Loving Imaginative Play . . .

One of my favorite things about reading history and great world literature with my children is watching how they reinterpret these classic stories into their play. Today was a great example.

All afternoon, my 3yo has been running around the house, charging everything and shouting, "I am Caesar and I'm gonna cross the Rublebon!"

I love how "Rublebon" rolls off his tongue in an attempt to say Rubicon . . .

Overheard in my 7 year old's prayers

"Wash me from my iniquity and cleanse me from my skin."

Shouldn't he be waiting until he is a teenager to pray this?

Veteran's Day

7yo and I have a regular Tuesday morning date to our favorite coffee shop. Each Tuesday, we have a schoolwork marathon over coffee and muffins while 3yo plays at Mother's Day Out. This morning CNN was playing on mute in the coffee shop. There was some coverage of Veteran's Day events at Arlington Cemetery. 7yo looked up, read the captions and said,

"Mom, what is Veteran's Day? Is it when we honor animal doctors?"

St. Constantine learns to spell

We've been studying St. Constantine lately in history, along with his vision and the legalization of Christianity in the Roman Empire.

Today while drawing a picture of an icon of St. Constantine, 7yo commented,

"There are three N's in 'Constantine.' I bet Constantine learned to write his N's really well."

Profound . . . or not?

This morning during breakfast the boys and I were doing our regular readings from the Prologue and the Children's Bible Reader. After 7yo finished reading, 3yo turned to both of us and said very decisively,

"Jesus is in my tummy."

7yo and I both looked at each other and giggled.

Then 7yo said, "You mean He's in your heart."

3yo thought for a minute and said,

"Oh, OK."

But in moments like this I can't help but stop and think about the theological context and also why my child would have said such a thing. I suppose he most likely confused his tummy with his heart. Maybe. Or was he thinking about taking Communion on Tuesday night? We certainly talk about how Communion is Jesus' body and blood. And we certainly talk about how God is everywhere. So I thought for a minute or so about where to take the conversation. Should I attempt to conquer that subject? I opted for no, and left it there, with a kind explanation for the 3-year-old from his older brother. That will probably suffice (along with some smirks between me and the older brother). But all day I've been thinking about Jesus being in our tummies. Perhaps He is.

Planning for the future

As many people know, my boys have great shiny red capes. They are superhero capes given to them by Grandmomma. 2yo wears it a lot. OK, let me be honest. He wears it everyday. We have to put it on each morning after getting dressed. He even wore it to Mother's Day Out this week. I don't mind. I love that he loves dress-up. But we have one rule. No capes in church. When it's time to go to church, he has to take it off. One exception: Pascha Sunday. On Pascha Day, for the Agape Vespers service he can wear the cape. Yes, our rules are that specific because they have to be. We discuss the use of the cape before almost every church service. Now, the course of the conversation, we've had occasion to mention that little boys don't wear capes in church. But, we've told him bishops, monks and priests do get to wear capes. I've reminded him that bishops actually have long red capes just like his. And his older brother keeps telling him, "If you become a monk, you can wear a long black cape, just like Batman."

Well, this evening before going to the church for Akathist, I reminded him that he'd need to remove his cape when we got to church. He looked at me very sincerely and asked, "Mommy, when I get big and I be a monk, can I wear my cape to church then?" "Of course!" I replied.

Discipline

Quote of the morning:

"Mommy, everytime my airplane breaks. But, I tell it, 'Airplane, you gonna get in time-out if you do that again!'" - my 2yo, while playing with the "airplanes" he made out of Lego Duplos

Gotta love it when they start applying discipline techniques to their toys. There is more truth in this than we even realize. He knows that's what you do to get someone/something to do something you want it to do . . .

Idioms

2yo: [trying to get out of his booster seat after dinner] "Can somebody buckle me up?"
7yo: [looking over to help out] "You're already buckled up!"
2yo: "Well, then can somebody buckle me DOWN?"

I just love the confusing nuances of language! My university students do similar funny things with Russian.

As we come to the end of Paschaltide . . .

Here are a few last minute Paschal wishes to you all for this year. 2yo is in LOVE with the Paschal greeting this year, and often spontaneously walks up to me and yells "Christ is Risen!" He also insists that HE has to be the one to start the tropar before every meal. You can see below that he is partial to the Greek, but gives Arabic a valiant try.

And here's the duet version. For kids whose mother is getting a PhD in Slavic Linguistics, these boys sure do avoid the Church Slavonic. They are like the cobbler's kids who have no shoes.

Oh, and for those who ask how I manage to homeschool and be a grad student, the disastrous mess in the background is the answer to your question. See the laundry, toys and books everywhere? That's just regular old life around here.

Birth, Pregnancy and the Incarnation

This is a repost from another blog from September 2007.

Here is my 6yo's explanation of the above topics to his 2yo brother over lunch today. His dad and I were listening in and trying not to interject too much.

6yo: Now listen. Only girls can have babies in their tummies. If you want to have a baby, you have to be a girl, and you have to be married. Well, except . . . [here my heart sank, wondering what was coming next and what he knew that I didn't know he knew] . . . except if you're Mary.

[I smiled in relief and agreement.]

[He stopped to think for a minute.]

6yo: But, actually she was married, too.

Me: Who was she married to?

[6yo takes his finger and just points upward.]

[Now I've got all of these theological themes running through my head as I try to figure out if I should just agree with his comment, or make any correction. I'm thinking, Mary was betrothed to Joseph, but never married, Christ is the Bridegroom and the Church is the Bride, Holy Virgins are married to Christ . . . My mind continues to race, and just as I decide just to let this one be and be impressed with his assessment, he pipes up again, talking to his little brother.]

6yo: But, the same one she was married to, she also gave birth to!!!

I think he's getting the paradoxes of our faith. He saw the look of happy surprise in my eyes and said, "Mom, I know all about this stuff!"

Pensive

This post is from 5/9/08

This morning 6yo had finished practicing piano and it was time to start on his spelling test. I stopped to help 2yo with something, and before I could make it back to 6yo, he had disappeared to the bathroom. I continued helping 2yo build a tower with his Duplos while 6yo did his business. I noticed 6yo had been gone for quite some time, but tried to just be patient. After about 10 minutes he finally emerged. He walked in, smiled and said:

"Mom, sorry I took so long. I got overheated with thoughts."

Yeah, I've so been there.

Belief

This post is from 3/13/08

On Tuesday, dad stayed home with 6yo while I was taking one of my PhD comprehensive exams. They worked on some of 6yo's schoolwork that day. They were working on a pretty hard math problem that was an algebraic word problem - pretty challenging for a 1st grader. So dad was egging him on with some reverse psychology. Anyway, here's the dialogue that they told me about afterwards.

Dad: You can't do that problem!
6yo: Yes I can!
Dad: Well, I'll believe it when I see it!
6yo: "Blessed are those who have not seen and yet believe!"

Then he proceeded to do the problem correctly.

Seige

This post is from 12/28/08

On Wednesday afternoon, right in the middle of my kitchen floor, the Roman Empire took Jerusalem. Yep, that's right. 6yo's whole battalion headed out to conquer Jerusalem, and they succeeded. I kept wondering what historical event he must be thinking of. When dad asked him about it, he said, "Well, in Jesus' time, Jerusalem was in the Roman Empire, so the Romans must have conquered it before then."

Conversation this morning

This post is from 11/26/07

Me: We'll do that tomorrow.
6yo: Mom, you mean "the morrow."
Me: No, I mean tomorrow.
6yo: Well, "the morrow" is how they say it in the Bible.

The Current War

This post is from 11/21/07

Thought you might all like to hear 6yo's take on the current war in Iraq. Bear in mind that he is studying Ancient Civilizations in History, and he LOVES history these days.

As he was setting the table last night he turns to us and says,

"Daddy, why did America attack Mesopotamia?"

It took us a few minutes to figure out what he was asking. Later he said,

"Mom, when I asked you that, were you thinking of that area as Iraq?"

Lunch chatter from 6yo

This post is from 10/31/07

"I think my favorite martyrs are those forty who died on the lake and the ones that our church is for [Sophia, Faith, Hope and Love]."

"It's so amazing that heaven couldn't even hold God, but Mary could."

From tonight's science lesson

This post is from 10/30/07

Dad: What step of the water cycle comes between evaporation and precipitation?
6yo: Constipation?

Breakfast chat

This post is from 10/29/07

6yo: "Mom, I like what John says when he starts his Gospel."
Me: "What?"
6yo: "You know, 'And the Word was God.'"
Me: "Oh, yeah."
6yo: "It just tells you what it's going to be all about."