My husband's comments last night as we watched our four year old wrestle with the 15 year old made me laugh out loud. He thinks he will ultimately get a job being blasted out of a cannon at a circus. It was such a funny image! But, I could see it!
This past weekend was the second Bible Quiz meet of the year, falling, as I've written about, on my daughter's birthday. Well, it couldn't have gone better, in my opinion. First, the whole gang (the 5 older children enjoyed a bagel out with dad as they had to set up super early for worship leading. It was our turn to lead worship as our team was hosting. This in itself was so great. My daughter led on piano, my son did the percussion. Two of their friends played guitar and mandolin while two others did violin. All sang. It was awesome!
When the morning started, the host/mc got up and announced he knew it was someone's birthday in the room. Sure enough, all 75 kids sang to my daughter. I think that would have been totally embarrassing, but deep down, I bet she loved it.
At noon, she was supposed to be surprised by Stephanie, but Stephanie got sick with food poisoning, so couldn't make it! But she still went out, but with my husband - a close second! Meanwhile, the whole day, she was with her friends, actually getting a few jumps for her team in quizzing and all in all having a great day. She ended up with her sister at her friend's house until late at night and I think that was the perfect ending.
Meanwhile, her brothers were also enjoying a very serious Bible Quizzing day. They had prepared so diligently, I had prayed they would be rewarded for all their hard work. My younger son, 13, was a ball of nerves which may have cost him in precision. He did well, but he's still new at this, so didn't fare as well as his older brother. My older son, 15, is now a veteran quizzer, in his 3rd year and had what is called, literally, "A Perfect Day". It means he didn't make one mistake. Every time he jumped he was able to answer it or quote it perfectly. I wish I'd been there to see it. It is quite rare to have a perfect day (in life, too!). It only happens once or twice a year for all quizzers. He was sooooo excited as he knew he was going win the medal for best quizzer that day. His coach knew. My husband knew. My daughter knew. But somehow, the scorekeepers didn't know. And the medal for best quizzer goes to....."Katrina!" Uh, that's not my son's name. Everyone was so confused. They all knew she hadn't had a perfect day, so why was she winning it?
After she got her medal, my son's coach went up to the scorekeepers and said, "J had a perfect day. Shouldn't he have won it?" Oh dear. They quickly figured it out, and went back up on stage to say there had been a mistake! They didn't take the medal off the other girl (that would have been bad!), but made sure everyone knew J had won. Still, he came home, looking so defeated. I think he felt he didn't get truly acknowledged for all his hard work. My goodness - God is in the work of sanctifying my kids.
I immediately could see God was keeping this boy humbled. He wanted all the glory! Well, who wouldn't I suppose in this case. Here, he knew he'd put in the hours, the hard core studying of 11 chapters, perfected, memorized verbatim from Acts. Then, he actually wins! Out of all 75 kids, he's the winner! He must have been so proud! But, no, God didn't allow him to get the public acknowledgement he had hoped for. It's hard to understand why those things happen. In the meantime, he has to wait now until March for his medal. I think it will be made up to him then. It took away some of the excitement of winning by not getting acknowledged on the day, but God just wants him to wait, to work hard, in spite of the lack of reward before men.
On a more humourous note, I was back at base camp with the younger three. I love those days when I feel like a young mom of 3 under 6 again. Now, I eat up these 3 little ones, knowing they will not be little for long. It was the best day ever. They played blocks and cars and things like that for awhile. Then, I made them a fun "Quiz Day " breakfast - crepes with nutella and mango. We always eat that on someone's birthday. Too bad if the birthday girl wasn't there!
Then, shortly after, my youngest, went for an early nap as he'd been up since 5:30, so by 10 he was already in bed. This was when the fun started! The 4 year old went for a tub. He looooooves tubs and even moreso when he gets it all to himself. I always fill it super full and off he goes, "swimming". All the drywall around the tub is ruined thanks to his antics, but my bathroom floor is usually quite clean because of all the splashing! He called me in to show me how he could open his eyes under water. Suddenly, an idea dawned on me, "Do you want me to go get your goggles?" His eyes got so big with excitement! "SURE!!!!" So, I went down, found the goggles (thank goodness I knew where I'd put them) and gave them to him. I am NOT exaggerating, for the next two plus hours, he "swam" in the tub!!! So much so that I even drained some of the water out and had to refill it again because it got so cold! He missed lunch, snack, everything. Just swimming and then swimming some more. I couldn't believe how much fun he was having. The two year old finally woke up and then joined him in the "pool", much to his brother's frustration. Now I had to get more goggles. But this time, the two year just wore them on his eyes, no going under water, so that was even funnier. What a great bunch of pictures we got. I love main floor bathtubs!!!!!
The fun didn't stop there. After lunch (we had subs, another quiz day tradition, homemade - they love subs!), my 6 year old decided she wanted to be a pirate. She never says that, but oddly enough, we have pirate costumes that were given to us, so off they went, being pirates. Once again, a funny idea occurred to me, "Do you want me to get you a hook?" "SURE!!!!" So, I went into the drawer, and pulled out my bread maker/hook attachment and the next thing you know Captain Hook is in the house! My 4 year old son went around as Hook all. day. long. It was the funniest thing! To top it off, I let them watch Peter Pan and the day was complete. My son went to bed with his goggles on his head, his pirate costume on and a bread attachment hook on his hand. He had had a perfect quiz day, too.
I was so grateful. God gave me ideas all day long as to how to keep these little people busy. I don't remember any real conflict between those little people that day. I, too, had had a perfect quiz day and felt we all should have gotten medals!
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