The Power of a Good Scolding

My bff is visiting us later today. She is famous for giving marathon scoldings, full of detail and rational reasoning and quite endless. She'll pretty much bore a child into compliance. I am getting so much mileage out of this:

Child starts to misbehave.
I say, "Hmmm, shall I ask [bff] to have a little chat with you about this?"
Child straightens out immediately.

I've tried her techniques, but I am not boring enough. It's an art I aspire to.

rooster smack-down

Rooster has been posturing and posing at me through the kitchen windows.  He gets me in his sights and puffs out at me and crows in a that way he has -- you know, that "Come out here and do my bidding way", but I just ignore him and tend to my business.

Today, however, I was in the yard when he started doing this.  I was dressed for it -- chore boots, barn coat etc., so I stood my ground.  He jumped up; I deflected him.  Okay, I kicked him if you really want to know.  But he kept coming back! 

This is not good.  In the World of Rooster, whoever walks away from a fight is a big weeny and will be chased down and spurred in the back of the legs.  No matter how I puffed at him (spread my coat wide and flapped it) or kicked him, he wouldn't back off.  I couldn't walk away, nor could I persuade him to. 

What to do . . .

Oh right! My rooster was working in the barn. Oh Jamie . . . .

Three good deflections and a small and humble rooster slunk off to the far corner of the yard where he got very interested in a small blade of grass.

I just saw him through the kitchen window.  We caught each other's eyes and he humbly turned aside, no longer interested in expanding his territory to include the house-hens, as he sees us. 

I love my father as the stars - he's a bright shining example and a happy twinkling in my heart.

Happy Birthday to my Dad.

Banana Cream Pies are on their way . . .

make good tables

“The Church’s approach to an intelligent carpenter is usually confined to exhorting him not to be drunk and disorderly in his leisure hours, and to come to church on Sundays. What the Church should be telling him is this: that the very first demand that his religion makes upon him is that he should make good tables.” ~Dorothy Sayers

What took me so long?

Meal times are often a trial as Chickadee gets a little over-excited about the the two things she most missed as a small child: food and companionship.  If I leave the table, it gets worse; she shrieks and plays and can fritter away a couple of hours at the table, three times a day.

We have implemented a 30 minute maximum.  After 30 minutes, the food is put in the fridge for the next meal.  That resolved the fritter problem, but she wasn't eating enough and was still prone to shrieking.

iTunes has saved me.  I have downloaded Seeds of Praise - Seeds Family Worship, StoryNory Bible Podcasts, Paws and Tales Podcasts, Kids4Life Podcasts, 100 Bible Stories 100 Bible Songs, and more.  The 30 minutes for breakfast are now also 30 minutes of morning devotions.  There's teaching and singing and best of all, Dandy will not tolerate shrieking, as he wants to hear.

I can't believe it took me this long to figure out.

After Christmas Hymns

We have played our sacred Christmas playlists all season, and though we tire of the songs eventually, I love the spiritual food they offer. I'm not quite ready to go back to bluegrass and pop yet, so I've gathered together three hours of hymns to listen to. All arrangements are pretty pared down, which is how I like it. If you like the over-puffed choir and electronic embellishment sound, don't click here. If not, do click, you may find your January favorites:

Alpha Omega's Monarch Curriculum

We've moved some of the children's curriculum to online/CD-Rom material.  Of all that we are trying, Alpha Omega's Monarch is my favorite.  Obviously the scope and sequence and delivery all pass muster or I wouldn't even have given them a chance.  In addition, I like . . .
. . . that the children's daily work is listed on their homescreens.
. . . that I can access their lessons, their progress etc. from my computer (it's all online).
. . . that I set a start and a finish day and the program spreads the work out.
. . . that I can cancel a "School Day" and the program bumps the rest of the year's work accordingly.
. . . that it comes with a readable "Scope and Sequence" overview so that I know what is coming up.
. . . that the daily worksheets and quizzes and tests are 90% graded by the program.
. . . that a Godly worldview permeates the material.
. . . that there is a nice mix of worksheet style tasks and project-style tasks.
. . . that it is easy to get started with and simplifies my tasks.
. . . that the kids enjoy it.