When Your Child Teaches You

Children are amazing.  The good and the bad are amazing.  Last Christmas Cole put together Christmas gifts for all of his friends using his own toys.  This was not something we came up with at all.  It was just something he wanted to do.  We were somewhat amazed.

On Saturday it was finally nice enough to go outside and play.  After lunch we headed to a park.  We went "hiking" and had a jolly time walking from one of the playgrounds to another and we were "explorers".  We got to the far playground and Cole taught us.  We were sitting on a bench and watching Cole.  There were two brothers with a significant age gap playing on one of the playsets.  The older one was being none too kind to the younger.  The younger one was maybe 4.  You could just tell he got picked on by the older one a lot.

Cole was minding his own business climbing up and sliding down.  The older brother went somewhere else and the younger one decided to play on the same set as Cole.  Cole was climbing up one of the structures and the little boy came running up behind him and shoved him in the back with both hands as he was climbing (of course we were infuriated, but we decided to wait and watch how he responded...we were so glad we did).  Little tough guy essentially proceeded to climb over Cole (who was much larger than him) and kind of pushed him aside and climbed ahead and just sat there.  We were ticked, but kept watching as the little boys "parents" played on their phones to see what happened next.  The boy moved on and Cole finished his climb, avoided the little kid, and went down the slide and came over to us.  We expected him to say "did you see that little boy push me" in an indignant fashion.  Instead he said, "I let that boy go ahead of me."  We were blown away that the shoving was not the first thing he mentioned.  We proceeded to walk away from the playground as it was time to go and we had more explorer hiking to do back to the car.  About 15 minutes later Cole said, "that little boy was a really good climber."  He actually praised the child who was so rude to him.  Once again, we were very amazed at his gentle spirit. 

Almost anyone in that situation would have shoved the kid back (I know I wanted to throttle him for being such a little punk) but Cole commented how he used manners and let the little beast by and then even praised him later.  I think our take away lesson is that we are to be that way.  Truly, Cole was turning the other cheek.  He was not being a doormat, and surely if he was in the mood he could have shoved the boy right off the piece of equipment.  We are supposed to turn the other cheek.  We are supposed to show love.  That kid was so obviously bullied by his older brother.  Cole doesn't understand the complexities of all of that, but he did what he should and it made our hearts so very glad.  He taught us. Both of us had some rage going on for the little boy, but that is not how we are called to act.  Just think, if more people, would respond like that when they were wronged perhaps there would be less menace in the world.  Maybe not, but it reminds me of that commercial where the one person does a nice thing for another and so on (paying it forward).  What would it change if we responded to someone's hate with a smile?  Thank you for something to really think about, little boy.  You are such a blessing.

Blue Bell Tour, flubber, goodbye to friends, and more

We took a tour of the Blue Bell ice cream factory in broken arrow with a group of homeschoolers two Fridays ago.  It was really fun!  The best part for the kids was the ice cream at the end.

We made flubber for school.  Just for fun.

We went to the aquarium for the octopus unit.  We did see the octopuses they hve there, but not the giant pacific one yet.  Here is cole with a dusky shark jaw.

We said goodbye to our sweet friends as they move on to Golden, CO.  We will miss them greatly.

I made some other shirts for Cole.

Pictures

 Cole's Kindergarten picture.

 Our friends (first friends in Tulsa) are leaving us to move to NC.  We got together and we are really going to miss them!

My 13 week tummy. My tummy is usually flat, so definitely a bump there.

Announcement

We are expecting!  We are very excited!  13 weeks along come Monday.  Everything looks great so far.  Cole has big plans as to how he is going to teach and care for his sibling.  We are beyond blessed by our loving God!  The due date is March 25th.