John, no... No, John... No...
Monday, Feb. 02, 2004, 4:20 p.m.

Church yesterday was good. Some of the things they said in the service really hit home and made me think, which is always a good thing. The kids were insanely rowdy yesterday! I only had 12 of them, but you’d have thought I had twice as many! One of them, John, who is normally a very quiet, calm little boy, decided yesterday that he was going to get into EVERYTHING. There was a yarn picture on one of the boards that he couldn’t leave alone. He kept trying to use the yarn to suspend his helicopter. And we were using aquarium rocks as pretend money (to help them figure out the amounts because who really knows what a denarius is anymore, anyway???) and, of course, it’s much more fun to play with it on the ground than in a nice, neat box. So we figured a controlled mess was better than an unplanned one and dumped about half the rocks out (which was still more than enough to spread around about ¼ of the room). There is also a little rocking chair in the room that the kids love, and take turns on. John decided, for his turn, that he was going to put the rocking chair down right in the middle of the pile of rocks. Did you know that multi-colored aquarium rocks leave smudges that are almost impossible to clean off the floor when crushed by a rocking chair and a small boy? Neither did I. “John, you can’t put your rocking chair down in the middle of the rocks.” He grins up at me and rocks enthusiastically a couple more times. I hear the gravel crunch and can see it smearing more on the floor. “Ok,” he says and gets up, picks up his rocking chair and sets it down elsewhere. So that it can leave more smudges from what’s on the bottom of the rocking chair. Five minutes later. *Crunch-crunch! Crunch-crunch!* I turn around and guess who’s got his chair plopped right back in the middle of the rocks. And when it was time for coloring he thought it would be more fun to eat the crayons than to color with them. And then drool on the paper in lovely new colors. “Look, teachew! I colowing!” *blppppt* Snack was goldfish and water. And you know goldfish taste ever-so-much better when they’ve been dunked in water and left to float for while. Somehow the water cup got tipped over so there were bits of water-logged goldfish crackers spread all over the table along with his water. It was terribly funny, but I spent an awful lot of time cleaning up after him. I have no idea what got into him, though!

last - next