Hard

I've got a hard road to travel
And a rough rough way to go.
Said it's a hard road to travel
And a rough rough way to go.
But I can't turn back,
My heart is fixed,
My mind's made up,
I'll never stop,
My faith will see, see me through.

-------Jimmy Cliff-------

It's the hard-knock life for us
It's the hard-knock life for us
No one cares for you a smidge
When your in an orphanage
It's the hard-knock life
It's the hard-knock life
It's the hard-knock life!
-----Annie-----*

Life is hard anyway you cut it
Life is sweet like a berry from a tree
Life is temptation, baby, every single day
Life is hard

Life is funny, I dont mean ha-ha
Its not always sunny when it needs to be
Life is frightening, nothing lasts forever
Life is hard
----- John Mellencamp-----

This week's unplugged prompt had me humming a tune, and it wasn't a pleasant one. There is so much hard in life, why would I want to add some extra hardship to our lives?

Or did that mean hard, like explaining why people have belly buttons, but frogs and chickens do not?**

Oh wait! Maybe Mom Unplugged meant "not soft." That's it! In which case, I will tell you how we spent our Friday afternoon -- working on tactile discrimination. The goal is to find the hard objects hidden among the softer base material.

The classic tactile discrimination exercise is to hide small toys in a bucket of rice. The older child can try to find pennies in a gob of Theraputty. Or, you could set four small children free in the garden and ask them to dig up the potatoes. It is something like finding a needle in a haystack, but a lot more fun.

The children dug and dug. And built mud castles and trenches. And dug some more. After twenty minutes I had a ransacked garden, four muddy children, and a bowlful of potatoes.***

After a "silly shower"**** and dry clothes we boiled up those spuds and had a pre-dinner treat. That is my idea of "unplugged" fun.

Check out Mom Unplugged to see what hard things everyone else did.
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* I've been trying not to sing this song, but it constantly comes to mind. I often sing responses to particularly ridiculous behavior. Whenever the "Not Fairs" start flying, this song immediately comes to mind. It is right about the word "smidge" when I remember how completely inappropriate it would be to sing this to a child who lived in an orphanage once-upon-a-time. Even if (especially since) there were people there who really did care more than a smidge about the kids in their care.

** I think I did pretty well explaining about umbilical cords and eggs. How many four year olds even ask about things like that, never mind comprehend?

*** Don't be too impressed by the bounty of our garden -- they found about two pounds -- but do be astounded by the frugality. The "seed" potatoes came from a bag that my brother accidentally left to sprout in the back of his pantry last winter.

**** Silly shower = a fully clothed shower. For both modesty and mud removal. Fortunately our (only) bathtub is just inside the back door.