Since my husband returns from a business trip tomorrow, the kids and I have been working on surprising him with a recitation of Psalm 100. Some guys get a steak dinner for a welcome, but you know, we keep it spiritual around here. I’ll try not to blow it. I mean, my kids do a fine job at reciting, but I still have to peek at some words at the end. It’s part of getting older, I guess.

One trick I figured out for the real little ones is to leave a word out and have them fill-in-the-blank. Like this, “Shout for joy to the LORD, all the earth. Worship the LORD with [Bekah?]” The answer is “gladness,” so you have to smile and point to your cheeks. Seems to be working, as she’s doing better than her ole mom.

Which reminds me of this tape we bought several years ago. It’s long lost now—probably in the deep recesses of our old couch that went to charity. Anyway, it’s pretty preschool-ish, but Greg and I got into it all the same. It’s the easiest way in the world to memorize 26 verses—one for each letter of the alphabet. I think, though, you should really have little kids in your house or van before you start jiving to it. It might seem strange otherwise.

Even though we lost the tape years ago, my older two are still able to sing most of the verses. We used to make it a family game to see who could remember the verse to every letter of the alphabet, and tonight with so many years behind us, we were still able to recall about half of them. I know we could do them all if we were just prompted with the first word. Music is neat that way.

In other news, we only ate frozen waffles for lunch twice, the laundry doesn’t stink yet, and the dog escaped while Greg was away. But he came back. Too bad.