Letters To Zurielle; Or The Spy mystery.

Nelinha came in this morning and asked, "Can we have some food for our game?"

I  said, "What's the game called?"

She answered, "it's the ,'Our Only Food' game.  We eat some food and then we have to save the other half for tomorrow... It's a spy game"

"Oh,.. a spy game! Who do you spy on?"

She said, "You... Yesterday we played that so much! Did you ever see us?"

I laughed, no, I had not seen them.

One thing that I love about my family:

If we're driving down those old country roads and we suddenly hit a part of the road that is unpaved, everyone in the car stops talking and says, "Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah", as though they had a pre-arranged agreement. The car is full of the vibrating, bumpy voice song until the pavement is reached again. It's fun.

Yesterday, I was a little frustrated at all the chatter at the table, so I said, "Everyone be silent!"

The silence was instantaneous and I enjoyed it very much. But, then as they looked around at each other with mirth in their eyes they started sticking out their tongues, just a little and really fast. I think it was Naphtali and Nelinha who started it. I watched for a while to see how crazy it could get. They all looked so funny! "ok, you are excused, go do your chores". I couldn't be frustrated with them anymore.

Nehemiah and Nelinha were rolling around on the floor saying in a droning, monotony; "Haring, haring, harung. Ok, ok, ok. Haring, haring, harung. Ok , ok, ok." They would stop for a couple seconds each time on "Harung" and then begin rolling again on the last "ok". They kept this up for probably 10 minutes. It was still fun for them at that point but the others in the room could no longer stand it.

One more Nelinha story: She brought me a duplo guy that she had made. It was wrapped in tissue paper and then boxed up. She presented it to me with a bow, saying, "For you... It's from me"

I opened it up with ceremony, exclaimed on it's magnificence and then dropped it on the floor where it broke into pieces.

I looked at Nelinha's shocked and scandalized face and dropped on my knees. "I'm so sorry!"

I took her into my arms to hide the 'hilarious hilarium' that was taking over. I was shaking with uncontrollable laughter. The crashing sound and the pieces flying in all directions across the kitchen floor kept playing over and over in my mind.

I lied and said, "I'm crying".

I had a great time all by myself and everyone in the room was patient with me as I laughed. Nelinha went right to work rebuilding. When I regained control of myself, I helped her and she forgave me.

(photo's: Nehemiah (13), Lazuli (7), Elsie (10))

•