Taylor is at the age of imagination. Right now her focus is on school, and I am her trusty sidekick that becomes whoever she needs me to be at the minute. When at home working around the house she calls me “teacher.” When driving around town she calls me “bus driver.” However, I think we’ve reached the limit. When I gave her lunch today she said, “thanks, lunch box.”

(* for the record, I'm not sure who took this picture or why her head is four times larger than her body, but it made me laugh almost as much as she does - so I had to share!)

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it. - Proverbs 22:6

Don't you sometimes wonder what kind of people you're molding as you work with your children in day to day life? I'm always wondering if I've taught them the important things, the things that they will need to be competent and successful in the world and in their life's purpose. Daniel likes to remind me that I my priority is to raise them to be good women and mothers. Seems easy enough until we have conversations like these:

Emily: "When my hair turns white I will turn it back to brown."

Morgan: "If my hair turns brown I'm going to color it blond."

Check vanity off the "to teach" list. Then there was this one:



Rylee: "Should I throw this jam away? I think it's bad." (referring to a batch of
homemade jam in the fridge)

Kari: "Why do you think it's bad?"

Rylee: "It's thick."

This makes me wonder if this is indicative of the homemaking skills that I'm passing along, that the only reason that jam wouldn't be totally runny is because it's bad. Then yesterday Taylor cleared up the whole matter for me in this conversation.

Taylor: "Strawberries are made of jam."

Kari: "Do you mean that jam is made up of strawberries?"

Taylor: "No, you squirt out the jam and roll it into a strawberry shape and cook it and then put it in the 'dawden' (garden) and 'den' (then) it will grow into a big strawberry plant."

So, it seems that sometimes we as parents learn as much from our children as we try to teach them. Obviously the reason that my jam doesn't set up is because I've been going about it all backward! I'm so lucky to have such clever children.

Sad but true, I found a couple of moments of simple pleasure today, and this article was one of them. I'm still chuckling. It's crude, I know, but it takes a level of class, which I no longer claim to have, to not find it amusing - so enjoy!

Since I've crossed over to the baser subjects, I may as well share the other funny of the day. Due to crass, cruddy mouthed, perverted kids in our new area I had to give a detailed explanation of the birds and bees and how all that works, so as to clear up some confusion in one of my children. At the end of the conversation she said, "Wow, that's really disgusting. I can't believe you had to do that five times." Again, still chuckling. You just keep thinking that until you're 23 and married little missy!

Humpty Dumpty Returns

Howdy blog world and long lost friends! I read my sister's blog and realized how much I miss reading and sharing blog updates. I tried converting over to Facebookism, but really I hate it. Somehow I don't mind writing here, where people can choose to come or not, its all voluntary. However, on Facebook, every little comment gets smeared all over to every person you claim to have known whether it was intended for them or not. It makes me itchy.

It's late, I'm tired, and this is a super lame post, but I thought I needed to post something publicly to force me to come back tomorrow and post something amusing - or remove it all together! I've lost myself somewhere between South Dakota and here, not all of myself, I have he original body, plus a bonus bonus 15 lbs of baby/stress weight. It's not a fair compensation, however, as I seem to have lost the portion of myself that experiences joy at small things and I have fully lost my muse - as I'm sure anyone who received my Christmas newsletter can attest.

I was hoping that by back tracking (it's what I tell my kids to do when they lose something!) I would be able to find all my pieces and get myself back together. So we'll consider this the first step back. Nevertheless, if you are driving the interstate between Oregon and Nebraska and see odd pieces of mirth, irony, inner-peace, patience, or any other desirable quality, send it my way COD, it'll make my journey that much easier!