Just when I thought our “four eyes” saga was over, it turns out our younger son not only needs eye correction but also has a slightly lazy eye since one eye is much better than the other.  So his optometrist wants him to start wearing a patch over his left (stronger) eye, half-time.  His right eye, the weaker of the two, needs more practice which is why we need to patch his good eye.  So sad.  I don’t know what to call my boy now.  He’s certainly not four eyes anymore.  Maybe three eyes?  Or back to two eyes?  Pirate eye?  Whatever it is, I still think he’s cute!

Initially, we stopped by the drugstore but didn’t find a Band-Aid type of patch for his eye that the optometrist suggested.  So after some searching the web, I decided to make a custom eye patch for my boy.  I found an awesome eye patch tutorial.  I love technology!  I immediately went to work and came up with an eye patch for my boy.

Here’s my cutie with his eye patch:

My kids like omelette but I don’t like making it because it takes too long.  So, my husband makes the omelette for the kids.

Recently I came across Julia Child’s 20-second omelette through a friend.  I was stoked.  You can make an omelette in 20 seconds??!!!  We gave it a try and was sold!  Now we’ve been enjoying yummy omelettes 20 seconds at a time.

First time around we used a stainless steel pan but it didn’t work as well so you just have to listen to Julia Child and use a non-stick pan.

For your enjoyment and happy consumption, here is Julia Child teaching you how to make an omelette:

It seems like a non sequitur: polygons and God’s omnipotence.  But I assure you that these two distinctly different topics do relate, at least during our math lesson today.

For my 5 year old’s math lesson, he was asked to draw 3, 4, and 5 sided polygons.  He asked why he had to start out with a three sided polygon, and before I could answer him, my 7 year old told him that the reason is that there’s no such thing as a two-sided polygon.  Three-sided polygon is the smallest polygon.  My ever-so-knowing older son continued and said that even God can’t draw a two-sided polygon.  Hahahaha. . . he went.

Well, he was certainly right, but I decided to take a step further.  I simply couldn’t let this topic drop.  I proceeded to ask him a very difficult question.  If God is omnipotent, all-powerful, why can’t he draw a two-sided polygon?  My boy proceeded to show me that it’s impossible to draw it because in order for it to be a polygon, it has to have straight lines and they have to close up.  I concurred but pressed the question again.  Since God can’t do it, doesn’t this mean that he’s not all-powerful?  He answered no.  Whew!  I’m glad he answered no.  My boy went on to say that a two-sided polygon is impossible and God is still powerful.  I decided to drop my devil’s advocate persona and told him that he was absolutely right.  There is no such thing as a two-sided polygon because it simply doesn’t exist.  This does not prove nor demonstrate that God is not omnipotent.  Too often we set up our premises wrong and then draw the conclusion that God is not omnipotent.  Before we reject God’s attributes, we need to take a long hard look at our presuppositions and assumptions.

See? I told you polygons and God’s omnipotence relate.  I’m glad I had this conversation with my son.

I have poor eyesight.

My brother has poor eyesight.

My sister has poor eyesight.

My parents have poor eyesight.

My husband has poor eyesight.

My husband’s brother has poor eyesight.

My husband’s parents have poor eyesight.

To sum it up, my side of family has poor eyesight and so does my husband’s side.  Yet, somehow I secretly hoped that this dominant genetic trait wouldn’t get passed down to my offspring.

Sadly, to no avail.

So now I present to you my boys in spectacles:

I’m still holding out hope for my girls.

Such was the first of numerous suggestions to parents of rebellious children from Abraham Piper, who at age 19 decided to reject the faith of his parents, Pastor John and Noel Piper.  And why did he reject the faith?  As he puts it in this article in “Decision” magazine, “to drink gallons of cheap sangria and sleep around.”  He shares in brief how he left the faith, to the heartbreak of his parents; but returned four years later, by God’s grace.  And he offers a number of suggestions for parents who are suffering the same heartbreak and still waiting for their children to return to Christ.

For me, his suggestions also spoke volumes about parenting any child, including my own who are all under eight years old right now.  Here’s the full text of his first (and most important) word of advice:

1. Point them to Christ.
Your rebellious child’s real problem is not drugs or sex or cigarettes or porn or laziness or crime or cussing or slovenliness or homosexuality or being in a punk band. The real problem is that your child doesn’t see Jesus clearly. The best thing you can do for rebellious children—and the only reason to follow any of these suggestions—is to show them Christ. It won’t be simple or immediate, but the sins in their life that distress you and destroy them will begin to disappear only when they see Jesus more as He actually is.

Simply reading that paragraph made me realize how easy it is for me as a Christian parent to focus on obedience, kindness, behavior, heart motives… and point a child merely at himself instead of the Savior.  And absent a growing love for the Savior, that even the best of this is but legalism and self-righteousness (and death!).  But if I can faithfully, continually point my child to Christ, then by God’s grace, he will be transformed and those very actions I desire will come in due time.

Read the whole thing.

We went to In-N-Out Burger for a field trip today and had a great time learning about this family owned burger joint that’s quite popular in California.  They are working to expand to other states in the near future.  I was quite impressed by their efforts in using every thing fresh from lettuce, tomatoes, potatoes, buns, to beef!  We were told that they have their own cows and butchers.  Now, that’s impressive! Even their buns are better because they take 12 hours to bake.  The manager gave us a demonstration by smashing the buns hard with his hands.  Most other commercial buns would stay flat, but with the In-N-Out buns, they slowly rise up to their original shape.  That was pretty cool.

If you’re a regular In-N-Out customer, you most likely know about their secret menu like animal style burgers (grilled onions with extra lettuce and tomato) or protein style burgers (burgers wrapped with lettuce instead of buns for the Atkin diet folks), etc.  These interesting twists to these burgers came from the customers and In-N-Out is happy to accommodate and allow these customizations.

The kids had their hands in slicing potatoes:

Don’t under estimate this little beany of ours.  She may be small, but she can smash that potato masher down and hard.  She surprised the employees there.

After the tour, In-N-Out was very kind and generous in letting us order anything we wanted to eat for FREE!!!  Here are the kids enjoying their meal.  By the way, I got a burger too because I was a chaperone.