THE LITTLE COMPOSER

Last night, Aleita was being her usual ornery self. She and I had gone several rounds, and she knew she had just about reached the end of her rope. While I was making dinner, she was supposed to be playing in her room, but she continually went into Maggie’s bedroom to pester her instead. Once dinner was finished, I sent Maggie to her room to play until I could get upstairs to give baths. To prevent any further difficulties between Aleita and Maggie, I had Aleita sit in her chair at the table while I did the dishes. She was not particularly pleased that she had to sit at the table while Maggie got to go play, but she did seem to understand that it was a consequence of her earlier behavior before dinner.

As I worked on the dishes, she sat at the table and began to sing, which is frequently the case with Aleita. She often tends to express herself through long, rambling songs. Often times, she will be playing with her dolls or Power Rangers or other action figures in her room and she will have them communicate to one another via warbling operatic verses that she composes as she goes. It is rare that they just speak to one another - - normally, they are all singing. Perhaps we have a little Puccini or Bizet in our midst.

Last night’s composition did not fail to entertain. I thought you might like to hear the highlights (just imagine it sung in a sing-songy, meandering kind of way…) :

I’m sitting here
in my chair.
I want to be
not in my chair.
I’d rather play
in my room
but I have to sit
in my chair.
I am a bad girl
because I’m not a good girl.
If I ran away
no one would come looking for me.
I would go to my Barbie’s house
and stay there because
she wouldn’t make me
sit in my chair…..

*For those who don’t know, Barbie is our good friend who lives a block down the street from us - - Aleita has always referred to her as “her Barbie.” Aleita threatens, on occasion, to go live with “her Barbie” when things aren’t going her way at home. There are moments when I would be inclined to let her - - but I think it wouldn't be long before "her Barbie" would send her right back down the street.

MONKEY SEE, MONKEY DO

I took a week's vacation from work this week to assist with our church's Vacation Bible School program. We actually combine with several other churches in the area, and have about 135 kids there everyday. I was unable to attend the organizational meeting they had a few weeks ago, but I wasn't all that picky about where I was put. My only request was that I not have to be with the pre-school kids for all three hours each day. (God bless people like my friend, Barb, who teach in a pre-k program everyday. There is special place in heaven for her.) When I was teaching in the public schools, I found that I was much better off with students old enough to understand sarcasm. Go figure.

Anyway, I was asked to assist with the music portion of Bible School. The music portion consists of me and another VBS helper, Carl, who teach the kids the VBS songs. All of the songs are pretty simple and repetitive, but catchy enough that the kids like singing them over and over again. I wish the same were true for Carl and me. Of course, we are getting to sing them six times over every day because we work with the kids in groups by age level. Carl and I are gettin' a little tired of singing about God's Big Backyard (our VBS theme this year.) Only one more day....I think I can make it.

I discovered something very comical today as we were teaching one of the songs. I didn't realize just how strongly the kids relied on us to do the motions to the songs (oh yes, a VBS song would be complete if there weren't a bunch of motions to remember.) Carl and I stand up in front of the group and do the motions so that the kids can mimic us. Today as we were working on a song, my nose itched and so I scratched it. Three of the kids stopped what they were doing and scratched their nose too. They went right back to the correct motions once I did, never missing a beat. I almost thought I imagined it, until a few seconds later when I itched it again, and two of them again did the same thing. I started laughing and they just looked at me like, "what?" Of course, they were five year olds, but still.... None of the nose itching kids got the humor in why I was laughing, so I just went on.

I always wanted to be a trendsetter, but this isn't quite what I had in mind.