Welcome to page 7
EXTRACTS FROM A MUM'S ALPHABET
APPLE: Nutritious lunchtime dessert which children
will swap for crisps.
BATHROOM: A room used by the entire family, believed by all (except Mum) to be self-cleaning.
CARPET: Expensive floor covering used to catch spills and clean mud off shoes.
DATE: Infrequent outings with Dad where Mum can enjoy worrying about the kids in a different setting.
EAT: What kids do between meals, but not at them.
FABLE: A story told by a teenager arriving home after the deadline.
GUM: Chewing material stored on the bottom of footwear.
HANDIWIPES: Trousers, shirt-sleeves, curtains, etc. "I SAID SO": Reason enough, according to Mum.
JEANS: Which, according to kids, are appropriate for just about any occasion, including church and funerals.
KISS: Mum medicine.
LAKE: Large body of water into which a kid will jump should his friends do so.
MAYBE: No.
NAILS: A hard covering on the end of the finger, which Mum can never have a full set of due to cleaning mud off trainers, opening stubborn modelling clay lids and reaching down the sides of washing machines to retrieve Lego or Toy Story 2 characters.
OPEN: The position of children's mouths when they eat in front of visitors.
PETS: Small furry creatures which follow kids home so Mum will have someone else to clean up after.
QUIET: A state of household serenity which occurs before the birth of the first child and occurs again after the last child has left for college.
RAINCOAT: Article of clothing Mum bought to keep a child dry and warm, rendered ineffective because it's in the bottom of a locker, stuffed in a school bag, or because the child refuses to wear it because it looks "sad".
SPOILED ROTTEN: What the kids become after as little as 15 minutes with Grandma.
TOWELS: See "Floor Coverings".
UMPTEENTH: Highly conservative estimate of the number of times Mum must instruct her offspring to do something before it gets done.
WHEN YOUR FATHER GETS HOME: Standard measurement of time between crime and punishment.
XOXOXO: Mum salutation guaranteed to make the already embarrassing note in a kid's lunchbox even more mortifying.
ZILLION: Number of times Mum must have gone to the
supermarket already this week.
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BACK TO THE SCHOOLROOM??
MATHS LESSON
The right angle to approach a difficult problem is the try-angle.
SIMPLE ARITHMETIC?
Sometimes we are so busy adding to our troubles that we forget to count
our blessings.
MUSIC LESSON
It is good to remember that the tea kettle,
although up to its neck in hot water, continues to
sing!
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THE TALE OF THE EIGHTEENTH CAMEL
An Arab had three sons and when he died he left instructions in his will about dividing up his property among them. Everything was straightforward except for the camels. Of these there were seventeen, and the will said that half were to go to the eldest, a third to the middle son and a ninth to the youngest. The sons had no success in dividing them up and in desperation they went to a neighbour - an old friend of their father's - and asked for his advice. The neighbour said "I will lend you my camel and you will find it will come out alright." And it did .... because once they had eighteen camels it was easy. The eldest son took half, that was nine; the second a third, that was six; the youngest a ninth, that was two, making (and this is the point) seventeen camels in all. The neighbour took his own camel back .... and everybody was happy.
In our world today there are some individuals and institutions mainly concerned with living, and others with helping people to live. For example, once a baby is safely born, the midwife fades out of the life of the mother and child: once a psychiatric patient has worked through his or her problems, the therapist must leave the scene.
There may well be situations where we are called in
to help solve a problem - and when this happens we need to remember the
role of the eighteenth camel. Once the problem has been solved we quietly
depart.......
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1. How do you pronounce "Yes"?
2. Are you asleep?
3. Four... .The father and mother are not married
to each other but are brother and sister, one having a son, the other having
a daughter.
4. The letter "E".
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WHERE ARE YOU NOW?
A letter from NORAH JOHNSON arrived just as I was getting
ready to start work on this issue. She is as busy as ever with Church activities
and is still Treasurer for her GB District - "no rest for the wicked"??
I was very sorry, however, to hear that her sister, NANCY RAY, is poorly
and is in hospital, having had another stroke. She will, I'm sure, be in
the prayers of all her old friends.
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TAILPIECE
"Kind words bring life, but cruel words crush your
Spirit."
Proverbs 15:4.
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