well that's fast

"Dennis, how fast can you put on your Taekwondo uniform?". "Faster than a bird pooping on a car!" he said. Nice.

a day in God's World

Oh what fun we had this morning! Our church has done a program called God's World for over 30 years, and the premise is that we show children God's love for them by exploring nature, by teaching them about the wonderful world He gave to us. Today was the first week of this year's program, and we had 32 children from age 3 through 6th grade. We went on a nature walk to collect leaves, learned about trees and fruits, made "fruit batteries" in science lab, made "berry ink" in crafts, and worshiped God together! What a wonderful start to this year's program. I'm particularly pleased about how well things went because I wrote the curriculum, planned the classes, picked the labs, and organized the next 3 weeks of classes and field trips! This is a marvelous way to use all that biology I studied in college! God has specially equipped me to do this work!

Dennis was happy about God's World because it's a real family event this year! Uncle Denny is our science lab scientist, and Gran helped out in crafts! He so loves being at our church, surrounded by love! Who wouldn't?

He completely exhausted himself today, playing, learning, helping the boys sneak the magnifying glasses outside to the playground so they could try to start fires... Good summer fun!

noise pollution

I'm learning why a certain comic strip Dennis was such a menace. Age five is not an easy one! There are moments of delight every day, and I'm finding that my own little menace has a rather well developed sense of humor. But he's also a part-time ninja, part-time superhero & bad-guy-fighter, and full-time boy! He's inquisitive and so smart, smart enough that he knows how to be irritating. He freely admits this ("I just love to irritate you, Mommy") and instinctively knows when he's pushed me to the breaking point. Often, at just the right time, he'll lean over and say ever so sweetly "I love you, Mommy" and offer up his most charming smile. I find his constant motion and constant chatter to be overwhelming sometimes, but the only wrong thing he does? Not listening. The rest of it is just happy, well-adjusted boy noise and activity. And oh, how I'll miss all his chatter once he's a teen!

Today at church they announced that I've been hired as full time Children's Minister, which I am thrilled about, but I cringed as I watched my child make a pyramid of hymnals on the pew and then sit on it. He and the other kids worshipped in our Traditional service today (because I wasn't able to do the children's service on account of having to speak in both church services), and the youngest ones were just so busy not listening to the message that I prayed for guidance. Next month: worship journals and pencils for each child, with an assignment to listen, write words, draw pictures, and be ready to talk about the message the following week at in the children's service. It will at least give them something more productive to do with their hands, which Dennis most especially needs! It's either that or duct tape...

the fake vomit chronicles

Oh, boy did Uncle Denny have a good surprise for Dennis tonight! He presented Dennis with his very own, umm, pile (wad? unit?) of fake vomit. Dennis was extremely delighted and instantly absorbed the concepts necessary to conduct a successful vomit gag (make the disgusting noise, quickly toss the vomit, solicit sympathy for fake illness, laugh hysterically at his joke prowess). It was quite funny the first dozen times he did it but lost a bit of its appeal as we were trying to get him to walk to the car and he fake-vomited onto the deck every other step and then picked it up to repeat the process. Oh, the giggles! He would hold the thing (stuff?) behind his back and try to act serious but kept dissolving into helpless laughter. I can't wait to see who he pranks tomorrow, though I live in fear of who he might try this out on at church next week!

battleship craft wars

While snuggled together all in our bed watching Craft Wars, Dennis took an intermission to run off and create something. I suppose he was inspired by the show, but he reappeared soon, holding a Lego creation and announcing "I won Battleship Craft Wars! I won a million dollars!". He held his Lego battle craft through the rest of the show, picked the craft he thought should win (and I agreed), made disgusted raspberry noises when the craft we didn't like (that Daddy liked) won, and then said "well, they've invited me back to build a bigger battleship in the next Battleship Craft Wars, and my fifty-hundred hours starts now, so I better hurry!" as he ran back to his room. He's really been funny today, had me laughing so many times! I so enjoy his sense of humor!

master negotiator

So here he sits on our bed after 11pm, trying to explain to us why he needs a new Anakin Skywalker toy. He promises to be good at Taekwondo and clean his whole room tomorrow. I told him he had so many toys that he couldn't play with them all! He considered this for a moment before saying "I could if I had 100 hands!". I can't imagine a bigger nightmare than a busy boy child with 100 hands.

the prankster strikes again

Dennis and Gigi had the best time with one of those add-water-and-it-grows toys. It was a bright red crab, and they snuck it into the bath tub at the lake, acting all innocent about it. Gran went in there and spied it and gave her very best (very realistic) screams and pretended to smash it flat (we could hear her stomping the tub). Dennis just cackled. And he laughed more when Ju-Ju did the same thing a while later. Steve really got him going when he came out (yelling) with the crab hanging out of his mouth, saying it was trying to pinch off his tongue, that all he did was lean over to look at it! Oh how Dennis adores a good joke, and he sure loved sharing it with Gigi!