God and Santa Claus

Today during Bible time we read the story of God sending manna to the Israelites in the wilderness. This led to a discussion of contentment... "Do we need more cars?" I asked Cooper. "Yes!" he replied. I responded with, "No, we have enough. We need to be content with what we have." Because I am a people pleaser not wanting my children to be disappointed, I did add that we do get presents sometimes and that is nice, but we have everything we need. Cooper piped up, to the best of my memory, with "Yes, at Christmas God makes the presents and Santa Claus wraps them and then goes and gets in his helicopter and brings them to us and we open them up and we like them."

Hmmm... I guess we need to keep having Bible time.

(a sidenote: Cooper has really only ever seen Santa Claus at our squadron Christmas parties, where he always arrives in a Search and Rescue helicopter. Sorry, Rudolph, I'm not positive Cooper even knows your name.)

Journey to Manhood

9/23/08 - I have come to the realization recently that I coddle Cooper too much. More often, I need to tell him to "buck up". It's fun to have a little boy dependent on me... but it's my job to train him to be a Godly man one day.

Cooper is a funny mix of small-boy-needing-the-comfort-of-his-mother and tough-guy-ready-to-be-a-man. Today he rode his scooter for a hilly mile to the park. He fell once and cried like a, well, a small-boy-needing-the-comfort-of-his-mother. A couple minutes later and a couple hundred yards farther, he raced along after his sister yelling in his tough-guy-ready-to-be-a-man voice, "I am speed!"

Little boys are fun.

Industry

I started filling out my blog profile this evening. The "Industry" choice was so funny! Mom and homemaker aren't choices, but I was determined to pick something: Am I in the arts? Well, today, no... but the fisherman, the snowman, the snowflake, the airplane and the rocketship I painted on the children's feet yesterday all came off in the bath today (thankfully the children remembered that this happens now. The first time, they freaked and thought there were crazy monster bugs floating in the bathtub!). Am I in accounting? I try to be on Thursday during "rest time"... that's budget and the "big nasty" which is the drawer of bills and correspondence to be gotten to. Chemicals? Yes, I'm very familiar with chemicals; ibuprofen, tylenol, benadryl, neosporin, aloe vera. Though I majored in chemistry in college, the main chemical reactions I study currently are between Oxy Clean and blackberry stains. The reaction is quite remarkable, the purple turns black and then is gone! I am still doing research to find what will remove watermelon stains. I do know that Grease Lightening is swell on Eric's oil and grease-stained work pants after a day working on the Jeep.

Am I in Construction? Am I ever in construction... you should see the towers I can create out of oyster crackers, let alone our colored blocks.

I am the chief consultant in the house. Or I must be. I am expected to provide answers to all manners of questions.... how airplanes, helicopters and buildings are made, what an astronaut does after he goes to the moon, and where he keeps the tools he needs to fix the engine of his space ship. And those were just this weeks' questions.

I think perhaps this week Law Enforcement/ Security would be the best pick.

Noodles

I learned two things today. First, don't let your two-year old sweep up after dinner when there are Ramen noodles on the floor (what a smeary mess). Second, when your four-year old throws Ramen noodles at your two-year old, the two year old will pick them up off the floor and eat them (much to the four-year old's delight).

Fall

Fall arrived today. The temperature is the same and my clothes are the same, but the sunlight is different somehow; the air is a bit crisper. The view to the mountains is the clearest I've seen and there is a feel of excitement and expectation in the air. We've begun our year of homeschooling and it's going great! It just feels right, and I am much relieved.

Caleb turned two on Saturday and got his own two-wheeled scooter. How I, Kristen, ended up with a toddler who can handle a two-wheeled scooter is beyond me. I hope this doesn't mean he's going to take after his Uncle Jason, or I'm in for it. Jason is the one who made me scared to mother an Anderson boy.