Every Day Is School Day

In exactly one week we will be conjugating, solving for "x," balancing chemical equations, and reading (or learning to read, as the case may be), reading, reading.   While I am very excited for our school year to begin, there is a part of me that will miss some of those less-than-formal learning experiences that summertime provides.

Here is one such experience from early May ...

Near the beginning of the walk ...

After walking quite a distance along the path, our 5-year-old son began to whine, “I'm tired … I'm hungry” forgetting that he had just wolfed down his waffles 30 minutes prior.  My first response was to IGNORE and keep moving.  Soon, “I'm super hungry.”  Second response from this nuturing mother, “It's time to suck it up … we are preparing for our hikes in France...”  then out of the mouth of the babe, “I'm really tired and super super hungry.”  Third response - “See that yellow sign down there...that's the goal.  We get there and then we will turn and head for home where you can have a snack.”  Surely this would suffice … but no, the whine continued, and as I pushed baby sister in the stroller and tried to coax my strong-willed boy, I breathed out a prayer of help … and then thanksgiving as this came to mind,

“One generation shall praise Your works to another, and shall declare Your mighty acts.”  Psalm 145:4

Thank you for this opportunity to speak to the next generation.  If I continue my current path of responses, my child will remain fixated on his wants, his dire situation, his apparent lack.  It was time to adjust our focus.  “I will declare Your mighty acts.”

So I began with “Listen! What is that you hear?”
His quick response “Birds”
“What are they doing?”
Singing
“What do you think they are singing?”
Praise to God.
“Why?”
Because He made them to sing.



Belle, patiently waiting as Bear shows me a "discovery"

Then we turned our attention to the grass...to the green grass and then to the many shades of green on the hill of trees just over there.  Next, the pink flowers who, according to my son, were named “little pink flowers” … we stopped to count the horses, some rolling on their backs with their feet in the air.  We were surrounded by God's good creation … and we praised His works as we sauntered home without a single whine!

The road may appear long, but we will walk it together.