New Rules

I think there is a rule in this house -- No person is allowed more than 5 minutes of personal, uninterrupted time. As I write this I am tense. I feel like any second someone is going to come upstairs to the living room and ask me how to spell a word, or give me some "mail" to read. My oldest son came carrying a small plastic bag. Inside he had placed a few rolled up a few sheets of paper. His package looked like our newspaper when it is delivered in the morning. He wanted me to read the news. I opened the package. He had written headlines on the papers. Quite interesting actually -- everything was some tragedy or another -- it was realistic. He left, and I tried to write again. This time Zac wanted to know how to spell a word. Then Shiloh came and sat beside me and kept talking. Then he jumped down and walked through my cord and unplugged it. Then a child sat on the book cupboard beside me and the book cupboard began to fall apart under the weight. He got off and I pushed the sides back together. My cord got pulled out again. Someone else wanted to talk to me. Then Micah and Zac came up and delivered more mail. Finally I retreated to the bathroom where my husband was trying to shower. I told him that I thought there must be some rule in this house that no one can have time alone. Perhaps the door didn't latch on the way out or maybe another child opened it, but shortly after our one year old pushed open the door and crawled into the bathroom. I could hear my husband say, "Who's there?... This is a shower... I'm suppose to have some privacy." Doesn't he know that he already used up his 5 minute quota? I laughed inside. Fortunately for me, Caden somehow shut the door, trapping himself in the bathroom. One down, three to go.
I get too focused on myself. My son comes up -- interrupting what I want to do again. He hands me an envelope. Inside he has written a thank you note for something that we did for him earlier that day. I felt special. My cord came undone again, as my one year old, released from the bathroom, just took about 9 steps and walked through it. I couldn't help but clap -- I was so excited. I guess sometimes it's just a matter of perspective.

Edible World

I think that the Garden of Eden was like Willy Wonka's chocolate factory. We just finished reading Charlie and The Chocolate Factory to our boys. I think about the first large room they enter -- everything was edible. Willy Wonka urged them to try a blade of grass, then a buttercup. The children ate flowers and trees; even the river was chocolate.
I imagine Adam and Eve walking through the garden. First Adam plucks a peach off a leafy green branch and hands it to Eve. The Eve bends down and tears a piece of a beet green and munches on that. She pulls again and the whole plant comes up in her hand. Then she tries the beet. "Adam this is good too!" she says as she hands some to Adam. They nibble things on the trees, things on the ground, things under the ground. Food was everywhere. The whole garden was edible (well, almost).
I think this parallel is especially obvious to me lately because I feel like we are just eating plants. We have been trying to eat more nutrient dense foods since reading a nutrition book a friend lent us. We really enjoy it -- except for the greens. I have a hard time with them. They taste like grass or weeds smell. This week I was out clipping and pulling weeds in the flower bed and I thought it smelled just like the greens I ate for supper. My husbands jokes at dinner that it's time to graze. I guess, according to the book, it's better to be a cow, than eat one.