Fast Sunday Conversation

"I wanna eat right now! HUMPH!" - one of my wonderful children yelled at me as I told that child that dinner wouldn't be ready for 30 minutes. You would think - at 11:30 when we got home from church - they wouldn't be so hungry, they were ready to tear each other apart.

But they were starving to DEATH.

So one child complains, the other whines, another stands up for blessings that fasting can bring (might I add, that this one stood up for the blessings only to fuel the hunger and anger fire of another)

In my prayerful consideration to make my children happy and keep them happily occupied for 30 or so more minutes - with something OTHER than bickering - I was inspired to tell the story of the child that Larry the Cable Guy adopted - the little pygmies from New Guinea. (Okay - before I'm struck down, I should probably add that I wasn't really inspired, I just told it) I believe his name was Boobla Boobla.

Boobla Boobla was one of those kids you see on TV with flies landing on his eyelashes -while a well dressed and very well fed celebrity pleads to your humanitarian side - by telling you - if you give the children one cup of coffee a day, you can keep the flies away - (because even flies don't like the taste/smell of coffee) - or something like that.

So since coffee is against the word of wisdom, we want these children to have better things - like fly swatters...

But wait - that was only to give the children a visual of these poor skinny pygmies.

See, my sweet children (I am telling them this, but not using quotes, cause it will just get confusing at this point) I know that every time you have ever asked for food, you get it immediately. If Coby was an hungered, I would feed her. And we've been blessed to always have food in the cupboard and fridge.

But how these children we sometimes see on TV commercials for coffee - they don't always get to eat every time they get hungry. Their dad's have to go kill deer with rocks. Sometimes they can use a bow and arrow, but the deers don't have targets on them, so it sometimes makes it harder to hit them - but sometimes the deers run away - and they don't get to eat.

So they go to bed hungry.

See, at this point - my children are quite concerned that not all children in the world get to eat all the time - and feel somewhat a piece of compassion for them. I look at my kids' faces - and see the concern - and at that moment, when the contention has lowered to almost nothing - but my story of Boobla Boobla from New Guinea - I feel a bit of inspiration to remind them of a story from the Book of Mormon.

Lehi - and his family - left their cupboards full of food to go to the wilderness - because Jerusalem was going to be destroyed. So they had to hunt for their food, and bring seeds to plant gardens. (My kids "get" the garden thing - you can't eat right away - as they're waiting for numerous cantaloupe to ripen from our own garden!) so all they have is Nephi's bow and arrow. (I note, at this point that Laman and Lemual didn't have their own bow & arrow because terms of their probation prohibited it at that point in their lives - something about robbing the local mutton store?)

They were pretty hungry after a long day of fighting - and Nephi went out to get some food - and SNAP - broke his bow like Brynn breaks her crayons. Now they have no way of getting food.

And Laman and Lemual were getting QUITE upset with Nephi - because - as you know - when you murmur, it just makes you hungry. And all they do is murmur, since they can't hunt...parole violation and stuff - (at this point the kids are SOOOO enthralled with my story, they're sitting up straight - some kids are on other's laps, wide-eyed and not hungry - cause - this story doesn't have any commercials with Big Mac's in it) so Laman and Lemual (I point to two of my children as I say "Laman & Lemual" - not to accuse them of murmuring, but rather to help them be included in the story) are pretty ticked off at their baby brother, Nephi - so much that they were going to kill him....

At this point - Howie says in a ravaging hungry voice "MMMM mmmmm, Gonna have RIBS tonight!!!"

Ross says "Are you kidding, me, you want the FEMUR, it's got the best meat"

Kiersten chimes in "Give the toes to mom, she likes Coby's toes, I bet she'd like Nephi's"

Kali's no idiot, she says "I'm going for the stomach, that's where the big mac is"

Brynn starts jumping up and down and asking for strawberries, then she hit the top of her head on Kali's chin - Kali bit her tongue and my children were BACK in the present. Wanting dinner.

The cool part of this story is - I just organized the pantry & found stuff that I bought a long time ago & decided I was going to get rid of it for dinner - and made this nasty goulash thing -

The kids LOVED it -I'm totally cleaning out the pantry again next fast Sunday.