words

With four fingers pointing back at myself, the verse in Proverbs (10:19 to be exact) came to mind this morning after I perused the news headlines:

In the multitude of words, transgression in unavoidable, but he who restrains his lips is wise. (NASB)

Am I the only one not listening to a great crowd of our national leaders who think that a plethora of words completely void of action can even make a drop of difference? It reminds me of watching cartoons on mute. Or a puppet show where the puppeteers are merely practicing making their puppets mouths move without practicing the actual script.

Here's just another jolting reminder by way of someone else's missteps to watch myself...

pockets

Having acquired a small ziploc baggie of tiny special rocks (that I suspect came from the playground) from Priya, Sam asked if I would let him change into some shorts with pockets.

They should be safe until I wash them next week sometime.

responsible

Just for the record, I have nothing against public transportation, against those who use public transportation or any other public services for that matter. Lots of them turned out to be good citizens - better than I, including Mark. Perhaps I read too much national and world news and perhaps I fall into that group of suspicious, wary individuals who are always anticipating the worst,slathering on sunscreen in January before dressing in six layers, wearing chore gloves to the grocery store so as not to pick up germs or generally mingling in public with a surgery mask to avoid the current alleged epidemic. Perhaps, except I don't do any of those things.

But perhaps I mostly feel a great burden of responsibility to keep my children safe and under our care, as their parents.

I am quite certain that it must be the strangest oddity ever to nearly every one I talk to that my five-year old doesn't get on the bus at 7 a.m. to ride to school and back on at the end of the day to come back home 9 hours later.

"Won't that break up your day to have to drive her to school and back?"
" Well maybe later on in the year, she can ride the bus."

Due to the fact that I haven't completely formulated a stellar (polite) comeback and the people who keep asking are dear people to me, I've simply nodded so far and assure them that the 2-1/2 miles to town isn't far and doesn't inconvenience me much and we know no other kids who are on the bus.

That's a relatively small thing. Until the day when something happens during that hour in the morning and hour in the afternoon. Then there's no going back for a redo. The damage has been done. It might be just a word learned that doesn't fit in our vocabulary here at home. Or it might be something bigger. Something that requires counseling. Then the 12 minutes it takes me morning and the 12 minutes in the afternoon to drive into town to pick her up isn't such a big deal.

I am firmly of the opinion that Mark and I are responsible for the minds and hearts of our children. They were not accidents that I happened after a one-night stand or as a result of a poorly thought out illicit relationship. Their birthdays are not perfectly choreographed for the proper mental fortitude of their parents but their existences are not by-products. That also means that we are responsible for where we send our kids, who influences them and anything that goes on while they not under our watch.

Nobody would take three or four or five little chicks and pitch them outside to fend for themselves. Even the most polite dog would be tempted to do wrong. What would they know about finding shelter during a storm? How would they fight off an attacker? How would they know who to follow?

So the bus really is a big deal. It's just a piece of being responsible for our kids. It's not the church's job to teach them religion. It's not the school's job to make sure they are learning right. It's not the government's job to give them everything else. It's our job. The church can help. The school can assist with the learning. The government can be used for emergencies. But if we are not active in being responsible, we are expecting to put our full weight on a one or two-legged chair.

That's my story and I'm sticking by it.

first day

I resisted the suggestion to take the picture in front of the school since getting there before 7:45 a.m. when other children might be arriving would have been a trick in itself for us.

But our unpainted barn surely is a worthy substitute.

As of yesterday, her second day, she still claims it doesn't really seem like school but more like Vacation Bible School. What I can gather is she was expecting more academics so far. And she keeps asking if we can work on her workbooks at home in the evening.

I guess paying tuition wouldn't be the worst thing ever for something akin to VBS.

belittle

I wish to thank our current commander-in-chief and his administration for yet another unknowing lesson in child-rearing recently. Here's what I know:

Priya defines the opinionated child role perfectly. Unless she thinks what I am suggesting to her is a good idea, forget about getting any results or action out of her. My tendency to get her motivated is to place a few stipulations on behavior or certain action I wish or don't wish to see. "Stipulations" is such a nice clean-cut word because "threats" might better define what really occurs. On rare occasions, worse things happen that don't really cause any results either.

And I'm not sure smooth results are sliding from the current administration and his followers habit lately of calling those who disagree and their ideas, names. For sure, that'll get the dander up of anyone who is included in the dissenting. Then they rant and rave to their friends who might also see their point of view and start ranting and raving too. Besides we used to live in a democracy where the average citizen used to have a little hope in voicing their opinion without worrying about scary-looking government employees tracking them down and taking away their birthdays.

Anyway, my observation is boiled down to this: While I haven't come up with any other strategies that are fool-proof for getting her to do something if she is so inclined against it, I was reminded again by our President, of the insanity and foolishness of talking loud and belittling. I wonder if he tries these same lines to get his girls to pick up their dirty underwear and Barbie dolls.

fowl

See that small bird in the middle of the lawn that probably needs mowing and the hog house that definitely needs paint. She made history this week. Not anything that would even get covered in the Fulda Free Press, just with Priya and Sam.

Ever since the guy that sold us her and her five companions promised they would lay colored eggs, the kids have been waiting. The six plain brown ones we bought at the same time have been laying for two or three weeks - plain dark brown eggs.

I have even been wondering if perhaps we would need to put some chicken in the freezer for winter since the speckled pigeon-looking ones hadn't seemed to lay yet. But Priya came rushing in two days ago with two small greenish-blue eggs.

In other news also this week, this fine black specimen with the feathers on his legs is definitely a rooster. Since we haven't ever worked in the chicken hatching business and have no expertise in gender determination, we do the next best thing - wait for it to crow. He did this week. Although we've had our suspicious after observing some other roosterly activities earlier, the issue is now settled. This is his 3rd grade picture because he has grown about six more inches and developed most splendid plumes on his tail.


His duties in his current position as head and only rooster may not be as certain for a couple reasons. First being, my opinion, developed from several unfortunate instances in my younger years involving several fighting roosters and a jumping-from-the-rafter rooster. In fact I don't ever remember having a nice pleasant friendly rooster at all. Maybe they don't exist.

As the curator and main wage earner who has to buy the feed for worthless and worthwhile animals, Mark is always on the look-out for ways to trim costs and keep the stock mostly limited to critters who actually do something productive. This raven beauty (as seen above) is definitely on the "worthless" list alive, probably several places above the two rabbits and the kitten that live here.

This puts another twist on the phrase "better dead than alive" - as in warm steaming chicken noodle soup or aromatic roasted chicken on a Sunday noon.

Liberals never, ever drop a heinous idea; they just change the name. "Abortion" becomes "choice," "communist" becomes "progressive," "communist dictatorship" becomes "people's democratic republic" and "Nikita Khrushchev" becomes "Barack Obama." (Ann Coulter, September 3, 2009, Liberal Lies About National Health Care: Third in a Series )