If you've read my other blog posts on this topic, you'll know that my husband and I like to make life lessons fun for our kids (Experiments In: Watching What You Say and Experiments In: Needing Help). In the summers, I would run themes that were fun for the kids and taught them something: Science experiments, learning the kitchen, art, languages, gardening, etc. One summer, the theme was science. What a strange theme to use to teach God, then, huh?
The idea of the Trinity is a difficult concept even for adults. How can God be Father, Son, and Holy Spirit all at the same time? And if I can't wrap my mind around that, how can I get my children to understand it?
This bright summer day, I gathered my little ducklings in the kitchen. I had a cup of water and a tray of ice on the counter and a small saucepan on the stove.
I passed around ice cubes. "What is this?," I asked. "Ice cubes," they replied (with DUH in their eyes). "Tell me about these ice cubes." They said things like cold, square, wet, clear, hard to hold. I explained that there were molecules in the ice and that they were not moving very fast. In ice, they are packed very close together and don't like to move much.
I gave one of them the water and asked them to pass it around. "What is this?," I asked. "Water," they replied (seriously, Mom?). "Tell me about this water," I said. I got answers like wet, bluish, clear, liquid. I explained that there were molecules in this water, and that they were moving around in there all the time, a little faster than the ice. In water, they are not very close together.
"Okay, what is ice?" They assured me it was frozen water.
"Okay, what is water?" They assured me it was melted ice.
I had them put the ice cubes and water in the saucepan, and I turned on the heat. Soon we had steam.
This is my favorite part: "What is steam?" I watched as their faces morphed into an AHA! moment. "It's water! It came from the water and ice!"
"Exactly. So, you understand now that this is all just water in three forms: Frozen, liquid, and gas, right? But it's still all just water." And I saw their sweet faces show pride in themselves as they got it.
"This is exactly like God. God is the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. But He's still God. God in three forms, still God. Understand?"
And boom. They got it. A difficult spiritual concept explained by science.
The Trinity is a big deal in my house. Yes, God for sure, but it also stands for my youngest, Austin, who was born at 3:33. He's convinced the trinity is his symbol (and who could argue with that?). We also have a dog named Trinity. Because who can resist paying tribute both to God and The Matrix at the same time?
Yep. We're godly and geeks at the same time. Now you know.
You probably already know that my husband and I try to find fun ways to teach our kids life lessons (Experiments In: Watching What You Say). Another of these was the Stairs Experiment. It's one of my favorites.
You must have or find some stairs. The only requirement is that the portion of staircase you use be higher than the tallest kid - he can't be able to reach the top by reaching from standing at the bottom. After you find an adequately high staircase, about 4-5 steps or so, put your husband (brother, mom, dad, sister, friend) at the top. Just standing there. They are to not talk; say nothing, just stand there quietly.
We put Daddy at the top. I gathered all of the children at the bottom of the staircase.
I showed them a $10 bill. I waved it around a little. I'm like that.
Then I told them, "First one to reach the top of the stairs where Daddy is waiting without touching any part of the staircase, including the walls, railing, steps, etc., gets the ten dollars."
Now, you may think that the kids would just stop and say that this is impossible and then it's over. I've done this experiment many times, and every single time the kids try to figure out how to get up there. Particularly if you have older kids. They even put their heads together to collaborate - something I tell them they are certainly welcome to do. You'll see why. ;-) They will jump, hop, try to fly (this is why it's important the landing at the top is taller than the tallest child).
And inevitably... "We give up! There's no way to reach the top. It's impossible!"
I turned to Daddy, waiting patiently and silently at the top of the stairs, and said, "Come down and pick up Ty." My husband walked down the stairs, picked Ty up and piggybacked him up the stairs - without Ty touching any part of the staircase, including the walls, railing, and steps. Then he went down and piggybacked every kid up the stairs.
I called them back down, gathered them together, and told them, "Sometimes in life, when you need to do something difficult, you will need help. You will need someone else to carry you through it."
In our house, Daddy represented God, and we told our children to rely on Him. To allow Him to carry them through the tough stuff, up those hills of life. But we also reminded them that, along with allowing God to carry them, they would also need to rely on parents, siblings, grandparents, friends, teachers, mentors, doctors, nurses, etc., to carry them through.
Allowing other people to help me, personally, has always been a unique challenge. Type-A people don't like that very much (#understatement). Giving my kids a visual, experiential view of this was important to me. Even though I was on the "giving" end of this experiment, I still bring up the picture in my mind when I need to let go and allow God and others to help carry me through the valleys.
Well, that and my kids, having learned this lesson well, always come carry me out.
When my kids were growing up, I would try to find fun ways to teach life lessons. One of these was The Toothpaste Experiment. I have performed this experiment many times to many groups at many ages. It's timeless. And I'm betting many of you even know what I'm talking about and have performed this experiment, too! This is how it's done:
We sat our 5 kids at the dining room table and put paper plates in front of them. We sat travel-size tubes of toothpaste on the paper plates.
"Okay, kids, now open the toothpaste and squeeze out as much toothpaste as you can get out of the tubes." Having no idea whether this was the "contest" part, they squeezed and squeezed until they couldn't get anything else out of the tube.
"Are you done? Did you get it all out?" I was assured they did.
"Okay..........first one to get all of the toothpaste back in the tube gets ice cream! All of it - not one drop can be outside the tube."
There were some determined little faces as they tried their best to get that icky sticky stuff back inside the little hole. Toothpaste covered the paper plates and their hands up to their wrists - and sometimes their faces as they scratched their heads trying to figure this out.
At some point, everyone will give up. We all know it's impossible to get all of the toothpaste back into, well, anything.
As I passed out damp towels, I explained. "Just like you can't get that toothpaste back into that tube, once you say something out of your mouth, you can't suck it back in, either. You must be very careful of what you say to people - to their face or someone else. You must be careful what you say about people - to others or on the internet. You cannot take those words back. You cannot suck them back into your mouth. And...and this is the hard one...you must be careful about what you think about people, as this will eventually form your words.
Those are the things you can't do, but what if you do hurt someone with your words? You must ask for forgiveness. No exceptions. And it doesn't at all matter whether you intended to hurt them or not. If your words hurt them, you've hurt them, no matter your intentions.
Now, let's go get that ice cream and chat about this."
And we'd go to Baskin-Robbins, order crazy-colored cones (only children can eat bubblegum ice cream with actual gum inside stacked on top of fudge brownie), and have some of the best conversations around those tiny round tables that are never big enough (right?). "Janie said something that hurt me. Does this mean I can go make her ask for forgiveness?" "What about if I'm repeating what someone else said? Does that count as me hurting someone?" "What if somebody takes my words wrong?" "Can I have more ice cream?"
I have done this experiment while teaching Sunday school, youth groups, and the varsity cheer squad at cheer camp. Though I will admit that, the older your subjects, the more creative they will get with trying to get the toothpaste back in the tube (make sure to give uber-clear instructions that ALL of the toothpaste has to be back in the tube and that they cannot rip open the tube to get it back in and that using the stuff that's left to make lipstick doesn't count as "creative points"), everyone - everyone - will get the message at the end.
And, most importantly, they'll remember it. "That was a toothpaste moment, wasn't it Mama?" Yep, baby, it was.
Girl sleepovers are inherently different than boy sleepovers. Anyone who has both girls and boys knows this. In my family, the rule is that I supervise all girl stuff: mani/pedis, bra shopping, shoe shopping (okay, fine, all shopping), hair salons, cheerleading practice, and, yes, sleepovers. My husband handles all boy stuff: grunting at sports games, supervising (*koff koff* playing!) video games, and, yes, sleepovers.
Supervising sleepovers for girls looks like this:
1. Spend 4 hours the day before making The Chart of where everyone will be sleeping, trying to keep all BFFs together and people who are in a fight away from each other. Why does the Free World not know that mothers who've done this successfully could solve the logistic problems of the entire Middle East?
2. Greet all girls with a hug and smooch and tell them how their shoes are super awesome and their hair looks fabulous.
3. Show them where the food is and make sure to point out that there is chocolate.
4. Get out The Sleeping Chart and emphasize that it is to be followed.
5. Turn on horrifyingly terrible music that will give you a migraine for the next 12 hours. Turn it up to level 8 and leave the room so the girls can have fun.
6. Realize that the girls just turned the music up to level 12. Go in search of Excedrin.
7. After an hour, hear arguing and go take a peek to see what's up.
8. Find that The Sleeping Chart has been thrown out the window and 3 girls are crying. The room is split like it's Survivor Bonus Room and they are trying to vote someone off the island.
9. Try to intervene and diffuse. Bob and weave.
10. Eventually get everyone calmed down, apologies given, forgiveness given, hugs all around. World peace. Quickly pass chocolate around in an attempt to keep the love going.
11. Repeat #7 through #10 three more times, roughly every other hour or so.
12. They finally fall asleep somewhere around 3 am with 3 girls in one of the bedrooms because they're not talking to 2 others, 2 girls smashed in the corner because they're not talking to 3 others, and the rest in the middle of the room. I finally go to bed.
13. I wake up to make pancakes and all of the girls file into the kitchen. No one remembers why they were mad and start chatting excitedly about "what a great sleepover that was last night!"
14. Husband pulls me aside and asks if everyone's okay with all that crying the night before.
15. Inform husband "It's not a sleepover until somebody cries." It's just the way girls are.
16. Husband informs me that he'd rather slit his wrists than be me.
Supervising sleepovers for boys looks like this:
1. Buy as much food as you can afford. Then buy a lot more.
2. You can't greet the boys because they will run around to the backyard and go through the back door.
3. They will eat, play video games, shoot hoops, eat, then ask for more food.
4. Feed them again in the morning.
5. Lesson: Boys are too easily distracted to fight. And also just don't care. "You're a jerk." "Dude! That was rude." "Oh, sorry." "Ok, let's shoot hoops."
My husband thinks he is the luckiest man on Earth.
But you know what I think? I think my life is closer to girl sleepovers. I greet life with open arms and general hope. I try to chart out the right path that God wants me on, and then that generally doesn't work out (right?). I have struggles and arguments and make-ups. I try to forget the hard stuff in the morning and move on. But one thing is for certain: It's not life until somebody cries. Because you have to do that to get to the pancakes in the morning.
Oh, and always. Always! Remember the chocolate.
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