I remembered another thing that gets me up in the polls.....cereal. If I buy dry, boxed, awful, sugar-filled cereal I am truly the best mom ever. So, in the name of the polls, I buy it once a week. It keeps my kids happy, full of sugary energy and quite honestly, I love it, too! Hard to justify with eggs coming out of our ears now, but it's a splurge we all enjoy and again, it's all about the polls.....
These new friends in our lives, the lizard and the spider, are incredible. I cannot believe the things I have observed and learned because of our boys' interests. Yesterday, my 9 year old said, "Mom, Mom, come here! You've got to see this!" I had wanted to see a lizard feeding, but was never in the room at the right time. So in I went. My son caught a cricket and then put it in the far end of the tank, away from the lizard who was facing the other way at the extreme other end of the tank. I said to my son, "This is going to take forever! I don't have a half an hour!" "No, no, it won't...watch this," my son assured me, "he knows it's in there." "How?! It's way on the other side of the tank!" Suddenly, with lightning speed, the lizard turned his whole long body, ran over to the other side of the tank, found exactly where the cricket was hiding under a log...and crunch! He got it instantly! I couldn't believe what I just saw! How did he know it was in the tank? How did he know where the cricket was? There was no noise, no movement....or was there? The only thing we can figure is that the lizard has extrememly heightened senses and felt the minute movements and the slightest vibrations that the cricket made or possibly heard its movement which was certainly out of the range of human ears. I used to wonder how a lizard would manage in the wild, but no longer. It would be able to sense a bug under sand or even under bark no problem if that is how God created them to survive. It was such a good lesson in biology for me and the wonder of creation.
The tarantula is no different. Who knew that their little fangs were able to move independently? This I did not see with my own eyes, but my 16 year old son, who owns the giant spider, told me how when he put in two crickets, the tarantula was so excited that it grabbed the first spider with one fang and then reached the other fang way out to the right to grab the other cricket! I did not know they could do that!!! Very cool. So there it was, two crickets, one in each fang. Remind me to keep my fingers out of there. I've also since learned, everyone thinks that tarantulas are poisonous and deadly. It turns out they are not. Yes, there are some that are, but the species we have would not kill you, it would be more like a bee sting. What would hurt, I'm told, is the bite given by the half inch fangs. Uh yeah. So, I'm still going to keep my fingers out of there even if it doesn't kill me.
What can be deadly and poisonous is teaching 5, 7 and 9 year olds at home.....when they don't want to be taught. This week was a particular challenge with the younger ones in school. At one point, I had 3 kids all in tears, at the same time! I was near tears! My husband walked in just at that moment and I looked up at him, pleading with him to take me to the Bahamas! "This is too hard!" I appealed to him. "Remember, it was like this with the older ones...we've been through this before....." It was true. I wasn't even being a drill seargent or a dictator or whatever mean mom image comes to mind, I was just trying to get them to add and subtract! None of them wanted to be there that morning and it was as if they all were in revolt - determined to make me so frustrated that I would cancel school - forever! Finally, I got them all settled down, food was on the way (that was the only thing I could figure was wrong.....make lunch!) and I pulled out my son's grade one reader. It turns out the solution to my morning was in this reader.
I have to say, I love my Rod and Staff Mennonite readers. They are right to the point, Biblically-based and teach my youngest kids spiritual truths that you wouldn't hear even from the pulpit sometimes! This was what the reader said that morning,
Bad Satan
Satan is very bad.
We do not want to obey Satan.
We want to obey God.
God can help us.
God is good to us.
He likes to help us.
He likes to help us do good.
He can help us all the time.
Satan can not help us.
He can not do good.
That was it. I looked at my son who had refused to work that morning and I said something like, "I think we discovered what our problem is this morning. Satan hates us. He wants us to not learn, to hate school. He's been winning this morning, hasn't he?" "Yes." "Ok, it says here God wants to help us. Satan cannot help us. Let's get this done!" Within minutes, everyone had done what they were supposed to do. Satan was defeated. No more tears. Such a basic lesson, but so profound, too. I was caught unaware which is typically how the enemy works, using my own children and their schoolwork to work all of us into a frenzy of frustration. Yet, the solution was there the whole time. "God can help us....Satan can not help us...God is good to us....Satan can not do good." A great lesson for the remainder of the week. My 5 year old son's prayer later that night at family worship was also profound, "Satan is so awful. Help us, Lord."
Now the week is over, but not without remembering what I learned. I look out my window and think winter and spring are very confused. We've had snow, cold, and very unspringlike weather for days now. None of us are very happy about that. It's good to look back over the week though and thank God for His lessons that we've learned in Life School, about biology and the spiritual battle all around us, in addition to many other lessons. Even the cold weather is a lesson in patience as we're all itching to get outside. The lessons are basic, nothing out of the ordinary - look to God for strength and help, admire His creation, and be patient with His timing....these are the lessons He wants me to learn over and over. He is creative in how He teaches me the same things through a variety of methods! I'm glad He is my teacher and I'm in His school. He's a lot more patient that I am!
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