Recently we have been listening to Hide 'Em in Your Heart. The first song on the CD is called "Let the little children come," and Elisabeth has been singing along like this:
"Let the little children come.We need to add the word forbid to her vocabulary so that the song makes sense.
Let the little children come.
And do not forgive them.
And do not forgive them!"
Recently Elisabeth was seated in the bathroom with the lights off and called out the door,
"Can someone turn off the dark?"
I have loved spending the past two and a half years with Elisabeth and watching her explore and develop on a daily basis. I have loved taking thousands of pictures and keeping this blog to be able to record our memories. Learning how she is developing, and finding appropriate ways to encourage and stretch her has been a delight.
As I spent hours perusing book lists, searching the shelves of libraries and bookstores, and wandering (mostly frustrated) through toy stores, I wondered if there was a service that told you what skills your child was currently developing, and recommended great books, toys and activities for each developmental stage - in short, a service to make parenting simple, so parents could spend more constructive time with their kids.
So I looked, and came up empty. There are lots of lists: lists of milestones, lists of books, lists of toys, and lists of activities. But no one had pioneered web 2.0 parenting, by providing parents a simple, customized, interactive environment to learn about and support each stage of their children's development.
At the same time, my childhood best friend, Jonathan, had seen that although parents (like me) take thousands of digital pictures, and there are many services for printing and sharing photos on the web, no one seemed to realize that the rate of computer replacement by home users would mean that parents needed a better and more reliable way to store their memories and photos for the long haul.
Thus tumblon was born. We could provide parents a simple, customized, interactive environment in which parents could learn how to support their child's current development and save those memories in stories, photos, and videos. It would be an interactive online 'baby book' so that grandparents (and other friends and family) could enjoy all the memories 24/7 - and for many, many years to come.
As an educator, I believe that parents are the key players in the education of children. I also believe that their greatest responsibility lies in the first five years of life (thought it certainly doesn't end there), as those early years mold the character, shape the personality, and even affect the intellectual capacity of children. So the prospect of creating a service that enabled parents to fulfill their responsibility, celebrate all of the milestones along the way and create a rich archive of memories is a dream come true.
In the not-so-distant future, that dream is going to come true when we launch tumblon. There is a teaser site up now, where you can sign up to learn more. And I'm posting on the founders' blog as we get closer to launch. Before too long, I'll start posting on my new tumblon blog, so you'll know that the transition has arrived, when this blog redirects you there!
It is a rare thing for me to reread a book. I often return to a good book and reread passages from it, but I cannot remember when I last finished a book and picked it up to start reading it again from the beginning.
However, when I finished reading Foolishness to the Greeks, I returned to the beginning and started rereading. On my first encounter with Newbigin, I had to reread just to understand what he was saying because his paradigm was so different from mine. (I daresay my outlook was so syncretistic that I couldn't understand another Christian who didn't share my syncretisms.) Now that I've undergone a sort of Newbiginian revolution, I am reading voraciously to understand. In Foolishness to the Greeks, he explores this question in depth:
"What would it mean if, instead of trying to explain the gospel in terms of our modern scientific culture, we tried to explain our culture in terms of the gospel?" (p41)In doing precisely that, he has completely upended my world view. My understanding of education, commerce, and the church have undergone a seismic shift.
"The former statement (i.e., that the tomb was empty) can be accepted as a fact only if the whole plausibility structure of contemporary Western culture is called into question." (p62)In other words, "it is idle to suppose that any kind of peaceful coexistence is possible between these two ways of understanding history" (61). The truth of the good news of Jesus says that the modern Western vision (its plausibility structure) is not only inadequate; it is false because it claims to see truth. It is not merely an invitation to adopt a belief system. It is a call to conversion "in which the most real of all realities is the living God whose character is 'rendered' for us in the pages of Scripture" (64).
Elisabeth has developed a fascination with snapping. She practices snapping her fingers throughout the day, without any sort of encouragement. She has the motion now, and can make a soft snapping sound. I don't think it will be long before they're nice and loud.
A friend just sent me an article on Learning to Lie, which presents fascinating research on the rate of lying in children, and the reasons they lie. Two of their observations especially impressed me:
Many parenting Websites and books advise parents to just let lies go—they’ll grow out of it. The truth, according to Talwar, is that kids grow into it. In studies where children are observed in their natural environment, a 4-year-old will lie once every two hours, while a 6-year-old will lie about once every hour and a half. Few kids are exceptions. (source, emphasis mine)New York magazine is telling parents the dangers of letting their children lie! Now if we jump on the bandwagon because "studies prove . . ." that kids grow into lying, then we've missed the point. Research is behind the curve in parenting advice. Teaching your children not to lie, and modeling integrity, have been wise in every age and every place.
I love The Big Picture Story Bible, but have been looking for an illustrated children's Bible that contained more Biblical stories so that Elisabeth would see more of the stories that fit into the Big Picture. I was sorely disappointed with the New Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes, which is probably only appropriate for children under 3 rather than the claimed age range of 4-7.
Happily, we received the Illustrated Family Bible Stories as a gift, and have found a middle ground children's Bible that is not overly simplistic, but still has ample illustrations.
The authors do a remarkably good job of summarizing the Biblical stories. Sometimes there is very little editing at all, and is simply the Biblical text. (I've noticed how well they have stuck to the text as I have been reading through Genesis and Exodus in my devotions at the same time that I have been reading those accounts to Elisabeth.) There have been a few occasions that I questioned the way that they simplified a story for children, but for the most part I'm impressed. So, if you're looking for something to give more of the stories than the Big Picture Story Bible, check this out.
When I arrived at Elisabeth's school today, her teacher greeted me at the door. She asked Elisabeth to show me what she had done in school. She pointed to the word "goldfish" (clearly in her handwriting) on the bulletin board. The letters were well-formed, and I affirmed her work, thinking that was what we were observing. Elisabeth's teacher then explained that not only had she written the word, but she had spelled it by sounding it out. Previously, we had been working on words like "sit" and "bat", so "goldfish" is a major milestone!
In the quest for peaceful transitions to sleep, we have encouraged Elisabeth to listen to music while she goes to sleep. A week or two ago, I asked her if she would like to listen to Bach's cello suites while she went to sleep. She didn't protest, and drifted happily to sleep. The next night I asked her what music she wanted, and she requested Bach.
Now Bach is her regular request at bedtime. (I don't blame her. The cello suites are my current favorite as well!)
On Wednesday, when I picked Elisabeth up from school, she pointed at my forehead and asked, "What's that, Daddy?" I asked her to tell me what she saw, and what it looked like, and then we talked about the ashes and the cross. I told her that when our rector put the ashes on my forehead, he said, "Remember that you are dust and ashes; for you are dust and to dust you will return." And he prayed for me, that this would be a season of seeking, finding and resting in Jesus.
Elisabeth was intrigued, and I was delighted. It was a wonderful reminder to me of how vivid certain elements of worship can be to children. I remember her asking similar questions as we sat at the back of the Maundy Thursday service last year (at which there is a foot washing). All of the symbolic actions beg the question, "Why?!" When used purposefully and well, these actions tell the story of the Gospel, of our wickedness, and God's great love in Christ.
As we enter this season of Lent, I am deeply grateful for the symbols, and even more grateful for the Reality that they present. I'm excited to be attentive to what Elisabeth is seeing, hearing and experiencing so that I can impress this great good news through which the Holy Spirit gives new life.
Last night as I lay sleeping, I heard little footsteps padding into our room. I looked up and asked Elisabeth what was wrong. Without answering, she walked over to the tissues, took one, and padded back to her room. She climbed in bed, and that was the last noise I heard until 7:15am.
In my mind, that's what's supposed to happen in the middle of the night when a child needs something!
Yesterday as we were preparing for church, Elisabeth was providing more than necessary resistance to the morning routine. Midway through Elisabeth's antics, she turned to Mommy and said,
"Why do you call me a 'drama queen'?"I wonder if she will begin to recognize that those comments coincide with her dramatic statements and actions . . .
We live about 2 miles from Elisabeth's preschool, and until now have used the stroller to walk to and from school. Last week, we had dinner with friends who have a daughter 10 months younger than Elisabeth who regularly walks 2 miles from their home to her school. Inspired by her stamina, I decided it was time to let Elisabeth try the walk.
On Tuesday, she walked all the way home - without a single complaint! Yesterday we tried it again on the way home, and I was the one trying to keep up with her. She would run ahead and stop for me to catch up, and then start sprinting again.
Needless to say, she sleeps well at night!
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