Zero the Hero

It's a bird. . . It's a plane. . .NO!! It's Zero the Hero!!

The first graders have a friend named Zero the Hero who comes to visit and read a story every ten days of school. Today was their 90th day of school!! They were quite excited to see me coming--obviously they have a lot of fun with the visitors who wear the special cape and glasses. But I didn't fool anyone!! Everyone knew it was Devin's mom. My friend Kayla is D's teacher. She planned a Kansas Day theme for today's story and asked if I might bring some antiques or Kansas items to show the kids after the story. The story was about an aunt who raised her 9 orphaned neices and nephews on a small farm in Kansas. Their house was hit by a tornado and turned around so the front faced the "johnny house." You should have seen their faces when I told them what a johnny house was!!


They were very quiet and good listeners as I read the story. Aunt Minnie used a school bell to get their attention when she needed them to come to her.

I called several people yesterday to try to find an old school bell to use with the story (My mom
has 2 on her school desk at home, but of no help to me here) Jeremy's grandma didn't think
she had one, but found one while looking for the fountain pens and chamber pot I asked her to send over. The kids got a kick out of the loud clanging to get the attention of Aunt Minnie's kids!!


The book talked about all the chores they had then like the gardening, canning, storing things in the root cellar and making treats like apple butter and applesauce. I decided while I was at it that I should get some apple butter to share with the kids. I threw some ingredients in my bread machine this morning to go with it. None of the kids in the class had ever tried apple butter, which looks totally nasty (I was surprised that everyone tried it!). All but one kid loved it!! (Jeremy said it was just because they were starving--I went at noon--but in my defense, the kids had just eaten lunch!!)
They enjoyed watching me pull lots of stuff out of my basket and the chamber pot. I showed them a candle holder, curling irons, fountain pens and the ink that they dipped them in, an old 2nd primer that was J's grandpa's, a milk bottle, a canning jar, some kitchen utensils, and of course the old chamber pot that you see in the picture. They looked pretty grossed out to think that people used to do their business in that pot and then had to walk out in the snow to dump it out in the winter time! This is a good time to remember to be thankful for our wonderful technology--I know I wouldn't have fared well at all with no plumbing, or having to go down into a creepy hole filled with who knows what kind of critters with only a small candle to get food!

After my storytime they went to work making a big sunflower with ninety petals (their hand prints) and ninety sunflower seeds (I'm not sure what those were for as I had to get back home to get Cam down for a nap--J graciously took her to the chiropracter over the lunch hour).

It is snowing as I type tonight, which is causing me frustration. I stumbled upon a retreat for kids aged 7th grade through 12th grade teaching sexual purity. I was hoping to take a few kids from our youth group, and ended up with 16 kids from several different churches and some from no churches. The retreat starts Friday night and is being held in Salina. We are hoping and praying to be able to get out of town here by mid afternoon. Initially, the snow was only being forecasted for our area, so once we got about 30 miles north, we were going to run out of it. Today it looks like most of our driving area will have some snow of varying accumulations.

The last month has been the most unusual for me so far in our family planning clinics. I have seen MANY 14 year old girls with multiple partners and who have been active since they were 12-many have had drug habits and some still struggle with those habits. Their family situations often are bad. This week I even had to tell a 14 1/2 year old girl that she was pregnant. I have come home from those clinics emotionally drained--the counseling opportunities were fabulous and a great experience--I know that many of those girls are hearing what I say, and truly want to make changes in their lives--I just hope that they can find the courage and outside support to change!! So you see why this retreat is so dear to my heart--I am excited to go as a sponsor to see and hear how these people are presenting their message. So anyone who reads this blog before noon tomorrow, send up a prayer for clearing roads and non hazardous driving conditions on the roads we need to travel! We really want to be present! Hope to be able to share pictures later in the weekend.

So with no further adue, Zero the Hero must take off and get some sleep--Her last night of work was quite traumatic too, as she had to send a family friend involved in a pickup accident to Wichita early this morning with extensive facial fractures! Up, Up, and AWAY!!!!