From the Mind of MandoRon

Like most young boys, my six-year old has developed a fascination with guns.  It occurred to me that it might be best if he understood how to safely handle a gun rather than guns being a complete mystery to him.  A while back, I told him that I would bring my .22 rifle when we went to my in-law’s farm at Christmas. 

I showed it to him for the first time a few days ago, and all he has talked about since then is guns.  He has told everyone he’s seen that he was going to shoot daddy’s gun at the farm.  It’s been pretty comical actually…  He’s been asking all kinds of questions about rifles, handguns, machine guns - even cannons!

So today we went out to the farm and shot up some cans and water bottles.  We went through about 25o rounds between my .22 semi-auto rifle, my brother-in-law’s .22 semi-auto pistol that he loaned me, my father-in-law’s .22 revolver, and his  .357 revolver.

I taught Jett to shoot the .22  rifle and pistol.  He had a blast and we had a great time bonding.  (I had fun too…)  At the end, he actually hit  some cans at about 40~50 feet!

Interestingly, I think Jett is the fifth-generation to shoot the .22 rifle.  My grandfather originally bought it for my  great-grandmother so she could shoot squirrels from her porch.  Apparently, she like to eat squirrel…  Now I’m not actually certain the my dad has shot it but I’m pretty sure that he had the opportunity when I was a kid.

I offered to teach Jada too, but she didn’t  want anything to do with the guns.  Maybe another day…

I don’t understand how my dog, Bullet, can sleep like this?  It can’t be comfortable…  On the other hand, he never asks to go to the chiropractor either. 

Maybe it’s dog yoga.

Yesterday was Parent-Teacher Conference day.  I don’t know why, but I always feel compelled to go buy an anti-school t-shirt to wear.  Like a Pink Floyd shirt that says “We Don’t Need No Education!” or “Hey! Teacher! Leave Those Kids Alone!”  Or maybe something like “My Kid Can Beat Up Your Honors Student”.  Next time, I think I’ll stand out front of the school and sell shirts that read “Give Your Kids a Real Education… Homeschool”.  Andrea thought it would be cool to show off lots of tattoos.  Unfortunately, we only have one between both of us…

And I never know how to react either.  The teacher usually says something like, ”Your child is the most brilliant, most well-behaved student that I’ve ever had the pleasure to instruct.”  How am I supposed to respond?  Smile, and nod?  “Surely, you must have my child confused with someone else… you do realize we’re talking about Jett”?  “I know, she gets it all from me?”  Feign embarassment?  I just don’t know!

Seriously though, we were looking forward to the conferences for two reasons: one, Jett is in kindergarten and we were curious what his teacher would have to say; and two, Jada skipped second grade so we wanted to know how she was acclimating to the challenge of third grade.

Jett is doing very well in kindergarten, as we thought he would.  He’s even starting to read a little.  His teacher had nothing but wonderful things to say about him.

Jada is also doing very well.  Apparently she is having no trouble with skipping a grade, although it’s taking a while to adjust to being challenged.  She’s never really been challenged before.  But Jada is stepping up to the plate, and knocking the ball out of the park.  She’s been making 100’s on most of her work, including their first unit test in math.  And she received mostly 4’s on her report card, except for 3’s in writing and PE.  (Scale of 1 to 4… no letter grades for some reason…)  We figured she might struggle for a few months, but would catch up with everone else by the end of the year.  Apparently, it didn’t take long at all.

It’s been a long time since I’ve posted a Share-it Saturday.  I thought it might be time to do it again.

So, here’s a few fun things for you:

• Kung Fu Cow, Watch Out for the Milk courtesy of the fine people over at the Deadly Viper blog.  Yes, it’s really a video of a kung-fu fight between man and cow.
• Tyler Braun has interesting vision of the church in 20 years.  Check out his Church Manifesto.
• What do you get when you cross Hillsong with Ozzy Osbourne? Well according to Russ Hutto, you get this.
• Loswhit blogged about The Great Hot Office Assistant Debate this week.  Interesting discussion in the comments, but I’ll warn you that I ended up in a fight with my wife when I brought the subject up.
• Download Ignorance byParamore for free.

That’s probably enough for now.  Enjoy the rest of your weekend.

It’s storytime on the blog.  So grab a bowl of popcorn and sit back for a spell.

Last Sunday (or maybe it was the week before), the kids came home from church talking about the story of Gideon.  Jett had learned about Gideon in his class, and Jada wanted to impress us with her near-total-recall of the story which she heard many months ago.  (Judges 6-7, in case you were wondering.)

It made me think about my first grade sweetheart.  And I thought you might enjoy the story.

It all started in January of 1981, the month Reagan took office.  I changed schools in the middle of the school year, when my parents bought a house in different part of OKC.  I ended up in Miss Askew’s first grade class.

While most boys were busy trying to wash off the cooties, I was looking for love.  My first love was a sweet little thing named Stefanie.

I only remember two things about our short-lived relationship - if you can even call it that in first grade.  One day in class (I think it was reading lab… I remember headphones.), she wrote me a note that said “you are very keen”.  I had no idea what that meant; she had to explain it to me.  

Did I mention she was very smart?

I also remember the prayer I prayed that spring.  We had just learned about Gideon in Sunday School, and about how Gideon had asked God for a sign using some wool fleece.

So I asked God for a similar sign.  I wanted to know if I would marry Stefanie someday.  I asked God to make my parent’s car wet with dew, but the ground dry, if we would get married someday.  If the car was dry, but the ground was wet with dew, then it was a not to be.

As you can imagine, God ignored my request for a sign.  He left me in the dark.

I don’t remember how it ended.  I guess we probably just grew apart before second grade.

(By the way, that’s me on the left in the back row. Stefanie is the one holding the sign.  Oh yeah…  Props to Kristina for posting the class photo on Facebook.)

So has anyone else tried to test God like this?  Am I the only dork out there?