Famous connections

My niece Emma is making her debut as a presenter on Play School on Tuesday morning. 9:30 ABC2. 

You can even read about her on the Play School website.

How exciting!!

Travelators, trolleys and children

A parenting dilemma: 

When we're at the shops, SP is in the trolley more often than not. He likes it, I like it, I don't have to remember to bring the pram, and we have room for lots of stuff. All good. 

Except that I noted a couple of months ago that one of the posted rules of travelators is 'no children riding in trolleys'. 

I've been ignoring the rule for a while, but my conscience is getting the better of me. So this afternoon, instead of putting SP back in the trolley for the walk from the kids playzone back to the car, I thought I'd obey the rule. 

This is where the problems start. If I am to hold onto the rail with one hand (another posted rule), and also hold my child's hand (yep, that's a rule too), how do I hold on to the trolley?

I guess its between my conscience and the very inconveniently placed lift. 

Am I a self-absorbed Mummy?

Just been reading this: 

http://www.essentialbaby.com.au/baby/baby-blog/are-you-a-self-absorbed-mummy-20110324-1c7bp.html

Actually, I think it should be child-absorbed, rather than self-absorbed. Apparently, not everyone wants to hear every little detail of every little accomplishment in my child's life. 

Oh well. I'm going to keep posting about the little details, uninteresting as they may be to others. You can choose whether to read about them or not :)

But if I start to get too child-absorbed in public, feel free to let me know. 

What we're reading: The Tale of Peter Rabbit

I first read this to SP a few days ago and he loves it! I'm a bit surprised that he's taken to it so much, as it's quite a bit longer than your average toddler picture book. I guess it wouldn't have been popular for so many years if it didn't have something special. The copy we're reading from was given to me when I was young, so it's a bit special in that way too.

It may be a bit wordy, but SP definitely has the basic plot down pat. He shakes his head vehemently when Peter goes under the gate into Mr McGregor's garden, and has taken to walking around the house pretending to sneeze and hop away, just like Peter when he hides in a watering can. Cute, but dribbly!

Here's some photos:

What we're reading: The Shaping of a Christian Family

After my Wolf Hall post, I've decided to blog about the books I'm reading for a while. Hopefully it will help me to distill my thoughts about them, and to finish some books that I've been meaning to for a while.

Today's book: The Shaping of a Christian Family, by Elisabeth Elliot.

I've intended to read some Elisabeth Elliot for a while and I picked this one up second hand, so it's become my introduction to her writing. I'll be reading more. 

The 'Christian Family' referred to in the title is Elliot's own family of origin, and substantial portions of the book are taken from her parent's diaries, detailing her life and upbringing. It seems like the perfect family to me. Old-fashioned, yes, but I like that sort of thing :) Life is orderly, routine, and manageable, the kids are well-behaved, hard working and considerate, everybody gets along with everybody else, and faith in Jesus is palpable and contagious. The kind of house I dream of having.

I don't agree with all the methods in the book, but I did find her mother Katherine's diaries to be particularly inspiring; there was some considerable hero-worship going on. I actually got quite a shock near the end of the book when a letter from Katherine to the adult Elisabeth read:

...I try to put into words my thankfulness to our Father for His good hand upon you over the years, for His faithfulness when I have been so faithless, ...  (emphasis mine)

Yikes! If she is faithless, what am I? Never fear, a few pages later...

Be not dismayed! If you are convinced of the value of standard here set forth, never think of the impossible. It is always possible to do the will of God. Begin to be ready to do. What do you want your home to be? What does God want it to be? Waste no time wondering if you can do it. The question is simply Will you? Your weakness is itself a potent claim on the divine mercy. (emphasis in original)

I think I may have that stuck on my mirror for some time. 

Photos

I promised my loved ones a photo update some time ago, intending to post quite a lot of photos and info from the last few months. But I don't think that's going to happen, so here's an update on the last couple of weeks.

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New Ticker

The observant among you will notice that the little picture at the top of the blog that tells you SP's current age has changed. The little sitting baby we had before didn't seem quite appropriate anymore. 

But the new one makes me realise that he'll be 2 in a few months time. Yikes!

Playgroup

Our church Playgroup started (or restarted) this morning! 

SP has been very excited, pointing to the calendar and signing 'play' for the last two weeks or so. And I think it lived up to his expectations - he had a great time. 

A few kinks to iron out, but overall it was a lot of fun for kids and mums. Bring on next Thursday!

Book Club - Wolf Hall

I read a few of the books that our church book club read last year, but haven't made it to a meeting yet. I'm planning to get there next weekend though - after 600+ pages, a bit of discussion is warranted, I think.

The book was Hilary Mantel's Wolf Hall - a novelisation of the life of Thomas Cromwell, who is a key player in the saga of Henry VIII's divorce of his first wife, Katherine, and marriage to Anne Boleyn. 

I enjoyed the book, and once I'd waded through the first 200 pages, the rest went quite quickly. My impressions are unfortunately clouded by a personal pet peeve: the title of the book has almost nothing to do with the book itself. The Seymours, who live at Wolf Hall, are characters in the book, but the story ends well before Jane Seymour becomes Henry's next wife. Maybe the author uses the title as a foreshadowing of the future. Whatever the reason, it left a bad taste in my mouth.

Other than that, it's a good read. The cast of characters list at the beginning is worth having, and I'm still confused about where a few of them fit, but the lives and characters of the main players are quite artfully revealed as the story progresses. I found it interesting to see the Catholic/Protestant debate from both sides, although actions, rather than doctrines, are the focus of the book. I think the following quote neatly captures the religious changes afoot at the time:

...he feels a force ready to break, as spring breaks from the dead tree. As the word of God spreads, the people's eyes are opened to new truths. Until now, ... they knew Noah and the Flood, but not St Paul. They could count over the sorrows of our Blessed Mother, and say how the damned are carried down to Hell. But they did not know the manifold miracles and sayings of Christ, nor the words and deeds of the apostles, simple men who, like the poor of London, pursued simple wordless trades. The story is much bigger than they ever thought it was. ... They have seen their religion painted on the walls of churches, or carved in stone, but now God's pen is poised, and he is ready to write his words in the books of their hearts.  (pp 515-516)

There's a sequel on the way, apparently. I doubt I'll go out of my way to get it, but if I see it on the shelf in the library, I'll probably pick it up.

Easter Calendar

We all enjoyed our Noel Calendar so much at Christmas that I'm working on one for easter. A story about Jesus and a picture to stick up for each of the 6 Sundays of Lent, then one each day from Monday-Sunday of Easter week. 

I'm pretty sure that most of the stories I want to cover will be in at least one of our kids bibles, but right now I'm considering reading them straight from the NIV (or maybe NIrV). There'll be a toddler-speak summary at the end, that we'll then repeat and add to each week/day until Easter. 

Too ambitious? 

Helpfulness vs 'helpfulness'

SP loves to be 'helpful', as I think most little kids do. But 'helpfulness' is not always helpful to whoever he's helping. 

Recently though, there are elements of his 'helpfulness' that are actually helpful! In the last few days, he's learnt to pull the dry socks & jocks off multi-peg-hanger that hangs off the clothes line and put them in the basket. Keeps him busy while I bring the other things in, and it's a whole category of clothing that I don't have to do myself anymore!

There are some slight issues when he 'helpfully' pulls off the wet things as I'm putting them out, but we're working on that :)

Long live helpfulness!

Church

SP loves church. He loves the music, the friends, the music, the toys, the music, the food, and especially the music :) Hopefully at some point he'll also love being at church to learn about Jesus and be with God's people. 

I love that he loves church. I like that he often talks (ie signs) about church (especially about the music!) during the week. 

I don't love that he had a HUGE tantrum this morning because we're not going to church today.

We've now looked at the calendar and talked about church days and non-church days. I think we might also make ourselves a book about church. Any other ideas?

Want a laugh?

I don't know where this is originally from, but I saw it on Facebook. Worth doing. 

1. Go to Google Maps and click on "Get Directions." 

2. Enter "USA" as your start point. 

3. Enter "Japan" as your destination. 

4. Go to the 31st point on your route. 

5. When you stop laughing, post this as your status so that others can laugh at it too..

First Guitar part 2

A guitar need not always be a guitar...

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Now to get him into bed without it... Or maybe not?

SP's first guitar

Thanks to clip art, cardboard, paddle pop sticks for stability, and 10 minutes on a Sunday afternoon. He's already frustrated that it's not strummable, but it's a start.

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Christmas Traditions

All December I've been planning to do a big post (or even a series - how many times have I promised one of those here?) on our Christmas decorations & traditions this year. I read Noel Piper's Treasuring God in Our Traditions recently and I may have gone a little overboard. But it's now Christmas Eve and naptime is nearly over, so I'll have to be relatively brief.

Little things we're doing to try to keep the Christ in Christmas:

• our Advent Calendar is a homemade version of the Noel Calendar from the above book. I had fun making the decorations and although SP doesn't always seem attentive, he can point to all the different nativity characters and sometimes points to a character moments BEFORE I get to that bit in the story. So it seems that he's taking it in. 

 December 6

• I made a gingerbread nativity at our gingerbread house making event at church last month. It didn't come out looking quite like the picture in my head (blame my icing skills for that) but I like that I tried.
• A new tradition I came up with: when we put up the Christmas Tree, Dave & I each took a little red slip of paper and wrote on it something that we're thankful for. We've added the date, paper-chained them together, with 'Thank you God for' as the first chain, and hope to add to them each year. 
• Our Christmas cards are attached to our entryway blinds with pegs that spell out 'Thank you God for family and friends'. Yes, I think this is where I went a little overboard. 

Probably the biggest decision we've made is not to do Santa in our family. I don't have anything against Santa (he treated me VERY well as a kid ;) ), but I like to put him in the same category as Thomas the Tank Engine or the Green Sheep, and not confuse him with anybody real. Being the people-pleaser that I am, I've wondered worried how to explain to others (and in time to SP) why Santa doesn't come to our house. But I realised at the markets yesterday what a great opportunity it presents...

Stall-holder: (to SP) Are you ready for Santa to come?
Me: Actually, we don't do Santa. We want him to know that Christmas is all about Jesus.

And from that, we had a discussion about God and what this guy thought about church. Brief, and clumsy on my part, but a conversation nonetheless. Which wouldn't have come about if we'd been looking forward to Santa.


And I almost forgot: the article that prompted me to finally write this post. A brief biography of the real St Nicholas, parts 1 and 2. . I'll be keeping this one for when SP is a bit older.

Merry Christmas!

Random ramblings

Apologies to anyone who's still reading this for the lack of posts recently, it's been a busy few months.

I had one of the nicest dad moments the other week at church. Standing chatting afterwards, I feel a thud against the back of my knees. SP had seen me from across the hall somewhere and run over to give me a cuddle, and as I looked down, he was looking back up with this enormous grin on his face.

Now to get all festive for a minute, I'd heard the end of this song a couple of times on the radio. It's a great a-capella Christmas medley
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbaRoNFBNcY

And getting back to my usual fare, I came across this amazing story yesterday. Not many adults get published in peer-reviewed journals, let alone a bunch of 8 year olds. That's right, 8 year olds.

C4K done for the year

 

Today was the last week of Church4Kids for 2010. We did a relay game as a review activity and it was encouraging to see the little kids remembering the words, titles and memory verses, and the big kids voluntarily checking their bibles when they were stuck on a clue.

Right now, I'm exhausted. Hopefully enthusiasm for next year's material will kick in soon.

My major stressor isn't the material though. It's leaders. Our oldest group could do with a 2nd leader so they can go and find their own space, and with more little ones being old enough for C4K next year, our littlest group will need a 2nd too. 6 leaders x 4 terms = 24 people per year. In a church of about 40 regular adults. Hmm...

Must trust God. Must trust God. Prayers appreciated. And volunteers ;)

First hairdressing

SP had his first official haircut yesterday (the few strands I snipped off a month ago don't really count...)


He watched, fascinated, while Daddy had his hair cut, then sat reasonably still to have his done.

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Lovely! 

Signing

I was at the computer this afternoon when SP left his toys and came over. He tapped me on the arm to get my attention and signed 'eat'. We went to get afternoon tea.

No crying, no whingeing, no misunderstanding. Just communication.

I love signing!