With the Passing Winds...

Life never really does quite sit still, does it?

Of course, I'm not sure why that even slightly comes as a surprise to me, but it always seems that whenever I start getting used to something, things tend to get all mixed up.

This picture I took of Hunter brushing his teeth a little bit ago, is a classic look of his. He smiles, shy yet reassured, as he gets ready to head off and leave me with a lot to think about.

Right now a lot is on my mind as we are about to embark on a whole new chapter in our life. Just as it seems we were beginning to be getting in the swing of things with a new house, a new state, and a new family, everything is about to be flipped around again. As I type this, I am home alone, with the exception of our little puppy curled up in a ball next to me. Brandon is out of town, and Hunter is dreaming away at his first overnight at a friend's house. In the morning, I will begin a forty-hour week at a training course to become a Navy certified child care provider. Hunter, for tomorrow at least, will be packing off as a guest at his friend's kindergarten class (which is full day, and an hour drive away).

I am pretty sure that I am going to be spending the entire day tomorrow worrying about him.

When we first made the plans, his friend's grandma, who is the kindergarten teacher, asked, "Will you be okay with this?"

"Yeah, he should be fine." I said. "It's only kindergarten, right?"

"Well, kindergarten isn't what it used to be." She chuckled, in her sweet, soft-toned voice. "They don't just play anymore. In fact, they don't do hardly any playing at all."

This was not the most reassuring of words I could have heard. But somehow, I agreed and am trusting that he will, well, manage just fine.

The changes, though, that are about to take place, are significantly larger than Hunter going to school for a day. While I am constantly wondering where the time has gone, this whole "growing up" thing is becoming more and more obvious as: 1. Hunter prepares for his first sports league, T-ball (with 5 to 7 year olds!), which starts in April. 2. The days are coming closer to signing Hunter up to participate in activities at the local school (part time, of course, as an enrichment supplement). 3. I am in the beginning stages of planning Hunter's kindergarten curriculum, trying to figure out how to wrap the other kids' curriculum around that of Hunter's and how I intend to manage homeschooling multiple children at once, while still giving Hunter the attention and stimulation he deserves.

This new era of homeschooling a crowd will be interesting, especially when topped off with business demands, marital demands, household demands, and soon-to-be college demands, I am preparing for a challenging adventure. And while I sit here, mind-boggled, wondering how it's going to all work out, the best words of reassurance I can try to convince myself of is, "Liz, it always does..."

"...all the days of my appointed time will I wait, till my change come."

Job 14:14

Hunter is 4 years, 11 months old

Doman Video of the Month

Hunter is Going to Mars!

Ok, so he's not really going to Mars (anytime soon at least). But his name is!

The other day we were on NASA's Play and Learn section and found this neat little thing they're doing,
Send Your Name to Mars. You can put your name and information in and it will be included in a microchip that is going to Mars in 2011 on the Mars Science Laboratory rover.

Cool little idea to get kids interested, isn't it?

"...to the sun, and to the moon, and to the planets, and to all the host of heaven." 

2 Kings 23:5

Hunter is 4 years, 10 months old

Technicalities

Sometimes Hunter's figuring out the world seems to get in the way of himself (and myself).

Like recently, for example, he has been obsessed with the technical definition of the words couple and few. If I tell him, "There are only a couple bites left" he'll say, "But mom, a couple is two." Or when I say "in a few minutes" he counts to make sure it is within the range of three and twelve.

Or another recent phenomena is him telling me what is healthy and not healthy. The other day I gave him a piece of toast with butter on it, an appetizer before I started making dinner, and he said, "But Mom, bread and butter is not a healthy meal." Or him telling me that he can't eat peanut butter and jelly because jelly has a ton of sugar in it.

Today, he cracked me up when, he was going through his backpack (which we had used for hiking the other day) and found a lighter in it. He told me, "Mom, you know that can't go in my bag. Fire safety!" and threw it out.

There seems to be this fine line between him curiously correcting me and him, well, sometimes unknowingly and quite innocently getting out of hand, but it sure is funny watching him figuring things out and in the meantime giving us all a good laugh.

"...then your eyes shall be opened, and ye shall be as gods, knowing good and evil." 

Genesis 3:5

Hunter is 4 years, 10 months old

Rubik's?

I now truly understand Suzuki's reasoning when, in teaching little toddlers to play the violin, he begins by teaching their parents, while the tots simply watch and observe. This sort of "desired activity" psychology is being clearly manifested in Hunter's sudden, not only supreme interest, but in actual beginning reasoning and budding ability to solve the Rubik's cube. 

I, meticulously following a how-to video the other day, solved it for the first time. Hunter was sort of "around" while I watched the video (with the pause, play, pause, rewind, play, pause pattern). After the first time solving it, I wrote down the algorithms and solved it (ever so painfully) a few more times - it was somewhat addictive. 

Then two nights ago,  right before bed, Hunter told me, "Mom, tomorrow when I wake up, I am going to run into the school room, and I'm going to solve the Rubik's cube, then I'm going to show you."

I was humored by his enthusiasm. Up until now he would occasionally play with the little puzzle but didn't seem to get the inner workings of it all. He would get excited when he could get a few of the same color on one side but that was as far as he ever got.

However, recently he all of the sudden seems to be really picking up on it. He has, with a little coaching from me, solved an entire side. He will fiddle with the thing saying, "right inverted, up inverted, right, down" etc. (usually just randomly saying some combination of those things without actually doing them). He is fascinated with the "magic algorithms", and how, with the right algorithm, you can completely mess it up but then it all comes mysteriously back together in the end. And then yesterday, he actually "solved" the whole thing, just as he promised.

The cube was in some special checkered pattern, made so by some concoction my sister did while she was here. I'm not sure exactly how she did it, but it was only few twists away from it's truly solved state, and it looked really cool. Each side was, for example, a red square, green square, red square, green square, etc., like a checker board.

Well Hunter took the so-solved cube and fixed it back to its original state, several times actually. I'm sure it was only a few twists to do so, but I'm pretty sure that if I would have made an attempt at those "few twists" I would have done more damage than good. Yet he did, somehow, see which twists needed to be done and "solved" it. He then proceeded to mix it up, solve it back, mix it up, solve it back, several times. He wasn't mixing it up too far, but far enough that I couldn't figure out how to do it (he handed it to me and offered that I try at one point - which I couldn't, so he did it for me). 

He hasn't totally figured the whole thing out yet but, he is definitely getting the gist of if. It's amazing what little kids can pick up on, isn't it?

"Have not I written to thee excellent things in counsels and knowledge..." 

Proverbs 22:20

Hunter is 4 years, 10 months old

Curious Mind

So this morning, in the middle of eating his breakfast, Hunter came upstairs and asked me, "Mom, why do Cheerios float to the top in milk instead of sink to the bottom?" (hand motions accompanied)

I'm used to this type of questioning, but, today was particularly humorous, as while I gave him my best attempt at explaining density and buoyancy, he sat there, with his head tilted, elbow resting on a box with his chin cupped so elegantly in his hand, staring intently at me as I continued with my presentation.

Thirty seconds later, as soon as I was done, he sat up, walked out of the room, and said with a smile, "Ok, thanks for letting me know."

He is asking questions all the time but I just started cracking up laughing when he left the room, wondering "What was that about?"

He has, as usual, been full of laughs. He has really been into story-telling lately, coming up with all kinds  of adventures which usually involve him protecting his cousins from the eminent dangers of the jungle or some other animal-laden arena. Last night, he told me that tomorrow he was going to tell me a story, and explained that, "Yeah, I'm going to think about it, and then tomorrow I'll just spit it out!"

His most off the wall comment lately though was theological in nature. He had asked me (for the umpteenth time) why God had decided to make people. My answer, among other things, included that God wanted to have friends. Hunter, after a few moments, told me, "Well God doesn't want to be friends with the Indians, because they don't know that you're supposed to cover your nakedness."

(This was followed by a lengthy explanation, that God still wants to be friends with people even if they're naked, among other things.) The things that go through this kid's head!

"Then shalt thou enquire, and make search, and ask diligently..." 

Deuteronomy 13:14

Hunter is 4 years, 10 months old

February Words of the Day

Some more fun words of the day for this month. This is list is taken from dictionary.com's February 2009 Word of the Day Archive. Go to that link to see expanded definitions and pronunciation of all the words listed here!

To learn more about our word of the day adventures, click here.

1. victuals: supply of food

2. chaff: seed coverings; detritus
3. defalcate: take fraudulently
4. virtuoso: exceptional performer
5. unwitting: lacking knowledge
6. erstwhile: former; formerly
7. denigrate: belittle, attack maliciously
8. highhanded: with haughty disregard
9. toady: someone who is servile
10. osteopath: therapist who manipulates body structure
11. tome: large scholarly book
12. froward: willfully contrary
13. expurgate: to remove offensive parts
14. myopia: nearsightedness
15. pinchbeck: something that is counterfeit
16. interminable: seeming to have no end
17. burnish: to polish and make shiny
18. consternation: a sudden dread
19. tautological: needlessly repetitious
20. ellipsis: omission of word(s)
21. hermetic: airtight; protected
22. nocuous: harmful
23. beseech: ask for earnestly
24. peculate: appropriate fraudulently
25. openhanded: giving freely
26. declaim: speak against
27. hidebound: stubbornly conservative
28. pedant: person holding books in esteem

"Naphtali is a hind let loose: he giveth goodly words."

Genesis 49:21

Hunter is 4 years, 11 months old