Murmuring Mothers

Raising children is mentally exhausting. The noise and questions are constant! Conversations are generally interrupted and so are thoughts.

Being stuck in the house during lockdown has made the noise even louder.

It is hard to think clearly about anything – whether replying to messages, making plans or writing blogs.

It affects my prayer life too. Even if I’m able to find a few quiet minutes, stringing together coherent thoughts isn’t easy.

I’ve been really encouraged by Psalm 5 however. It begins with a plea for God to hear the Psalmist’s verbal prayers AND his groaning. The word ‘groaning’ in the original Hebrew suggests an inward murmuring that cannot be articulated.

What a joy it is to know that I can come before God and ask Him to consider my inner murmurings – those thoughts and emotions that I struggle to put into words.

When you have a really close friend, you don’t always need to talk. Closeness can sometimes be measured by how comfortable you are just to sit in silence together.

God is closer still. We can sit in silence with Him, exhausted, unable to express ourselves, but He knows exactly what we’re going through.  And He cares, deeply.

Do you want to approach God but don’t know what to say?  Try David’s approach – give God your groans, your murmurs, your inwards cries.  He will hear and He will answer.

Theme Day Thursday

This week our theme was bugs.

There were a lot of grumbles, inward and verbal, when the kids tasted crickets and mealworms! But overall it was another successful day.

We started with costumes. The kids made head bands in their chosen bug. We had a bee, two praying mantis and a butterfly. 

Next the children made a mud pie. (Click here for the recipe and scroll to M).

Then we had a bug hunt. I set a timer for one minute. Each child had to grab a plastic tub and fill it with as many bugs as they could. When the time was up we identified their bugs and read information about them.

After, we headed into the garden for a ‘real life’ bug hunt. We filled a plastic bottle with mud and foliage. Then we put in some worms. We wrapped it in dark paper and placed it in a cool place. Over the following few days we watched the worms in action, dragging nutrients down into the soil.

It was time for a well earned lunch break. We had caterpillar rolls, ants on a log, beetles, and stick insects (twiglets)! The butterflies are banana and oat pancakes which they had for breakfast (click here for the recipe and scroll to B).

After lunch was an art lesson. We looked at this wonderful selection of bug artists from the arty teacher. Then we printed some work by Rosalind Monks for the kids to colour in.

Next we tasted our edible critters! This pack was only £2.99 and came with great info cards about the future of insect eating. Most of us struggled to eat them, but one of the children couldn’t get enough!

We had a dance party in the kitchen.

And made our own bug fact file, cutting out insect articles from old copies of ‘The Week Junior‘, and copying critters from books.

Last of all we decorated a carrot caterpillar cake. I’ve often struggled with making carrot cake but this recipe came out beautifully.

For dinner we had ‘wormy noodles.’ This is my go to meal for using up left over roast chicken or pork.

It was a great day, but I was definitely reduced to a ‘murmuring mother’ by the end of it!