more with rice & water

Tonight as I was cleaning up the kitchen and @ was waiting on Jonathan for his bath, @ was using the dipper to pour water on the floor. We keep a bucket of water in our bathroom with a dipper for flushing and handwashing. I asked him to stop pouring water on the floor explaining to him that "we love God so we don't waste water". Which jonathan took note of as being a pretty postmodern thing to say. I have no idea what postmodernism is but wasting water and loving God has something to do with it.

Along the same line the other day I was making rice and I let @ feel the rice. We buy rice 5 kgs at a time so the rice bucket feels pretty good to run your fingers through. I let him look at the rice with me and check for rocks, then help me pour water into it. Then while he was running his fingers through it he said "Mommy, this rice. This is AMAZING!" Don't know what made him say that, I've never said it. I wrote that story into my More with Less cookbook under the rice instructions. There's a really nice story about the importance of rice in so many societies, how valuable it is and how far it can go in feeding the hungry.

I take rice and water very seriously anymore. Milk too. When people come to the door for food I always give them a bit of rice, an egg and some fruit. If they are women or have children, they get a bag of powdered milk. The poor and the hungry can live off a dipper of water and a bit of rice. I've been trying to teach that to @ so that he doesn't have to learn later. So we talk about rice and water being "Amazing" at our house.