Category: Unrelated News

The Child’s Story

While looking for the text of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens today, I found another Christmas book by him. It is a set of short stories. I did not read them all, but I would assume they have something to do with Christmas. The book is called Some Christmas Stories.

I only read one of the stories, and it had nothing to do with Christmas. It is called The Child’s Story But it made me think of my grandparents. While I will not be able to share this story with all of them since some have already died, I still have a few who could enjoy this story. I have recorded it and will be trying to send it to them in a format in which they can listen on their record players.

If you can use this audio anywhere, feel free to do so. Dickens does not mind, the copyright is expired on the text. I would appreciate a link back to www.missionarytalks.com if you would like to attribute it anywhere. But, this is not necessary.

Click the play button to listen to it or right click on this direct link to the mp3 and download it to your computer.

[10:23 min., 7.6 MB]

[audio:the_childs_story.mp3]

No two parents are alike

Last night we discovered the differences in our kids also play out in the parents.

We are an “old fashioned” kind of couple and don’t normally sleep in the same bed. Mostly it is because we don’t even own a bed. We sleep in separate hammocks. But, when it gets cold, my wife likes to steal our son’s double bed and snuggle beneath the covers. Hammocks are great for keeping you cool, but when the temps start getting cold (65 or below) they tend to require a lot of work to stay covered and warm.

This last weekend is when the bed got dragged into our room. We have been in it 4 nights now. One night was perfect, one night was hot, the next night was perfect, then there was last night.

I was laying there sleeping somewhat fitfully. My wife got up for some reason. I was thinking that it sure would have been nice if she grabbed a quilt and tossed it on us. I was a bit chilly. She was gone for a couple of minutes. When she came back in I just knew she was going to toss a quilt on me. Instead she turned on the fan! 

She started muttering something about mosquitoes. I got the full story today. She was hot and tossed the covers off, then she was attacked by mosquitoes. She put the covers on and started sweating. The fan was to help try to blow the mosquitoes away.

I don’t know what she told those mosquitoes, but they had not bothered me all night up to that point. They enjoyed sucking the life out of my arms the rest of the night.

Though she is the cold natured one normally, things were turned around last night. It must have something to do with the upcoming solstice.

No two children are alike

Our kids are as different as night and day. While they obviously come from the same set of parents, they have personalities that are as diverse as their parents.

Our bathtubThis morning our daughter wanted to take a bath. I had just jumped out of the shower and she ran into the bathroom ready to jump in the tub. Since we don’t have a real tub, she uses a large plastic packing box as her bathtub (see attached photo). Because it is not a real tub, it has to be manually emptied after her bath each day. She was too impatient to wait for her tub to be emptied and refilled this morning. She just jumped right into the cold water. It took her 3 attempts to get all the way into the tub and comfortable with the water temp, but she did it and had her bath.

On the other extreme was our son this morning. He was walking around with a jacket on because it was too cold. It was 75 degrees this morning. Certainly not cold enough for a jacket. He wore it for a few hours until he got warmed up.

Crazy kids.

Our daughter takes after me and our son takes after my wife.