Jerod doesn't calm the storm

I was pushing the kids in the double stroller on a windy day, trying to get in some outdoor exercise before fall rains set in. I started jogging at the same time the breeze picked up even more, so Jerod really had the wind in his face all of a sudden. He started yelling, "No! No!"

Zarya leaned over the partition and said authoritatively, "Jerod, when Jesus tells the wind to stop blowing it stops. But when you tell the wind "no," it just keeps on blowing."

I think this means I'm doing well at teaching her Bible stories, but might need to work a bit on the theology of faith and prayer.

An accidental great find at the library

One of the best things about life is going to a local library regularly. I get almost all of my own reading material via the library, but do it all online and get Kindle books. (People call the printing press the greatest invention of the second millenium; I think electronic books should get some award for the third one.) But for little kids, there is nothing better than having a great big stack of picture books from the library to read. We're currently at the picture book stage of life with our three-year-old bookworm - she reads through her entire stack of library books every day while I work. It takes her close to an hour, and sometimes I feel like I should start making a babysitting donation to the library on behalf of enabling Bible translation. PBS should probably also get a donation sometime, since watching PBS Kids shows feature regularly in my babysitting schedule, too. But back to books, our schedule is that when Jerod gets up from his nap and I finish work for the afternoon, I let her choose two or three and I read them aloud to both kids.

Despite the fact I'm the one who chooses all of the books from the library, sometimes what I find in the pile is still a surprise. It's not like I read every word of them when I'm picking them out! I just aim for good artwork, about the right amount of words on the pages, and a story I think Zarya will enjoy. A good friend and former librarian suggested to me to work my way through the entire picture book section in order so as to not feel overwhelmed and have no idea which books to get when we go, which had been the case. So I opted to work my way backwards through the alphabet, and we're currently in the "S" section. It's a great system and enables me to pick out books pretty quickly - I just go and park myself where I left off the last time and flip through a shelf or two. No more aimless wandering hoping a title will catch my eye.

Anyway, the other day I sat down on the couch with the kids to read the books Zarya had chosen for that afternoon's read aloud time. One of them was titled, "Mama Elizabeti," by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen. I started reading it, and thought, "This little house looks like a Tanzanian house. It must be set in Kenya or something." In my experience, Kenya gets a lot more attention than Tanzania and anything that is supposed to be East African kind of equals being Kenyan. As I kept reading, Zarya and I loved that the little girl in the story calls her dad "Baba," the Swahili name for father that Zarya uses for Andrew. When little Elizabeti has to take care of her little one-year-old brother, Zarya thought it was great, just like her playing with Jerod. But I was noticing that this little girl reminded me a lot of all of the little girls in Tanzania who do what Elizabeti was doing, carrying water and washing dishes and babysitting a little sibling at the same time. Elizabeti wasn't just playing, she was working hard! It seemed just like Tanzania to me.

So, we finished our book and went on to another. Later I went and read the about the author part on the back flap of the book, and sure enough, it seems like it really was supposed to be in a Tanzanian village! The author served in Tanzania in the Peace Corps, and apparently has also written another book about little Elizabeti. What a fun find at the little Indiana, PA, library!

July 2016... written in September

Hello, faithful followers of my neglected blog. What can I say, it's been a happy, busy summer! I've been doing things like playing outside and checking Bible translations when inside, and the blog has sunk on the priority list.

For a fly-by summary of our summer, I'll try to put up a few posts to catch y'all up. First, we will go back in time to July!

This was our third summer in a row for going blueberry picking, so I think we can now call it an annual tradition. This year we had so much fun on our first trip that I took the kids again... and again. Three times (for three of us, Andrew only went on the first adventure) this summer we tromped out in the blueberry fields and picked tons of fabulous berries!

Would you believe this three-year-old picked almost two pounds of berries all by herself? Actually, she probably picked like four pounds, but only half ended up in her pail.

We all wore blue shirts in an attempt to keep stains more hidden! 

Jerod's pail is just for show. He picked plenty of berries, but none went into the pail!

Andrew and I are um, well, "slightly" competitive people. We definitely keep track of who picks more! I'm a faster picker, but he insists that he's simply more selective and picks better berries. 

Our second blueberry trip was definitely the most memorable one. It was supposed to be a cloudy, warm morning. I looked at the hourly forecast just before we left. However,, we’d only been there for about 10 minutes when suddenly it was DUMPING absolute sheets of torrential rain! Everyone was racing out of the fields shrieking. We were slow to get the van because we had to walk at Jerod’s pace, and were soaked through. Like, SOAKED. I went to go pay for our berries, but the ladies in front of me were taking forever, and after five minutes of standing there in line, the rain stopped. So I left the line and went back to the car and took the kids back to get more berries! Zarya and Jerod both had a blast and loved the whole morning, rain and wet clothes and all. Zarya told me several times that she was having fun, and we had to haul a resistant Jerod out of the berries when we left, so I think that means he was still enjoying himself, too. When we went to go pay, we had to pour the water out of our buckets before they were weighed so the rain wouldn't end up making us pay extra! We were so wet upon arrival home that I had to towel dry Zarya’s hair and change her and my underwear, because even it was drenched. I told Zarya that we were from the Pacific Northwest and no rain was going to keep us from having fun.