Two Samuel Stories
As much as I wanted to, it looks like home-schooling is not a viable option for us for any number of reasons, so I have sought out a private school where Samuel could be prepared to enter Kindergarten. Okay, now you may all gasp with horror when you hear that I finally decided on a rather strict and, it appears, wonderful Baptist preschool. It was all that we could afford and the only thing that was local. In addition, unlike the Catholic Schools near here, they have a uniform (so too the Catholic Schools) but extremely strict restrictions on other things that may be brought to school--No Barbies, G.I. Joes, Pokemons, Digimons, Scooby Doos, Bratz, etc. In addition, they DO NOT celebrate hallowe'en but they do observe individually the President's Birthdays, Martin Luther King Jr. day, Good Friday, and Columbus Day. Any way, enough of my defensiveness--this is what we needed to do and after much prayer and soul-searching, what we ended up with.
Samuel came home the first day of school with a picture representing Jesus in Heaven looking down on St. Stephen. When I asked him to tell me about the picture this was the story he told--"Some bad people threw rocks at Peter Pan and when he died he went up to heaven where Jesus was with Peter Pan." Yesterday he came home with a picture of Jesus healing the Leper. When asked what the story was there he said, "There was this man with sores and Jesus hit him and his sores were better." And finally, today, he came home with a picture of Jesus and the woman at the well. When we inquired as to what piece of wisdom he derived from this he said, "This is a man Jesus, and this is a lady Jesus." We asked about the Samaritan woman, and he said that she was not a Samaritan woman but just a regular lady Jesus.
In addition to this remarkable education, apparently they teach prayer at school. All afternoon he persuaded his mom and me to fold our hands, close our eyes and repeat after him, "Dear God, thank you for our school. Thank you for this day. Thank you for our friends. Amen." So all you out there in blogland have the sincere and beautiful prayers of a four-year old to tide you over.
