Prayers, Part II

Mother of Twins Prayer:

There’s two to wash, There’s two to dry;

There’s two who argue, There’s two who cry

One’s in the mud, Having a ball;

The other holds a crayon… Another marked wall.

Some days seem endless, My patience grows thin.

Why did God choose me To be a mother of twins?

The answer comes clear- At the end of the day,

As I tuck them in bed And to myself I say…

There’s two to kiss, There’s two to hug;

And best of all, Thank You, God, for two to love

(...and for the other six, as well!  So blessed!)

Prayers

I've been teaching the little people how to pray.  For me, prayer is a peaceful, enriching time to get grounded and in tune with the Heavens.  I really don't get by as well when I get lax in my prayers.  I want my children to feel the same peace, and know how to find answers to their questions - big and small - so I teach them to pray.

Angel has the hang of it.  The twins do the "food prayer" for everything and they are done in 10 words or less.  So I taught them to list out things they are thankful for.  Georgie caught right on.  In his prayer, he said "thanks for food and stories and Mom and my bed and (looking around the room) clothes and shirts with sharks on and my trucks and stories." He then asked that he would "have good dreams and no bad dreams, only dreams about bad guys."  After he finished, I gave him a big hug and told him what a good job he had done.

Next, it was Freddie's turn.  Glancing sideways at Georgie's smug smile, he began, "Hemmy Bodder, please bless for (his contraction for 'please bless' and 'thank you for') food and ... (pausing and looking hard at Georgie again) bweakwast and eggs and bread and dinner and food... and food...please bless for food."  He does love his food!

After saying amen, he turned to me, all smiles, and commanded, "say good job to me!"

Of course, dear.  Of course.  I love hugging my babies.

All Things in Order

7+7/7+7*7-7=

a) 0

b) 8

c) 50

d) 56

This was a math problem that went around during a recent girl's night out.  Most of the gals kept getting the wrong answer, and couldn't figure out how to get the right answer.  Hint: the answer is NOT d) 56.

You get the incorrect.56 answer if you start at the beginning of the problem and work straight through, from left to right.  7 plus 7 is 14, divided by 7 is 2, plus seven is 9, times 7 is 63, minus 7 is 56.  You did all the work and made it to the end, but it was wrong.

Turns out that the way you do something is just as important - and often even more important - that whether you get to the end or not.

In this case, you have to follow the "order of operations."  The acronym is PEMDAS (even my 10-year-old can quote "Please Excuse My Dear Aunt Sally").  I wonder what dear Aunt Sally did to earn such elementary school notoriety...  You have to approach a math problem in the correct order: Parenthesis, Exponents , Multiplication, Division, Addition, Subtraction.  Actually, the multiply/divide can be done together, as can the add/subtract.

When you follow the correct order, the problem looks different.  7+ 7/7 + 7*7 -7.  Work through the multiply and divide parts of the problem first, the go for the add and subtract.  Same original numbers, but now you get a different answer.  The correct one.

I think I too often try to slog through a problem from left to right without looking at the whole thing and figuring out what the order of operations is.  Whatever is on front of me, that is the part I need to tackle.  But if I step back and figure out what the most important things are, and do those first, then I arrive at a totally different solution.

And it's the right one.

The correct answer is c) 50.  Thanks to my smarty-pants kids who helped me figure it all out completely - and 4 of the 5 got the right answer, too!

Building Relationships

So we've been working on the chicken coop.  And we've been changing our minds again.  This is four major overhauls of the design so far.  I say so far because I'd be really surprised if there isn't another change.  Even though I'd like to just pick one.  And stick to it.  And get building already.

I've heard that building a house together can really strain a marriage relationship.  There are even vows you need to add to your marriage before embarking on a building project.  Any large undertaking can tax a struggling marriage - buying a new house, a new job, pregnancy, reunions, vacationing, children, breakfast...

Yeah, we've had a few struggles.  And we're just building a coop, for chickens' sake!

That about sums it up.

I wanted to just lay out 4x4s and build on that.  Trent built a sturdy foundation of two courses of cinder block.  I'd like the coop to have a lower profile and fit in the yard better.  He wants it to be a full eight feet - plus the peaked roof.  Sometimes when I've made a suggestion, he smiles and gives me the "that's nice honey but that's not how we're going to do it" look.  A year ago, that would have bothered me.  Actually, I would have been spitting nails.

But now (after a year of counseling!) we both smile and laugh a little.  I know that there is a particular way that he thinks is proper and right.  And I know that I don't have to cave in and and become a doormat when there is something I think is important.  His view count.  My views count, too.

But the most important view is the one that we see together,

Sorry for the mushy.  I've just been glad that we can work together - and enjoy it!

How To Not Study

1. Convert an old trampoline frame into a temporary chicken run by stretching chicken wire around it.

2.  Insert adorable chicks.

3.  Bring homework papers and books into chicken run with aforementioned adorable chicks.

4. Have mild delusional thoughts that you will complete said homework.

5.  Get distracted.

6. Repeat steps 4 and 5.

7. Insert younger sister, who chases chicks every which way.

8. Laugh.

9. Give up and do homework inside the boring house.

Chick Update Again

The chicken saga continues.  I had no idea that poultry could be so entertaining.  The boys have each chick named, and know their breed and personality.  I know that I need to check them a few times a day because they like to kick wood chips into their food and water.  It's the scratching instinct.  Good for birds, bad for people.  If I brought it up, I'm sure I would have boys doing the chicken scratch thing at the table during dinner.

The chicks are just about done with the fluffy and adorable stage that makes us want to buy them.  Their downy feathers are disappearing (and less of it is floating around my house than I would have thought!), and their big girl feathers are starting to grow in.   You can see some of the wing feathers starting to grow in here.

I learned that feathers grow in all rolled up, and are called pin feathers.  They don't unfurl and fluff out until they are all the way grown.  In the meantime, the chicks look like they have a bad case of porcupine neck.  Or head.  It doesn't hurt them at all, but it's painful to watch how awkward-looking they get.  Talk about bad hair day!

I'm amazed at how fast they grow.  Here are our Easter Eggers, Pocket and Badger.  Pocket was a gray ball of fluff when we first got her, hence her full name, Pocket Lint.  My fabulous niece named these two for us.  (Hey Kristen!  Miss you!)  Eddie loves to hold them and take them outside to play.

Badger is getting some colorful patterns on her back.

These are their "teenager" feathers.  They will molt again at 7-12 weeks, and then they will get their adult feathers.  Some of them will need new names at that time, as their coloring and overall look will be quite different.

They live in our sunroom now, in a plastic kiddie pool filled with pine shavings.  We stretched a tube of chicken wire around it to keep the flappers in, but even so one flew out today.  This is the cabin in the woods we are building for them. 

 No, it changed since then.  Trent-the-man-from-a-long-line-of-bricklayers decided that the foundation needed to be cinder blocks.  Now it will be sturdy, like the third little pig's house. Hopefully that part will be done tomorrow and we can start framing.  Otherwise, we'll have chicken nuggets wandering around the house.

Fire!

The boys wanted to do something this weekend.  Something fun.  Something memorable.  Something together as a family.

So we set fire to an old wooden cabinet that we found when we cleaned out our lower patio.  It was in the house when we moved in, but we didn't have a use for it and set it out on the patio to take to the thrift store later.  Did you ever notice that "later" almost never happens?

And so it sat, the old, falling apart cabinet, and got weathered on all winter.  It really looked bad when we found it again.  We decided to burn it up.

Setting things on fire is fun and memorable and together as a family, isn't it?  The scouts set a nice little fire in one compartment, and we watched the fire slowly start to take over the whole cabinet.  One the whole thing was ablaze, it was quite a show.

The inside shelves collapsed with a startling noise.  Chris propped the doors in front so the flames wouldn't shoot out quite so far.  The neighbor kids started to peer over the fence to watch.   When the flames were leaping, I realized that David and Eddie had not gotten rid of all the nearby vegetation like I had asked them to.  A small pile of dry grass clippings started to smolder, and I hollered at Chris to get the hose.

He found the hose where it had been stashed last fall, but it wasn't long enough.  He grabbed David and they sprinted around the house to get the longer hose.  While they were hooking it up, the wind shifted and the long flames that had been fanning out over a bare patch of ground started to get excitingly close to our wooden fence.

Finally, water.  Chris doused the grass embers, but then we heard... sirens.  Fire trucks.  They got closer and we got nervous.  I remembered that I am supposed to be a responsible adult.  Sigh.  So put the thing out, boys.  They were disappointed, but a little bit relieved that it wasn't going to get any scarier.  I think it was more adventure than they were anticipating.

The water, of course, made a huge plume of steam - enough to be seen for several neighborhoods.  But we got it out.  No, we're not done burning it up, but we'll take the pieces and finish them off in our responsible fire pit.

Just as soon as they dry out.  And we'll remember to be smart next time - and not to forget the marshmallows.