Guest post by JO

The Ginormus Injury

I was walking down to the river thinking about how fun it would be.  We were at the end of the steep hill and by the bridge to the bank.  Immediately I saw a big stone thinking that I should go a different way.  As I was looking at the rocks, pebbles, and pine needles wondering if it might be my last day on earth and what a lame day it would be to die while I said, "Don't follow me.  It could be dangerous" to my cousin and RO.

I was walking down a steep slope that came off the big stone.  I was luckily still alive.  It led me down to a pond of water.  My only way out was to climb over a big rock.  I climbed to the top of the big rock and saw that it was hard to cross.

There was a huge pile of sticks, but then I thought, "cool, a fallen over tree across another pond."  The tree led to where my brother, my cousins, and my cousins parents were.  I was walking across the pile of sticks with a bottle cap in my hand and one of the sticks snapped!  I fell and there was stick pointing up.  I fell on to the pointing up stick and it went up my shirt and gave me a huge wound.  I kept thinking over and over, "I have blood.  No dought [sic] about it." as I walked back up the rock and realized I had lost my bottle cap.  I didn't bother to get the bottle cap or look at my scratch.

I went across the bridge the usual way and I found where they were.  The first thing I did was show them my wound.  After that I looked for more bottle caps to make up for the one I lost on my fall.  I didn't even find any.  While I was looking I heard a big splash by the place I was when I got my scratch.  It was my brother trying (say sarcasticly [sic]) to cross the fallen over tree.  My Aunt and Uncle figured we had to leave and go back home.  I measured my scratch and it was 5 inches long.  I bet my skin is still on that stick.  I know, isn't it gross?  One of the [our last name] kids was wounded and one was soaked, but all the [cousins' last name] kids were all right.

JO wrote "The Ginormous Injury" this weekend after he came home from the river.  He is a fourth grader who likes World Cup soccer, jumping on the bed, roller coaster rides, and counting the money he's saved for trips to the amusement park. He does not like doing dishes or getting along with his 7 year-old sister. His teacher told me yesterday that JO is the best writer she has seen in years.  He turns 10 next week.  

My Sunbeam

My daughter loves her primary teacher.  When I went to pick her up from class after church yesterday, there was a Noah's Ark play set in the middle of the room and a chalkboard drawing of an ark on the water.  And this morning after the big kids left for school she was telling me all about how animals give us stuff. "The animals give food to us.  The sheeps give us socks and shirts.  Isn't that weird?!?  That's what sheeps give us!  And cows give us milk.  And mouses give cheese to us.  And horses give us. . . hay?  Jaguars give us. . . I don't know what jaguars give us!  Do you know what jaguars give us?"

I have NO idea.

But right now she wants to pretend we're animals who eat stuff.  "Real stuff."

Show & Tell

Guess what we've been working on!

The actual car isn't nearly as enchanting as she is (yes, our girls get to make cars too--I'm all about gender equity derby construction).  By the way, that last thing she says isn't about the car, it's about the video she's just starred in: "I wanna watchit. Click!"  

When I asked her why she wanted to watch it she said; 

"Mmm, because I'm cute."

Dentist's Office

I really love our dentist's office.  The waiting room has tubes like a McDonald's playplace, there are eight video game stations, a 10 foot tall chalkboard wall, and a toddler building blocks zone complete with TV screen.  And after their checkups, the kids get game tokens for toy-filled arcade games (like at Toy Story's Pizza Planet).  As fun as that waiting room is there's no getting around the fact that a needle full of anesthesia and mouth pain after a filling is NOT fun.  Our CO had dental work--some tricky in-betweener cavities that showed up on her x-rays.  Sure, CO got a mountain of toys, including a kitty cat Beanie Baby she's named "Cinderella,"  but she also got a numb mouth and tender gums!  One of my least favorite parts of parenting is having to buoy up my kids when they encounter pain.  I hate it when I have to congratulate them for being "Such a trooper!"  Because that's just grown-up-speak for "That hurt like hades, didn't it? Now suck it up and put on a happy face."   Grown-ups are seriously so mean sometimes!