Uncle's Little Helper

This week was my group's turn to clean the church building, and two of the five members of our group couldn't be there to help. Fortunately, there was an unexpected volunteer. Yes, it was my niece.

She really surprised me with how well she helped. After all, it is a big building, and she's only four. She and I tackled the second floor while the other two members of the group (the family that *was* able to be there) took on the ground floor. Feather duster in hand, she was all business until right near the end. It started to get late and she began to ask if we were done. That didn't bother me at all, since I had expected the question to come a lot sooner.

Fortunately for my niece, by the time she got impatient to go home, we were almost finished. It wasn't long before she got to buy a candy bar with that $1.25 that one of the members of the group gave her while we were cleaning...

Practice What You Preach

I had something similar happen when taking my niece to the bathroom during church. When I teach her Sunday school class, I have a "mantra," if you will, for walking through the halls. When I take them to the classroom after they're dismissed from the sanctuary, I repeatedly tell them, "Slow like a turtle, quiet like a mouse." I use the same phrase when take students en masse to the bathroom. The sound of stampeding children is altogether too audible from the sanctuary.

Well, as I took my niece out of the prayer service on a bathroom trip one Tuesday night, she turned to me and whispered, "Quiet like a mouse, slow like turtles, Uncle."

Listen and Repeat

While straightening up the classroom today I noticed scuff marks on the floor. All was not lost I grabbed some of our handy dandy magic erasers and got to work. One of my boys asks "Oh oh can I help?" I toss him a sponge and reply "Sure knock yourself out." I continue cleaning but he gets bored and goes back to playing. After a while he returns and asks "Can I do it again?" Before I can reply he grabs a sponge and and says, "Knock yourself out."