tim and lisa cocking

…or, “When will they get it?”

I just spent quite a bit of time consoling Ellie over her lack of crayons. Ellie LOVES to color. However, like many kids she does not love to clean up her crayons.

My kids were each given a box of 24 Crayola crayons some time ago. I actually wrote each girl’s initial on EVERY SINGLE CRAYON in every box. Think I’m anal beyond belief overly organized? Not if you knew how much my kids bicker, fight and argue over every single item in existence. Either they’re fighting because they want to claim whatever the item(s) may be (”That’s MINE!”), or they’re fighting because they don’t want to pick them up (”But SHE got them out!”).

So as I was saying, Ellie loves to color but not clean up. When she’s finished coloring, instead of putting her own crayons into her own craft box she tends to just throw them into the first available space. This may be her sister’s craft box, the communal craft drawer, or who knows where. I occasionally go through the crayons in each girl’s box and re-sort them, but I avoid the big drawer o’ junk and don’t make much of an effort to find their missing crayons.

I re-sorted crayons the other day. As a result, Micah has a nearly complete set of crayons. Ellie does not. Ellie tried to insist that some of Micah’s crayons were hers, despite the big black “M” on all of them. Great amounts of whining, crying and general unpleasantness ensued. But no matter how much I try to force it into her get it into her head explain gently that if she put her things away carefully she’d be able to find them when she wants them, she just doesn’t seem to get it.

On a related note, I have not had great success in getting the girls to pick up their playroom. About an hour ago they were running wild in the living room. When I suggested they go up to their playroom, Micah explained, “But it’s too messy!” Nice.

Cause and effect. A simple concept. Or so you’d think.

Here’s a good summertime (or wintertime) activity with the kids when things get a little dull. It gets pretty messy with my kids, so I always do it outside. Maybe your kids are not so messy and you’d be willing to try it inside, but do so at your own risk.

Shaving Cream Prints
Supplies:

• A can of shaving cream (not the gel type)
• plastic knife (one per kid)
• liquid food coloring
• toothpicks or skewer
• baking pan or sheet, a little bigger than your paper (one per kid)
• plain white paper (printer paper works fine)
• a piece of cardboard with a straight edge.

Also helpful:

• a hose (for rinsing hands, pans, etc)
• paper towel
• garbage can or bucket

1. Cover your paper plate, pan or whatever with about an inch of shaving cream. Use the knife to spread it evenly, so the top is reasonably flat and smooth.



2. Put single drops of food coloring on top of the shaving cream, with a lot of space between the drops.



3. Using a toothpick or wooden skewer, gently trace lines through the food coloring to make interesting, marbled patterns.



4. Carefully place a piece of paper on top of the shaving cream, making sure you don’t slide the paper around. Pat gently to make sure that the entire surface of the paper has come in contact with the shaving cream, with no air bubbles.



5. Carefully remove the paper and scrape the shaving cream off with the piece of cardboard.



6. Let your creation dry!

You can make multiple prints from the same shaving cream/food coloring. When you no longer like how your prints look, just add a new layer of shaving cream on top and start over!

Several times each year, our church does community service projects. This morning we packed up the kids and drove all the way to Zellwood to glean fields for The Society of St. Andrew. The Society of St. Andrew is, in their own words, “a Christian ministry dedicated to gleaning America’s fields and feeding America’s hungry [by providing] healthy, nutritious produce to society’s most vulnerable through innovative, cost effective programs.”

We thought we were going to be picking citrus fruit, but instead were sent into a cornfield. At first glance, it looked like the field had been picked clean. But when we looked closer, we found lots and lots of corn still on the plants. Apparently it’s not economical for the farmers to send the harvesters through a second time. Instead of just turning all that good corn under when they till the fields, they allowed us to come in and pick everything we could find. Our group of around 50 adults and children picked several large truckloads of corn. We were told that it would be distributed today, and probably eaten tonight.

We were encouraged to sample the corn as we picked. I haven’t eated fresh corn, raw, straight from the field (or still in the field) since I was a kid. I remember “stealing” ears that had just been picked from our friend’s huge garden, and hiding in the woods with my sister and our friend to eat the raw sweet corn. I husked an ear for Micah first, and she was hooked from the first bite. Ellie and Bethany weren’t far behind, and also loved it. Tim had never eaten raw corn before and enjoyed it… until he finished eating it and started having an allergic reaction. I think he’s allergic to almost all raw vegetables.

The day provided a good opportunity to talk about those who are less fortunate than we are, and also to go over the story of Ruth. There’s nothing like life experience to bring bible stories to life. I hope that every time the girls read or hear the book of Ruth, they’ll think about today and have a better understanding of what was going on.

One last thing: despite having lived here for almost two years, it still seemed a little odd to be picking corn in early May. “Knee-high by the fourth of July”? Not in Florida!

This is Ellie’s puppy. It is, shall we say, well-loved. Mangy, even. Puppy has had a series of operations due to failing body parts. Today it was her tail.

Isn’t that just the most pathetic little thing? She looks so sad. Surgery, however, is becoming increasingly difficult on puppy. There’s not a whole lot left to stitch together. But, I did the best I could.

It was touch and go for a while, there. But in the end (pun intended) I was able to get her back together. And it was so worth it.

Our friend Christina meme-tagged us. If you’re old like me, you might have no idea what this means. Here’s the deal, straight from her blog:

1. Link back to the person who tagged you. (check)
2. Post these rules on your blog. (check)
3. Share six unimportant things about yourself
4. Tag six random people at the end of your entry.

Since this is a family blog, I thought I’d share some things about each of us. Let’s see…

1. Micah likes to talk. And talk, and talk. Her recent favorite subject: talking. “God made me to talk a lot. Because I like to talk, because that’s how God made me. And I talk a lot. I’m talking right now. I’m talking about talking!”
2. Ellie is ambidextrous, and has declared that she wants to be an author-illustrator when she grows up. Maybe she can write the stories with one hand and illustrate them with the other.
3. Bethany has sight-read 900 words for her first grade class, and is trying to be the first in the class to reach 1000.
4. We have a collection of over 260 glass-based (mostly, some are aluminum-based) radio transcription albums, and a custom 1940’s transcription turntable to play them on (if Tim can get it to work). All of it was inherited from my grandfather. The records live in a coffin-sized case, which we call Jaja’s iPod.
5. I kill plants. It’s terrible. I’m so bad, I’ve given Bethany the job of taking care of my plants. I think a six-year-old will be more responsible about it than I am. Of course, I’ve promised to pay her a dollar a week if they live so she’s got some motivation.
6. Tim has amazing hearing. He can hear things that I think only he and dogs can, like the sound the tv makes when it’s turned on but there’s no sound on. I can occasionally hear that kind of sound on a really old tv, but he can always hear it. He also sleeps with his eyes open. Freaky.

Now, six people to tag. This was hard, since I don’t have that many blogging friends! But here’s my list.

1. Kristina
2. Joe
3. Emily
4. Shannon and David
5. Ingrid
6. JR

Have fun!