Daddy Kitten and Momma Kitten Got Married

The lesson didn't go well at all. The kids were lost at point 2, no matter how hard I tried to boil it down for them. The only thing helpful from the curriculum was a list of new words for the kids to learn. Words like camel, spring, and jug. By the end of class the kids could care less about Isaac scoring a wife and were more interested in drawing pictures of jugs on the heads of camels. Points to both of the kids for not remaining within the constraints of the provided illustrations, that is, Rebekah with a jug on her head walking towards a well. They made an altogether modern and progressive conclusion that the best means of carrying water would be to get the jugs off the ladies heads, kick the guy off the camel, and throw the jugs on the camel's back. Isabelle and Josiah are such radicals.

Also props to Josiah for becoming a regular bathroom wizard. The guy can announce he has to pee and have emptied his bladder in about 20 seconds flat. We're talking announcement, race to the bathroom, pants down, commence urination, pulls up pants, and flush in about 20 seconds flat. He also does this without turning on the bahtroom light. Peeing in the dark is something I'm not even good at. This kid is well on his way to manhood.

I'm way off subject now. So after church I'm chatting with Nancy and I think I uttered some anathema. Nancy said that the point of the lesson is to teach childred about the Covenant. Upon futher analysis we might have eventually meant the same thing, but I then said a 2 year old can't even say Covenant nonetheless understand such a lofty subject. The conversation kindof ended right there.

I would agree though that the point of teaching your children the many stories from the Bible is to know Christ and His love and faithfulness to us, that relationship being termed "the Covenant." But to me it seems the authors of the curriculum are imbibing a far to loofty and seminarian-esque engagement of the idea without thinking about the simplicity of the Bible stories laying the foundation for an understanding of that concept later in life. That's just my concern, that's all.

Isabelle though has a grasp of some abstract ideas, and in this past lesson it was the importance of marriage. Now, that importance started extending to all sorts of weird things, like lizards and Ender and her momma kitten and daddy kitten having baby kittens. I think she started rattling off a complex geneology for her kitten clan at some point. I have a hard time understand Isabelle sometimes. She gets talking so fast and earnestly its almost like the numbing experience of techno music. The kid is a genius.

A genius with little to no restraint. Josiah, being the class act that he is, strolled into class today with his little dockers on, hands tucked in his pockets. He announces he has two pockets and he likes them alot. Isabelle immediately stands up on her chair, shoves her hands into the front pockets of her dress, and lifts the dress up over her head announcing that she too has pockets and loves them. I told her to climb down and that ladies didn't lift their dresses up.

The pocket theme was brought up later during snack time when Isabelle though it would be a good idea to save some of her Cocoa Krispies in her pockets. I had to tell her know. Josiah, looking for a good moral explanation beyond "Mr. Josiah Said So" for why one shouldn't store Cocoa Krispies in their pockets stated that if one keeps the cereal in their pockets the cereal would grow into a big monster with big teeth. Hey, whatever works buddy.

And now that I'm firmly convinced this blog post is utterly incoherent, I'd like to end with the following story:

Mid-way through the Church service I smelled something wierd. I like to sit in the back left of the sanctuary. Being type-a I don't much like having a bunchof people at my back or surrounding me. I like the edges. So I sit in the back near the families with lotsof kids. I like it that way, feels comfortable like when I was a kid. If I'm lucky, one of them will ask to sit with me which means I'll have some kindof car or truck or crayons to distract me during the service.

Yesterday though, like I said, I smelled something wierd. I didn't think much of it: all sorts of odd smells come and go in kidland, and if you're going to setup shop in that slice of the church you'd better dang well be prepared to handle near-bedlam at times. You hair might get pulled, your shoelaces untied, and you might hear someone singing "I Go Poo-Poo In The Sky" while singing the "Glory Patri."

Turns out this smell was different. Isabelle decided that the floor was as good as any place to squat and pee, so she did, right behind me. Federick and Gretchen being models of cool and collected, managed to clean up the entire mess without a soul in the church knowing of it, including myself. Until now of course. Those folks are good, dang good.

Now back to work.

never, ever underestimate kids. you may THINK you've lost them, and you may have indeed lost half of them, but more often than no they're catching much more than you'd think. you do them a great disservice by thinking otherwise.

that said, I agree at that age it's more important to have them get to know the "whos" and "whats" of the stories than the "whys" (tho I wouldnt leave out the "whys" of course).

my son can barely smile and coo (being not yet 3 months old), but I still tell him about Jesus. I dont care if he doesnt get it yet, I just pray that he will, and I'm pretty sure he'll at least understand it much sooner than I (or you) may suspect.

One of my acquaintences from home tells the story of when her father would read to her when she was still a babe in arms. It's thought that starting to read aloud to your children at a very young age will help them with linguistic tasks later on, etc., so he dutifully sat down to read to her every night.

He started out with a kids book. About two minutes later he realized, "Hold on here. She doesn't understand this. She wouldn't understand me no matter what I read. Hell, I'm going to read something I want to read." So he busted out the Institutes.

The girl graduated from college about the time I finished my freshman year (she's my age) and finished a master's by the time I finished college.

As I recall, I sketched the outline of one of the bibles in that curriculum. I'm about to start teaching 'show me jesus' to the same age group.
I'm curious to see if I feel the same way.

I've often thought that children got things much easier and much earlier than I could have suspected.
Until I was allowed my own, I could only experiment on other peoples children.
On the whole, the experience was not very satisfying because, although I could wreak havoc in a short amount of time, I could never create the consistent distortion in the child's emotional and mental make-up.
Now I can.

In the past, I have often been interested in the use of Symbology... or the representation of things for other things (wine for blood, Splenda for blood, etc), and with the advent of one of more children, I finally had the time to conduct the experiment I had so been longing for.

Long story short. I have created an alternate form of communication, without the ability to utilize it.

It goes something like this:
To the Child:
Couple random sounds (preferrably repeatable in one session) with facial expressions and or actions. Repeat, Rinse. Apply once a day, liberally.

Watch as within about 2 weeks, your child and or children will begin developing an entirely new form of communication based on what YOU said. And yet you can't speak it. Only they can.

It was a pretty neat experiment until my children figured out that they could not only communicate in front of me without me being able to understand them, but they could use this to their advantage. That was bad.
Fortunately, I can play to their darker sides and pit one against the other, so them teaming up against me happens infrequently.
While I don't think I will win any Studies in Symbology awards (or Father of the Year, for that matter), it was fun.

And maybe, just maybe, I could have prevented the pee incident, if only I'd learned my own secret language.

while I'm not quite sure I follow, I'm definitely creeped out.

Josiah. I am teaching the same curriculum and have been thinking the same things lately. This posting is excellent!!! I needed a good laugh at the end of a long day. Looking forward to Sunday and whatever GCP has in store for us.