The Tale of The Stinkbug

I hear its freezing cold in New York and parts of the East. Out here in the West, in Gods country, we had 59 degrees yesterday. When it gets warm like that I open the doors of the solarium and let the heat fill the cold corners of the house. Everything was sunshine warm in here yesterday. That differs from wood heat warmth! Sunshine warmth gets into all the nooks and crannies. It shines through every window and makes the heart feel light.

Yesterday was a perfect kind of day. I didnt have any students other than Tink of course, and it was a good thing because I was very tired. Everytime the baby napped so did I. I curled up on the couch in the bright sunlight and slept like an old worn out cat. I think I actually purred a few times.

Tink had a wonderful day of school. She started brainstorming for her diorama. She's very excited about it! She masterd multiplying by double digits. I mean she truly mastered it! She's been working at this since before Christmas! Yesterday after a few false starts and after carrying the ones instead of the tens she finally just took off! The sun almost stopped in its orbit! She also did Language Arts, and Reading Detective.

Reading Detective is especially hard for her because it's very abstract. The sentences and paragraphs are numbered and she has to answer the questions by listing the number of the paragraph or sentence where the answer is found. Yesterday she worked with inferences. She had to decide if the statement was true or false or if there was no evidence. So it will say, The child was to fill the bucket with water. True, False, No Evidence, & Evidence. If there is evidence that the child was suppose to fill the bucket she has to write in the sentence that gives that impression. This is very hard for children who dont interpret the world around them like others do. Tink is slowly grasping it so we keep struggling on.

Yesterday Tink didnt even grumble at the work. She even did 4 pages in her Letters and Sounds book instead of her usual two. Maybe she was feeling my peace and calm. Whatever it was she had an excellent day. It's amazing what sunshine will bring out in a person!

The sun doesnt always bring out good things though. The sunshine also brings out the stink bugs! Yesterday there was a patch on the side of the house where they had layered themselves three deep! I grabbed the shop vac and whooshed them up. That's the best method we've found for getting rid of the things.

Poor Peter. His window wasn't closed tightly at bedtime and the stink bugs got in his room. When I got home at 8:30 pm from singing practice he was still awake. Mr Darling said that Peter had told him he was staying awake "'cause he needed a conference with mom." Now isn't that just precious!!!?

So I go in his room and he says, "Mama, I cant sleep 'cause there are so many bugs and I wanted you home." I assured him that no more bugs would come in his room that night. I sang his bedtime song to him, Jesus Loves me, and within five minutes he was fast asleep. If only he would always want mama. It's such a good feeling.

But there I digress. The funniest part of the stink bug episode was this morning when Peter very seriously said, "Mama, the bugs finally quit coming in because I got down off of my bed and I looked right at one and I told him to go tell his friends to quit coming into my room."

I decided to play along. I said, "So Peter he must have gone and told his friends then, dont you think?"

And Peter says in all dead seriousness, "But mama, Im not sure. How could he really? I essentially cut off his head with a pencil?"