Sunday - storytelling

I really never would have predicted that I would end up with "storyteller" as part of my job description. Sure, I did theater as a child and youth, but I thought of myself as dancer first, singer second, actress a very distant third. And storytelling is really it's own beast, not exactly acting.

When I was getting my Masters in Teaching, we did a very short look at the teaching methods of other cultures, and I remember reading a book of "teaching stories" of Native Americans. It stands out in my mind from the whirlwind of "stuff" we did and read, partly because they were stories.

The human brain is wired for story. If you can make your message into a story, folks will have a much easier time remembering it. In all the years I have attended churches, there is only one sermon that I remember vividly, but there are many stories that have stuck with me.

Today I told "Pandora's Box" at the church service. It's a simple story, but one of my favorites. I chose the story to go with a message from a guest speaker who conducts interfaith "blessings" at places where violent crime has been committed. The end bit of "Pandora", where she catches and holds on to Hope, after all the bad things have gone out into the world, was the part that made me think of this story to go with that message. And after the service many people came up to say that they had loved that story, or that they still remembered reading it as a child.

I think we need stories, and I am very lucky to have a job where I seek them out and pass them on.

Children's chores

We created a new chore chart today, as our previous norm has been that I do all the chores around here. Of course, little kids can't do many chores without support from an adult, so this move will not reduce my workload. Actually, the new chore chart will probably be more work for me, but I am investing in the future here.

So now the family has chores:

Carbon will clean his room, take out the trash and recycling, scoop the dog poop in the yard, clean a bathroom, and wash the dishes once a week.

Hypatia will clean her room, help scrub the kitchen floor, clean a bathroom, scoop the kitty messes in the garage, and wash dishes once a week.

My husband will clean the litterboxes, wash the dishes once a week, and make breakfast on Saturdays.

I want to build healthy habits, instill a sense of responsibility, and pave the road for more equity in the future. So I hope this goes well!

Family Game Night

I don't think there is anything better for family bonding and fun than playing games together. Well, maybe read-alouds - they are tied at the top of my list.

Unfortunately, though, Carbon seems to have inherited my extreme tendency to be a bad-loser. I have trouble not having a little hissy-fit if I lose a game, but I don't stress when I'm playing kiddie games with children, so the kids haven't seen me be a bad loser. So maybe there is a bad-loser gene in my DNA, but regardless my son gets very mad if he loses and he stalks off from the table declaring that it was "no fun at all".

Cooperative games are best for us. There are some truly cooperative games out there, but we also find that we can play many of the Ravensberger games semi-cooperatively. "Rivers, Road, and Rails" is Carbon's favorite, with it's cooperative puzzle building a crazy twisting road system.

Even very young children can play this game, so it is perfect for families and mixed-age groups. But you need a big table!

My little critic

Ah, kids. They listen to what you say, and sometimes they say it right back to you. Sometimes it feels like it is my own inner critic being voiced through my son's mouth.

We had a lesson at church that I had done, where they read Horton Hatches An Egg to the kids and then we had an activity to make decorated bean shakers. Not my most brilliant lesson plan, but you know how those brain associations go sometimes. Horton Hatches An Egg -> egg shakers -> rhythm band activities -> let's make bean shakers!

Carbon's in the class, and he said during the lesson: "this is a fun activity, but it really has nothing to do with the story, Mom." The volunteer teacher gave me such a look!

Today I "cooked" for the first time since I came down with the flu a week ago. I threw together some polenta, a jar of marinated roast peppers, some pepperoni, and melted mozzarella cheese on it. A sort of polenta pizza bake.

Carbon picked at his dinner and then said "I don't think I should be eating this unhealthy food. Dairy is not good for you when you're sick."

Picture Book Post - Elsa Beskow

Elsa Beskow is a swedish author of picture books, many about fairies. I see her books in Waldorf stores and catalogs, and on lists of recommended books for seasonal book baskets. And I know people who really love these books.

I just don't quite get them, myself. The illustrations are lovely, yes. And perhaps the prose feels odd to me because it is translated - maybe something is lost in translation. But the plot lines feel like they amble without a point, and then characters act in ways that don't make sense to me. I just feel like I'm missing something.

But Hypatia likes the Beskow books we've read so far, so I'll keep checking them out and scratching my head in mild bemusement. Am I the only one that doesn't get it?

So far we've read The Sun Egg and Woody, Hazel, and Little Pip

The Spooky Stuff

Halloween is all about the spooky stuff, and it's fun. My husband prefers Halloween to Christmas, and we have almost as many decorations stored in our attic for this holiday as we do for the other.

So why do we enjoy all this fake blood and gore and seemingly celebrate nastiness? Why do people enjoy horror movies and haunted houses?

I've done a little research, and the prevailing theory seems to be that it is an adrenaline rush followed by endorphins from feelings of relief. It's an explanation I can believe - so these movies and stories are like emotional roller coasters.

A little bit of spooky stuff seems like harmless fun to me. I draw my line at the more sadistic stuff (like Saw), and personally I have a low tolerance for scary things. But I can see the appeal.

Here's the Spooky Stuff we've enjoyed this month:

Who Said Boo?: Halloween Poems for the Very Young by Nancy White Carlstrom, wasn't exactly spooky by adult standards, but Hypatia enjoyed the illustrations and the poems lend themselves to very dramatic readings. Be ready to yell "Boo!"

R.L. Stine is for the junior crowd what Steven King is for the adults, and the DVD of Goosebumps: One Day at Horrorland managed to creep out the whole family.

Coraline was almost too much for the kids, and I probably should have previewed it before letting them watch it. This is some very creepy animation! They ended up watching it huddled under a blanket on the sofa with me.

The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan was a stretch for me, because I HATE zombies. They freak me out - I wasn't even able to watch Shaun of the Dead because I found that too scary. But I heard that this was a very good YA novel about post-zombie apocalypse, and I got it from the library. I couldn't read all of it, and had to skim through some of the zombie attack scenes, but I thought the book was really good. Teen angst and love triangles and the last people alive, surrounded by a world full of zombies! My husband, who has read and seen most of the zombie stuff out there, wasn't blown away by this one, but he did say it was "pretty good".

Too sick for Sunday

The flu bug hit us hard, and I have to stay home today and miss work at church. I feel extremely lame, but I don't want to spread this flu around to the whole congregataion.


And the worst bummer is that I had a story planned for service that I'm not going to get to do now (I think no one is going to do it, I'm not sure how the minister is planning on covering my absence). It was a cool story I wrote inspired by the book The Tenth Good Thing About Barney:

When I was a child, I had many pets: fish, hamsters, ducks, rabbits, guinea pigs, and dogs. I loved my pets very much, and I learned many important lessons from taking care of my pets.

What kinds of pets do you have?

One of the things I learned from my pets was that everything that is alive will also die. Pets don’t live as long as people do, so over the years I loved a pet, and then I had to say goodbye to it when it died.

Have any of you had to say goodbye to a pet?

My favorite way to say goodbye to pets is to bury the pets’ body in my garden. At my house now, my children’s pets are buried in the garden.

(Bring forward the little tray of dirt and the spoon.)

I dig a hole in the earth, and then we say goodbye and put our pet in the hole. I have some stones here that we could pretend were our pets we had to say goodbye to. Would any of you like to say goodbye to a pet by putting a stone in this dirt?

At my house, after we say goodbye, I cover the hole back up with dirt. The amazing thing is that we wouldn’t even have dirt if living things didn’t die. All the dirt on our planet is a mix of minerals, or rock, and organic stuff that came from living creatures that had died.
When the first life came up out of the ocean, there wasn’t good soil for plants to grow in. The plants had to gradually grow across the land, and when they died they helped to make the soil that more plants could grow from.

So what happens in the garden, after we say goodbye to our pet?

The pets become part of the soil again, and in that spot where we buried them, we can see their bodies become part of new life.
(put some flowers on the tray of dirt)

When I see the flowers growing in that spot, it makes me happy to remember how connected all life is, and how even though I had to say goodbye to my beloved pet, now they are part of the beautiful garden.

Would you each like a flower, to remember your pets with? Here is one for each of you, and now you can go back to your families. Thank you for helping me say goodbye again.