I’ve got some fun ones to post, but this blog’s being twitchy just now.
Will get them up when I can.
Category Archives: Natasha
Making Muffins (and a prelude)
Today when I came out to grab Elisha for his turn after putting the girls to nap, this is what I saw:
There’s even jam up his nose in that last picture! (I think cameras are a good to for delaying reflexive anger.)
So I cleaned him up and worked in the kitchen for a while during nap. Never did find the lid to that jar though. Makes me glad I don’t live in a region where that could be hugely unsanitary.
Natasha was the first to wake up, so we had a great mother-daughter time making “Hide and Seek Muffins” from this book. Natasha loves it– it’s designed for preschoolers (with picture directions) with food that’s not “traditional” preschool fare.
(If anybody’s interested, it would make a great Christmas present… and it looks like there’s a sequel too.)
The book is designed to make the adult the child’s helper, instead of the other way around.
Natasha got to stir the dry ingredients, measure and pour the milk.
She broke all the eggs:
and stirred the batter (I helped by holding the bowl still and showing her how to hunt for the flour “hiding” by the bowl’s walls), and then she filled the muffin papers– all by herself.
Part way through the filling the other kids woke up, so everyone enjoyed the fruits of Natasha’s labor.
We had muffins with our dinner.
They’re called hide and seek muffins because of the last step. Melody was awake by then, so I was guiding two kids instead of taking pictures.
They rolled the raspberries they picked yesterday in sugar, then poked them into the middle of each muffin.
The berries hid when the muffins cooked, and were found again when eaten.
Fun idea, good muffins, and the interaction was priceless!
Only the child of a storyteller…
Natasha’s first homonyms:
Roc and rock.
Second homonyms:
Knight and night.
Both sets are presented in the order we encountered them in the stories. Phonetic and observation (of spelling differences) lessons smoothly inserted themselves. This kid is sharp.
ETA: I have since learned that these are not true homonyms– rather, they are homophones, sounding alike while looking different.
Home Again…
Was gone much of the last week for our last (immediate) family wedding.
Random “over-heards” from the weekend.
A tee-shirt on the groom:
No, I don’t have a girlfriend.
But a know a girl who would be pretty upset if she heard me say that.After the wedding:
60-something uncle: So, [Groom] what are you planning on doing tonight?
Unbelieving stare from groom.
40-something uncle: Has it really been that long since you were married?And then there was the one on the drive home where my oldest asked,
Are we going to Fairbanks and real-Alaska, now?
And here we are, at almost 1400 miles of driving, five in a Subaru Legacy, in less than a month.
Do we look a little dazed to you? (In case you didn’t know: these pictures are “clickable.” Click to see the picture full-size.)
Now, Lord willing, my goal is to really set up house and find a balance now that sickness, dog (yes, dog 🙁 ) and crazy-fast weekends across the state are over for the present.
So long… Farewell…
So we’ve had to end this dog-round-2.
Reasons we could give, but that’s the conclution.
Two nights ago after the new home was nearly confirmed I told the girls. Melody was impassive, but Natasha was very sad. Distressed.
I told her what I could, and felt how unhappy she was about it. And prayed about it. Thought a lot (and asked advice) about what else to say.
Came up with nothing. Kept praying.
Next morning Natasha got up and, very cheerful and lucid (she’s not normally a morning person), explained that she was very sad last night but she thought about it and had a dream, and was thinking about it and now she knows that Shadow just has to go.
“Because, she’s just, got to go.” She gesticulated with her open hands and made that self-conscious grin and the half-laugh she gives when she’s testing the waters about being more grown-up.
Just like that. The most simple, basic answer to prayer I could have gotten.
God is so good.
Ouch!
Natasha was playing on her bed today, flopping backwards onto her pillow. After a while she misjudged and fell into her headboard instead (there was a nasty crack).
For a while she could only cry while I held her, and wouldn’t answer my how-are-you-feeling question.
“Can you see okay?” I asked, trying a different tack. She nodded. “How about when you hit your head?”
“When I hit my head it really hurt, and my eyes twinkled.”
“Are they twinkling now?”
“No, not any more.”
///
Back on Tuesday the girls were at Ruth’s house while I was in class.
Ruth was sort of surprised at Natasha, because she’d been hitting and throwing things. When she threw a spoon into the lake Jon had to use a rake to get it out.
At that point Natasha said, “I’m ornery tonight. I didn’t get a good nap.”
Weekend Nuggets
Twice as we were driving to Wasilla and passing roadwork Natasha shouted, “Daddy! Look!” Both times there was the quick glacing about for the source of her delight before she pointed to the side of the road and said, “Dirt!”
We couldn’t help laughing.
On the way home the girls were asking something about clouds and where they come from and where they go.
Melody shared her content analysis matter-of-factly : “Don’t you know– that snow and milk make clouds?”
Gotta love what they take away…
We read the story of Adam and Eve last week from the girls’ bible.
I read the part about Eve’s creation and reminded the girls what ribs are (Natasha’s favorite book for a while was the Eyewitness Skeleton book, so that pleased her).
Incidentally, I loved that, since I don’t see any reason to encourage the idea (perpetuated by the Halloween marketers) that skeletons are something to be afraid of. I think they are marvelously designed, and it’s good to appreciate that.
Anyway, the girls were talking on their phones to each other, playacting being other people, when this exchange took place and I had to drop everything and write it down.
M: How are you doing today?
N: Not so good. God just took a rib out of me to make a woman.
M: Oh my.
N: Yes. And When I woke up, it was awful! I went to feel my bone and it wasn’t there– it was all mushy.
About Feeding…
One of the largest concerns in my mind after Natasha made her decision for Christ was how to feed her. And then, how did I know it was real?
I poked around on-line and made some calls (knowing I’ve seen a very competent “arrival kit” for adult new believers I hoped there might be something I could use with my 4-year-old). Not easily finding something, my mind went next (I’m sorry! It’s been trained!) to “Maybe that means I should write something myself…”
Then, as my mind was there, I began to wonder how I could know if Natasha knew what she was doing (after all, 4 is awfully young…). I didn’t want my clumsy efforts to guinea-pig her and cool her interest in things of the faith.
God graciously encouraged my heart, though.
- Natasha didn’t want to call and tell anyone (e.g. grandparents), which was what made me wonder in the first place, but when I was on the phone she wanted me to tell them.
- She’s had an increased appetite for the Word (tell me that isn’t inspiring), wanting the real thing.
I grabbed the picture-bible because it was near-by and I was nursing the baby, but she said, “No, Mama, I don’t want the picture one, I want mine.” “The one with just words?” “Yes.” And she went and got it.
- She’s been willing to pray “publicly” for the first time (volunteering to pray over dinner tonight)
- And she told grandma about her decision as soon as she saw her.
So I was encouraged. And I did find a couple picture books that bring up concepts I wanted her to think about (because I expect she’ll still want picture books at her age).
The break-through for my first concern came when a church secretary called me back and said none of the right people were around to ask the curriculum question of.
Then she pointed out that with her three daughters (all grown, and all raising their children in the Faith) she had just continued with the same tack as before, reading bible stories, talking about the things of faith. The difference being that after a decision for Christ those talks have more meaning for the child.
This was such a wonderfully simple truth and I had never seen it this way. It lifted my concern (that I believe most young parents have) about how to feed my baby “right” on my own.
~
In all the bible stories we’ve read since Wednesday night, I’ve been able to bring up questions about our response to God and how He interacted with the people in the stories.
As a storyteller, the idea of staying with the stories themselves is so freeing. I don’t need to find a way to introduce a “simplified” Romans or Galatians to my 4-year-old. There is plenty of time for that later. For now I can be thankful for the many truths that God has provided in the stories he gave us.
From Balaam and we’ve already filled-in some gaps I had woken concerned about the morning after. God is faithful, and will always make provision for the right thing at the right time.
In the same way that I can say, “No, we’re not reading about Judah and Tamar,” knowing it’s not age-appropriate, I can wait on many other things as well.
“Jesus loves me, this I know,” is a beginning that has confounded scholars and kept them busy long enough to let my daughter grow ready for other eternal truths.
A New Birthday
Natasha asked Jesus into her heart today.
The conversation started while we were making pitas for dinner. She was talking about heaven, how she wanted to go there, and how she’d see Great-grandma there, “and meet Grandma Teena’s daddy.”
I asked her how she could get to heaven. “Ask Jesus into my heart.” (This is the answer to a question the 4 & 5s are asked each week in Sunday school.)
“Do you want to ask Jesus into your heart?”
She paused, like she was thinking about it. “Yes,” she said. “Well, when it’s dark.”
“You want to wait until bedtime?”
“Yes. I want Jesus to come and die in my heart.”
“Jesus is done dying,” I explained. “He only had to do that once. If you invite Jesus he comes to live in your heart.”
(I’ve been thankful I’ve not yet had to explain how this works. So far the metaphor has just worked for her.)
She seemed to be thinking about this. “I want to go to heaven,” she said. “But I’ll need some grown-ups.”
“You won’t need grown-ups in heaven,” I said. “You’ll have Jesus.” She still looked thoughtful, then brightened.
“Oh! I’ll have great-grandma! She’ll be my grown-up!”
We talked about heaven for a while, and Natasha clarified she didn’t want to go right away– that she wanted to wait until she was “great big and grown-up. Like you, Mommy.”
After regular bedtime stories we read “TheLost Son” out of her NIrV (not planned, particularly, she saw the painting/illustration and asked for the story).
Some comprehension questions are after the passage, and those seemed to prompt her memory. She said again she wanted Jesus to come in her heart.
I asked if she wanted to pray herself or repeat after me, and she said she wanted to repeat, so we did that. When we were done I prayed for her, then asked if she wanted to pray herself.
I wish I better remember what she said, but it’s the first thing I can remember her praying that sounded like it was all hers (up till now I’ve heard her say mostly things with identifiable sources).
It was only two lines and very sweet and tender, something like, “Thank you for having heaven for me.”
When Jay came in for bedtime hugs Natasha told him that she’d invited Jesus into her heart.
I honestly feel this surreal sense of having a new baby in the house.