Weddings, schmeddings

Here's an inexpensive art project for all you parents. Go to the Target clearance endcaps and buy the 75%-off DIY wedding invitations. (The two boxes I found were by Anna Griffin.) The set includes a lovely piece of high quality paper that you slide into a sleeve. Kiddos draw on the blank paper and you've got an unusual, unexpected way to present art to loved ones. There are also blank reply cards, so you get 50 cards for $5 - that's 10 cents each! The way we blaze through drawing paper, it's a bargain for sure.

Have fun!

I've Got the Power (not)

I was recently reading a story in The Little Lutheran to Paavo and Svea. (Tip: If you need to give a Christmas gift to little ones this year and your budget is $25, I'd highly recommend a subscription.) It was the story of Jesus calming the storm. After I finished it, the following conversation occurred:
Paavo: How did he stop the storm?
Me: Jesus had the power to do it.
Paavo: How did he get the power?
Me: God gave Jesus the power.
Paavo: What else did he have power to do?
Me: Well, he could heal people and feed people and make amazing things happen.
Paavo: Why did he have the power?
Me: Jesus was God's son, so God gave Jesus power to do amazing things.
Paavo: (pause) Does anyone else have power?
Me: Well, some of Jesus' followers had amazing power after Jesus died and rose and went to heaven.
Paavo: What kind of power?
Me: Well, there was a man named Peter and he went to the house of a woman named Tabitha. She died, but Peter said, "Get up!" and she got up! She was alive again.
Paavo: Who else has power?
Me: Well, sometimes God gives us power to help people, and God gives power to heal people.
Paavo: But why don't other people have power?
This conversation continued for a while as Paavo continued to ask who else had power, what kind of power, and why more people didn't have power.

So on the one hand, it makes sense that he'd be really interested in power because the boy spends at least an hour a day drawing superheroes.

But on the other hand, I feel he's confirming, in the way that a 5-year-old uniquely can, our human desire to want to do what God does because we want to control and manage and have power.

I suspect this is not the end of the conversation about power...

What bothers me about children's books...

Every day Paavo brings home a new book from Kindergarten. (They have Book Club and sign out a book each day and return it the next. His teacher is brilliant for this and many other reasons.) Anyway, we were reading his most recent one called "We Gather Together - Now Please Get Lost!" I realized that it bugs me when a children's book author uses animal characters without a really compelling reason to do so. In this particular case, the main character is some kind of hedgehog or muskrat or porcupine. (Jonathan and I couldn't figure out its exact nature.) His name is Gilbert and he is going on a class field trip with an assortment of animals - rabbits, skunks, raccoons, and a goose named Philip who is a tattling, spelling-test loving, checkers-winning student that no one wants to be partners with. (You can guess who Gilbert is paired with, right?) They proceed to take a school bus (with a turkey driver!) to Pilgrim Town where they learn all about the pilgrims, the hard winter, and other reasons behind the annual feast for giving thanks and celebrating.

The animals-as-characters logic breaks down in many places. Are we really to believe that all the ancestors of these forest animals have been giving thanks for the last few hundred years because the animals themselves were settlers and there were no humans? (And if that's the case, were they fleeing the animals of Britain for reasons of religious freedom? And if that's the case, are they Christian animals?) Are we to believe that the employees of Pilgrim Town built authentic pilgrim-era structures on their own (thatched-roof houses, windmills, wheelbarrows, fences)? And how have these animals of the forest evolved to using portapotties? (This is a key part of the plot - Gilbert is locked in one and Philip rescues him.)

I cannot suspend disbelief long enough to think that any of this would ever happen with animals, even in a child's imagination. If you're gonna use animal characters, let them use their animal powers - the foraging raccoon, the stinky skunk, the quill-ejecting porcupine. But instead they cower under the bossiness of their teacher Mrs. Byrd, a rather round bird who I cannot identify at all other than she looks like a penguin.

But Paavo has asked me to read it three times now, so I guess it's not all that bad...

Where did September go?

So much for my efforts to organize, streamline, and check off stuff on the to-do list. But because negative self-talk gets me nowhere, I'm not gonna be too miffed at myself about it. INstead, I'll report to you on the following:
+ Kindergarten continues to go well for Paavo.
+ Svea turns 3 next week!
+ We do not know what Halloween costumes the kids will eventually select, but it's fun to talk about options.
+ It has become quite chilly and smells like fall.
+ I attended my cousin Britt's wedding in Seattle last weekend and it was fantastic.
+ Svea is No Nap Nancy almost every day.

GYST: Week 2

I realized that I've abandoned the daily report of Get Your Stuff Together (GYST) month. Here's a recap of the week:
Sent in another medical benefits form
Drano'd the tub
Washed the tub (not on the same day I Drano'd it - that could be toxic!)
Gave a bunch of Svea's clothes (that had been sitting in a bag for weeks) to Elsa
Made an appointments for my annual physical

So I have two weeks to go, and hopefully many more things to check off the list.