Notice that I did not say being late is a good thing. I said it was a good sign. I really don't appreciate when people delay contacting or meeting me, so I imagine you are the same way. The reason I say that it is a good sign is that I think it is a sign that I am settling in here. Let me elaborate....
For starters I didn't even think it was a noteworthy thing to write about when the kids caught grasshoppers and we all ate them as an appetizer on Thanksgiving before our turkey meal. I just ate them and thanked the kids for their hard work and generosity in sharing them with me. This wasn't my first time eating bugs here, and it won't be the last. They are actually kind of tasty! I especially like what they call "white ants". The kids say that they live in the termite mounds with the termites and sometimes they come out after a heavy rain. What I really think (and I only think so because I watched Animal Planet as a kid) is that they are the prince or princess termites that go out to supply the means of fertilizing queen termites or becoming new queens themselves. This is only a guess, but the kids say all sorts of things that didn't really make sense and later turned out to be false. So I don't feel too bad disagreeing with them. A quick Wikipedia search just confirmed what I thought. Feel free to skip the following paragraph:
In areas with a distinct dry season, the alates leave the nest in large swarms after the first soaking rain of the rainy season. In other regions, flights may occur throughout the year, or more commonly, in the spring and autumn. Termites are relatively poor fliers and are readily blown downwind in wind speeds of less than 2 km/h, shedding their wings soon after landing at an acceptable site, where they mate and attempt to form a nest in damp timber or earth.
Anyway, it feels nice to be settling in a little bit here. I have finished my second Thanksgiving away from family, and the next mile marker is my first Christmas away from my biological family, but I suppose I will be with family nonetheless.
I do have one more story I could tell quickly. You know those jokes where someone tells you it that it is hard to do something and they pretend it is hard, then they hand it to you and it explodes in your face and everyone laughs at you? Well I had an interesting experience with that sort of joke the other day. Here is how it went.
I we had a normal Sunday breakfast of the lovely pancakes Suzanne makes every Sunday. Things were looking up. It was going to be a relaxed day after a sort of crazy weekend of driving long hours so the kids could perform in a play they had been complaining about not wanting to do for over a month. Anyway, one of the three amigos, Francis, started talking about how you can't break an egg if you hold it a certain way. I knew that it was a joke, but by the way he and several of the other guys were so adamant about it I decided to just leave it alone. I knew that the joke was to just get someone to try squeezing the egg and then laugh at them when it exploded on them. I told them not to waste any eggs because they were being used for the pancakes.
So the day went on pretty normally, and later that afternoon I was recruited to make the hamburger patties. One of the thing I was putting in the mix was eggs. Now one of the older boys, Rick, was the most adamant about the egg thing and he took on of the eggs and put it in my hand just above the meat I was mixing. He told me to give it a try. All of my reason told me not to do it. I knew the joke after all. Yet, I was so frustrated by everyone telling me that it wouldn't break that I just squeezed the stupid egg. It was harder than I though, but suddenly the liquid contents exploded like a projectile in two directions. One part splattered backwards onto me, and the other just grazed Suzanne who was working on the other side of the island counter-top in the kitchen. Laughter erupted just like I knew it would, and I felt like the biggest moron in the history of morons. But the story doesn't end there. Everyone was still sure that I must have cracked the egg before I squeezed it, so they wanted me to do it again. How stupid do they think I am? I though. Then to my surprise, Rick picked up an egg and squeezed. The shock on his face brought a whole new light to the whole prank. He had fallen for his own prank and probably shot the stuff farther across the room than I did! They all really believed that the egg would not break! So, it was that the one person who knew how the prank worked fell for the prank, and the person who would have been the victim was, at least for a time, both the victim and the prankster. He me and himself into getting egg all over the kitchen. It was a very confusing feeling.
I was just going to tell the story, but it prompted a prayer request. All of the boys here have a very prideful be right attitude, and I think that was what triggered this whole event. They have a tendency to argue even when they know they are wrong. There is no point in trying to prove anything to them, because they just won't accept being wrong about anything. Well maybe not anything, but at least a great many things. It can be just a nuisance at times, but it can also be a problem. They can be very hard when it comes to correcting any poor behavior. For the three amigos (Vincent, Daniel, and Francis) have a bad problem of touching one another's butts for no good reason. I know that boys can be a little gross and stuff, but trust me when I say this happens in excess. It is a problem. I just need prayer for God to create willing spirits in each of these boys. Willingness to learn new things, to admit when they are wrong about something (especially when it is more serious than squeezing eggs), and an ability to have some self-control. I would be lying if I said that I wasn't at my wits end on a few things with certain behaviors.
I couldn't end this post on the note of the last paragraph, so I just want to remind you that things are going well here. Christmas break will be here at the end of next week! We will have a lot of fun when it gets here, and in the mean time we are all doing pretty well. I'm trying to do some review of math so that I can help the older boys with their algebra. I am surprised how easily I can remember these concepts. It has been a few years since I have done any math, so I am happy to be learning things so many times over with each student that they are getting ingrained in my head. I'm reading a lot of fun and thought provoking books. I'm trying to get out of the habit of only reading half of a book, but I can't seem to break the habit of reading like ten books at the same time. So they are all going rather slowly. I tried to do NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) this past November, I was supposed to write 50,000 words but I only passed 20,000. It was encouraging though, and I hope to finish the story later. The boys and I are still reading through the story of David. Actually if someone could turn me onto a good study of the life of David I would appreciate it. I have an idea to write a TV series sometime, but I want to know everything I can about his life and Psalms before I develop any screenplays.
I hope all is well with you as you read this. May God bless you and keep you! Feel free to contact me at mjstanton21@gmail.com
