Bedtime prayer songs

Our bedtime routine as I tuck each of my sons into bed a few minutes apart is to sing some songs of their choice from our current bedtime repertoire. Songs that are prayers, parts of our church service music, or easy hymn refrains. I introduced this a few years ago when the older son began resisting bedtime prayers. Over the last month or so our younger son, age 4 1/2, has been asking lots of questions during his songs, and tonight was quite a time.

Holy, Holy, Holy Lord, God of power and might.
- Mommy, what's 'might'? (before I could answer) oh, that's being strong (makes strong-man arm motions)

Heaven and earth are full of your glory. Hosanna in the highest. Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest.
(On to our next song, which I often sing after Holy Holy Holy)

Glory to God in the highest and peace to his people on earth.
- Where is God? God is all around us (we'd talked about this before, and that was the best I could come up with!). Is Father D--- God?
[Me] No, Father D--- is a person. God is... God, and is with us all of the time.
[Son] Is God with all of the people?
[Me] Yes, God is with all of us all of the time.
[Son] God is right next to us, right?
[Me] Exactly! God is right next to every one of us.

Lord God, heavenly King, almighty God and Father, we worship you, we give you thanks...
- Mommy, what is 'worship'?
[Me] It's giving honor; we worship, we honor... (I didn't know how to explain it off the cuff!)
[Son] (thoughtful silence, I hope)

...we praise you for your glory. Lord Jesus Christ, only Son of the Father, Lord God, Lamb of God, you take away the sin of the world...
- (I knew this was coming) Mommy, what is sin?
[Me] Sin is when we do what we shouldn't do, the opposite of what we really should do, what God wants us to do.
[Son] Like when people hurt someone or kill someone
[Me] That's right, or when we say or do things that hurt people
[Son] Hurt their feelings, or hit them like this (mimes hitting!). That's not good.
[Me] That's right. That's sin. We should choose what's right.

...have mercy on us; you are seated at the right hand of the Father...
- Mommy, what does that mean?
[Me] It means Jesus is in a place of honor next to God the Father. He is God too, they are God together (arrgh, what have I gotten myself into!). (Now, mindful of the next phrase in the song) Jesus hears our prayers in a special way and brings our prayers to... to God. (mumble mumble)

...receive our prayer. For you alone are the Holy One, you alone are the Lord, you alone are the Most High, Jesus Christ, with the Holy Spirit, in the glory of God the Father. Amen.

+

I had an inkling that this song might teach my kids something of the faith, but I had no idea it might go like this -- all in just a few minutes!

By the way, our current repertoire is

• "Holy, Holy, Holy"


• "Glory to God in the Highest"


• "All Things Bright and Beautiful" refrain


• "Our Father/the Lord's Prayer" to two different tunes (published one I learned in another parish, and our current organist/choirmaster's composition)


• "The Lord Is my Shepherd, I'll Follow Him Alway"


• The children's prayer, "Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, bless this bed I lie upon," set to a charming tune.

Each season of the church year I try out a few new songs. The songs must be fairly quick to memorize, as there's very little light at bedtime in their room, and I don't want to mess with that for the sake of reading music or words. I'm reminded that I'd like the boys to sing with me again, at least more often.

Bedtime song as catechism tonight, I guess!

Political, believe it or not

After watching the TV coverage of the Republican National Convention last night, I did something I've never done in my LIFE. I stopped at the local party headquarters and picked up yard signs for our front yard. My husband was okay with it, the several times I asked him. We'll see if we get any drive-by or walk-by "embellishment" to our signs. They are:

1. Kerry-Edwards / A Stronger America
2. (Our Democratic candidate for Senate)

It's a pretty weird feeling letting my colors show in any forum whether here, in face-to-face conversations, or in our front yard. Yet I'm a lifelong Democrat and voter.

And that's all I'll say about that. Other than:

— Exercise your hard-won right and VOTE —

Project pressure

Today I feel time/project pressure. I'm not exactly sure how to wrap up two volunteer projects that are due, launch a for-pay longterm task, and stay focused on my kids, home, and ministry. Arrgh. The answer ought to be to keep the focus steady and do the baby-step thing with the due projects, and quickly they'll be gone from my days. And then deal with the longterm task and whether I really ought to be doing it.

I think I'm getting mixed up between my struggle to complete projects, which is typical me, and my doubts about doing the longterm task that would bring in some money. My feeling of being under pressure will ease when I force myself to actually complete the first two projects -- they're very close -- so I need to at least deal with those two.

I'd much rather read.

Or stitch.

(Or blog, LOL!)

I could use those as incentives. After 30 minutes of project finish work, hang out with the kids and read a little chunk of any book with a bookmark in it or do a small section of either needlework project :) Somehow. Today. Between people errands (a/k/a chauffeuring), someone's dentist appointment, and planning dinner.

Hmm. Enough stalling. Gotta go!

Schoolish and schedule stuff

Both boys started school last Wednesday. Son1 (8 1/2) started his fifth year -- third grade -- and Son2 (4 1/2) started his first experience of school -- pre-kindergarten, 2 1/2 hours each afternoon. Both are enjoying school. Son2 happily tells us all about whatever caught his interest each day. Son1 seems relaxed and interested in his school stuff, a good sign, though not very talkative about it, as usual.

But -- on the third day of school Son1 already had a bad interaction with a kid who has been a bully in past years and was gone last year, but is back in Son1's class this year; I need to email the teacher today with a heads-up about the incident. We will NOT let this kid bully ours. Sigh.

Life was hectic this past week, and I give us all another week. Then I think the kids and I will be more adjusted to the new constraints and routine. I'll bring back The Story of the World at after-school snack time again, and offer some Cuisinaire rod work. Perhaps a bit of Miquon or Family Math from time to time -- or play more card games! If Son2 is still interested, we'll pull out the Bob Books again and alternate with "Little Stories for Little Folks" from CHC/Catholic Heritage Curriculum. Son1 really enjoyed those when he was first learning to read.

We have one car and are a transfer family to the school that used to be our little neighborhood elementary until we bought a house last year. We're now about 10 minutes' drive away, in another school's area. We transferred to keep the boys at that little school where we know many of the families and we know and like most of the staff, their morale, the way they teach, and so on. This means that I'm now puzzling over my driving schedule: drop off Son1, return home; take husband to work (10 minutes away too), return home; take Son2 to preK, return home; pick up both boys, return home; pick up husband from work, return home. Aack!

My goal is to do errands or MOMS Club activities or go to the library with Son2 most mid-mornings between dropping husband off and dropping Son2 off at noon. That way I can go home during preK and do whatever I need to do, yet preserve my reluctant-chauffeur sanity for the day. What's really funny is that the dropoff/pickups are only 10 minutes each way, but it's a big deal to me.

Re. homeschooling, I will only say that I would LOVE to do it, and 2 1/2 years after my homeschooling "aha!" I have become deeply resistant to being enmeshed in the schoolish way of life. And yet, here we are. Schedules, structures, constraints... that enable teachers to work with a large number of kids at once and try to support the kids who don't have enough or any support at home. Apparently slow support for my son where he is advanced in subject areas (far ahead in math and way ahead in reading). A typical self-preserving organizational hierarchy that goes all the way up to the school district. Et cetera. Things I don't like about any organization, and this one has my kids and, therefore, us. Thanks to homeschooling I know my family doesn't need this and can untie ourselves from this if we dare. That's all I'll say about that.

Son1 is interested in a couple of activities this fall: the upper elementary strings program offered by the university music education folks, and the city parks and rec league basketball program. Dear husband and I are keeping an eye out for announcements of the swim club tryouts, because we think he'd actually love the swim club. We'll see; they're all monetary commitments as well as time, and we had always said we'd limit the kids to one sports, one music, and one church activity. Yet with just one child involved it can have a huge impact on family life. I see why some parents direct their children to the same or similar activities.

The plan is to get more info on all of the above activities, we parents and Son1 discuss, and then we parents make the decisions. He's not quite old enough to acolyte at our church, so that's out at least until he's nine. Decisions, decisions.

Anyway, that's what's up after the first three days of school in our neck of the woods.

15 minutes, card games, book toss

When I have more than the 15 minutes I just used writing this, I want to blog about: the kids starting school / schedules and possibilities / not home at once and together / guilty pleasure of TIME. And Stuff again (progress! good!).

Card games

We're all about Go Fish at least three times a day with some combination of Son2, Son1, and me. Fun! They were playing War just before breakfast this morning. I've also taught Son2 (age 4 1/2) a type of solitaire where he removes pairs of matching cards in an array of eight cards; he really likes it. I taught Son1 (8 1/2) to play the same game but to pair the cards that add up to 13.

Yesterday Son2 and I learned a clock solitaire game and Son1 told dear husband and me that he learned a "really cool" card game in school. On hearing his description, I decided it ought to be called Addition War; each player lays down two cards at a time, and the player with the highest combined face value wins the hand. They also played it with three cards at a time. I want to play this with Son1.

This morning I told them about Crazy Eights. This card stuff is fun! I don't think they've learned so many games in so few days before, LOL!

Book toss

I'm returning a bunch of library books this afternoon, using my "get rid of it!" Stuff attitude. Son1 received Harry Potter 5 from Grandma and Grandpa last week, and then checked out HP2 from the school library (he owns it!?! what's that about??), so he's simultaneously rereading both books. And the 2nd in the Wrinkle in Time series. And the 7th in the Young Underground series. And The Voyage of the Dawn Treader (Narnia). Yikes. This is looking like my stack of books. The books on the ancients and the Olympic games have slipped out of favor, and all of the Bionicle books have been read, so back to the library they go.

I'm returning some of my books as well. I really enjoyed Suburban Nation, and How Cities Work is also extremely interesting. I thought it'd be redundant, but it's a different approach entirely.

I'm also going to pick up Running Out of Time, by Margaret Haddix, thanks to a blogger's mention of it in the same sentence as M. Shyamalan's (sp?) The Village...

Shuffle those cards, and deal

The book of family card games has waited patiently for nearly two months of the summer. Tonight was the night. I told the kids we were going to learn card games, and learn we did.

We learned that 7 pm is too late for a 4 1/2 year old to both recognize the Jack and be able to shout "Slapjack!" before his cardshark older brother. Or maybe there is no time of day at which this is possible, and tears are always the result. We moved quickly on to learning "Snap" -- like Slapjack except we look for a match between cards. We learned that this game still does not make a happy 4 1/2 year old when the cards go against him or big brother is lightning quick and gets many of the matches.

Aha! Mom thumbed further into the War chapter and decided to try War for Three. It worked pretty well for a while. Son2 (the 4 1/2 year old) caught on quickly, and happily this game depends completely on the luck of the draw. There were no tears... and then, after initial success, the game began to drag on and on. And on. Or at least that's what Mom forsaw.

Okay, Mom found a reasonable stopping place and pulled out the book again. The three cardplayers finally founnd just the right card game. Not too fast, not too slow; not too hard, not too easy; just right. In fact, Mom thinks we might actually play this again tomorrow.

Go Fish.

"Minnow"-style, with a twist. In Go Fish for Minnows, according to the book, all of the cards are dealt, and the aim is to collect pairs. I changed that to dealing out 9 cards each and having the "fishing" draw pile in the middle. Happy cardplayers! The youngest had fun, the older son began to catch on to some strategy, and Mom enjoyed it too. It is possible we will be able to move from collecting pairs to collecting 3 of a kind and, ultimately, to the book-stated four of a kind. We shall see.

Of course, the kids thought we were going to learn poker, thanks to dear husband's enjoyment of televised poker tournaments lately!

I'd nearly forgotten that dear husband and I used to play Hearts with others, cribbage together and, sometimes, Spades. He enjoys Euchre and taught me once. He plays poker with friends. I used to play Gin Rummy all the time. The kids have no idea!

Now they are long asleep and I'm off to play some actual, physical, non-virtual, non-Microsoft(tm) solitaire before bed.

Hospitality redux

I continue to mull over hospitality. Two more elements have popped up from the deep waters.

The More With Less Cookbook, by Mennonite author Doris Janzen Longacre, is a wonderful resource for cooking from your food stock, eating simple yet delicious frugal foods, and welcoming others to share a meal together. Over the 15 years or so I've had this cookbook, I return to it again and again for the first two reasons, but the third is starting to resonate with me now.

Open Heart, Open Home: The hospitable way to make others feel welcome and wanted, by Karen Mains, has been on my bookshelves for many years. I think I read part of it in my mid-20s, but I have no impression of it now. Recently I've heard it mentioned again. Though I'm sure my copy is not the most recent version, I'm going to crack it open and see what she says about "a biblical and spiritual approach to using your home to care for others."