For starters, thank all of you who offered advice on my last post--I've read and re-read it and I'm sure I'll use it for a reference when things get tough with my little flunkie. ;-) Today I drew a great big "A" on a piece of paper, surrounded by lots of little A's, B's, and C's. I had Sam trace the big A, then color it in, then circle all of the little A's in red, then the B's in green and the C's in some other color. He did it all without a hitch. Matching shapes isn't a problem for him, just remembering what they're called! And despite how it might sound, I'm really not freaked out about him not knowing all of the stuff Katie and Joe learned early on. It's so true that kids are different and they all learn at different times, different rates, and in different ways. He's just the first kid around here who hasn't been interested in this stuff and I was wondering if there was something I could do to get him interested. And you've given me lots of terrific ideas--thank you!!! And if they don't work, I'm perfectly prepared to let him play with his miniature cowboys and indians on the floor during school time for a while longer. It actually makes "school" much easier on me when he does! Joe still needs pretty constant direction with his school and Katie (although she could do most all of it on her own) seems to need the attention and praise over her accomplishments. More than anything, she just wants company! Throw Sam into the mix and it's just about more than one Mama can handle! Makes you wonder how kids in school ever learn anything at all, 30 of them in a room with one teacher. Crazy.

My day started out rather slow today. I wasn't feeling well at all, so my wonderful husband agreed to keep an eye on the kid-o's so I could soak in a hot bath for about an hour. ~Aaaahhhhh~ It was so nice and I felt sooooooo much better afterward. Did some school, then had some pretty heafty chores to tend to in the afternoon. Went to the nursing home for service tonight, came home, had a late dinner, got the kids to bed, then went back to the nursing home to pick up Sister Elizabeth and take her back to her house for the night. Aunt Sue is picking her up in the mornings and taking her up there to be with Brother Ellis during the day, and I'll be picking her up and taking her back home each night. Up until this week, Tammy has been doing it all pretty much by herself. Well, she and Sam--he does so much for them, too. Tammy left today to go to her nephew's graduation and will be gone until next Tuesday. I'm sooooooo happy for her! She needs the time away--God arranged the timing of all of this just right! :-)

The nursing home service tonight... HA! It was a riot! First of all, Tammy is usually our fearless leader and this was our first time without her. We usually sing three or four songs, Katie and sometimes Joe will sing a special, Tammy will do a little devotional, then we'll sing a few more songs and Brother Sam will dismiss in prayer. Pretty easy, really. Except nobody was prepared with a devotional tonight. Tammy had asked me to pick the songs and said that Sam would do the devotion. So after the third or forth song I asked Sam if he had a devotional ready. Nope. I said, "You don't?! Tammy said you would!" "She did? Oh, okay--" and he took off. He said something like, "We're going to do a little devotional now--I've got a few scriptures I wanted to share...!" Ha! As if he was fully prepared and just waiting for his chance! The good thing about Sam Kaufman is that he's always reading his Bible and praying--in tune with God--and always has something really and truly on his heart that God has been speaking to him about. He never just pulls something out of a hat--he truly feels the things that he's sharing.

So the devotional was actually pretty good tonight! And the singing went pretty well, I thought. But there were lots of... distractions, shall we say?! First of all, there are these two really sweet simple-minded sisters in the home who always give packs of crackers to the kids and draw pictures for them and things like that. Well, today was Hippie Day at the nursing home and everbody had been stringing beaded necklaces and doing all sorts of hippie crafts, and these ladies had made enough necklaces for me and Aunt Sue and Katie and Tammy--and were quite disappointed to find that Tammy wouldn't be there. I was able to get to Katie ahead of time and give her some time to prepare herself before the girls gave her a necklace and she freaked out. "Katie, these ladies don't know anything about what the Bible says about jewelry and we do not want to hurt their feelings, so just take it and tell them thank you--and we'll get rid of it later." She did great. We took our strings of beads and put them over by our stuff on the chair. But the girls (Mary Jane and Carol are their names, I think) just kept asking about the necklaces and wanted to make sure we weren't going to lose them and that we were going to get that extra one to Tammy and on and on. They were dying for us to put them on and Sue was trying to figure out what to do since we weren't going to wear them, so she decided to just hold hers and twirl it as we sang! HA! You would have to know Sue Fox to appreciate this, but she started bopping and slinging one hip out to the side and twirling her beads round and round--it was hilarious!!! (Don't worry--we got her calmed down and stuffed the beads in her purse before we actually started singing!) AND... there's another lady there who always has a little something for each of the kids that she's picked up at the dollar store for them. This week it was goggles. I'm wishing I would have had my camera with me because there's no way to explain the atmosphere there tonight. We've got 25 or 30 old people in wheelchairs loaded down with beady necklaces and other hippie paraphernalia (one old lady in the back had a crazy looking headband wrapped around her head--you know, Karate Kid stlye--with curly white hair sticking out above and below it! -- I was DYING!!!) and Sue slinging her beads around and my kids looking like this most of the night...

I took these pictures when we got home, but this is really what they looked like through most of the service--except Katie kept hers on the top of her head most of the time. They did have the decency to take them off when they stood out front to sing their special. Without even being told, now that I think of it. Anyway, it was a crazy night! I can't wait for Tammy to get home--everything just seems to go nuts around here without her! Ha! I guess that's not true. Everything has been totally nuts for the past week or two before she left.

Okay, I'm outta here. Got a big day tomorrow--lots more heafty work to be done. I think I'm going to let Katie go "work" with Aunt Sue at the store for the day. She'll LOVE that and it'll free me up a little bit to be more productive. We don't do it very often and Aunt Sue never seems to mind, so tomorrow will be a good day. James works Mardel tomorrow so I'll have both boys to myself, but they're usually better when Katie is gone. Actually, any time you take any one kid out of the mix the two remaining ones seem to get along better. Weird. Okay, I gotta get going. G'night!