Teaching Moments

 

Joe enjoys “teaching moments.” That said, today while working in the yard he found a spider with an egg sack. He brought it into the house inside of a piece of Tupperware to share it with the three neighbor girls who were visiting. Proper oohs and aahs followed from the girls (and from Joe). I like spiders but am past the oohs and aahs stage after thirty-one years of Joe’s “science moments.”

We had three neighbor girls visiting because the littlest at age 5 or 6 (she just finished kindergarten) came down to “visit Beth.” I gave her a sliced apple, a stack of copier paper and markers and sat her at the dining room table. As we were sitting there ‘visiting’ I started thinking  it seemed strange she came to the house without one of her older sisters.

I asked her if her mom knew where she was and she shared, “Mom is at work, dad is taking a nap.”

I asked, “Does anyone know where you are?”

Her response, “No!”

I texted her dad so he would know she was at our house. About ten minutes later one of her two older sisters showed up. “We were looking all over for you!”  Within another five minutes their oldest sister showed up and repeated the same words. Frankly, the youngest did not seem too concerned that her family was looking for her. The other two girls visited with me for another ten minutes and then hauled ‘baby’ sister home.

I made sure to get the oldest child’s phone number so I can text her if I get another ‘visit.’ Who knows, the little one may be grounded for life. Not that I think she would pay it much mind. She is a determined child.

Yesterday afternoon Megan, Jeremy, Caleb, and Charlotte stopped by for a short visit. They had a bit of shopping to get done and the kids asked if they could stay to play basketball while Megan and Jeremy did the shopping. The kids played basketball for about ten minutes and then came in to play pool with Joe. We enjoyed seeing all of them even if it was only a short visit.