Mighty Men

James and Joel went to story time at the Library on Friday without me, as I was without car, car seats, and very much time as the day of the party was approaching. Aunt Jessica took them and afterward told me that they were very good boys, even though other children were not exactly using their Library behaviour. Anyway, Ms. Stark was telling the story, and also went through a whole host of things and had the children say whether the item was God made or man made, and whether it was used for work or play. One thing that she brought was a little toy "Lofty", a crane truck who is a character from the Bob the Builder series. James bonded with it, and Ms. Stark let James bring her (Lofty is a girl) home for keeps.

I discovered, once James had shown Lofty to me when he got home, the main reason he liked her so much. She talks. In the shows, Lofty is the character who is afraid of things, including heights - Lofty???? - and instead of saying, "YES WE CAN" at the end of the theme song, she says, "yeah, I think so!" All that to say that this toy Lofty says, "I don't like it, I DON'T LIKE IT!" among other lesser desirable responses someone could say in response to being given a job. Not bad things, like I said, just less desirable. I didn't want to take away James' new toy, but I also didn't want him to start repeating everything Lofty was saying. So I decided that James needed to start teaching Lofty a few lessons on how we talk to Mama, and gave them some jobs to do. James had me give Lofty/James a command, such as, "go put your shoes away". Lofty would say, "I don't like it, I DON'T LIKE IT!" and I would reprimand her, telling her that we don't say that; we have to do many things we don't like. Then I would tell James to tell Lofty what the Lord tells us to do, and he would tell her Ecc. 9:10, "Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might;". And over and over again we would go through a similar lesson with Lofty, giving her and James jobs all afternoon. Ever since, he has done the teaching all by himself, and it is quite comical to see him walking around teaching Bible verses to his toys.