First Bike Lesson of '15

Things we said

• Stop panicking.  I am holding the seat.  Try to fall over.
• I promise I will hold the seat all the way to the end of the driveway.
• Look at the burn pile!  Go faster. Look at the burn pile!
• If you look at the tree, you will steer toward the tree.
• Don’t look straight down.
• Look far ahead and you will steer more smoothly.
• The faster you go, the better you will balance.
• Keep your feet on the pedals.
• Don’t brake with your shoes [on the ground].
• Uphill is hard work, huh?
• Drive where the gravel is the flattest.
• Good recovery!
• Maybe you should stay on the right side of the driveway when your brother is coming the opposite way.
• Don’t go at your sister.
• Watch out for Nathan!
• Maggie, get out of the way!
• Keep going, you can do it!
• Try to fall in the grass.
• Yes, it’s hard to turn when your knees hit the handle bars.
• Now look at your pedals.  How will they be turned when you get the most power [torque]?  So when you start, you want your pedals to be oriented like that so you get the most power [torque] for your push.
• Why are you slumping side to side like that?  Stop slumping.
• Do you want help launching?
• See if you can start yourself this time.
• If you start at the outside of the turn around, you can turn more easily.
• Don’t give up.
• It’s time to stop feeding the chickens and get back on your bike.
• You can make it, keep pedaling.
• Most of us mere mortals cannot balance on a bike while it is stopped.
• Well, you’re learning how to fall.
• Get out from under the bike, and then pick it up.
• It is not trying to kill you.
• You did it! You did it!  Yee-haw!

Life skills

Before my children launch as adults, I would like them to be able to:

• swim
• run a load of laundry
• cook on a grill
• fry an egg
• ride a bike
• balance a checkbook
• know the bible well enough to recognize stuff that is not from it
• make a bed
• butter and cut their own waffles
• make a budget
• evaluate whether a relationship is healthy or not
• check the oil
• read music
• strike up a conversation with someone new
• come up with a good password
• understand compound interest
• drive a stick shift
• read something and answer the questions, “What is the author saying?” and “Do I agree?”
• sew a small mend
• sing the National Anthem
• eat with dignity in a formal setting

Petra's background knowledge

Steve was mowing the lawn before the coming rain.
I was trying to get supper ready.
Julia was swinging on the rope swing in the gorgeous spring weather.
That left Petra to be in charge of Nathan.

While I was cooking I realized the two youngest were standing on the stoop looking out on the world, and Petra was explaining a wealth of life lessons to Nathan.
"...and you should not touch poison ivy.  I'm actually ALLERGIC to poison ivy."
"Hi Petra, are you watching out for Nathan?"
"Yeah.  I told him to stay away from the mower.  That's why we're up here on the steps.  I also told him to stay away from the street.  And not to touch poison ivy.
Nathan, you shouldn't touch bees, or yellow jackets, or carpenter bees either.  I don't usually touch them, but once a yellow jacket landed right by my eye, and I tried to swipe it way like this, and it stung me.  And you should never touch a carpeter bee, because they can sting you so bad that you'll bleed!  Bleeding means that the red blood comes out of you.
And you should never touch fire, or lava, or the sun.  Lava is so hot that it would burn you up.  When I was three years old I wanted to touch the sun, but mommy told me not to because it would burn me up.
You should also stay away from lions and wolves.  Lions are like kitty, but they are so big they could eat you up!
You should also not touch sharp arrows. And be careful of doors."

Nathan was listening the whole time.

Petra recently brought home a report card from school.  She is doing well in preschool.  Her teacher's written comment was, "Petra is fun to have in class.  She always adds a lot of background knowledge to our scientific investigations."

Easter Eggs

I have kind of mixed emotions about coloring eggs for Easter.  I like coloring them with the kids, especially now that it is not necessarily a foregone conclusion that they will dump the dye on themselves.  I love having a family tradition to share with them.

The thing is that the kids don't particularly like eating hard boiled eggs.  I have decided that it is not worth driving them into hysterical misery Easter morning by trying to force each one to eat a hard boiled egg for breakfast.

Steve is kind of willing to eat hard boiled eggs - he just doesn't usually sit down and do it.

Which leaves me with 12 hard boiled eggs to eat before they go bad.  I like hard boiled eggs.  I really do.  But 12 is a lot.  Twelve is even more when you take into account the fact that I have to eat them when the kids aren't looking because they have developed a deep emotional attachment to the eggs that they have decorated and don't want to eat.

Today I ate one of Petra's eggs for lunch, while she was sitting at the table. 

"MOM!  That was one of my eggs!  It was so beautiful.  You're not going to eat it, are you?  You didn't ask me if you could.  It's so pretty.  Are you going to eat it?"

"Mom, you ate my egg.  You didn't ask me first.  My pretty shells.  Can I keep them?"

I told her I would take a picture of her pretty shells.  

Shell remnants after mommy ate one of Petra's Easter eggs.

ordinary cross

This year for Easter, it struck me that there was nothing particularly miraculous about the cross.

When Jesus came into the world, there were angelic announcements, visions, and a virgin birth.  Miraculous!

And again when Jesus resurrected, there were angels visiting.  Resurrection itself - miraculous!

But when Jesus died, he just bled out and suffocated on a Roman cross.  It was just what one would expect.  It was the same thing that happened to the criminals on the crosses right next to him and in other places of execution across the Roman Empire.  It gruesome, but normal, ordinary.

Okay, yes the weather was announcing that something huge was happening in that death.  We know that on the spiritual scene something was happening that never happened before or since.  The Trinity was split and God the Father poured the whole punishment for the whole body of sins of his people, past, present, and future onto God the Son, who absorbed the punishment and died.

But even the notion that a blood sacrifice should be made unto death for the payment of sins was, for the time, really kind of normal.  While Jesus was hanging on the cross, a similar scene, the sacrificial spilling of blood, was playing out in the Temple not far away.  Repeatedly.  Daily.  The sacrifice of blood was the ordinary means God had instituted for his people to interact with him.

God chose to use something that was ordinary to save all his people, of all times, forever. Amazing!

Easter Egg Hunt 2015

Julia, Petra, and Nathan got to go on an Easter Egg Hunt with our church through the local YMCA.  Here are a few pictures of them at the lunch before the hunt.

I am pleased to report that this year Petra 1) got some eggs, and 2) shared some of her eggs with a family that was behind the crowd and didn't get any.