Don’t flay the sheep.

A few shameless Zora vignettes

In part, for the sake of my own records, a few Zora moments that I want to remember for awhile.  She is really, at 3, a very interesting person. And I am learning that interesting persons are not necessarily the easiest ones to raise.

1. Although she seems to enjoy being the water over the summer, three sessions into swimming lessons, she’s still doing her fair share of yelling that she doesn’t want to be there and holding onto me with the full monkey-grip (arms and legs) in the pool. There is evidence to suggest that this about (a) the pool being cold (b) and her not really wanting to do it (c) and perhaps some fear that she will be forced to “bubble” with the other two kids in the class who do it. However, we are going to keep going, if only because we now catch her in the pool teaching her washcloths to swim.
2. Why are 3 year olds amused by the word “butt”? And, what was I thinking when I pointed out that we might need to change her pants because her “butt crack” was showing? After a good week of explaining that “butt” is appropriate sometimes, but usually not, I’ve added to the butt vocabulary. I apologize to the rest of the preschool families. But, not 5 minutes ago, she used the word “poopy” and then turned to Erik, smiled, and said, “Was that inappropriate?” So she’s at least starting to get it.
3. On Sunday, Zora met the head pastor of the crazy big church where I used to work. Sometimes, crazy big church pastors get treated a little bit like they are not real people–when they usually are, and I sometimes wonder if they miss getting to be real people. This particular pastor is a very very nice man who really like little kids. So, I can only assume that he was quite pleased when Zora, who I believe was meeting him for the first time (save the fact that she was incubating the entire time I was working at that church!), very blithely, and without much invitation at all, swooped in and gave him a big old kiss on the cheek.
4. On the other side of Zora being comfortable with people, there is also her being comfortable with big places…churches in particular. Which is why, at the worship service where # 3 happened, she spent the last 1o minutes running circles around about 5 rows of vacant pews, sort of unsupervised.
5. Last night, Zora refused to let Erik leave her bedroom at the end of the bed time routine after the normal ending (which is a loud antiphonal recitation of “Good night! Sleep tight! Don’t let the bed bugs bite! And I’ll see you in the morning when it’s light!”). No, he was not allowed to leave until they added, after “Good night…” “The Lord be with you…” “And also with you.”
6. Further liturgical memorization: we’ve been intentionally saying the Lords Prayer with kids at the end of our children’s time, and right before we dismiss them to Sunday School, every Sunday morning this year. If Zora is any gauge, it is working. She can get the last few words in each line of the prayer, and she incorporates phrases from it into the libretto of her on-going “Day of the Preschool” Opera (i.e. the continuous narration song she sings much of the time). However, she has also caught on to where it FITS in our current worship order. Because she often ends the prayer this way: “…and the power, and glory forever, Amen. OK you can go to Sunday School now!”

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