Of Finger-Knitting and Andy Griffith

We are in our last week of break. Ah, the reveling in sleepy mornings, second cups of coffee, children who delight to play with each other without even a hint of arg...yeah, right! Our breaks are generally filled with fun visits to friends' homes, friends filling our home, mom drinking more than 2 cups of coffee in the day (mostly decaf) and her recognizing greater and deeper areas of instruction which get brushed over in school time! So, while it is definitely wonderful to have a change of pace, the Lord uses it to also humble the parents--which is painful.

Anyway, this week, the girls and Philip went to my parents' home on Monday and spent the night. It was Philip's first sleep away from home and he did marvelously. I had Simeon at home with me and spent lots of time rearranging the school room, throwing away sheet after sheet of paper, looking through the remainder of the curriculum, re-evaluating the curriculum, you know all the fun stuff. On the Tuesday morning, Simeon said, "Want to go the barm with me (yes, he calls it a barm rather than a barn) and we can see horses, and cows, and sheep, and chickens." "Well," I said, "how about we go and see puppies and kitty cats and fish and birds!" I had designs for us to do some shopping errands and I'd throw in a look-see at PetSmart as his treat. He actually really loves being the only child, so he sort of looked serenely out of the window in the van and sucked his pacifier and kept his hat on--all things which are interfered with by older siblings.

When the children returned, the girls had learned how to finger-knit. I am now the proud owner of a finger-knitted necklace. It's a pretty neat thing and the girls picked it up really quickly; anything which keeps them occupied is fine with me!

The top photo is of our newest Andy Griffith collection. If you come by our house on any given weeknight around 5 p.m, you're likely to find me hovering over a stove and the children crashed out in the living room watching an Andy Griffith episode on the computer. We have already seen the first and second seasons a number of times, so today we acquired the 3rd season. The kids are delighted! And it buys me 21 minutes of sanity!