Caleb's Amazing Skill

I know all kids have things they are just naturally good at, and before Caleb was born, I might have made a list of things like drawing or playing a particular sport or singing, but I would never have thought that cutting things with scissors could be what a child naturally had a knack for...until now:


Lately, Caleb has been very big into cutting out shapes, and having previously taught 1st grade, I was very impressed with he presented me with these:


But I was extremely amazed when he cut this out this morning:


He did ask me to cut around the bell, I'm not sure why he needed me to do that because he had no problem with the head!


He has even inspired Annalise, who I am sure has an amazing inborn ability all her own, but for now, she very much enjoys mimicking her big brother :)

Caught in the Act

While enjoying a popsicle on the front porch, the kids and I noticed a dark butterfly in our garden. It looked kind of like a monarch, but it just looked too dark to me, it turned out to be a queen butterfly like the caterpillars I posted pictures of a while back.

She seemed very intent on visiting our yard, even after Caleb chased her off, she flew back and lit on a milkweed plant I grew from a seed and planted in the front garden (the butterfly garden is in the backyard). I got the camera just in time to capture something I had been very curious about! This is how the butterflies put their eggs on the leaves:

I thought it was interesting how she curved her body so much to put the egg on the underneath - I have found a few eggs on top of the leaves, but most of the time they are on the bottom - I just couldn't figure out how they got them there!

We got a little better picture of her on a different plant, well a closer picture anyway:


And the proof is in the pudding - here is the egg!

Wordless Wednesday

A Proverb and "Just off the Nightstand" Collide!

When we visited the library last week, the requested collection of Robert Lewis Stevenson's short stories was there waiting for me. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is a novella. The introduction of the book warned the reader that fear is the natural response to reading the story and to expect to identify with Mr. Hyde the next time we faced temptation. It is a scary story, but I think it would have been a scarier story to someone who had no idea about who Mr. Hyde really was. It isn't revealed until the very end of the story that Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde are one and the same.

On the cover of the copy I was reading, there was a picture of a man's face with a line through it - one side was sane and respectable, the other was wild and fearsome, but that is not an accurate picture of the contrast between Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Dr. Jekyll is an older man, tall and pleasant to look at, whereas Mr. Hyde is small, dwarfish, much younger and frequently described as "not human". The contrast is also inward - ultimately Mr. Hyde is the physical representation of Dr. Jekyll giving in to temptations, which is why this book met up with my Proverb's study.

Last night's verse was 5:22

The evil deeds of a wicked man ensnare him;
the cords of his sin hold him fast.

As Mr. Hyde, Dr. Jekyll could live a fast paced, wild, dangerous life, but as returning to being Dr. Jekyll, he could completely hide from the consequences. But the consequences were still there. Each time he chose to be transformed into Hyde, he became a little less able to resist temptation and Hyde's lust for evil grew a little stronger. In his final statement, he admits:

Strange as my circumstances were, the terms of this debate are as old and commonplace as man; much the same inducements and alarms cast the die for any tempted and trembling sinner; and it fell out with me, as it falls with so vast a majority of my fellows, that I chose the better part and was found wanting in the strength to keep to it.

In time, the Hyde part of his personality became stronger than Dr. Jekyll and completely took over - before he could only become Hyde by drinking a potion, but in the end, he became Hyde every time his guard was down. Jekyll was forced to use up his antidote and, unable to find the right ingredients to make more, realized in the end that he would finally become Mr. Hyde for good.

Likewise, sin is capable of holding a man hostage...of making him a slave. Proverbs continually declares that life is a journey and the farther down the wrong path you go, the harder it is to get back to the right path. And the verse I quoted seems to suggest that there is a point where it is too late, too much time has passed pacifying the sinful desires and man is trapped down a pathway that leads to destruction...or is he?

So I find this law at work: When I want to do good, evil is right there with me. For in my inner being I delight in God's law; but I see another law at work in the members of my body, waging war against the law of my mind and making me a prisoner of the law of sin at work within my members. What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death? Thanks be to God—through Jesus Christ our Lord! So then, I myself in my mind am a slave to God's law, but in the sinful nature a slave to the law of sin. (Romans 7:21-25)

What a Deal!

When I mentioned we were going to drop some stuff off at Goodwill this afternoon, Rob asked me to look for a radio while we were there. While I was browsing the radios, the kids wiggled away to the toys (very nearby) and found this:
It was SIX DOLLARS.

Granted it is missing the doors, and the oven door, and one of the window frames, but otherwise in extremely good shape. I think this dollhouse is an old one, but comparable ones were at least $100 - the new ones came with a couple of dolls and a few pieces of furniture, but with a $94 difference, I'm not complaining!

The inside floors fold up and the sides fold in and it makes a tidy little house.

Annalise didn't know or care that they actually make dolls to go with this dollhouse, she went straight for the Little People and set up house :)

Love those chubby little hands!

She really (insistantly) wanted to cook in the tiny kitchen, so I gave her the lid of my sprinkle jar with a few pieces of dry oatmeal in it and a medicine cup with a few maccaroni noodles in it and let her go to town. She let them cook and then happily ate them.

Upon investigation, we discovered that although the dollhouse did not come with the same extras as a new one, it did have one little accessory. Wedged into the refrigerator was this tiny cola bottle, which was a very big hit!

And on top of it all, I found a radio that met Rob's description and he is very happy with it as well.

Funny Things Annalise is Saying These Days

1. Fas! - She says this whenever she sees someone going fast, and fast is a pretty relative word, as long as they are going faster than, oh say, standing still, they qualify for fast in her book ;) She also says it in almost the exact same way Caleb used to say "Tall".
2. Goom-goom! - I don't know what this means, but it is something awful. When she wants to reprimand/torment Caleb she will point at him and declare, "Goom-goom!".
3. Nay-no - This is Mako!
4. Pop-pop - Popcorn, Popsicles, and Powder - all clear contextually.
5. Mama, Dada, Cay-Cay, Ah-la-la-la - She likes to name off everyone in our family :)
6. See! See! - "Lemme have a look at that!"

This is just a short list. She can say almost anything she wants to, but these are things she says pretty often. I carried her around the house today pointing out things and asking what they were and she got at least the initial sound out correctly on everything but the microwave. Well, that and when she isn't sure what something is, she'll just tell you whose it is - Mama's (purse), Ah-la-la-la's (dress) - and she is almost always right! She is going to be great at sorting laundry!!

Just off the Nightstand: Old Yeller

Ok, so I know I said the next book I was reading was Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, but I requested it and the last time we were at the library it wasn't available yet, so I just grabbed Old Yeller.

Old Yeller was a movie I remember vividly from childhood. I just couldn't get over the ending. Maybe I was too young, but it seemed too much for me. The book is definitely a children's book -it is a much easier read than the Stevenson books- but it is just as tough to stomach as the movie. It is the best sort of coming-of-age book, no emotion distorting relationships - just a boy facing responsibility.

So I really don't have a lot to say about the book, except that I have never really liked Kevin Corcoran as a child actor. Every movie I ever saw him in he seemed completely over the top and just exhaustingly hyper. However, his style fits the character of Arliss to a T. It's like the book was written about him.

Interestingly, the actress who played the mother in Old Yeller also played the mother in Swiss Family Robinson...aaaaaaand the actor who played Travis (the older brother in Old Yeller) played one of the older brothers in Swiss Family Robinson...aaaand Kevin Corcoran played the youngest brother, which just seems weird to me! Are they Texans or are the Swiss? I just don't know! :)

Boomerang Express

This last week our church held Vacation Bible School.

Rob and I have volunteered in a variety of areas, but this was our first time to work in the snack bar. Rob was very honored to have such a vital job as making the VBS kool-aid. He compared it to roasting a Thanksgiving turkey.

Annalise spent most of the time playing kitchen in the nursery and charming the workers by helping clean up (rubbing things with a wipe, which is right up her alley.)

Caleb during his class's snack time. Sitting next to him in this picture is Mrs. Sugg (or Suggs, I have never been sure). She is probably the oldest member of our church at this point. She is a charter member and grew up in Key West. I'm sure Key West was very different back then! She loves the little children and volunteers in the church office every day during the week. She also loves butterflies and usually has a butterfly barrette in her hair.

Caleb heading into the chapel for the group worship time.

The theme was Boomerang Express, so it was an Australian theme. I think LifeWay has done a better job of merging theme and purpose with past VBS material. I didn't sit in on any of the classes, but the videos shown during the large group meeting were very disjointed. They showed two kids in Australia doing a bunch a silly things and then switched suddenly to a serious girl in Israel giving the lead in for the Bible story. The Australian theme didn't seem to fit in at all with the lessons.

Also I remember VBS being focused on scripture memory, whereas the last few years it seems to be about song learning. I felt like it was set up so that it was easy and fun for the kids to learn the songs, but almost impossible and incredibly dull to learn the key verse. I know it is hard to get kids excited about memorizing verses, but I think with a little creative thinking they might find a way to make it a little more attractive.

They had a competition between boys and girls to bring money for the children's home. There was no prize and they never said who won, but Annalise saw me giving change to Caleb and she really wanted some too, so I gave her a couple of pennies for her pocket dress (that's what we call the dress she's wearing here) and she was soooo pleased to participate :)

"I really really pledge allegiance..."

Last night as a finale, the kids performed their songs on stage for the parents.

Why is this so much cuter than I ever expected!?!?

Just off the Nightstand: Kidnapped

Another book from the kids' section, but this one I picked on purpose! Kidnapped by Robert Lewis Stevenson has been my latest read. Although I can kind of see why this is a juvenile book, I think kids must have been smarter a hundred years ago - I would not have understood this book when I was 12 or 15 or 18.

Kidnapped is the story of David Balfour who is a young man living in lowland Scotland. His parents have recently died and he travels to his uncle's home - at his father's specific request. All throughout there are hints of what the truth is, but it is obvious his uncle does not wish David well and arranges for him to be transported to the Carolina colonies to be sold as a slave.

An accident, an ambush, and a shipwreck land him back in Scotland (highland this time) and in the company of Alan Breck Stewart, who is sort of an outlaw. My whole knowledge of Scottish history until reading this was the movie Braveheart, so it left me very curious as to the history of all this. The various clans in the highlands all had their own cheifs, which were forced into exile or underground by the "red coats" who I took to be the British, but after reading Wikipedia, it was actually more complicated than that. Alan was a runner between a chief in exile in France and the people who had been in that chief's clan back in Scotland.

After Alan is accused of a high profile murder, Alan and David become fugitives in a race to cross the river into lowland Scotland where they can find safety. They are unified in their flight because David is accused of being an accessory to the murder. In all other ways they are pretty polar. Alan is a Catholic Jacobite Highlander, and David a protestant and a Whig. The story never actually clears Alan of the crime, but gives the reader an out to suspect someone else, however it is completely clear that David is innocent.

Interestingly, Alisa Beth posted a blog about the book Wicked that left me thinking about why the "good" characters in novels seem to be so flat. In Kidnapped, David is a good character, but he is not at all flat. His situation continually makes him confront his flaws - pride and anger. Plus the story is a journey, and I always think moving the action physically helps a storyline (personally I think that's what makes Finding Nemo so easy to watch).

As he did in The Black Arrow, Stevenson introduces characters who were real historical figures. I didn't like it in The Black Arrow - it felt forced, but it seemed very natural in Kidnapped. In fact the unsolved murder in the book is an actual historical mystery.

In short, it is a great book, which I am finding is typical of Robert Lewis Stevenson, which is why The Strange Case of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde is next on my "to read" list.

On Rob's Nightstand

To understand this post, you might want to check out Meredith's post from the 13th - it was my inspiration... so just in case you're wondering what a father of little kids/non-profit radio station manager keeps at his bedside table:

Wordless Wednesday

Another Proverb

Although I haven't written about it in...oh...about half a year, I'm still plodding through the book of Proverbs - verse by verse, and I have to say, I am so glad I've been doing this. Even though the first few chapters are pretty repetative, I think that skimming the book would not hammer in so clearly the message that it presents. It is a father telling his son how to live - what could be more appropriate for me at this time in my life?

Life is described as a journey, or more specifically (at least in the NIV) a path. So the verse I am spotlighting here is Proverbs 5:6

She gives no thought to the way of life;
her paths are crooked, but she knows it not.

"She" is an adultress (who makes me think so much of the wolf in Red Riding Hood who had "such charming manners"*) - lips that drip honey, speech smooth as silk, but in the end..."bitter as gall" "a double edged sword". This lesson is to teach two things - to not be naive and to emphasize the danger of straying from the path that leads to life.

And then verse 6 - she doesn't even think about what she is doing - she doesn't even realize she is on a path. She does not see it is leading to death, she does not consider that her life could be anything different. In short, she isn't thinking ahead.

It became personal to me because I see our day (mine and the kids) as being a sort of journey (a journey to bedtime! ha!). Our day has become increasingly filled with routines. It wasn't even really intentional, but it makes life easier for me and I think the kids like knowing what's going on. I think, based on this verse, routine is a vehicle for change in our lives. I wanted the kids to eat more fruit, so I deemed 3pm as "Fruit Snack Time". And that kind of routine is good - and is obviously accomplishing a goal. So I consider if I allow bad habits to become part of our "routine" am I setting off down a path...pursuing an objective...a goal - without even realizing it? It really makes me want to rethink my whole day - even after their bedtime.

Cowpokes

Cow Appreciation Day 2009 has come and gone! But even if you missed it, you can live vicariously through our photos :)

A family portrait:


Pre-cow day preparation.

Annalise didn't wear her mask for long, but she did "moo" a lot :)

What did the bored cow say when she got up in the morning?
"It's just an udder day"

Why don't cows have any money?
Because farmers milk them dry.

What do call a cow that has just had a calf?
Decalfenated

Annalise enjoying her free chicken and her kid's meal toy.

We got to spin a wheel to win prizes; this is Caleb's prize - actually his very first encounter with a Pez dispenser.

Caleb modeling the tail - I forgot to get a picture of them when we were all dressed up. He actually painted all the spots on our tails and cut out all the spots for his shirt and shorts. He is really good at following directions! :)

Conversation with Caleb

Caleb's constant stream of questions would probably be a good interrogation technique. I guess all little kids are like that. I really want to try to answer most of his questions, but sometimes they are so many, so hard to answer, and so not what I am think of at that time that it wears me down! So much that sometimes he tosses me an easy one and I fumble.

Last night he asked, "Mommy, why do people live in houses?"

"Err...well...some live in tents...and...apartm..." I stammered.

"It's criminals," he declared, "people live in houses so criminals won't get them."

I didn't dare tell him at this point that there is such a thing as a break in, so I changed direction, "Well Caleb, people also live in houses because of weather, what does rain fall on?"

"Houses!"

"And what would it fall on if we had no houses?"

"It would fall on people! That would be FUN!"

I love three :)

Wordless Wednesday

Thinking about the Moon

Besides being our nation's 233rd birthday, this weekend also marked the 40th anniversary of the moon landing. Rob and I watched a program on NASA TV that was made in the years following the event and it was very interesting. They showed experiments that NASA did to figure out how to build the astronauts' suits and then shows the women sewing the suits together. They also played the voices of people responding to the moon landing. Some of the people were amazed, others were appalled at the cost. Some felt it was man's duty to explore the moon, others were concerned we had overstepped our boundaries.

The whole thing left me with two things to think about:

One quote that stuck out to me was from the narrator. He was describing a typical day of an astronaut en route to the moon and talked about how they had 8 hours for scheduled sleep. Then he said, "Time to work, time to rest, time to reflect." And it struck me that people's lives aren't really like that any more. It's more: time to work, time to rest, time to play...and not that play doesn't have its own value, but if reflection has been shut out at entertainment's expense, I don't think the exchange has been a fair one.

The second thought was inspired by a series of clips played to contrast the earth and the moon - the moon "silent, empty, and dusty" (to quote Caleb's picture book about the moon) and the earth - noisy, full, and wet! Some of the earth clips showed the planet has a whole or space views of mountains and deltas, while others showed cells, insects, animals, and people. I don't know if the point was intentional, but it really highlighted the contrast between big and little. Is it more impressive that the universe is so big? Or that the human body seems so infinitely complex? Which is actually the greater frontier?

Personally, I feel overwhelmed when I think of the great night sky going on and on and on and us being such a speck by comparison. I think that's why the caterpillars have been so fascinating to me this year. I like that as small as they are, they have so much detail and how they change so completely. I want to ask the question, if the universe is so big, why is it even important that butterflies be beautiful?



This is the butterfly we released on Friday - flying away.

20 Questions

...asked by Caleb:

1. What do guts look like?
2. Do you want to go to the tooth factory?
3. What do pirates do to babies?
4. Are butterflies tired of sitting out in the sun?
5. Is there snow on the ground in Arkansas right now?
6. What did the puffer fish say when he ate that grody thing?
7. Does God want us to stay inside the house when it rains?
8. Are I almost getting big?
9. Why do fish live in the ocean?
10. Do boys get married?
11. Why did Tyler and Danielle and Kotomi and TJ ride an airplane?
12. Can I use a Sharpie?
13. Do alligators eat people?
14. Why are I itchy?
15. Where are butterflies' teeth?
16. Do some dogs like to eat birds?
17. Do I have small lips?
18. Was your tummy big in old times?
19. Is there meat on people?
20. What eats cars?

Butterfly Success!

As it turns out some wild caterpillars actually do turn into beautiful butterflies!

Here is the chrysalis (of the caterpillar I posted a picture of with the visible silk button) earlier this week:

Here is the butterfly today!

It looks just as a butterfly should. We plan to let it go tomorrow - and it can hardly wait, it did its best to escape while I took its picture!

Crayon Peeler

Caleb also, at this age, was an avid crayon peeler.