The Accidental Pastor's Wife

you must pick up out of the bathroom window the dead buzzing insect you sprayed from 6 feet away as your shivering 5 year old little boy stands by with soap in his hair and sans pajamas.

If I'm brave enough to observe it maybe I'll get online and see if I can figure out if it was a wasp, a hornet, a big bumble bee...or I might just humor the kid and put him to bed...

Got any other funny "you know you're a mother of boys when" for me?? Then post them in a comment. It should get pretty funny!

My friend has written such an articulate post about worship that I absolutely had to share it tonight.

Well done, my friend!

How I'd Like To Do Church

These were a huge hit this morning so I had to share the recipe with you. I adapted it from one at my favorite recipe site www.allrecipes.com.

1 c water
1 c plain yogurt
1/4 tsp. vinegar
2 c flour
2 tsp. baking powder
1 tsp. baking soda
1/2 tsp. salt
2 eggs

Combine water, yogurt, and vinegar in a small bowl. In a larger bowl, combine flour, baking powder, baking soda, and salt. Stir with a whisk. Add yogurt mixture and eggs to flour mixture, combining well. Put in waffle maker according to manufacturer's directions.

These are light, crisp, and delicious!

I'm the worst laundress on earth. Even my husband admits that's not my strong suit. He'd rather have a Derby Pie...Anyway, I cannot stand to do laundry but the part I like the least is folding it and putting it away.

Now when you've got three kids, are pregnant with your fourth, have two little ones who routinely wet the bed, are a bit queasy most days, live in the parsonage where you must keep up with your chores (at least in public areas), homeschool at least one kid through the summer, maintain a large flower garden and six Square Foot Gardening boxes, you need some help, yes?

So my boys are 8 and 5 and each one has a laundry basket. There is one hamper in their room, which is the 8 year old's job to lug down the stairs for me, but each boy has a basket. When I'm sorting the clean clothes (I also just wash almost everything together on cold, with the exception of some shirts and sweaters.), I just put each kid's clean stuff in his basket. I don't honesty care how their drawers look as long as they close and I can't see the clothes. You've just gotta let something go! They don't necessarily need orderly drawers.

Besides, I'm tired.

We've been using this kindergarten curriculum for a few weeks now since my son is all about wanting to read.

I've looked at my neighbor's old KONOS books. I've read The Well-Trained Mind. I've read Mary Pride's Complete Guide To Getting Started Homeschooling (an excellent read, comprehensive in scope, for the person investigating homeschooling). I've called Sonlight and talked to them about their curriculum. I've used all Abeka as a beginning homeschooler. I've had moments where I wish there was just ONE way of schooling so that I didn't have to make a decision.

But using My Father's World has become my answer. Sure, it took me from first grade to fourth grade with my oldest of figure it out, but MFW is a combination of unit studies, Charlotte Mason (with the focus on living books), and Classical (teaching Latin or Greek, which we probably won't do, actually, and history taught chronologically). There's a good balance of work and fun. I feel like it takes the best from all the approaches that I like, especially the BOOKS.

Let me describe briefly what we did yesterday in kindergarten for our first lesson on the sun.

Math for kindgarteners is counting to 100, doing a calendar, using Cuisinare rods to form the letter S, counting those rods.

Reading instruction involves teaching the /s/ sound, cutting some stuff, touching the textured S as we discuss words that begin with that sound, reviewing other sounds as we've learned them.

The Activity Guide section of the book has a lot of ideas and something I've learned is that you don't have to do all of them. In fact MFW has a message board that has been absolutely invaluable. Today we're suppose to make raisins from green grapes, but a lot of moms said it took too long and wasn't really worth the effort. I think that's good to know! I've had my share of project busts! What we did, upon suggestion from someone at the board, was lay out 109 pennies side by side on our kitchen floor to represent the fact that it takes 109 earths to cross the diameter of the sun.

The Curriculum recommends a 6 day lesson cycle, with the sixth day a book day, but I've read again on the board that it's better (and simpler!) to just spread those books throughout the week so yesterday we read two scientific, factual books about the sun. Today we have some literature books about the sun on the agenda.

I've found my niche! FINALLY.

If any of you have had morning sickness, I need you to post your best remedies! Mine has just started in full force just now at 16 weeks (I'll be 17 weeks on Tuesday.).

Have you had it start this late before???

So weird, but it's making me SO unmotivated...

That would be the question a lot of people would ask. If you know your baby has a grapefruit size tumor attached to her still in the womb, why bother? Just have another one, right?

Because this family knew that this baby was precious, even though she hadn't yet been born. At her 23 week ultrasound, the doctor discovered a rare tumor that had attached itself to the baby. The only solution:

Take the baby out of the mom, perform surgery, then put her back in.

And it worked.

Click the link and see photos of this fantastic, adorable, miraculous baby, Macie Hope.

I wish pro-choice advocates everywhere would realize the depravity of their logic that this baby isn't a baby at all.

Macie Hope has a bright future ahead of her!

A good friend of mine loves old movies, and there are lots I enjoy, too. Recently she loaned me a DVD collection with Doris Day and Rock Hudson that included a movie called Pillow Talk, made in 1959. Let me say that they have fantastic chemistry on screen and that the movie was cute in general. But as I was watching it, I wondered if I'd let my children sit through it.

Why? Well, surely a movie from 1959, the era of Leave it to Beaver and the Dick Van Dyke Show, must be wholesome and uplifting?

There are some aspects of the movie that are: the goal for the young woman is to settle down and have a family with the man of her dreams. The womanizer, Rock Hudson, mends his ways and pursues the driven career-girl and eventually wins her over. The physical affection between the couple is relatively innocent most of the time.

BUT-

When Rock Hudson's character, Brad Allen, has a button he can push in his apartment that transforms his place into a love nest, complete with a fold out bed that mechanically pops out, the lights going down, the record player starting...How do I explain what's happening to my children?

"Oh, he's just having a sleepover." ???

Another scene shows the two of them in a split screen, each in the bathtub covered with bubbles on the phone. It's very sensual and made me feel embarrassed even though I was watching by myself. What do I say to that?

"Ummm...you probably wouldn't want to talk on the phone in the bathtub because you might drop it in and electrocute yourself? And it's immodest to let anyone see you bathing...Let's fast forward-"

Not to mention the outright deception Hudson's character pulls off. Granted, he does face the consequences of his actions, but it's still painful to watch.

In researching the history of the movie, I discovered that even Rock Hudson was hesitant to make this movie because he thought it was "too racy". (Of course, the tragic turn of his life might become a post in and of itself someday. It's terribly sad. At any rate...)

In many ways, this movie isn't much different in its subtle messages than a modern movie. Sure, there may not be as much skin, but there's plenty of sexuality implied. Would a kid "miss it" and just enjoy the movie, especially a romantically minded little girl or teenager? I think kids pick up on more than we realize.

You cannot assume that just because a movie is rated G or PG or is one from the '50s it must be OK. We have to watch each movie with a discerning, even a critical, eye, asking, "What message is this movie trying to communicate?"

I'm not a total fundamentalist here on movie watching. I think I was just taken back at how not much as changed at all over the years in Hollywood. And the movie caused me to keep a more watchful eye on what my kids are absorbing in the media. I'm also reminded of the extremely helpful site over at Focus on the Family that reviews media called Plugged In.

Be vigilantly on guard for your family in the culture.

As always, dear Karen articulates this morning what I long for my homeschooling to be. If you're a homeschooler or thinking about it, please go over and read her definition of a "relationship homeschooler". My prayer daily is that I would love my children and my husband as Jesus does, to see them as precious in his sight, and my work around here, which so often frustrates me in its mundaneness, would be for his service.

So I'm taking Karen's wonderful thoughts on what this means and what it looks like as my own. I know I'm a miserable failure on so many levels, but in her Titus 2 way, Karen gives me hope.

Here's the link.

Over at Thatmom and over at True Womanhood there have been some lively discussions lately about all this STUFF. I've been fascinated by it, honestly, and we've been talking a lot about it around here.

I think one reason I'm so interested in these links between patriarchy, as taught by Doug Phillips at Vision Forum, the complementarian view of men and women's roles, and homeschooling is that every homeschooling magazine I read seems to assume that GOOD homeschooling families have lots of children, never use birth control, live in the boonies, start their own home churches, raise animals, dress like Laura Ingalls Wilder, not send your girls to college EVER, never speak in church if you're a woman, always be a keeper at home no matter WHAT.

So, here's the THING that bugs me.

I'm complementarian to the core. I believe in distinct gender roles, ordained by God, and that there is an order to the family that is right and good (husband, wife, children). I believe I am to submit to my husband, yielding to his ultimate decision in matters. I think in general it's best for a wife to stay home and raise her own children rather than ship them off to daycare. I think I am called to homeschool my children, but if there was a Christian school around I would be sending my children there in a heartbeat.

What I'm bugged about is that I am being lumped together with folks like Doug Phillips because I believe in these distinct gender roles. Suddenly, being a complementarian equals being a patriarch.

I just don't think this is right or fair.

With that said, I had to post this hilarious link about the very things that set off the alarms in my brain a few years ago when I began receiving Vision Forum materials. I've removed myself from their mailing list. I've also removed myself from any association with my state Christian homeschooling group because all their conferences have Vision Forum types as the speakers.

Here's the link.