Paper Mario.

Yesterday, we set up the shark pool.....It was great for exercise, most of which consisted of running back and forth to turn the water hose/sprinkler up or down. Here, Zaya is holding his hand over the sprinkler part, getting ready to release the spray all over Mim.

After that, they rested on the warm porch chair. Zaya was all worn out from pretending to be a sea sponge and eating marine snow and from being a sea slug, which "doesn't leave a slime trail like other slugs." He was also--very briefly--a dung beetle, rolling its ball of dung ahead of him while he crawled on the grass. Not long after this I found him asleep in his sleeping bag in the guest room. He was probably pretending to be a mole.














Mim doesn't nap. She spent this time turning my living room into a block city and putting stickers into a Victorian Dollhouse Book. Of course this had to be a joint effort, as the stickers were amazingly detailed. I detached the stickers while she looked at the model picture and told me which room they fit. Turtle even got involved in this while I was busy. He was able to finish the attic stickers. Then it was on to drawing on the light board and getting out the little china for a tea party. I looked at the floor and told Mim she was a little messer. She told me I was a messer too, so we got into an argument over who was the biggest messer. It's still going on this morning.

Zaya slept on until Clay and I had to wake him for our exercise at the gym. I thought both children would get bored quickly there, but they entered into the program with glee, exercising on every machine that was small enough for them, jumping on the mini trampoline, and rejoicing in the fact that they were really "getting in shape."

It rained in the afternoon. Zaya stood and watched it from the window. He assured me that the rain was coming from nimbostratus clouds. I asked him how he knew and he told me that the rain was misty and there wasn't any lightening or thunder so I shouldn't worry.

They were both up this morning at seven, because I had put them to bed at 8:30. (They didn't exactly go to sleep at 8:30, but I'm not saying how long it took because Carina just might read this.) Zaya told me he saw a crack of light coming in his window so he was able to use his sense of sight to know it was morning. Mim used her sense of hearing; grandpa's obnoxiously loud cell phone alarm works anywhere in the house.

Anyway, we made cinnamon rolls for breakfast. I tried eggs first, but they only ate the white...with a little salt. Cinnamon rolls are more fun anyway. I cautioned Zaya to stay away from the hot stove, and he told me: "if I were Lava Spikit the heat wouldn't hurt me. I would just harness its energy and use it for power." I told him that he was not lava Spikit right now so he should still move away from the stove. He did; they are both very obedient.


When the cinnamon rolls came out of the oven, Zaya remarked: "Wow! they sure have changed a lot." Mim immediately instructed him that it was "irreversable change" and he would not be able to change them back. "I know," he said, and popped one into his mouth.

Well, Mim is bored with the video now and Zaya's batteries have run out so this calls for me to finish in a hurry. After this, I may need a vacation at the lake myself.

Where's Waldo?

We took a trip for a church conference and spent four days in Kansas City.
Every day, at least once, we traveled across the Missouri River or across Stateline street and spent some time in Missouri, but at night, we stayed at a hotel in Kansas. The first part of the convention was for pastors and their families.



It was good...inspiring and well planned, classes in the morning and free afternoons, so that the pastors could use part of the convention for a family vacation. My only complaint is that I over-ate...the food was too good and they fed us too frequently. My lack of self-control, however, can't be blamed on the convention.

Here are some pictures of interesting places we visited. The most fascinating was the riverboat Arabia, excavated and brought up from the Missouri in 1988. It was crammed with supplies for households up river--dishes, clothes, tools, buttons, beads, perfumes. They have a web site that shows much more than I did.

One day we accompanied a group to a wild ride/theme park. We didn't do the wild rides--my stomach likes to stay attached and upright, thank you--but we got in a good walk, had our cartoon picture made, and rode the river ride on a pleasant, cool day.









The second part of the convention was broader and geared for the entire church...well, really geared for the younger set of the entire church. We discussed church plants and trends, some of which are depressing...and I did so much want to be encouraged. Oh well. We visited the center of town, where two young couples are involved in founding a church among the yuppies who are moving back to the inner city and reclaiming it. There are 20,000 people in their field, and very few churches. That district of the city is called Waldo, so the theme of the convention was: "Where's Waldo"?

So Where Did all This Stuff Come From?

Do elementary school teachers ever throw anything away? My guess is "no".

Today I went with Elijah to see his new classroom. He wanted to set up an instrument area for all kinds of instruments to show his elementary music students, so we took a trunk full of them. We also took a chess board and a box full of music books. We thought we'd whiz in there, settle the instruments and books into the closets, meet a few people, eat lunch, and come back home. Well we thought...

The room was spacious and fairly new. It had one window with a great view out over the empty prairie. It also had a file cabinet, a wall of new, short cabinets, a built-in coat closet, dilapidated metal closet, five tables, 16 chairs, a piano, with a crooked leg and two little white statues on top (Beethoven and Haydn, I think) a teacher's desk and three old, brown, broken-down desk chairs on wheels. Every shelf of every closet...every drawer of the file cabinet...the tops of the closets and cabinets--they were all full.

There was bulletin board stuff, music and more music, construction paper, poster board, old tapes, cd's, dvd's, and even records. The biggest headache, though, occupied the only real closet in the room...you know, the lockable one where the teacher is supposed to hang his coat and store his lunch? It was popping out and running over with costumes for musicals--pirate stuff, stacked sets of hats--all kinds, swords, glitter wands and feather masks, Groucho Marx glasses, pilgrim outfits, angel wings, nutcrackers, wigs, boots, and jester bells. We didn't know where to begin, because there was no place for any of the stuff he had brought.

Before we despaired completely, however, another teacher came to his rescue and showed us a storage room where the teachers keep all their leftover junk. We moved a few labeled boxes in there and grabbed more furniture. (She said anything that didn't have a name and 'keep your hands off sign' on it was free to whatever teacher saw it first.) No, we didn't find anything so grand as a book case, but we found a sturdy upright cabinet with doors and a partially empty file cabinet. We moved all the costume stuff into the old upright metal cabinet and were able to find room for Elijah's stuff in the real closet. We relocated the books and teaching supplies he thought he would use--and there were many of those--into the new cabinet. We sorted stuff into the drawers of the empty file cabinet--games, baskets, tapes, cds, mementos of choir contests and programs. Then we carried some of the tables and the three dilapidated chairs back to the store room. He brought a black computer chair from his apartment; it looks much more manly.

Elijah has great ideas about teaching and setting up a stage area for the instruments. I think it's going to be a good room after all...if someone will just help him make some bulletin boards...

We Sang Far Too Late Into the Night

I'm a morning person.
Usually, I'm awake at 5:30 and have to make myself stay in bed until six. . . even in the summer.
Well, lately, I've been getting to bed later and later. Does that make me sleep longer?
Unfortunately, it doesn't. It could be that the early morning coffee calls to me. I don't know. Morning people are like that. They just wake up.

My oldest sister and her husband are here visiting from North Carolina. That's too far away. We only see them about every three years, so of course we have to visit non-stop while they are here. The kids and grandkids were over yesterday evening for the arrival of these far-flung relatives, and Zaya and Mim had a great time playing with the "weasel" their great aunt and great uncle had brought for them. They even posed for pictures. Then we went for a short evening stroll, and last night, my sister brought out some beautiful songs she had written so Elijah could help her with the computer transcription.

We sang...far too late into the night.

Still...I'm up.

Sooner or later I'm going to have to take a nap.

CLEP Tests

A lot of college students don't know about CLEP tests, or they are highly suspicious of them and fear that they will fail, or that they won't count, or many such things.
Well, here's my advice: Take all the CLEP tests you can take. If the school allows 30 hours...take 30 hours.

Yes, they cost money. But they only cost one fourth the money it would take you to actually take the class.

Yes, they take a few hours of study; But taking the class--the homework, the notes, the tests--that takes a lot longer.

No, you don't get a grade for them. It's just pass/fail. But if you pass by the skin of your teeth, who will know it? You don't have to take the class. You still get the credit. It's great.

There is a large book, put out by the CLEP test people, which has reviews for all the tests. My advice is that you take the sample test, grade it, and see how you do. If you pass easily, you will pass the real test. If you are close, I recommend subscribing to this website. InstantCert.
This site has an easy system of flashcard study that fully prepares you for tests in almost every one of the subjects.

It costs 20 dollars a month, so don't subscribe until you are ready to study, and be sure you unsubscribe after you pass all the tests you had time for. I've been subscribing every summer for the last five years so Elijah could study for the CLEP tests he needed to take that semester. Today...tada! Elijah passed his last one...a calculus test. He now has 173 hours on his transcript; 33 of those are CLEP. He never had to take a test twice. It ended up costing around 650 dollars for the tests. The equivalent in tuition for classes would have cost $4,110 plus all the textbooks. Besides, it may have taken another semester of school to meet all those requirements.

In a week, when summer session is over, Elijah will be able to pick up his diploma, apply for his teaching certificate, and begin his new job--teaching 3rd, 4th, and 5th graders vocal music.
Ah. His parents sigh.

Road Trip

So we went to Texas to see my parents and a couple of my siblings as well. I took my daughter along and her two joyful offspring. We made quite a day of it.

On the way there, I took a picture of this little farm shed beside the road. I've long admired it, but had not taken the time to ask for its autograph. This time, I took the exit from the interstate that would allow me to park on the feeder road right beside it. You have to admit it is an intriguing way to paint a house.


That afternoon, we visited the park downtown. Mim and Zaya call it Castle Park...and they insist upon seeing it every time we travel in that direction. I'm sure you can tell why. All it needs are weapons, cloth flags flapping, and the smell of large sides of beef roasting in the open courtyard...well maybe a jester or two.



And of course we had to go see the garden. "Great Grandpa/Grandpa/Dad" showed us row upon row of melons, turnips, okra, corn, radishes, lettuce, and a very alien-looking plant called col-rabi. We tasted it later and decided that the texture was like a raw turnip, but the taste was milder...more like a jicama. With a little lime juice it was tasty. We drove around the pasture and looked at two new, black, baby calves.



Back at home that evening, Mim used a large sycamore leaf to make a "gravel taco" in our driveway. She offered it to me for supper, but I was still too stuffed from eating all the wonderful food at Mom's house.

It was a good day...a great day.

Summer's Almost Over

So before that day arrives--the day when you have to get back into the routine and pick up the heavy textbooks...or lesson plan books (which can be heavy too)...I suggest you go to the lake. Pick a day when not too many people are around...and that's easy to do now that a lot of summer is over. Find a little lake. Sit and look at the water. Splash. Row a boat. Watch the ducks. Fish.



Or, you can do like I did and take a few pictures before sauntering back to the welcome air-conditioning of the cabin.

Perseverance

Now what is that?
Over there by the hand-painted handicapped sign?
It's a weed, I think, growing in a crack.
How dare it?
How could it?
The last two weeks have been 'death to all plants'.
Grass is giving up the fight and browning in great waves.
Plants I coddle and cool with sprinklers are pouting--wilting in surrender.
Yet this little weed is growing in an asphalt crack.
On the parking lot.
All day.
In the sun.
So. . . well. . .
I carried him a cup of water.
Don't tell.

Why Moms Worry

Our mortal children--especially when they gain their independence and begin to look with pity on their aging, fearful, superstitious parents--like Icarus, fly much too near the sun. The agony lies in seeing where they are flying, begging them to stop and think, and being humored with affectionate banter but no changing of direction.

This was brought home to me very vividly this week when my cousin went through what no parent should ever have to face...waiting up until 1:30 for a daughter who had gone out with some friends, promising to be home early; getting an unresponsive phone; finally calling the trauma center and being told accident victims were there; finding their daughter badly wounded, bleeding, in pain...but at least alive; and then learning what had happened.

She hadn't known the driver before that night. From the back seat of the vehicle she begged him to slow down, but he sped to 75 miles an hour on an isolated dirt road, then hit an embankment. The police report shows that the car was airborne for 60 feet then turned end over end six times before it came to rest. The driver was injured badly. She was conscious but in a lot of pain. Fortunately, the third rider was ejected and uninjured. He called 911, but it took the authorities a long time to find the accident site. They finally were able to trace the cell phone call. The injured young lady, Ren, tried to call home, but her phone died. As she was being transported by helicopter, and in the trauma center, she asked people to get in touch with her parents and her twin sister, who would be worried. Nobody did. They had to come find her--on a table, broken and bleeding.

So there they all sit in the trauma unit. Broken jaw, missing teeth, injured face, torn spleen, broken vertebra, broken ribs, swollen body, lots of pain. Dad can't fix it this time. Mom can't smile and kiss it away. And all the loving in the world can't bring back that innocent little "aw, don't worry, Mom, I'll be ok" attitude she walked out of the house with.

The hardest lessons are those that cost.
That's why moms worry.

13 Itching Solutions for Poison Ivy

I've been conducting an experiment over the last two weeks...well, out of sheer frustration and necessity.

Let's just suppose that you are itching...badly...with poison ivy around your neck like some great, glowing, growing Egyptian collar, and let's suppose that you were also wearing it like greaves on your shins and like bangles and polka-dots up your arms. In that case, the itching would drive you to this same experiment. Here's what I found:

1. Scratching. This relieves the itching for a few minutes, but makes ugly scars all over your body and causes infections to begin in the middle of the rash areas. (not recommended)

2. Cortisone cream (prescribed by the doctor for the initial outbreak on the shin) This works for about five minutes. Then everything starts itching again, only worse. (A lovely little side effect of this cream is that it thickens the skin it sooths, so I now have a scar-thick buffer on my right shin...the better for playing soccer, I guess.)

3. Ice packs (prescribed by the doctor for the ivy necklace) This works as long as you are keeping it cold and holding it on the neck...i.e. in bed. It looks rather silly to wear to social events...like weddings.

4. Adhesive tape (suggested by the receptionist at the doctor's office.) I didn't try it because I would have looked like a chicken or a mummy, depending on how the tape was anchored. Besides, I was afraid that infection under the tape would not be a good thing.

5. Baby powder. This helps for a few minutes. I keep it by my bed for during the night agony. It has the added advantage of smelling good and not being greasy.

6. Sea salt mixed with baby oil. This stings badly, but that feels better than the itch. It works for a few hours and dries out the initial blisters but doesn't heal anything.

7. Dermoplast in a spray bottle. I applied this at the zoo and the science museum. All that day, it kept my neck from itching as long as I sprayed it on every couple of hours. However all the funny looks I got in the restroom as I kept anointing myself required a lot of explanations, and the blouse I was wearing is probably ruined from the greasy spray. When I got home, my neck was not only itching like crazy, but it looked like it had suffered a second degree burn. I tried it again, and it didn't help. Maybe it only helped because I was having my mind distracted by the great outing with my Grandchildren.

8. Benadryl gel. This helps until it evaporates.

9. Benadryl tablet. This helps because it knocks you out and you sleep all day and all night. (not recommended for anyone who has anything to do.) Unfortunately, you still wake up between hour-long snoozes...and the itching is still there!

10. Zanfel--this is an expensive over-the counter cream. It stopped the itching for about six hours. I've reapplied it twice, and, according to all I've read, may have to keep it up for several days because mine was a systemic reaction. Next time I get poison ivy, I plan to try this first and not have to spend the money for doctor visits.

11. Prednisone shot and pills. This doesn't relieve any itching for at least a day, but it does help over-all. Eventually, it soothes the reaction. However, it has the nasty side-effect of making you gain weight...great--new fat for the poison ivy to spread to!

12. Aloe and oatmeal poultice--this one was recommended to me but I haven't actually tried it. (mainly because I'm doing better now, but if I revert to the acute stage, you can bet I'm going to go buy some)

13. Baby oil--this doesn't work for the poison ivy itch, but it sure helps the dry skin itch that comes with the healing process.

And with all that said...I think it's time for another shower and treatment with Zanfel. I'm about to start clawing.

Oklahoma Science Museum

Well, it was quite a wonderful day for the kids, and even pleasant for Carina and I.
We were determined to visit the zoo for a little while, at least, because we had free tickets from donating blood and you just can't let something like that pass, can you? So we met my sister, brother-in-law, and niece for a pleasant little stroll in the aquarium and around by the meerkats and young lions. We were able to tolerate the heat, with the help of the zoo sprinklers, until an early lunch. Then we parted ways and headed with the grandchildren over to the science museum, where they could have stayed until midnight.

The Science Museum is a child's dream world, with so much for young explorers to do. They almost immediately get into the spirit of adventure: building chutes; cutting paper cups and seeing which ones fly to the top; yelling into echo tubes and close to a sound-sensitive light-up tree; exploring giant teeth, tide pools, mirror mazes and earthquake platforms; building with blocks; and playing with magnetic sand. A large toy train exhibit runs continually, and nearby sits a real, beautifully restored Pullman train car. Of course there are all kinds of scientific experiments--some easy to explain to a five year old, others not so easy. The grandkids ran from one area to another--stopping shadows, setting off hot air balloon replicas, sending toys up rope pulley buckets in a giant tree house. We could hardly keep up with them. Finally, at three, we headed for home.
The were asleep before we had traveled the five minutes to McDonalds.
As we neared home the temperature rose higher and higher...reaching 112 degrees by the time we arrived...not really a day for playing out of doors. Look at these faces though. See.
It was worth the trip.

Blessings

Urushiol

I've been researching. It's a poison. It may last five years on the handle of a rake or in a pile of firewood. When you touch it, it makes blisters and an itchy, red, rash. It's driving me crazy. Never fear though, Turtle, the mighty defender, has rounded up the poison ivy and--hopefully--ended it's reign of terror on the front gate. I stayed inside, not trusting the air which carries such lethal stuff as urushiol(sounds a little like a fallen archangel). And yet... I'm much too self absorbed right now because the stuff has flared up on my neck and hands. Did I get re-infected, breathe in some of the toxic stuff? I've tried benadryl, which makes me groggy and grouchier, but doesn't stop the itch. Ach! Nothing helps more than a few minutes...except sea salt, which I rub into the red patches. For a few minutes they burn brilliantly, then...peace...no itching, no burning. It lasts a couple of hours anyway and brings more relief than the prescription cream. Anybody out there have any more ideas.

They Warned Me About Those Steroids...

...and after four days of them, I can say I'm beginning to see what they mean.
I know, I know, they're just supposed to clear that poison ivy patch on my shin, and I'm beginning to see some improvement there, but I'm also seeing a side effect. Let me explain.

This morning when I visited the bathroom by the laundry, I noticed that the toilet needed cleaning. So I found the bowl cleaner and cleaned all the toilets in the house. Upon cleaning them, I noticed that the corners of the bathroom floors looked dirty, because of a lamentable buildup of "mop and glow". There was nothing to do but get a bottle of ammonia and scrub the bathroom floors. In the back bathroom floor, as I was scraping the corners, I became more and more dissatisfied with the condition of the quarter round and molding. It looked terrible.

Well, I have white paint. So I painted the quarter round, molding, sideboard, top round, window sill, sink cabinet...and around the corner to the molding in the laundry room...doors, sills, same story. I pulled out the washer and dryer even, painting behind them, cleaning the floors about five times with the ammonia, then breaking out a new bottle of "mop and glow". About this time it dawned on me that it was three o'clock and I hadn't eaten or rested and my heart was just pounding...but the floor shone. See. That's the danger of prednisone. It makes you feel so good you want to work yourself to death. So I'm making myself relax and enjoy a bit of computer time. It's raining, but I'm too hyped for a nap.

Besides, it's the fourth of July, and I'm enjoying the holiday.

The Market Place

We have ten shops in the marketplace. The families visit two each night. Of course everybody's favorite is the bakery, because we smell those whole-wheat rolls cooking throughout the evening, and at the end of VBS each family gathers around their table lamp and eats the bread and drinks cold water drawn from our marketplace well. We also have a carpenter's shop where the children learn to use hand tools and stain a cross, a jewelry shop for making bullas with a hidden symbol inside. There is a scribe who teaches them to write in Greek, a grammaticus school for learning Roman numerals and how to use the abacus. (Is the plural abacci?)They make leather wrist bands in the leather shop, paint a top in the toy shop, make mosaic tiles in the clay shop, and sample simple Roman-type foods in the food market. In the weapons shop they explore a miniature Roman fort and see the might of the Roman army, observing little models of actual siege weapons. Every evening there is also a skit in the market place. Tonight a bread thief was almost arrested, but the owner refused to press charges and forgave him. Here are a few pictures.