The Story About Ping

Monday: We found China and the Yangtze River on the map and saw on the globe that China is WAAAAAYYYY on the other side of the world from us! We did a map worksheet on China that mom got from Enchanted Learning, and we talked about how everything that seems good may not actually be good.



Tuesday: We learned what a 'classic' story is and saw that The Story About Ping is a classic because it was written in 1933 and is still loved by children today. We charted this year, along with all of our birth dates on a timeline. We also learned the difference between 'fiction' and 'non-fiction'.



Wednesday: We looked at the illustrations from Ping and decided that the medium the illustrator used must have been mostly crayons, and that there is a lot of blending of colors in this book. Then we blended colors to make our own Yangtze River on a blank sheet of paper and used a duck stamp and yellow paint to stamp ducks onto our River. 2ds6 then remembered how we talked about how to make it appear that something is in water and he did this to his picture.



Thursday: We started out by placing a duck on our Animal Kingdom poster under 'Vertebrates: Bird', and then we colored a picture of ducks and labeled them either 'duck' for the mommy duck, 'drake' for the daddy duck, and 'duckling' for the baby duck. Then we did a buoyancy experiment where we first poured maple syrup in a clear glass, then added a layer of vegetable oil, then water. We watched as the water and oil traded places, and then dropped in a grape, which floated on the syrup layer, a cork, which floated on the oil level, and a piece of wax candle, which also floated on the oil level but we THOUGHT would float on the water level. Oh well. Such is science, right?



Friday: We went to the parkand fed the ducks. We saw lots of drakes (male ducks) and ducks (female ducks), as well as many ducklings. We even got to watch one fly (while quacking loudly) right over our heads! 3ds5 didn't even know ducks could fly he said! While we were there, we played at the playground for a little while before heading to the local Chinese restaurant to pick up some chopsticks and fortune cookies. They had a HUGE picture of the Great Wall of China, so that was a really cool bonus! We then came home and ate our fortune cookies and home-made Yangtze River lemonade with rubber ducks floating in it to represent Ping and a couple of his family members (we couldn't fit his mother and his father and two sisters and three brothers and eleven aunts and seven uncles and forty-two cousins in the bowl)! We also tried to eat with chopsticks, which everyone but mom learned how to do! 2ds6 had the best idea though... he picked up his piece of hot dog by piercing it with the chopstick! But he did eventually get the hang of how to use them.

Oh My!

I had the distinct pleasure of going out all alone today! I'm sure you other mommies know exactly what I mean when I say that I had a huge smile on my face as I cascaded out the front door like I was really somebody important!





Where was I going you might ask? Well, none other than the local Kroger of course! True, it was only to pick up pop for the hubby and juice for the kiddies, but I was ALONE! It was QUIET all the way there, and all the way back! Pure bliss. Ahhhhhhh......





However! While AT Kroger, well, THAT'S a whole other story.





As I gracefully and elegantly guided my buggy (that's what we call 'em here in the country, ya' know) into the lovely check-out lane, still smiling like I knew a glorius secret no one else knew, I suddenly heard...





I WAN DA CA... I WAN DA CA... I WAN DA CA... I WAN DA CA... I WAN DA CA... I WAN DA CA... I WAN DA CA... I WAN DA CA... I WAN DA CA... I WAN DA CA... I WAN DA CA... I WAN DA CA... (hold on, let me count how many that is.....ok, 12, only 45 more to go...)





Ok, so I'll spare you the full, wonderful experience. But about four check-outs over was a mommy and her, I'd say, 2 year old son. If I was guessing, I would say that this little angel must and yelled, not screamed mind you, but yelled this phrase AT LEAST 57 times, over and over and over and over and over and over and over. Non-stop. I don't even think he took a breath! It was one of those forceful yells with a tad bit of 'whaa haa' behind it. You know what I'm talking about.





Anyway, I had no idea WHAT this kid was saying. But I did hear the mom saying, 'We're not going to be here that long' a couple of times, in, surprisingly, a very calm voice! Let me tell you, THIS momma would NOT be talking in a very calm voice. Granted, no one else but my dear son would be hearing what I was saying or how I was saying it, but I can promise you, it wouldn't have been with a smile. Not a sincere one anyway.





Come to find out, what this little boy was actually saying was, 'I want the car'. The reason I know this is because as soon as the mother was finished checking out, they were about to pass a buggy that is in the form of a 'car' that children can ride in and she was again telling him that they weren't staying in the store long enough. Oh my, that was the wrong thing to say.





And, what does this unbelievably calm mommy do? Well, she does what any loving mommy would do...





SHE PUT HIM IN THE CAR BUGGY!!!!!!!!





WHAT?!?!?! I could NOT believe what I had just seen! There is NO WAY on God's green earth that that child would have been allowed to even LOOK at that car buggy let alone SIT in it had he been mine! His bottom would have been so sore when we got home that he wouldn't have been ABLE to sit in one... EVER!





But suddenly, the store was remarkably quiet. We watched the happy mother and son walk out, or should I say, the mom walked while angel-boy got pushed out in the beloved car buggy. But what do you think happened as soon as they got to their car and she had to put him in the car?





Now, you may think that the sole purpose of this whole story is to down this mother and her son. Not at all. God's been teaching me a WHOLE lot in that area.





No, rather, this little incident got me to thinking.





The past year and a half has been the hardest my husband and I have ever lived. You see, because of my husband standing up for the right thing instead of agreeing to more-or-less take part in some things that weren't exactly ethical, he lost his job. No big deal. He was doing the right thing so naturally God would provide another job, right? Well, that is right, but little did we know at the time that it would take 17 months for that job to come.





How often in those 17 months must I have sounded to God just how that little boy sounded to me today? "Goooooood, I waaaaaannnnnttttt you to send another joooooooobbbbbbb, nooooooooowwwwwwww". "Pleeeeeaaaaaasssse". "We neeeeeeeeeddddd another joooooobbbbb". "Booooo hooooooo hoooooo". Or as this little boy so matter-of-factly put it, "I WAN DA JOB. I WAN DA JOB. I WAN DA JOB".





But, at the same time, how often must God have looked down at me, just as this mother did to her son, and smile and say, "But you're not going to be in this place long". Just as I'm sure those 10 minutes that little boy was in the store felt like an eternity to him, those 17 months felt like they would NEVER end for us. But, in the end, what did God do? He looked down at us and smiled, gently picked us up, and set us in the place we wanted to be. And it feels so good.





Now if only we could learn to trust that when those times come when we're plucked up and set somewhere we don't want to be, that our loving Heavenly Father has a plan to set us back into the place we're to be, a place of true peace and happiness... in His time.





Does this mean that I look at this little incident differently now than how I did when I was actually witnessing it? Heavens no! I'da busted his little tail faster than you can say I WAN DA CA! And he SURE wouldn't have gotten to sit in DA CA.





But what I am saying is that I want to always be willing to let the Lord teach me to be more like him through any situation that may present itself, regardless of how it looks to these human eyes.

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