Soccer Bag - Stolen Conversation #43

You guys remember the bag I bought and then sewed my awesome soccer patches all over?  The one I mentioned in this post?  Well, I had the best conversation ever about my bag and I wanted to share.  It was between me and my 6-year-old nephew.

Jaden:  Is that your soccer bag?
Me:  No, it's actually my school bag.
[pause]
Jaden:  Do you go to soccer school?

Stolen from Jaden, pictured here with his father, July 2009

Stolen Conversation #42

I was driving in the car with Tank and he saw a bicycle with a baby/kid carrier hooked to the back.  The kind that rolls along the ground and looks like it's made entirely of mesh.  This conversation followed:

Tank:  Look, Mom!  It's a bike with a carriage.

Me:  Yep.

Tank:  There's a baby in there.

Me:  Yeah.  That's because the kid is too small to ride a bike himself.

Tank:  Yeah. ...  The baby is riding along like "Ooh, I'm watching a movie," and the dad is like "[panting noise], [panting noise], [panting noise]."

And that cracked me up.

Stolen Quote #41

A kid quote gem from Tank, who is 5.

Tank:  How do fish get allergies?
Me:  I don't think they do.
(pause.  Tank is thinking.)
Tank:  Then how did allergies get in the tank?
Me (perplexed):  They didn't.
Tank:  You said that allergies were growing in the tank.
Me (as light finally arrives in my brain):  Oh!  Algae!  There's ALGAE in the tank.

I dare you not to giggle, thinking about fish getting allergies.

Stolen Quote #40

From The Story of Stuff comes this great quote:

"Our enormously productive economy...demands that we make consumption our way of life, that we convert the buying and use of goods into rituals, that we seek our spiritual satisfaction, our ego satisfaction, in consumption.... We need things consumed, burned up, replaced and discarded at an ever-accelerating rate."

- Victor Lebow

P.S.  The Story of Stuff debuted years ago, and now they have sequels, like The Story of Bottled Water, and The Story of Cosmetics.  Fascinating anti-consumerism stories.  (Those communists!)

Stolen Quote #39

This quote isn't new to you.  I just really like it.

"Fear is the path to the dark side.  Fear leads to anger.  Anger leads to hate.  Hate leads to suffering."

-stolen from Yoda in Star Wars: Episode 1

... I sense much fear in you. ...

Stolen Paragraph #38

From David McCullough's book, 1776:

"Once, during the Siege of Boston, when almost nothing was going right and General Schuyler had written from Albany to bemoan his troubles, Washington had replied that he understood but that "we must bear up against them, and make the best of mankind as they are, since we cannot have them as we wish."  It was such resolve and an acceptance of mankind and circumstances as they were, not as he wished them to be, that continued to carry Washington through.  "I will not however despair," he now wrote to Governor William Livingston."


Washington was a great man, worthy of the hero worship we still give him.  The Revolutionary War was a shambles, and I'm not sure how we won it, but Washington was an amazing leader and a generous, humble man.  I have a feeling that if I would have met him in person, I'd have been just as awed by him as everyone else was.  Few people are made of such hardy stuff.

Stolen Quote #37

From Bob Richards, a truly adorable man.  Here he's speaking about his wife:

She didn't sit around in High School dreaming that she'd be Mrs. Raving Lunatic.  But she married me and that's what she gets.

Actually, she said no the first time.

Classic!

Bob - passed out from too much Christmas fun.

Stolen Quote #36

A word play joke from the Tankster.

What starts with a T and ends with a T and has people in it?

...

A tent!

Clever, no?

Stolen Quote #35

"If there is anything that we wish to change in the child, we should first examine it and see whether it is not something that could better be changed in ourselves."

- stolen from Carl Jung (1875 - 1961), Swiss psychiatrist, in The Integration of the Personality

Stolen Quote #34

(Side note:  One of the great things about living in Cincinnati is that my kids say 'pop' instead of 'soda.'  It doesn't grate on my nerves any more, but I still don't have to like it.)

Elijah:  Mom, is pop good for you?
Me:  No.
Elijah:  So, it's bad for you?
Me:  Yep.  I mean, there are worse things, but soda isn't good for you at all.
Elijah:  Oh.

5 minutes later

Elijah:  Mom, would Jesus drink pop?
Me:  I don't know.   Soda wasn't around when Jesus was alive, so how am I supposed to know that?
Elijah:  Well, but would He?

I wanted to go into the fact that this is where the Gospel becomes ridiculous, when we're arguing over whether Christ would drink a Diet Coke.  Pointless.

However, I think it's clear that if Christ did have soda available, He'd choose Pepsi over Coke every time.

Stolen Quote #33

"Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; now I have six children, and no theories."

- stolen from John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester (1647 - 1680)

Apparently he wrote erotic poetry.  Found that out when I went looking for his picture.  Also, Johnny Depp played him in a 2004 movie called The Libertine.

Stolen Quote #32

"You have the short-term memory of a goldfish."

-stolen from Josh Williams.  He said this about my lovely husband, Rob.  And it's true.

Stolen Quote #31

Last night was Parent Teacher Conference.  We weaseled our way out of Miciah's, but Elijah's was mandatory.

Outside the room on a little table, the kids' journals were out.  We flipped through Elijah's and were disheartened by how many journal entries were about the wii / video games / computer games.  This is why the wii gets banned on a bi-weekly basis.  The kid just can't regulate himself.  (Right now, though, the wii is broken, and I'm not in an extraordinary hurry to replace the broken part.)

Displayed on the wall above the little table was a little party hat for each child.  They each had written a goal for the new year, then colored the party hat in whatever way they liked.  Elijah's, of course, was solid green.  Here are some of the 1st graders' New Years Resolutions:  Be nicer to my family.  Play less video games.  Load and unload the dishwasher.  Keep my [school discipline] card on green.  Be smart.

What Elijah said:
"Never get my card flipt and be smart."

Not a bad goal.  I approve.  (He's already had his card flipped once in 2011.  But only once.)

Our favorite New Years Resolution was written by Elijah's classmate named Brooke:
"Stop picking my lips.  Stop picking my nose.  And being nicer to my family."

Excellent, excellent goals.

Stolen Quote #30

"To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while."

- stolen from Josh Billings (1818 - 1885), American humorist

He has a nice stash of quotes.  Like this one:

“Some folks are wise and some otherwise.”

Stolen Quote #29

"Every gun that is fired, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.  The world in arms is not spending money alone.  It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children."

-stolen from Dwight D. Eisenhower (1890 - 1969), in The Arms Race

Stolen Quote #28

"I promise you, that if you spend a lot of time learning about how children develop and grow and reading books about development and not about control it will be the single most important thing that you do to promote the growth and success of your children."

-stolen from A. Lynn Scoresby, BYU professor
emphasis my own

Stolen Quotes #27

I'm taking down my Quote Wall.  I should have taken a picture of it, but I didn't, and so you'll never see how cool it was, with the quotes and pictures of the people who said them.

Two of the quotes on my wall came from the same person:  Reverend John Rankin (1793 - 1886).  Mr. Rankin deserves a little bit of background before I give you his quotes.  He lived in Ripley, Ohio, which is a riverside town facing Kentucky.  Rankin was a preacher who spent years and years teaching people to come unto Christ and working to abolish slavery.  He preached for a while in Kentucky, and then decided, since he was getting nowhere with them, to move to Ohio and do the next best thing (the better thing?):  help slaves escape to freedom.

He built a house on top of the hill (and it's a HUGE hill), and a staircase leading up to it.  Every night he would place a lantern in the window that served as a beacon.  Slaves from miles up and down the river were directed to Rankin's house.  They had heard that at the top of the hill in Ripley was a man who would help them.  So they went to his house.  Thousands of them came through, mostly one at a time, and he and his family helped them find safe passage on the first leg of their journey to Canada and freedom.

Rob, about to escape to freedom

He did this, night after sleepless night, at great risk to himself and his family.  They fed, clothed, and hid the slaves.  Then he repeatedly sent his boys as runners, either carrying messages or with a wagon containing hidden slaves, bearing them to the next stopping point on the Underground Railroad.  Once, when Rankin was away, his wife and their 10-year-old son kept an angry mob at bay by standing up to them, shotguns in hand.  I have a hard time imagining the bravery and solidarity the entire family had.  The amount of selflessness they possessed.  These are people who knew what principle and honor and freedom meant.  They risked their lives for it every night.

Really, Rankin's whole life should be a quote.  Certainly it's an amazing legacy.  Here's the two quotes that I put on my wall:

"It is as much a duty to shoot the midnight assassin in his attacks as it is to pray."

"My mother was a woman of strong mental capacity, well able to give a reason for the hope that was within her."

I imagine that John Rankin could also give a reason for the hope that was within him.

Stolen Quote #26

An enlightening quote for your Friday.

"Today in the lab I tooted and about killed myself.  I'm glad no one else was around.  Seriously, I stood up and waved my shirt around."

-stolen from Rob.  He said it years ago and it's still a gem.

Stolen Quote #25

It's been a while.  I've got a string of stolen quotes lined up.  I'll release them slowly, to make it seem like I'm reading engaging material on a daily basis.

From a Gospel Doctrine class, years back, when it was taught by a teacher who was exceptionally brilliant:

"We all live by the milk of human kindness."

-stolen from Jen Chappel

Stolen Quote #24: San Fransisco Bans Happy Meals

"San Francisco clearly hates children. And happiness."

From this article.