Where's St. George?

If you haven't heard, my belly is growing bigger these days, and folding myself in half to pick up stuff off the floor isn't so easy now. As daily tasks take increasingly more effort, I'm measuring my success and failure in teaching my boys to think about others. Should I, pregnant, hold the baby and pull the stroller out of the car by myself?

I'm a yankee. I was raised in the North. I don't know a lot of Southern manners. Most of my friends are like me. We try, but the culture doesn't reinforce it, I forget to follow through in teaching, and I don't even know or think about some of it. But the whole matter begs the question: why? Why chivalry?

It's not a white-washed form of flirtation (or, at least, it's not supposed to be), and it's not a measure of a woman's ability or competence. But it is about Christ-likeness. Men and women alike are under the obligation to die to ourselves for the benefit of others. Rather than a survival of the fittest, the most fit stoop to bless the weakest. After all, that's what the most Fit did, dying for each of us who are most fragile and weak, whether or not we care to admit it.

I want my boys to open doors for ladies, carry heavy boxes, give up their seats, and all the other traditional gentlemanly gestures. But I really want more. I want them to think without realizing it, to always be on the lookout for how they can protect and serve others. I don't want them only doing it for pretty girls. I want them to do it for their big pregnant mama, an ugly old lady, the person with obvious brain damage, or anybody, really--weak or not. It's a mindset that is so ingrained that they'll automatically step forward to help or give up their comfort for others.

That's chivalry. Tomorrow, they get to practice it when they rebuild their little sisters' bunk beds. That would be, the bunk beds they would like to have in their room. I'll just watch from the side. A little to the left, boys.

Future Dog Trainer

Dear Mrs. Kern,
I am giving you; DOG INSGRUKSHUNS.
HECTOR
it begens, Today. So, step 1. When you come in the door from sumwhar, and He starts barcing, say, "Hollo" and egnor him. don't say, "good boy good boy!" utherwise, he will thingk munooering is a good thing. and it's not. (it's gros)
MOLLY
When I come to your house, I will show you this. Ok? Good.
Love,
Gretchen
(p.s. When my mom herd this she was in laphe world! ha ha ha) :)

Ancient & Modern Egypt at the Children's Museum

On Friday I hauled the kids down to Indianapolis because King Tut has come to the Children's Museum! It just so happens we've been studying Ancient Egypt as we work our way chronologically through history, and King Tut will only be there until late October.

What the Exhibit was Like
There were lots of amazing statues of pharoahs and viziers, treasures from their tombs, a gold mask of somebody, and plenty of text to read. I skimmed the text as quickly as I could so I could attend to my younger ones, who were more interested in wrapping up the visit asap. As we wove our way through the display, I kept thinking we'd see King Tut's sarcophagus just around the corner. Or, knowing how creative the Children's Museum is, maybe they'd even have a make-believe display of his tomb you could walk through. But no King Tut! No sarcophagus anywhere! Not sure why they marketed it as a King Tut exhibit.

In fact, it wasn't really a typical display for this museum. In other words, it wasn't a children's exhibit. It was for adults. And in fact, it was mostly adults surrounding me. It was dark and quiet and we felt we should whisper. I felt bad for another mom whose two-year-old was begging to be put down for a nap. I offered her snacks and admitted that all those security guards everywhere would probably kick me out! But no, he needed sleep, not food. And he certainly didn't appreciate the age of the artwork in front of him.



The Modern Egypt exhibit, in contrast, was quite impressive. Housed where you've seen the World Cultures exhibit, the entire area was dedicated to the culture of modern day Egypt. Here you see Jonas riding a croc on the Nile. I didn't take enough pictures. After "boarding" a plane to the country and learning some intro Egyptian, we visited a restaurant, a home, a store where you can buy head coverings, and much more to educate us on life in Egypt.

On Head Coverings
The toys marketed to kids there, interestingly, had girls all wearing head coverings. It prompted a good discussion on the ride home between my girls and me about the subject. In Egypt, head coverings are not required. It's up to the discretion of the individual or the family. As a Christian, I asked my girls, what would you do? Some Christians choose to wear head coverings, but they are quite different from the Muslim coverings. You could go along with it. Or you could wear a covering but more in the Mennonite style. How do we exhibit a testimony for Christ in a culture that has higher standards of modesty? This is a great question for my friend Alicia whose family is serving in Morocco.

The Law of Non-Contradiction

Here was a little education for our kids: two contradicting statements cannot be true at the same time. For about the fourth time since we've moved here, an accident occurred on our street corner. The green car and the black car attempted to share the same space at the same time. And the law of non-contradiction said that was impossible. Many like to believe that it is possible for you to create your own reality and believe two things that contradict each other. I don't think either driver actually believed this here; one driver just didn't stop. In the words of Ravi Zacharias, "Even in India, we must look both ways before crossing the street."

I should mention that they learned another lesson though, in observing the gentle care shown these young women, how EMTs work, and how to keep a clear head in the midst of panic.

Updated note: both drivers, ages 19 and 16, only suffered only bumps and bruises. One, however, incurred a financial migraine.

Happy Birthday #5 Colette

Today we celebrated Colette's birthday with a pink horse cake. Tomorrow she gets her first birthday party. I only do parties for the kids when they turn 5, 10, 15, and maybe 20. A formula is sort of developing: party #5 gets a pinata, party #10 is an overnight. I'm thinking about making party #15 something of a rite-of-passage event, acknowledging the son or daughter moving into manhood or womanhood. Today I just enjoy my little girl. She's cute and sweet, and easy to please.

Practicing Hospitality

The blog Girl Talk discusses in this post on hospitality about how we feel pressure to perform when we practice hospitality--putting on a Paula Deen spread, as they put it. It brought back memories of my years as a young married. (Happy 14th anniversary to my sweetie, today, by the way!) I remember being struck by how easy going my friend Deb was about having me over... actually about everything. But specifically I remember she didn't worry if her house was spotless and she had a clean tablecloth (in fact, I don't remember a tablecloth!), with all the formal accessories of hosting company. I remember how she focused on blessing me and fellowshipping with me. I felt ministered to by her opening her home, and her being secure in the fact that it wasn't perfect. She didn't try to fool me into thinking she had it all together. I simply saw that she was very much like the Proverbs 31 woman who laughs at the days to come... and at the little inconveniences in life--like her toddler playing in the toilet. She just laughed at her little girl as she pulled her away and said, "We're not going to do that!" I thought to myself, "I want to be a mom like this."

The Bible instructs us to practice hospitality. Romans 12:13 says, "Share with God's people who are in need. Practice hospitality." In fact, it's not an option. I believe it's not only our duty but our honor and pleasure to open our home to others, favorite friends or not. After all, everything we have is the Lord's, including our home. I think we get intimidated by the thought of all the cleaning we'd want to do, or the inconvenience of cooking something special. But the Lord just wants us to open our homes and our resources up to others. After all, He's been so good to us and so generous, how can we hoard what we have to ourselves?

I'm guilty of not doing this lately, and I say it's because my husband's been in school. But I can still open my home to friends, and that's what I'm motivated to do now. Paula Deen, I'm not even going to try to compete with you! Lunch, anyone?

Seeing Creation again for the first time

In our homeschool, I think history is everybody's favorite subject. After lunch we all get comfy in the living room and I read to everybody. This year we're covering The Ancients, and it's even more fascinating than the last time we covered it--maybe because the kids are older?

We drew out a chart showing the ages of all the first fathers from Adam on. It was really amazing how long these men lived, and how great an overlap there was in their lives. Did you know that Adam died only 117 years before Noah? I was curious if any of Noah's forefathers perished in the flood. Apparently they all died just before it came. Some of these guys knew their great-great-great-great grandfathers (assuming they were living nearby). Imagine the knowledge and wisdom that could be passed down! And I'd never noticed before that Noah's three sons were old guys when the flood came. They were 100--and had no children yet! Didn't Abraham and Sarah think about that when they were old and having a child for the first time?

We read a book called Life in the Great Ice Age, which is a fictional book about an 11-year-old boy living in the Ice Age that followed the flood. According to the Institute for Creation Research, the effects of the flood had dramatic affects on the climate for several hundred years.

One thing the study made me realize was that there were a lot more people on the earth than I realized. I've always pictured the population as pretty slim. But if you read through all the lineage from Adam on, they were hundreds of years old when they had the son who gets the mention. Who knows how many sons & daughters were born before him? And depending on when Cain killed Abel, it could have been several hundred years later, when the earth was quite populated. That explains why Cain was worried about everyone being a threat, as he complained. And I don't know that I'd ever noticed before that it says Adam and Eve had many other sons and daughters.

Surgery date!

Over a year ago, not too long after our son Peter (age 10) got his second cochlear implant, the first implant from 2000 started acting funny. He'd get very upset and refuse to wear it. Voices sounded like fax machine bird chirps. So we experimented with changing out the processor and giving him a new "map" (that's the unique computer program loaded on his processor). When we didn't get anywhere, we tried one last ditch effort to trouble shoot by having the audiologist put him on yet another processor. He could detect tones, but couldn't make out any speech. The manufacturer, Advanced Bionics, agreed to cover the cost of a replacement. The good news is that the implant he'll be getting is a newer model than the implant he received in 2000, thus better technology, clearer & crisper sound, and more "cup holders," as my husband calls them (bells & whistles in the design and storage containers). Peter's so excited! Only 33 more days to his October 1 surgery date! Woo-hoo!

"Business" cards

Now that my sweet husband has created business cards for me that include a blogspot url, I guess I better think up something to say and start posting! I've wanted business cards for some time now because people I often have people ask me for info on homeschooling or leads on how to help a hearing impaired child get help (therapy, etc). So now I have these cute little cards with web sites on them like www.YouCanHomeschool.org and www.HearIndiana.org.

I get a lot more inquiries about homeschooling, of course, but enough deaf ed questions to merit including links on my cards.

My creative husband coined a new term Hear Indiana is using: Doing Deaf Differently. That's what we're doing! We're giving our kids the opportunity to live independently, not depending on an interpreter for everything--especially in those critical moments of danger. (We also recognize we need some sign language at the pool, in the morning before the equipment is turned on, and so forth.) We like English. We like French. We like Latin. We like ASL. We're doing deaf differently.

Hello Ruth, welcome

To your own website. Smootch.