My little post-modernist

When I had children I expected to have to teach them truth at some point--as in telling the truth versus lying. And, we have had some lessons on that in our house. However, John, recently, has been taking the matter of what truth is to an entirely new level. There was a time this last week that I actually thought that maybe he had become a post-modernist. It all started a few weeks ago. We were on our way to the doctor's office (imagine that :) ). We have to go over the river to get to our pediatrician's office. So, as we were crossing the river, John said that he saw a sailboat. There was no sailboat where he was looking. There was, however, a very large buoy. I said, "no, John that is a buoy." His reply "No, mommy, that is a sailboat." After several exchanges mirroring the above statements, he finally said "Okay, mommy, how about if you call it a buoy and I call it a sailboat. It can be a buoy for you and a sailboat for me." (How's that for relativism?!) It was at this point that I said "Well, you can call it whatever you want, but the truth is that it is a buoy. You would be lying if you insisted that it was a sailboat." I think he eventually got it because the next time we crossed the bridge, he very emphatically told his sister that it was indeed a buoy. Well, this last week on our way home from dropping the girls off at church, he was in deep thought in the backseat. Finally, he posed this question "Mommy, can I call yellow white and white yellow?" "No, John, the color yellow is yellow and the color white is white." Of course the next questions were "Why, mommy?" And "Who named the colors?" It was at this point that I answer like I do a lot of times as a mom "I have no idea, John." John: "I want to call yellow white and white yellow." And so I again explained the matter of truth. Needless to say, we have been reinforcing with him where he can find Truth, but I do think he will give his philosophy professor in college a run for his money--not to mention the kind of challenges he will give me before he leaves home. I should probably brush up on my apologetics.

My rain maker

We have a garage semi-attached to our house. It isn't attached in the sense that you can go through a door in the house and walk through it and be in the garage. You have to go outside and then go into the garage. However the roof line is attached to the house and the walkway to the garage is entirely covered. So, I call it a semi-attached garage--not sure if that is the technical name for it or not. In any case, it also has an automatic garage door on it. I think this is so cool because it is the first house that I've ever lived in where I have an automatic garage door. When we first moved in, it wasn't working real great and you had to push and hold down the button on the wall to get the door to go down. However, now, thanks to a guy in our small group who works on garage doors, it is fixed and it works perfect! I even play little games with it to see how far away I can be and still get the door to open. I also occasionally check and see if my opener will open anyone else's garage door. Do they program those things? In any case, you can bet that I ALWAYS park the van in the garage now. And I've kind of made it a big deal to everyone that we can now get in the van without getting wet when it rains. The bummer is that we really haven't had any rain since it started working. That is --until this weekend when I didn't have the van parked in the garage!! The truck got parked in the driveway a little funny and so, in order to ensure that I wouldn't hit the truck, we left the van in the driveway. And by the time I was ready to drive it again, it was raining. I couldn't believe it--I actually got wet! Then, again today, I went shopping this morning. I didn't park it in the garage when I got home because I had a bunch of stuff to unload from the car. Keep in mind it was a beautiful sunshiny morning, but now, within an hour of leaving the van out, I just looked outside and it was raining. Also, I kid you not, I went outside, pulled the van into the garage, and it immediately stopped raining. In fact, as I look out the window I see the sunshine. Kind of eerie...at least now I know the next time what I should do if we begin having a drought.

The new description of my son

My son Nathan has more energy than a stick of dynamite. Joe added that he can be more destructive than dynamite as well. Am I getting old or do two year olds really run faster now than they did when I had my first child? I told a friend the other day that I should have had my boys first--when I was in my 20s. She said I would have to take that up with the Lord. I just may...

My future doctors

So what have I been up to lately since it certainly hasn't been blogging? Believe it or not I have been spending some more time at the doctor's office. This time it was with Ashley. It was determined on Monday that she is to have her tonsils and adenoids removed. Plus she is going to have some tissue in her nose trimmed. At this point, she thinks this is all going to be pretty cool. And, so far, she has handled everything like a pro. She had her blood drawn on Monday afternoon. I must say I was at least slightly worried about that. Anytime you mention needle, shot, blood, or anything of the like to her in the past she completely freaks out. So we did some major preparation before they took her blood. She sat on my lap and I began my speech about how you don't have to watch and maybe it would be better if you just looked at me, etc. Personally, I pass out if I watch them draw my blood. Okay, so it doesn't have to be my blood--I pass out watching them draw any one's blood. So the nurse prepped her and then poked her. After a really big shout of "OUCH!" from Ashley, she stared completely mesmerized by what was taking place. And, then when it was finished, she stated "That was so cool. Did you see all the dark blood they took from me Mommy?" And, of course, the next day we had to keep the band-aid on because "I want to show it during show and tell, Mommy." Who knows, maybe we have a future doctor on our hands. John is showing signs of that as well---when Joe got back from his surgery, John was very insistent that he wanted to see what tools they used to cut Daddy. He was a little too fascinated with Daddy's cuts.