Commandment Seven

For our story that clearly shows the folly of committing adultery, we used David and Bathsheba. David is on the roof & sees this beautiful woman next door taking a bath (in a large plastic storage bin). Should he keep looking? NO! But what does he do? He whips out a pair of binoculars (two toilet paper rolls taped together) for a closer look. He really wants to know who she is so he calls a servant up & gives him the binoculars. Servant says it's Uriah's wife & he is dispatched to go bring her. She gets out of the "tub" and puts on a bathrobe (over her clothing, of course!) & comes to David. They sit on the recliner together and are briefly covered with a blanket. Bathsheba was one of our neurotypical girls, & was acting very flirtatious in the recliner. Our autistic David was totally oblivious to what was supposed to be going on. Just as well!

Bathsheba goes home, but soon sends a servant to tell David she is pregnant. Our servant, Sally, doesn't speak much, so I told her she could just gesture to describe a large tummy. But Mrs. Chu really wants to encourage her to talk more (which is good) so she was trying to insist she say "she's having a baby." But for some reason this struck Sally so funny she couldn't get a word out. Every time she opened her mouth she would start shaking with silent laughter. Occasionally she would just make the gesture. It was very cute and funny to watch! Eventually we decided she'd communicated well enough, so David sends for Uriah to "talk about how the fighting is going," (looking at a map together). Then David tells him to go home but instead he sits on the couch with the servant under a blanket. David then has to go with plan B, which is to send a letter by the hand of poor Uriah himself, to Joab to tell him to arrange Uriah's death.

This taken care of, David plays the benefactor: oh, his loyal soldier is dead and left a pregnant widow—he will take care of her by marrying her! (they march down the room to the wedding march) He may think he's gotten away with this, but soon Nathan the prophet comes & tells him he's going to be punished by having people steal his wives, and there will always be killing among his descendants. He immediately admits his sin, so at least is spared being put to death himself. End of story.

Our game was three-legged racing to illustrate the truth that a married couple is meant to walk through life together. I had brought an old leg-warmer to use as a simple way to join the legs of each pair. Someone asked, are you sure it's going to be big enough for two people's legs? I said I was sure, because I had checked by putting it around both of my "sturdy" calves the previous evening—and then of course the phone rang…(true story)!

For craft, following the wedding theme, each child had a cartoon couple on which to stick various parts of fancy wedding outfits, in the correct order. I was surprised at all the neckless couples we ended up with—I thought the kids had done better with this craft three years ago. Maybe the parents helped more the first time? It was fun for everyone though.