1. I am a nerd. I love things like online vocabulary and grammar tests. I took a vocab quiz on the Miriam Webster site the other day. 10 words. Timed responses. Score 3500. It was so fun! I know. Nerd. Give it a try here if you’re a nerd too.
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2. Yesterday we had our preschool co-op at our house. Each week the kids stick around to play with the girls for a bit afterwards. One little boy was having a hard time leaving one of our stuffed snakes behind when it was time to go home. Miss asked me if she could let him borrow hers so he wouldn’t feel so upset. I was just about bursting with pride when she said that.
Then she said this, “He can have that snake because I don’t really care about it. I don’t have a burning love for it. I just have a smoking heart for it. The only thing I have a burning love for is my new blankie.”
Whaaa?
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3. The new blankie she has a “burning love” for is this:
My husband’s Aunt C makes these amazing blankets for everyone in his family. My girls’ small “blankies” that they sleep with as babies (and preschoolers) are smaller versions of this (you can see one a little in the lower right hand corner of the photo^^). Aunt C took pity on us after seeing all the posts this winter of my children lying around sick on my blankets that she made for me (like this one and this one and this one). I have two of her blankets because we thought the movers lost one several years ago, but then found it after she kindly made me another. Love her.
^^ Big girls with my two blankets and Sis with her little Aunt C blankie.
Anyway, on Wednesday we got a huge box addressed to the girls and opened it to find a new blanket for each of them! They were so excited (as you can tell by the “burning love” comment). Lass immediately asked me to take her quilt off and put hers on her bed.
The girls and I had a conversation about how they can now use their own blankets instead of mine. I relayed this to Aunt C via text message, and she replied, “Not sure they want yours after this winter!” True.
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4. Kindergarten Round Up!
I mentioned in this post that Miss will be attending our local Catholic school next fall for about 1.5 days per week for religion and extracurricular classes. She is so excited to go to kindergarten and she had so much fun at the Round Up.
I, on the other hand, found the experience to be a bit jarring. I had thought we would be checking out kindergarten together. “We” as in she and I. I knew that there would be other people there, I just didn’t realize that I was not part of the equation for her afternoon.
Instead, after all the kids were there, the kindergarten teacher began leading them up the stairs to the classroom. I started to lean forward to follow but then realized that none of the other parents were going. Miss was at the end of the line of kids. She turned around and gave me a cute, shy little smile, waved, and hustled up the stairs after the other kids. I’m so not ready for this, and I was not prepared!
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5. I just finished reading the book The “R” Father: 14 Ways to Respond to the Lord’s Prayer, by Mark Hart. One of the things he encourages readers to do is to make a list of all the daily/frequent tasks that you have to do but that you absolutely can’t stand doing. Then he says to do these things. Just do them. And offer them up to God while doing them.
Now, I have heard the phrase “Offer it up to God” many times in the past year, and I must admit I’m still not entirely sure what it means, but what I got out of Hart’s comments on this topic was the idea to just do the things that need to be done, cheerfully, as a sort of spiritual practice. So now I make my bed every day. I complete the laundry right away on my laundry day (including folding all of it and putting it away!) instead of letting the task drag out for almost the whole week. I sweep under the table more often (these three things are the biggies that I loathe). I try to keep a cheerful attitude while doing all the repetitive, mundane things that I do multiple times per day. Sometimes I pray while I’m doing them. I’m finding this to be quite an invigorating practice. Highly recommend it. And the book.
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6. My older girls have been really into playing with letters recently. They get letters and make families with them and enact all sorts of dramatic play. “A” is usually the mom letter, I think. It’s quite complicated. We have many, many sets of letters that they can use while playing these games. These are their favorites:
Guess which letters are Miss’s favorites? She carries them around. She asks for them by name.
Every time, she asks for the same ones.
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7. My husband is gone this weekend. That means I might put on a movie or two. I never watch TV or movies when he’s home, unless we see an action movie together. I always wait until he’s gone to watch movies I don’t think he’d be interested in. Any recommendations?
Check out more Quick Takes here.
