Some Quotes from Patrick Henry

There is no doubt in my mind that this country was founded primarily on Christian morals. To deny this fact, flies in the face of history. True, not all of the Founding Fathers were devout Christians. However, they all understood that the Christian morality, in particular that all men are created equal, was a good starting point for creating a new country.

The United States was created so that the individual had more rights than the state, and that the state had more rights than the federal government. The Constitution played a key role in making sure this happened. Everything from Checks and Balances to the Electoral College was put in place to make sure that the individual was always heard, no matter how small. This is what makes a country, a republic, so much different from a democracy. For in a democracy, a popular vote where the majority says “yea”, that is all that is needed. Therefore the minority, must go along with the majority. To intentionally recognize the individual as having unalienable rights, is truly Christian indeed.

This weekend I was reminded of one of our Founding Fathers, Patrick Henry. He was a devout, Christian man that is probably best known for making the bold statement: “Give me liberty or give me death”. But did you also know that he also said, “…this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians…”? What do you think about that statement? Does it make you squirm? Does it make you raise your eyebrows and question? Let me know your thoughts on Patrick Henry and the rest of the Founding Fathers.

“The Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people, it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government - lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.

It can not be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions, but on the gospel of Jesus Christ!”

“It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts... For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth, to know the worst, and to provide for it.”

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains or slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take but as for me; give me liberty or give me death!”

“Bad men cannot make good citizens. It is when a people forget God that tyrants forge their chains. A vitiated state of morals, a corrupted public conscience, is incompatible with freedom. No free government, or the blessings of liberty, can be preserved to any people but by a firm adherence to justice, moderation, temperance, frugality, and virtue; and by a frequent recurrence to fundamental principles.

“Religion I have disposed of all my property to my family. There is one thing more I wish I could give to them, and that is the Christian religion. If they had that and I had not given them one cent, they would be rich. If they have not that, and I had given them the world, they would be poor.”

* Quirky Quotes

I must say I love this comment from my son. When is sarcasm a developmental level?

We spent a long day cleaning and moving stuff out of our house, since we have been thinking of getting another house and I needed something to do while Judah is in China. :)

So after this long day of work I decided that we deserved McDonald's. Mostly I deserved McDonald's but the kids had been terribly tolerant of my activity.

Apparently McDonald's has jumped on the Angus beef bandwagon and they opened the drive through question with the offer that I order the new burger. I declined, being someone who rarely changes their menu choice. At the window the manager brought the subject back up. "Have you tried the new Angus burger?" "No, well then you should it is great!" In order to have a shorter conversation with the man I promised I would next time.

As we are leaving my son asked what that was all about. I said they have something new on the menu they want folks to try. What was the new thing he wanted to know. A hamburger I replied...

"That's original"

I'm lovin' it.

* A Legitimate Question

I still plan to blog about our schedule at some point, although I am restraining from going on and on about how someone cut her hair again right in the middle of her forehead because her "part looked weird." Seemingly in response to my statement that his sister was hogging the stage my son spoke up.

Having a daily Bible time is a constant goal of ours, one we hardly ever live up to to our satisfaction. In a renewed effort the kids and myself sat down the other day to go over the day's God Time Card. The previous day's card talked about creation, etc so we had read the opening of Genesis in a bible story book we had received as a gift at some point in the past. The next day the talk was supposed to center around John 3:16. This topic held no interest for my son because it was not in order. So we quickly went through the concept in order to return to Genesis for the next story in the book. We discussed Adam and Eve's poor choice of fruit. This just happened to be the story from the previous Sunday so clearly the ideas had been percolating in his head.

(Might I say that having children and teaching them about God is quite the faith stretching exercise. You think that teaching adults would be the most challenging in the faith arena but I would challenge that assumption. Answering a child's question can be amazingly difficult.)

After talking about following God's rules and the concept of obedience in general, my son asks...

"Why didn't God just not put that tree in the garden?"

A legitimate question.

No tree. No disobedience. No fall. No banishment.

Similar logic to my daughter from previously - if I had not put the scissors in reach she would not have cut her hair, so clearly her disobedience was my fault. If God had not put the tree there, they would not have eaten, so clearly....

I am interested in your thoughts. How to explain that God wasn't just setting them up.

This was my response to my son.

"Could God make us follow all the rules?" - Mom

"Yes" - son

"You're right, he could. But he wants us to follow him on our own. He wants us to choose to do the right thing. He will always give us a choice. We can choose to make the wise choice. We can choose to make a bad choice. Adam and Eve needed to have a choice too."

I am not sure how much sinks in. I am sure there is a better answer, but those questions come at you without any preparation. What thrills me is the insight into his thinking process. My little man is getting so big. That question took abstract reasoning, and it was a very legitimate question.

* Quirky Quotes

It seems to be that my daughter is continuing to take the stage - not that my son is silent. It is just that he is more cautious with his words (at least when I am present) and a seven year old blurts less than a four year old. He is doing great stuff - reading to himself, playing baseball (with a much improved batting average from last year), independently cleaning his room! My daughter does read to herself, but no actual words match the page. She"cleans" her room but mostly it consists of piles, some on the chair, some behind the chair.

I will do a later post on our daily schedule, but today I am again struck by my daughters flair for drama and an "aptly spoken word."

The other day she said that the ladies tea we had attended was "lovely"

This morning she told her brother that "you ruined my life!!!" (all because he took a functioning water bottle from her while she was happily hosing down the playroom - I believe he actually saved her life - a fact I explained to the princess - at which point she told me I ruined her life.)

My current favorite occurred recently during a visit with friends. They came for the holiday weekend and much fun was had by all. They have four boys so the princess had a much larger court than usual and much more willing subjects. Her brother being quite content to let others be bossed around. Being boys however they did not always stick to girl stuff. A favorite activity - setting up tiny little men in rows to "battle." One boy had her dollhouse covered in battalions of little men. Upon noticing the unusual placement and use of her dollhouse she asked...

"Why is my dollhouse over here?"

"It makes a good fort."

Pause

"It makes a good dollhouse" (Emphasis entirely hers :) )

Silly boy.

* Quirky Quotes

My daughter, my constant companion is sleeping peacefully. I am so thankful that she still takes a nap. A couple of hours without my shadow is a nice break. This generally means my son hovers for two hours unless he is outside. Today - hovering. Such is my life :)

A few days ago my daughter walks up very excited about something

"MOM!" Pause "I can hear something in my tummy!" hehehehehe

Then she proceeds to jump up and down - A LOT - apparently she downed her entire serving of milk in one gulp. The jumping was then followed by...

"I don't feel very good"

* Quirky Quotes

When you ask a small child a question you never really know what they are going to say. The backseat has frequent disagreements because there seem to be a natural law that when mom is driving everything is dramatic and must be resolved with tears and screeching. At least that is true for my backseat. Today my princess was disturbed by some action of her brother's - not an uncommon occurrence by any stretch of the imagination. She breaks out into tears. I ask the rather common question "What did your brother do?" Normally I get something like, he touched me, he took something, he whatever... This time I got....

"He is disappointing me!!!" (the italics and size are essential to convey the depth of her disappointment)

In my ignorance I ask "What did he do to disappoint you?" Because really, what could he have done and where did she hear that children can behave in a disappointing way? Her response...

"He smelled me."

?!?!?!?!?!?

Son - put your hands in your lap, look out the window, and for goodness sake don't smell your sister.

* Thoughts from Others

I have a good friend who has a blog - actually I have a few good friends that have blogs, but this one is a boy, which is entertaining because it is a way of seeing more how a boy thinks, which is sometimes categorically different than a girl. This blog is weird to me in that Judah and I share it - therefore it contains both gender thinking patterns. Anyway... This boy who blogs often throws out quotes form stuff he is reading, which I like a lot, because I like quotes, I like reading, and I like to hear what he thinks is worth quoting.

I will point out that this friend has not updated his blog in almost two months - an amount of time I find totally unacceptable. I have not pointed that out to him on his page, but as I know he reads mine I will point it out here. (If you can update your twitter status 27 times a day you can throw in a blog every now and then!!!)

I digress again - I am stealing the quotes from others idea from him, which he may or may not have stolen from someone else. I say this all because of the few, ok seven, readers of this blog, many also check his so I want to give credit where credit is due. I am against plagiarism but not against quoting with foot notes!

My second random plug is for my mom who gets me a Guidepost subscription every year for Christmas, a fact that rarely makes the thank you note but is no less appreciated. Guidepost is a great little (literally) magazine to get. Always uplifting and not just for older generations. It is sometimes cheesy but has some gems as well. Today I will share what I think is a gem.

In the March 2009 edition writer John Sherrill talks about his experiences with his wife over sixty years of marriage as she has battled depression in the article "A Tender Touch." I found the whole story touching, especially as they walked that road far before depression had the acceptance and treatment that it does today. He closed with some thoughts that struck me as particularly applicable to everyone. He talked about the need to be praise-ful. Some one once told him "Think about the difference between thankfulness and praise. Thankfulness is us-centered; when things work out the way we want, we're thankful. Praise is God-centered; praise means becoming aware of God in your life right now." Mr. Sherrill goes on to say that "praise takes our eyes off our problems and puts our focus back on God..."

I liked the thoughts. Hope you do too.

* The Beginning of Winter

We have returned from our week long trek into the world of Thanksgiving visits. Both Judah and myself hold fiercely to our family gatherings, so that requires going both places. This is something we used to attempt on Thanksgiving itself until our son was a toddler, when we then switched to going to the second place on Friday, revamping the alternating pattern used by most couples. With Thanksgiving over my brain has decided it is winter, a few weeks before the official date. I also now have permission to decorate the house for Christmas and play holiday music whenever I want.

We began decorating Sunday night and succeeded in getting the trees assembled and lights on. Judah's tree took much less effort since he rejoices in jerking it out of the box in one (three foot) piece and plunking it into the stand - DONE. Both children were very much into helping and staked their respective gender claims, my son took the yellow and black tipped branches and my daughter the red and pink, leaving me the green, white, and brown to place into my larger than three foot tree. When the time for lights came they were both still enthused about decorating and wishing to help. I must now state that I am a bit particular about the storage of our Christmas lights and have repackaged them each year as they originally came so as to not have to untangle anything. It has been a great system. Thirty seconds into the lights my daughter had already removed an unapproved twisty tie and lost it while not moving from her place, something only a three year old can do. She was removed from her post. This may sound harsh but it is the way of things. :) She was not beaten, just demoted. Perhaps she can reapply for the position next year. My son held the post of twisty tie unwrapper beautifully. Not losing one of them through the remainder of the process. His method was unorthodox but effective. As each tie came off he twisted it into a man/alien figure that marched around the dining room table. He proudly took the twisted figure into show Judah in the other room. His father was decidedly reserved since he has known me far longer and has also been demoted from Christmas light twisty tie removal in the past. In a hushed tone Judah asked his son

"Does your mother know you did that?"

Bless them both. :) Admittedly I nearly fell over the first time I saw the figure, but I have been working on my deep breathing, and he definitely wasn't losing any.

We are doing the remainder of the decorating today, ornaments. Pray for us.

On another topic.....

It snowed here yesterday, which in my brain was perfect since it was December 1 and seemed to symbolically agree with my notion that December should be a winter month. Nothing stuck but it was beautiful to behold. The kids came out of karate in the middle of it. My son ran around and stuck out his tongue and generally looked so stereotypical that it was adorable. When we were driving later we turned a corner and hit a larger flurry that took my breath away. Fat fluffy flakes swirling around - perfect. I felt like Elijah in 1 Kings 19"...for the Lord is about to pass by.... and after (all the big stuff like earthquakes and fire)... there came a gentle whisper." I am thankful that God passed us by yesterday.

May He give you eyes to see the same.

*Quirky Quote

I am revisiting what I intended to be a regular occurrence. My daughter once again demonstrated the concrete thinking of a three year old. I mentioned that someone was going to come by the house and my son was having trouble figuring out whom I was talking about. He likes to be prepared for all visitors - no surprises please (unless it is grandma). This lady had been by the house before, but previously had come with a friend. The original pairing is essential due to my daughter's subsequent explanation. The lady coming had longer hair, which had previously been very nicely groomed by my daughter and some kitchen utensils (curse Disney and its use of a fork in the Little Mermaid for hair brushing - we can not get past that) The friend had short hair and was therefore not so attended by my daughter and the utensils. So who was coming by our house later?

"You know.....the one with hair between her shoulders"

"Oh"

* Blogging in the Moment

Contrary to my normal practice I am going to blog in the moment. Mostly stuff happens, it is cute, it is interesting, and it would make a great blog. It is then promptly forgotten. Mostly you see blogs that I can actually remember. It saddens me that some really cool moments are lost, but perhaps that is not so bad, so that I do not overload my loyal readership of 7. However my son just walked up and said a pretty cool thing and since I was already sitting at the computer and avoiding cleaning up something I thought I would blog about it. This blog will afford me another 20 minute avoidance. If my mother was typing it would be much shorter, but my skills do not match hers. I still need to look at the keys and primarily use only five to seven fingers, thus statistically slowing me down by 30-50%.

We are watching another little guy today. He plays well with our two and they all entertain each other so much that my personal input is only needed for food preparation at regular intervals and occasional territory disputes. Since this little guy does not live under our roof he does not know the subtle rules, which is only natural. My son just came to give report (a nicer way of saying tattling) and informed me that the little guy said the "s-word."

When I grew up we were not allowed to say lots of things. Real curses were unheard of so our rules consisted of not saying things like 'stupid' and 'butt.' I still do not much say either of those words, just like I feel guilty for talking on the phone after nine or answering the phone before it rings twice. Both holdovers from childhood. My children now live in my version of ruledom. I do not know what the teenage rules of phone and curfew will look like, but the "bad word" rules are essentially the same. I am not sure what my children would do if they actually heard the words that will get you an 'R' rating for language, but they do know that we don't say 'butt' - we say 'bottom.' (A side note to that rule - my mother, the inventor of we do not say 'butt' is apparently now okay with the phrase 'shake your boo-tay' popularized on some shows - another commentary on the grandmother rule spoken of in the previous post - it may have to do with the cuteness of my daughter when she demonstrates the phrase, which must be ten times cuter than I was because that would have been 'inappropriate' when I was a child - I admit my daughter is adorable, I don't stop her either) Anyway, the offensive word that our little guest used to prompt my son's report?

"Shut-up"

Oh the horror.

* Quirky Quotes

I have been commenting a lot lately on the activities of my son, and thereby neglecting my daughter - who really is an amazing little thing in her own right! Today's quote is from her. The quote itself is not much, but the attitude behind it was palpable. Unfortunately attitude does not always translate well into written form but I will try my best. She is quite a little princess, a princess who does not wait silently in her tower window, rather one who is scaling down the side without fear, probably without a rope or other safety device either.

In order to properly set up the quote it must be mentioned that she was in the presence of a grandmother. (My mother in law having come in town for a few days due to her son being in China - to hang out and do the fun stuff that grandmothers do) Grandmothers are a great blessing in life. I personally feel blessed to still have a grandmother of my own and I am continually thankful that my children get to spend so much time with their grandmothers. It is however necessary to note that a grandmother was present because the words would not have worked on a mother and the princess knows it.

Grandmothers are soft. There must be a latent gene that manifests only after the birth of a first grandchild. I know from personal experience and from Judah's report of his own childhood that neither of our children's grandmothers were this soft when they only wore the "mother" hat. Great and loving mothers, caring, nurturing, and involved. Just not overly soft. My mom never gave me cookies before dinner or bought me "just a little something" EVERY time we went to a store. Whining NEVER worked, and I knew it. This is a lesson that my children also know about mothers. My son can quote with all the lackluster monotoneness he can muster (while rolling his eyes most likely) "Whining won't get what you want, it only gets you trouble."

My daughter has recently acquired the skill of being able to fasten her own car seat. A skill that most non-child having adults can't perform. Quite a complicated buckle system, one that make me very happy. During one car ride with my mother in law, she announced that she couldn't do it. I know she can, she knows she can. But why do something for yourself when you can convince a grandmother to do it for you? The grandmother, being a grandmother, immediately turned around to help her. I calmly said not to worry about it. "She does have the skill, we can wait"

With every ounce of whine and melodrama in her body, and almost at 70% of her full volume my daughter then stated..

"I have LOST the SKILL!!!!"

As though this is some precious treasure she has misplaced to her sorrow and disappointment. This skill remained lost for the next two days.

Shockingly it returned last night when there was no longer a grandmother in the car.

* Surviving another Migraine

Yesterday I trudged through another migraine. Nothing too unusual around here. Unfortunately it came on me unexpectedly and away from my medicine so I could not take the meds when I needed to.(A side note to myself to put them in my purse) My children were terribly cooperative in my recuperation. My daughter took her nap for two hours and my son did not complain about the extra TV he got to watch at volume setting 2. He did eventually climb the stairs, peek under the pillow over my head to say in a whisper "I really am very hungry Mom."

Thankfully I was functioning better after some rest and was able to feed my children. My favorite part of the experience was right when we walked through the door after school. My son knew I had a migraine, since it was the topic of our conversation during the drive. Nap was moved up 30 minutes and that needs mental preparation. My kids like to know what is coming their way and even a 30 minute change is perceptible to them, thus the discussion on the drive home. Fortunately or unfortunately, this is not the first migraine that they have experienced with me. Therefore the comment I got when we arrived home.... In all innocence and concern my son told me...

"You can go ahead and throw up in the bathroom down here Mom. It's closer."

"That's OK buddy, I'll go ahead and use my bathroom upstairs."

Such a sweet boy.

* Superpowers

I debated on the title for this post - I wanted to do the quirky quote title since it is related to a statement by my son - but I decided not to. This is contrary to other posts that have little to do with a quote yet get labeled as such. Such is the joy of blogging - I can do whatever I want and since my readership is limited no one will really care.

A few days ago my son and I were watching the first Fantastic Four movie. He has never seen the movie in its entirety or the beginning part at all. This sitting only fixed the beginning part - we still didn't watch the whole thing. Anyway... the beginning of this movie really tries to explain the scientific way that these ordinary folks become superheroes. This was an interesting topic for the seven year old on the couch. He asked lots of questions and I very carefully explain that the writers of the story made up this way of becoming a super hero. They (meaning the writers) said that some electricity in space "shocked" the actors and it changed their cells so that they would do something they had never done before. We have had previous discussions of electricity (particularly as it related to not touching the electric fence at the farm) as well as cells in our bodies. I thought my explanation of the events in the movie was very clear and I was proud of being able to translate the information into his level of understanding. In the midst of my pride I concluded this train of thought with ...

"Because you know that no one really has super powers like in the story, right?"

"I do"

Total failure of the very elaborate explanation - apparently people do have super powers, particularly my son, and I had it all wrong.

(For those interested - after I got over myself and my attempts to logically explain movie magic I asked what the super powers were ... "I can stick to stuff" and he promptly walked over to the hall and scaled his way to the ceiling with a move many of us have seen on Ninja Warrior - "Mom - you can walk under me now!!!" - Interestingly enough the super power does not extend to getting down from the ceiling. Even superheroes need their moms to swoop in and get them out of a jam every now and then)

* Quirky Quotes

Again this quote is not so much quirky as it struck me quite quirkily when I heard it. Friday mornings we try to have a play group type gathering at my house and mostly we clean up before hand. There were some complications to the schedule including scheduling an oil change an hour before folks were to arrive and my ride from the car place being ill that morning. This threw off my plans - which I do not always handle gracefully. Instead of cleaning I spent time trying to find another ride. The house was not as clean as I like it to be when folks arrive - so my solution? Clean it after they leave!! I will happily announce that the house was super clean several hours after our guests left. Now for the quote. My son said something in the middle of this cleaning process that was unexpected but something I hope he continues to say to me (and his future bride)

Can I mop?

He spent the next fifteen minutes busily mopping the kitchen, after which he vacuumed the downstairs. I am trying to relish the moment for as long as possible - because I am not so old that I have forgotten how much older children like to do those things. Sigh.

* Before I Forget

My children are amazing and wonderful and beautiful to me. Intellectually I know that you all feel the same about your children. They are all the brightest and most adorable of God's creations, even more so because He lets us play a part in their lives. They are all the cutest and cleverest of children, except mine really are. :) I want to capture some of those adorable moments in time because I know they will be gone some day, to be replaced by more precious moments, except I want to keep them all! Today I remembered again that I do not want to forget how my daughter says back pack, which is basically pack pack. So this blog I am devoting to the words I need to remember before I forget.

Due to birth order I will start with some of my favorites from my sons early days

• Dis? -- A word used to ask identification of all objects
• Bundt -- Clearly this is the 18mo version for button
• Blank-ank -- Again a clearly clever extra k version of the word blanket
• Chagganooga -- A word he then passed on to his sister, we may never hear the right pronunciation of that city
• Heevy -- A word used to denote objects that were heavy. The best part about this word is that it generally accompanied a small guy dragging something too big for him and making some pretty cute faces to express his hard work.

My daughter has talked more and often even more amazingly clear than my son, who was not too shabby himself. However since she has always done so well it limited the cute mispronunciations that mark toddler hood.

• Pack pack -- As I said before her phrase for back pack, not too far off but still cute
• InLee -- An early version of my niece's name Neely, recently outgrown (sigh)
• A-tend -- Used in sentence form..."Let's a-tend we are princesses"
• Ask-a-gent (with a soft 'g' sound) -- This lovely phrase for questioning a gentleman is her way of saying "I am sorry mom, it was an askagent"
• All words needing a hard 't' sound (and some strong 'r' words)This last remaining immature speech pattern leaves us talking about wadder boddles and tripping over woots and wocks.
• I can not even begin to type her word for sushi, but trust me its cute

Later viewers of this blog may find a longer list since this can now be a depository of all words I remember later, before I forget.

* Quirky Quotes

Although this post has the title indicating it has what I would consider a cool kid quote - the quote is at the very end - so hang with me for a few minutes.

Instead of spending our Saturday the way we usually do, with multiple questions of "what are we doing today?", recycling, trips to Lowe's or Home Depot, and other random home tasks such as emptying the shoe basket or cleaning out my son's closet (again!!!) we packed the kids up and headed to the Smokies. We embarked on a rather ambitious hike to a waterfall with a 5 mile round trip distance. We called it an adventure and used up our entire day. At the end of another Saturday I can say we did not waste it in trivial tasks. These are some of the things we discovered on our trip.

• A first grade boy can hike for five miles up and down (six times) all by himself without being carried, while a 3 year old girl will require carrying between the the 3.5 to 4.5 miles points during which she will get a power nap and become recharged and very hungry.
• A centipede in the wild is super cool. We got to talk about exoskeletons and that some bugs other than bees and spiders do bite and sting. And on that note....
• Horseflies are apparently territorial and prone to chase and attack the oldest female member of the hiking party. I walked through this territory on the way to the falls and found the horsefly annoyingly persistent until we finally walked out of an invisible barrier. On the way back it landed on my hiking pants and offered us an opportunity to show our son how it would try to bite you(we could actually see its pointed evil little mouth(?) trying repeatedly to get something from the fabric methodically moving around until shaken off) After our lesson it persisted in chasing only me for quite some time, even when I ran (to the amusement of many I am sure). It finally did get one bite THROUGH MY SHIRT before I passed the invisible border again. Judah suggested I smelt good but David tested my arm and said not so much.
• Snake skins in the wild are even cooler than centipedes.
• Boys, big and little, always need to go potty on a hike of five miles, little 3 year old girls need to go twice. Older adult females can just hold it.
• Leaves in the hands of little boys can feel startlingly like bugs on your neck when unexpected.
• When mom squeals once it only reinforces the action and she will be pestered with leaves for the remainder of the hike.
• Rocks on the path are fascinating and need only some sticks and twine to become spears. Luckily we did not pack any twine.
• Without ready twine rocks will be placed in dad's backpack to be taken home.
• Despite all the fascinating things we saw and did what a small boy will remmeber most is "running for our lives" from a horsefly.
• Hiking the day away is a much better use of a Saturday than watching TV.

Now for the quote...........During this hike my son turns to me and shows me a spit bubble he has created and is holding in his mouth. I say "Nice" and he proceeds to tell me he can also make one with snot. "No thank you" I say. After several more enticing comments in favor of the snot bubble I again say

"No"

"Why not?"

"Because that is yuck"

(Pause) "Yuck is goooooooooood"

Yuck.

* Quirky Quotes

This statement I overheard last week as my children and I were in the church office. My daughter in all her 'outgoing no recognition of boundaries when others might be working' self walked into the youth ministers office and proceeded to ask him where his girl(wife) was. When Jason responded that she was at work Abigail informed him again in her no-nonsense way

"Girls don't work, only boys work"

We spend much time labeling things in our home as either boy or girl. While Judah and I have never intended to give them a narrow view of gender roles, we have nevertheless been blessed with a very girlie girl and a very sword loving boy. Our son does occasionally play in the kitchen with our daughter and she is just as likely to tackle someone who looks like they want to wrestle. These moments aside they ooze gender stereotypes at times. They are walking poster children for natural differences in the sexes. When my son was quite small and before I caved to the weapon box other play activities were encouraged. I remember a particularly funny moment(to me anyway) when my mother brought out some sidewalk chalk she had bought way before he was ready to use it and had been saving. We had finally decided he was old enough to understand the concept and practice his pre-writing skills on the patio. He picked a piece of chalk, did one little line, and while we were still admiring his line (because everything he did at that time was AMAZING) he promptly broke his chalk in two pieces. Thinking it a fluke he was given another piece. It was not a fluke. My mother raised two girls and apparently we never broke our things in half. Boys follow different rules. To this day I remind him not to break crayons, chalk, pencils, etc - at least while they are still new looking. :) Wired as more physical to the core. The flip side is my daughter who has been swimming in boy toys her whole life. The toy room is full of weapons, cars, balls, Lego's, transformers, and a few stray power rangers that have gotten by my defences. Despite the junior testosterone section she twirls and spins through it all singing to herself about how pretty she is.

We are not wired gender neutral - that is bogus on so many levels that I won't get into now - but even if I wasn't sure before I had children my mini-ninja and princess would have me convinced.

* Quirky Quotes

Not sure if I am loving my title of quirky quotes today as I realize that many of the things my children say are not quite quirky. They are quite probably not even interesting to others, but even so here we are again. This installment stars my son who seems at times to come up with random statements or questions, many of which surprise me as I was never a boy and just don't think like one. Again his words yesterday were not so much quirky as they were a perfect representation of where he is in life.

While I was cleaning the kitchen (which is an important detail for several reasons, first to establish that I do clean the kitchen and secondly to demonstrate that I was not prepared in any way for the question my son posed)...... While cleaning the kitchen my son approaches and in all seriousness asks

"Mom........Can I have a ladder?"
"Why do you need a ladder?"
"So I can get a sword............"
Pause
"Off the roof"
Pause
"No"
Son MARCHES Off
"Go tell you Dad" I shout down the hall

As with most unexpected statements I often think back to how we came to that conversation. David is playing in the backyard with swords, not an uncommon event, and launches one into the sky, again not so much an uncommon event, and it lands on the roof. He looks around. Notices the ladder still out from gutter cleaning, that luckily for us in future years he found totally fascinating. He looks between the ladder and the roof several times and thinks "Yeah - I can do that" He now reenters the house to pose his question. I am thankful on so many levels that he came to ask the question instead of the alternative.

Minutes after David's rejection I see through the window Judah climbing the ladder to retrieve the errant sword. Just another ordinary day.

* Quirky Quotes

I am going to post again today! This is not likely to become a habit but I wanted to give some equal time to my daughter since I just talked about my son. I also had been thinking about doing something with a consistent title so I would have a topic to add to each week or so, whenever that topic came back up. Mulling it over I picked unusual quotes from my children because being a mom is most of what I do and I couldn't think of anything more clever.

My first quote occured late last week during one of Abigail's many wardrobe changes during the day. I think it emphasizes the struggle with communication we all feel at times. Children can be very concrete thinkers and sometimes there expressive language is behind their thinking and comprehension. Abigail is quite the talker so it was interesting to see her struggle for words. Long story but anyway....Abigail wished to change from a dress into her bathing suit to swim in the little pool we buy over and over every summer. I sent her upstairs with permission and the suit. Several minutes later she was still in the dress. The kids pool now full and ready, I issued an "order" to change her clothes and she marched upstairs again. Several minutes pass and she comes down still in the dress. Now irritated I march with her upstairs (how did marching become the word for walking irritably?) and order her again to change her clothes. At this point she turns around saying "I have these" and shows me the bow and the buttons and with little three year old tears of frustration turns around again flailing her arms and says, "but my arms are up here"

Now other folks may not find that as entertaining as I did but there was so much in that little statement. "I wanted to take off my dress mother, really I did, but you forgot that it buttons in the back and I can not reach them. I have been up here forever turning in circles trying to reach the buttons and I just can't do it anymore. Instead of helping me you marched and now I am overwhelmed and I still can't reach the buttons because................my arms are up here!"

We quickly changed clothes and had a great time in the yard, many pictures taken and irritation forgotten by Abigail.