Quote for the day . . .

God prefers fruits of the spirit to religious nuts

- I saw this on a Presbyterian church sign board and it made me smile and think at the same time!  :-)

The Old Woman in the Shoe

I've decided to take this moment to refute the assertions in the nursery rhyme "The old woman in the shoe."  But, let me begin by saying . . . WHO comes up with these nursery rhymes anyway?  For example: Rock a bye baby.  Seriously, what kind of sick person came up with a song to sing to babies that has the baby falling out of a tree??  Anyway, I digress.

There was an old woman who lived in a shoe.  She had so many children she didn't know what to do. So, she gave them some broth without any bread and spanked them all soundly and sent them to bed.  

First of all, it would be entirely impossible to live in a shoe by yourself, let alone with "so many children."  I know this for a fact because I live in a 4 bedroom house with my own so many children and we are still on top of each other all the time . . . I often consider setting up a tent in the backyard.

Secondly, I can guarantee that any woman with "so many children" will always know what to do. I only have six children and I NEVER have trouble finding something to do.  Also, having "so many children" makes one an expert on almost everything (why is the sky blue? How do you get puke stains out of a beige carpet? Why does my sister's bottom look different than mine?  etc.) And anything you're not an expert on you get pretty good at faking! :-) 

Thirdly, as any mom knows, you never give kids broth without bread.  In fact, you really shouldn't give kids broth period . . . they are definitely going to make a HUGE mess trying to eat what is basically water with spoon.  Also, they will scream at you and pretend they are starving and then you will have to go back and make them steak and potatoes or macaroni and cheese anyway, so you might as well save the time and mess of broth and give them actual food to start with. 

However, this line does give me an idea of the reason this old woman was such a mess.  Everyone knows kids sleep better when they have full tummies, so obviously her thinking must have been impaired from her sleep deprivation with all those kids waking her up all night long.

I'm not even going to touch the spanking them all soundly before bed thing.  Let me just say why in the heck would someone put that in a nursery rhyme??

So here is my version: (maybe the rhyming and meter leave something to be desired, but the message is much more suited to a nursery rhyme.  

There was a young woman with fabulous shoes.  She had so many children she always knew what to do.  She gave them some pasta and cheese and some bread and hugged them all tightly and tucked them in bed.

She knew they were precious and sweet it is true.  So she treated them kindly and watched as they grew.  And though it was noisy and crazy at times and she wished they could change from banshees to mimes

She kissed them and loved them with all of her might and knew she was lucky  . . . and she was right!

Side note: as I was typing this out I read it to the kids, and Lindsay decided she wanted to write her own version, so here it is.

There was a young father with a wonderful mother.  He sat in his chair combing his hair. He made a layer on his pear cake. He made a mistake and made it break. He went to the store to buy some more bread and beds.

And here's Nathan's version:

There was an old boy who sat in a chair.  He didn't know what to do so he went to the store and bought another chair.

That's enough randomness for today, but my shutter finger is getting itchy, so soon there should be some new wall pics of the kids and I also have some pictures of Jerry's new office, I just haven't uploaded them yet . . . so that's coming soon too!  :-)