Not For Fun

My desire is not scare my children unnecessarily. Not to expose them to any materials that de-sensitize their little hearts earlier than I need to. I know the world will be happy to do this for me, so I have made it a point for this not to happen at home or through me, as far as it is possible.

I had a little wake up call last month at Safety Town. The City of Roswell puts it on each spring, and you really should go. There is a little town to practice pedestrian and driver safety, and the kids meet a real police officer and fire fighter, and learn tips from them. You really should go next year. It's for children ages four to six.

I have told my kids about strangers, and not to talk to strangers, and to stay with me. I have even told them that strangers may want to take them to "be part of their team," since we are The Hardman Team. But this is what the director of Safety Town had to say, "When Sarah goes to the car to look at this man's puppy, he will push her into his car, and she will never see her family again. Never play with her friends again. Never play with her toys again."

It was quiet in the room - a gymnasium full of four to six-year olds. At that moment, the light bulb went off. In this arena, it is not about sugar-coating the truth. It is about sharing the brutal truth with my kids, a truth that may save their lives.

Darn It

Did you think I forgot Sewing Accountability 2013? I didn't. On the evening of February 28th, I sat down with a few items I bought with Christmas money a couple of years ago. A couple of years, you ask? Yes, as in Christmas 2010. I needed to learn how to use them before I am going to crack open the book from Christmas 2011.

In case you don't have these items laying around your house, they are a darning egg, yarn, some special needles whose name escapes me at the moment, and a pair of Little Man's socks with a hole in the toe.

I slipped the sock over the egg and found a tutorial online on how to darn. It was not hard, and looked good, but I feel like it does not meet the basic requirements of mending via darning. There were knots involved, and I could certainly feel the seam I had made. The whole point is to mend the sock in a way that will leave it comfortable in the shoes, and prevent rubbing and blistering on feet. Unfortunately, Little Man cannot wear these socks anymore, so I can't test it out. I did see a pair of B's socks in the wash yesterday with a hole in each heel. I may be pulling out my supplies in the next night or two to test out a new tutorial.

I did like the technique enough to use it on one of my favorite sweater's sleeve. It's going to take a lot more than a little hole in the arm to force me to get rid of this unisex J Crew relic. That's right, Mom. Get excited. This baby will be back next Christmas!

Last - but definitely not least - I mended these pj pants of B's. He said he didn't care how my experiment turned out (i.e., how the pants looked after I took to them with needle and thread), he was NOT cutting them into dust rags.

So, there you have it. Month Two of Sewing Accountability 2013. I am pretty sure my sister is not even in the game, but she is free to answer the challenge.

Box Skating

A little more gross motor fun for the little lady.

Sinking In

One of my fears as a parent is that nothing I do will sink in. In particular, it is of utmost importance to me that they develop a relevant faith - one with which they can see that the principles in Scripture always come true. Then, they can know and trust God's perfect will for them, even if they don't see Him working, or even if His will doesn't seem "good" at the time.

Last week, we built structures out of food items from around the house, and we started talking about what makes a structure stronger. To illustrate the point, we did this little experiment: We built a cube out of linguine and marshmallows. We tried to balance a lasagna noodle on top. It fell down. We added "crossbeams" to our structure, then tried to balance the lasagna noodle.

It stood.

Little Man said, "The wise man built his house with triangles. The house on the sand did not have triangles."

"It was foolish for him to skip the triangles, wasn't it? To make his house stronger?"

"Yes."

I didn't expect it. I didn't plan for that to be part of our lesson. I am so thankful that it was.

KW-in-the-Box

{KW is 28 months old}

KW loved this little pop-up game. We put her in a box, sang a little song, and she popped out. As we played, she got better and better at waiting until I said, "pops." Of course, she had a helper...

Every couple of days, when she sees my Slow and Steady book, she looks for the page with the picture of a boy jumping out of a box and asks me to "sing" the "poem song." She is almost saying the whole thing with me now.

Finally, we had to play with the real Jack.

Check out other ideas for your little one at 1+1+1.