PK's

A while back, my sister posted a beautiful writing about growing up on a farm as farmer's (and farmer's wife's) daughters. It was great - the writing and the doing so, both.

Mike and I, however, are raising pastor's kids. Well, pastor's and pastor's wife's kids. Just like I have fond memories of my childhood that have a lot to do with my Dad's occupation, I hope that our children will have fond memories of their childhoods, and I hope that those memories are, in part, attached to their Dad's occupation.

Here is one of our latest conversations:

Tonight at bedtime I sang Sunny "Jesus Wants Me for a Sunbeam", but after her song, while we were still waiting for Miss Mouse to join us, I pointed out that the reason we are sunbeams for Jesus is not to make Him love us more but to point others toward Him. She seemed to understand pretty well, and then I moved onto doing songs for her sister. Well, partway through Miss Mouse's first song, which happened, by Miss Mouse's choice, to be Sunny's "I love you" song (they both have one, but we're working on Mighty's yet), Sunny leaned down and said, 

  "So, some of the people we want to show sunbeams to are those people who invite us to go to that thing that we say we'll try to make it to but won't go to because it's not about Jesus, right?" Um, huh?! Thankfully, I recovered pretty quickly and agreed with her that, yes, we should be kind and nice to the Jehovah Witnesses. This spiraled quickly into an all-out plan to evangelize the next, unsuspecting Jehovah Witnesses to show up at our door. Miss Mouse pointed out they always come in twos. Sunny asked how we could know they are coming so that we could give them cookies (I had said we should be nice to them and not rude and that we could even offer them a cookie....Sunny ran with that one). Sunny also pointed out that they perhaps wouldn't know we aren't at their meeting since they "might just think we are way in the back where they can't see us".  So, that developed into me confessing to them that we are sort of lying if we say we'll try to go because we won't go and won't try to go. That's when the girls decided we really should tell them that we aren't going to go because we know Jesus loves us, and we have faith in Him and want them to, as well. Oh dear. Mike visited with a young man who came to our door one time for 45 minutes. Apparently his daughters learned well (though one of them wasn't even born yet at that time!). The best part about the whole thing was Sunny's theology. They were chattering about whether the Jehovah Witnesses know Jesus or don't know Him, and Sunny said, "I think they KNOW Him, but they just don't BELIEVE in Him." I gave her a high five. Miss Mouse, of course, has been in Sunday School where they use cool words like "BFF", so I knew she was trying to configure something in her head about them not knowing that Jesus wants to be their BFF.  It was a pretty great statement to hear from a four-year-old, though.

They seem to have gotten over their obsession with Satan coming after them. That was last summer and was sort of upsetting. We did a lot of talking, though, and they really just seemed to want reassurance that Jesus is stronger than Satan. We did a lot of reading last summer. Pregnant over the hottest summer in many years equated with lots.of.reading.time.  After countless times through their children's Bible, they decided that King Herod must be in Hell (yes, we talked about our not being able to decide those things, but they decided anyway), and that King Herod must love Satan even though Satan doesn't love anyone but himself. They decided King Herod must be Satan's wife. Yeah. That was last summer.  On to the evangelism of the Jehovah Witnesses (I guess I won't tell the girls that I always hid from them when they stopped at the farm? I was a pretty worthless evangelical!)

On a non-religious topic, Sunny told her brother the other day, "If you were a dog, I think your name should be Cupcake."

Let Them Stay Little

There's a song out that brings tears to my eyes whenever I hear it and reminds me of the fleeting nature of these hectic, harried, crazy childhood days.  I thought of this one when I was going through pictures this spring, some from the Daddy/Daughter Dance - Sunny's first, terrified experience there - some from just regular playtime around the house.

"I can remember when you fit in the palm of my hand.

Felt so good in it, no bigger than a minute

How it amazes me,

You're changing with every blink

Faster than a flower blooms,

They grow up all too soon....

So let them be little, 'cuz they're only that way for awhile

Give them hope, give them praise, give them love everyday

Let them cry, let them giggle, let them sleep in the middle

Oh, just let them be little

I've never felt so much in one little tender touch

I live for those kisses, prayers, and your wishes

Now that you're teaching me things only a child can see

Every night while we're on our knees, all I ask is please....

Let them be little, 'cuz they're only that way for awhile

Give them hope, give them praise, give them love everyday

Let them cry, let them giggle, let them sleep in the middle

Oh, let them be little

So innocent, a precious soul, 

You turn around

It's time to let them go

So, let them be little, 'cuz they're only that way for awhile

Give them hope, give them praise, give them love everyday

Let them cry, let them giggle, let them sleep in the middle

Oh, let them be little."

--I've seen this credited to both Billy Dean and Lonestar, so I'm assuming both recorded/performed this song. In my immersion into children's music, I've been away from the contemporary scene long enough to know I like the song but not who to credit with it!

He's a bit shocked at all the floofiness at the Daddy/Daughter Grand March.  Actually, he cheered for the ladies here, too, just like he did at their dance recital.

Mike introducing his terrified and oh-so-excited four year old. Miss Mouse has that exact same expression at her first Daddy/Daughter dance two years ago. Precious.

Miss Mouse reminded Mike all.day.long that she wanted to introduce herself. When it came down to it, we thought she might get too nervous, but she took the microphone and clearly stated her name and her age with such gusto that she got a spirited round of applause (everyone got applause, but hers was more spirited with quite a few chuckles interspersed). What a difference two years has made!!!

They played "marriage". I was the pastor. Mighty Mouse was the congregation and the ring bearer. Miss Mouse is wearing one of Mike's old bowties and also has her second-prize-cooking-contest ribbon attached to her sweater as a boutinier (no idea how to spell that and too tired to look it up). She's wearing a Mr. Bubble shirt on backwards to double as her tuxedo shirt and a pair of Hello Kitty pajama pants on inside out for suit pants. Sunny goes with much explanation since she is the bride in the fancy dress. Mmmmm....I don't know exactly how to explain how much I love breathing in this beautiful "littleness".

  

Because it just terrifies me that suddenly we'll have blinked, and these little girls will be posing for wedding photographs.....

Not looking all that different than Sunny does here...

With big goofy smiles like their mommy's on her wedding day....

Thankfully, for now, the background is still our lowly screen door and our ever-faithful neighbors' blue house.

Incidentally, I've been working on a post, mulling it around in my head, to more openly explain why we homeschooled Miss Mouse for her kindergarten year and why we are going to continue on next year. It's going to come down to probably just listing all the benefits we have seen of this educational method for our own family, but this is definitely one of them. It's been such a privilege to be able to witness these kiddos grow in love and patience and understanding and care of and for each other over this past year. Not having to give up six hours of Miss Mouse's time with her family has been a huge benefit for our family in that endeavour - and for her, too, we believe. We deal, of course, with rivalry and jealousy and nastiness that comes apparently with certain ages of human beings, but it's been a blessing for us to just let her "be little" for a little while longer. She can read well; she understands some pretty advanced math concepts for her age; she placed in a writing and illustrating contest (more on that in another post sometime, too), but she also spends the afternoons in activities like planning a wedding for her and her sister. She deals as a six-year-old can with adult issues like infant death, loss of a sister she never met, serious illnesses in people she dearly loves....not "little" things by any means. We've talked about cigarette smoking and alcohol use simply because it's come up in conversations about other kids' parents' choices or television commercials....not "little" things, either. Yet, some of the harder things of older childhood haven't hit her close quite yet - bullying, cliques, etc. She's still "little", and that's so nice.