Team Gray!

Don’t you hate those year end posts? Me neither. Thanks for checking in on us here at year’s end.

Yanni branched off on her own. She won the Michigan’s Perfect Teen pageant. She finished 7th out of 40 in her first national pageant. It was a big year for Yanni.

It was big for Xay, too. He learned programming and worked with his dad. Xay helped develop an iphone app during his internship. He also stepped up and became a leader in his volunteer groups.

Imani and Esteban sold baked goods and lemonade, respectively, for their birthdays in June. It was hot enough that they could have earned more if they’d just teamed up. Maybe next year they’ll figure that out.

Imani also earned her second 100 percent week in school–ever. She is now the most consistent to earn lunch out with Mom.

Joyous improved her spelling and has earned some 100 percent weeks this year as well. She also learned to knit and embroider. She is 1/2 a piece away from finishing Suzuki piano school book 1.

(Imani finished Suzuki piano school book 2 this year).

Esteban improved his piano this year, and is 2/3rds finished with Suzuki book 1.

Chanya was potty trained this year! I have no one left in diapers. I’m ok with that. She also gave up naps, and has really become one of the big kids. Next up: (gulp) reading.

May the new year bring you much joy, happiness, and freedom. May you attain your resolution goals.

Happy New Year!

Chanya had a rough day today. First she was standing behind Joy and ended up getting smacked in the mouth when Joy swung her arms around. She cried, her mouth bleeding. I wiped her off and snuggled her. Something told me to give her a frozen washcloth to suck on, but Chanya is so sensitive, I didn’t want to upset her.

She felt better after awhile, and followed Joy to the garage to throw out the trash. Joy closed the door on Chanya’s fingers, and she screamed and jumped around.

I told Joy to pay attention to Chanya when she followed her. And I told Chanya to be careful how closely she followed her sister. Then I told Joy to get a washcloth and run some cold water over it.

Chanya’s lip had started to swell. I gave her the washcloth to suck on, and we snuggled on the couch. I remembered my mother’s frozen washcloths, and how they seemed to heal everything when I was a little girl. When Chanya and I got up for storytime, ice fell out of the washcloth. Joy had intuitively supplied ice. Chanya agreed to suck on a wet rag tomorrow. She curled up in my lap during story time and went to bed without complaint.

I would have called my mother and thanked her for the frozen washcloth remedy if I could have.

It has evolved over the years. When we first started out, I would pick random chapters and verses out of the air and have the children race to see who could find it in the Bible first.

I raced against Yanni and Xay in the early days.

This exercise got them up to speed with Pastor, when he’d tell the congregation to find a specific scripture.

This practice morphed into studying a specific topic. If I wanted to find out more about a specific word, like ‘rock,’ for example, I would go to Biblegateway.com and look up ‘rock’ in the King James Bible, and then take the children through the whole search, 5 verses at a time. When we completed a search, I would have the children write about what we learned. Sometimes, we’d write poetry based on the Bible search topic.

(I later turned my poems into songs, and had hoped to teach the children to do this at some point).

The trouble with Bible study was the children’s attitudes. They would scoff and roll their eyes with each topic, and I wondered if they ever got anything out of it.

Ayanna got to the point where she could appreciate what I was trying to do, and her attitude improved. Xavier began to get bored with the whole process. Then he joined the homeschool Christian Youth bible study, and stopped studying with us.

Before he stopped, though, Xay suggested a topic: Faith vs Works. This was a topic they were discussing in his Bible study, and he wanted some insight. It took some time, but we pushed through this topic.

Xay is now leading the Bible study, and is searching the Bible for his own answers. He apologized to me for his attitude in the past. He told me that he found some of the scriptures for faith vs works.

Today Xay was ready to dig into the ‘cornerstone’ scriptures again. I was thrilled. Going into Bible Study with the children, I wasn’t sure what would become of it. I knew that I wanted the children to know the Word, and I wanted them to know God, but I wasn’t sure how to ‘teach’ that.

I also feel guilty for having gotten in there with them. Shouldn’t I have learned it first and then taught it to them? Wasn’t I being selfish, trying to learn myself at the same time?

One thing I’ve learned through studying the Bible is that the Word does not return void. So if you are digging through the Word, it will do the work itself. We are talking about planting, and producing good ground. We are also talking about faith.

Now I’m doing Bible study with the younger children. I don’t race them in their search. They seem too young to compete against me. I hope this decision doesn’t weaken them. I am trying to make sure they understand what we’re reading.

Esteban just writes a verse from Proverbs. He can’t wait to get his own Bible to search through. Nobody has a bad attitude in this next group of kids.

That is something.