All Those Leftovers

***
I took Gemma to a birthday party at the roller rink this weekend.  I mentioned last winter that I took both kids often on Friday mornings for "Pixie class" where they could figure out how to stay up without swarming masses whizzing around them. Though it had been about a year since last we went to the rink, Gemma remembered enough to stay up most of the time.

I was among the swarming mass.  I love roller skating.  I'm not great.  I can't stop myself without something to grab hold of.  I can't skate backwards.  I can't maintain speed while rounding the corners. 

But I can dance a little as I go.  Oh, I'm sorry, am I supposed to not dance when the "I Like To Move It, Move It" song comes on?

The song selection, the sound system, the disco ball and colored spot lights--there's so much to like about a roller rink.  Thrown in there, too, is the quaint, slightly campy practice of "naming" each skate.  There's the "speed skate," in which certain age groups are to skate at once.  I do these--slowly, of course--as a public service to the one or two men who show up with roller blades and re-live their days of hockey glory.  There are always a few of this type around and it's obvious how much they enjoy lapping me.

There's the "Downtown" skate where they play that song and every time the singer croons "downtown!" skaters are to do a deep knee bend.  I do this one because it's good exercise.

There's the "Partner's Limbo," which I did with Gemma.  The two speed skating men partnered up as well, and were right in front of us in line.  I'm pretty sure they were friends who had brought their families together, if that makes you feel better about it.  I know it helped me to realize that their sons knew each other and had partnered up as well. 

They were self-conscious enough about it to turn to me and say, "We won't hold hands until the game actually starts--that would be weird." 

I laughed.  Said, "The two best skaters here should be partners!"  And they both shrugged off the compliment in the way that shows they were, in fact, glad to have received it. 

One said, "There's a big chance we're going to make fools of ourselves."  He was not wrong.  This was limbo-on-skates. . . 

I said, "I'm just hoping I don't do anything that is going to show up on YouTube and go viral."  There were many birthday parties there, far too many recording devices to count.

So we limboed.  The men didn't even attempt the 3rd setting.  Gemma and I did.  She got through, I felt my hair bump it as I approached, so I stood up and said, "I touched!" and so was spared trying to go even lower now.

Gemma was somewhat annoyed with me, but it was nothing that the rest of the party couldn't make her forget.

***

About the birthday present:  I suggested we get a littlel outfit for her friend's doll.  Gemma liked this.  And she determined that she wanted to make a tea set, too, out of colored modeling clay.  We worked all week on it.  (Hint to Mom and others who ever try Sculpey or Fimo: It works way better if you leave it in direct sunlight to warm up for a few hours before trying to kneed it.) 

She was pretty determined to make 4 cups, 4 saucers and a teapot.  Joshua helped, too, and made a serving tray.  When assembling the completed pieces together, she placed the teapot on the tray Josh made.

He said, "Hey, Gemma, that's a serving tray."

Immediate response: "I know.  And the tea needs to be served."

Cheeky!

***

Speaking of cheeky:

We have a phrase in our house, adopted from my friend, Xochitl's house, for when our children whine for something.

I say, "What does whining get you?"

And the answer, which they usually say grudgingly, is, "A whole lotta nothin'."

The other day, Josh was whining, I asked, "What does whining get you?"

Immediate response:  "A whole lotta yes-stuff." 

Get it?  Opposite of "no-thing" = "yes-stuff." 

But he still didn't get what he was whining for.

***

I mentioned fitness classes in Sanibel with my father-in-law, Pedro.  He is quite the role model for physical health.  He eats very, very carefully.  And he works out on cardio-machines (when his ear is troubling him) or brisk, long walks on the beach (when it's not) and at yoga several times a week (though he pronounces it "joga," which I love).

I've kind of become an avid exercise-er myself.  I never thought I'd be one of those people who does not feel right if I go more than 2 days without a work-out.  But.  Well.  I have.  There's an entire book to be written about how this happened.

So there we were, Pedro and I, comparing notes on what specific exercises we do for which muscles.  At one point, we were taking turns on the floor demonstrating different ab moves--he, from what he's learned in joga, I, from what I've learned from Pilates.  Am I too proud to be getting fitness tips from an 83 year old man?  Why should I be?

There is a terrific rec center on the island that we get a weekly membership to when we visit.  I did several of the classes there. (BOSU!  I hate the BOSU.  And yet, I love the BOSU.  Nothing has ever made my muscles work harder.)

Then Pedro invited me to go "Zumba Gold" with him.  "It is with Latin music," he said, his eyes bright with anticipation.  Pedro loves to dance as much as I do.

Sure!  I've seen Zumba on an X-Box commercial and the model doing that routine seemed to be getting a great workout.

As for the "Gold," I kind of thought it was the rec center's way of fiddling with the name so they wouldn't have to pay royalties to the official Zumba people.

Uh, no.  "Gold," I realized as our class mates filed into the gym, is a euphemism that translates roughly to, "For old people."

Zumba For Old People.  That's the class I was standing in with my 83-year-old father-in-law, and we were standing in the front row.

Then the teacher walked in.  She was shocking.  Or maybe it's just that I was shocked.  Pedro turned to me and with a wry half-smile said, "I'm not sure how much work this class will be.  That teacher is. . .a little overweight."

Folks, there's no way she was an ounce under 200 pounds.  And she was shorter than I am, which is 5'4".   It wasn't a big-hips thing, or a "meaty" look.  She was obese.  If she were taking the class, I would not have thought a thing of it.  Other than, maybe, "Good for you, girl!" 

But leading a fitness class?  I think I was. . .annoyed.  Like the heart surgeon who smokes cigarettes or the financial advisor who's swimming in debt or the teacher who walks around saying, 'I hate reading!' (I worked with one of those once. . .) -- I was annoyed to be looking at an obese fitness instructor.

I'm not proud of that, you know.  I don't know if that reaction comes from being an avid exerciser.  I know it wasn't a judgement of beauty or appearance--come on, now, I was standing there with no breasts!--it was just shocking.

Then she took her sweatshirt off and Pedro turned to me again to say, "She looks like a wrestler." 

So I think he was worse than I.  Right?  Right?

The class began.  She led us in a simple choreography for each song and she clearly was loving every minutes of the music.  I'm sure it was perfect for the golden people behind us.

For my part, I added as many modifications as I could.  "Modifications."  This is when you do an extra move or a jumpier move or a deeper bend or something else that fits in with the routine and makes your muscles work harder than the regular move.  Parin and I used to hate "modifications" when we did classes together back in Korea.  Her words, I think, were, "Enough with the modifications!  Stop showing off and just do the routine."  And she was right.

But I promise you that I wasn't trying to show off.  I really just wanted to get my heart rate up.  Now and then, I looked over at Pedro and not once did I see him ever actually doing the routine.  He was just dancing.
There was a guy in a treadmill on the other side of the glass wall who was looking in on our class as he ran.  And he was laughing most of the time, with good-natured happiness, I think, to see that old guy dance and to heck with the instructor.

Her own health notwithstanding, she led a great class. 

Afterwards, she came up to Pedro, and I was standing right next to him.  She came with a big smile, wanted to know how old he was, and then started up a very condescending speech for him about how he "just has to keep moving," and "how good that you move so much at this age." 

This is the thing about Pedro: He looks and sounds like a sweet, simple man with a sweet, simple mind.  And he plays his cards close to his chest so that at moments like these, when I found myself becoming defensive on his behalf, he is just laughing on the inside about how this woman is underestimating him.  Because, in reality, he is actually a mental giant.  And he had said she looked like a "wrestler," so, really, how sweet can he be? 

But he smiled and nodded and then said something about how much he enjoyed her class and the music.  Then she asked me if I had "Zumbad" before.

No, this was my first time and I had really enjoyed it, too. 

Well, she went on, Zumba is all over the world now and there are DVD's and X-Box games and I could do it anywhere!  Then this: "You burn 1000 calories every time you dance." 

And I thought, "That is not correct.  But your belief in those numbers does explain a lot." 

She had moved on to asking where Pedro was from.  To me she said, "You're not Hispanic, so you are not his daughter. . ."

I feigned shock, "What do you mean 'I'm not Hispanic?'  How do you know that?"

She rolled her eyes and shooed her hand at me and said, "I can tell."

You know how she could tell?  In her routine, there were several times when we were to shake/gyrate our hips really fast.  I couldn't do it. 

The irony, I think, is that if Bryan had been standing there and she had been told to choose which of us was Pedro's biological, Hispanic child, she would have chosen me, hips or not. 

Zumba Gold with Pedro: Priceless.

***

I turned 36 this past Wednesday.  Our homeschool co-op was here and the ladies very sweetly put together an organic-sugar brownie and ice cream celebration for me, candles and all. 

I think I look a LOT better at age 36 than I did at 35.  (Get it?  Because last birthday I was bald, and burned on one side and walking around with just one sad, doomed breast?)  But now. . . the burned skin isn't even a shade darker.  My hair came back in, reached an un-ruly stage, I cut it (clipped it, actually) back down to one inch and now it's grown back in again.  (I can't decide whether to keep it short or grow it  out again.  But it now feels like my hair, and not like a post-chemo hair-do.)

A year ago feels like a lifetime ago.

***

A sign that 36 is "middle age" is that I actually wanted to stay in that evening, have dinner at home with my family, play a game of "Sorry!"

(What a great game!  There aren't many out there that a 4 year old can play and enjoy AND that Bryan and I can enjoy, too.  Josh wins half the time.  He's very shrewd. . .  And at this game, when he drew a card he could not move on, he said, "A whole lotta nothin'!") 

This is what "a good time" feels like for me.  I'm glad to say.

***

The other sign that this is "middle age" is that the frequency of my doing my mother's thing has been going way up.  To whit:  Our fridge was full of left-overs.  One serving of this, two of that.  Dishes that do not belong on the same palate. But food that should not be thrown away.  Food that didn't need to be cooked, only re-heated. 

That was lunch and dinner tonight:  A bit of this and that, heated, set on the table with the declaration, "None of this is going back into the fridge." 

Bryan surveyed the table and declared, "It's a smorgasborg, kids!" with great delight, and so they were delighted, too. 

Kind of nice, though, for variety, when I offer a bit of this and a bit of that--all these left-overs that may not go together, but go well enough.

How To Make Painting

First, see the need. Not as in “the need to create.” But as in “You need to hang something on that wall, but that wall gets direct sunlight, so either the wall stays empty or you keep the shades drawn all morning.” Or, option three: Paint a picture of your own and then it won’t matter if the sun fades it.


Go to the sale at Michael’s. Stretched cotton-canvasses are 50% off. You find the right aisle. The biggest one—the one you need—is three by four feet. Those numbers sound small. Before you, wrapped up, sitting on the shelf, daring you to buy it and actually put paint onto it, that canvass is massive.

Your mother is an artist. When you cast your memory back to your earliest years and let the sinker float to the bottom of your faintest recall, this is what you know about your mother. She was always making something. There was a book on her shelf titled The Courage to Create. You never read it, not even the dust jacket description.  For all you know, it was about procreation.  But that phrase. . . You’ve always held that with you. That it takes courage to create something.

Take a deep breath. Take that canvass off the shelf and stand it next to your cart.

Next aisle: paint. The oils are first, don’t even consider them. You have no idea what to do with oil paint, you would have to worry about it staining your floor because you plan to do your painting right there in your open family room where the sunlight that started this project is because you've always heard that artists "need good light."

Acrylics are down a few feet. Grade 3, for professionals. Grade 2, for hobbyists. Ah, Grade 1, for students, that’s all you need. You would pay for the best if you were planning to paint something stunning and worthy that your children would one day fight over. But that kind of investment—that kind of hope—is too much pressure.

Now for the colors. You arrive in this aisle with a plan. You will paint layers of color and then use a silver marker to write words over them because this lines up with your lifelong conviction that everything is better with words.

The art you already have in your home, like the government issued OWI posters that say “Keep Him Flying!” or “Strong in the strength of the Lord we who fight in the people’s cause will never stop until that cause is won” feature words. And the others are so realistic, they may as well come with a typed explanation of the artist’s point. Knowing that you are going to write something on top of what you paint is the only thing that gives you the courage to be standing here. And, you realize, that’s kind of cheating.

The colors. . . You like that periwinkle blue. And white, of course. And you’ll need black, that much you remember from your junior high art teacher.  You look over and see an older lady examining the oils, sighing in the same way you have been.

“They are more expensive than they used to be,” she says with a German accent. You talk with her. She used to paint, and is now getting back to it at the age of 82. You are not an artist, you explain to her. You just want to make a painting. She wants to know what you’re planning, she “oohs” and “ahhs” over your idea and makes you feel like you’re a little bit brilliant and that this might actually work out OK.

You don’t quite believe her. You say, “This canvass intimidates me.”

“Yes,” she nods. “I don’t know that I can take it up again, either.” You ask about this, learn that she was a hobbyist before, but she says this with a wry smile and you think she tried a show here and there.

“It takes courage to create,” you say. She grabs your forearm and nods vigorously, like it was the phrase she had been looking for.

What are the words you plan to write, she wants to know. You think of them. You get choked up. You can’t say them out loud right now. So you sum up, instead, “A scripture that meant so much to me in the past year,” she nods and smiles. This doesn’t weird her out. You explain about the breast cancer, that there were some verses from God’s word that helped you out of recovery and into the rest of your life.

This woman lost her sister to breast cancer. She tells you that you are too young to have had it. She dares to ask “Which one?” and looks at you, which makes you smile because only an old woman from the old world would be so bold.

You talk with her for a while longer and she remarks again that she might not paint after all. So you tell her that, as far as creative outlets go, you are actually a writer. Who’s never published anything. Because you’ve never submitted anything, ever, to be published. “But I finally did,” you tell her. “And it’s OK if they say ‘no’ because the important part was actually making the submission.”

She grips your arm again, nodding, again. “Good luck to us” she says.

After she leaves with her oils, you pick out a yellow because you know enough to mix your own secondary colors. And you take a silver as well. Because you are dying to know what silver paint mixed in would do to an ordinary color.



Find yourself on a Monday afternoon in a well-lit family room. The kids from next door are inside playing with your kids because the school districts gave them a snow day. The laundry is folded. Dishes done. You don’t know how long this will take, but it’s a good idea to start now because chunks of open time when the room is bright are not common.

You know there is a value pack of 25 brushes you bought for the children several months ago. Get those out. Their palettes are too small, though. Built for small paintings. You have 12 square feet to cover. A lot of paints to mix. The easel is downstairs and right next to it is a box of antiques your husband is staging up to bring to the auction house. In that box, find several metal trays that the Army mess hall used for meal time. They are big. Full of sections. Perfect.  Will he mind that you are using his antique mess hall trays for paint?  Probably not.  When it comes to allowing a woman a room of her own, your husband is Virginia's dream come true.

You have bowls of water ready. Soft cloths ready. You are even wearing slippers to keep your feet warm as you stand on the cold tile. Unwrap the 8 by 10 inch practice canvass you bought. Notice that the label says it is "treated."  Plastic off, you whiff a chemical you've never smelled before.  Huh.  Be glad they treated it for you because you certainly didn't know it needed treatment to begin with.

Well. It’s time. Squeeze paint. Mix it. Put it on the canvass. Get an idea of what colors belong there. See what silver does—ah, what silver does! Makes the color rich, makes it almost glow. Before the practice canvass is even done, you love this. You love putting paint onto stretched cotton.

Tear off the wrapper of the big canvass, the Real Deal, the Big Guy, The One. Paint it. Paint and mix colors and paint and paint and mix and paint with big sweeping motions and small dib-dabs and watch the colors do their own thing that you couldn’t have made them do if you tried but they just happened to be there and not here and even the canvass itself kind of does something, it’s so rich in texture. You can’t believe it. As you are painting and watching what it is doing and painting and hardly thinking of anything and

You hear, “What are you doing?”

It’s the neighbor girl. Smile. Keep painting. Say, “I’m pretty sure you can figure out what I’m doing.”

“Painting?”

Yeah.

Now all four children are by you. The neighbor girl wants to know why you’re painting. Your son wants to know what you’re painting. The neighbor boy wants to know if it’s the sky. Your daughter wants to know if you’re going to sell it.

Give answers: Because you want to paint. You can’t say. It could be. No, you’re going to hang it.

The boys go back to Legos. The girls ask if they can watch. Your mom always let you watch. It seems not to have harmed either of you. So you agree.

Your daughter and her friend narrate what you are doing. Every little thing—she’s using the little brush to mix, she’s cleaning that brush, she’s putting on the next color. Then they start offering suggestions and opinions. Tell them, “You can watch, but you can’t say anything.”

“Can we whisper?” your daughter asks.

Tell them, “You can whisper, but not to me.”

Keep going. Keep going until, about 40 minutes after you got the brushes out of your kids’ art supplies cabinet, you finish.

The boys come in. Your son declares that it is a beach. The neighbor boy, too. They are four and they need—very badly—for it to be something. Your daughter tries to make sense of it, too. Say, “A pretty good sign that a piece is abstract art is when the artist is not sure which end is up.”

The neighbor girl nods with approval at this. She has heard of abstract art before.



Clean up. Look at your painting. Consider it. There’s so much to take in, which is ridiculous, because it’s just layers of color. But you can’t help but gaze at it. Maybe that’s because it’s yours. Just as you are convinced that your children are the most gorgeous of all children on the planet.



Your silver markers wait for you. In betrayal of lifelong conviction, decide not to use them. Psalm 1, the one about you—

. . . Her delight is in the Word of the Lord, and on His law she meditates day and night
      She will be as a tree planted by streams of living water
      Whose leaf does not whither
      Which yields its fruit in season
      Whatever she does prospers.

Well.  No need to write it on that canvass.  This is your life now.
Is the painting any good? You have no way of gauging. You suspect, with near certainty, that it is not “good.” But the blessing in not knowing enough to know means that you can enjoy it. You don’t need to submit it to anyone, because you don’t want to be a painter. You just wanted a painting.  So you made one.

Sanibel Part II--or. . .uh. . .

Yikes!  Monday night! 

Our church is having a praise and prayer series/yearly kick-off/gathering time for several days in a row and I have been distracted in a deeply good way.

Brief word on that:  Whoever you are, do you hear from God?  The Creator of the entire universe knows every depth of your heart.  And He is not just mine to know. 

"Call to Me and I will answer you and tell you great and unsearchable things you do not know." 

That's a promise from God to every person who would lay down her pride and ask for the help of a Savior. 

Snapshots from Sanibel Part I

The unexpected part about our trip in mid-December was the weather.  The high in the Springs the day we flew down was higher than the high in Sanibel.  (Should that be "on Sanibel" because Sanibel is an island? . . .)

Most days, though, it got into the low 70's.  While this is colder than the usual, it felt great for us.  It was nice not to sweat AND to have temps high enough to enjoy the beach.  And, yes, the water was ice cold.  Since when does that deter a child from a beach?

***

The very bright side to this weather was that the same storm systems that ushered in the cold front also churned up the sea and washed thousands of shells from the deep to the shore.  Sea urchins.  Sea biscuits.  Coral-covered sea fans.  We walked to the beach our first afternoon there and were stunned at the bounty.

Before that day, though I'd been to Sanibel many times, I had never collected a really great shell by myself.  Gayl had boxes upon boxes of them already washed and bleached, and we would take some of hers home.  Her collection alone was a marvel:  How does one woman end up with 3 cubic yards of sea urchins? 

I now know the answer:  She goes to the beach after a big storm.  10,000 sea urchins died at the same time and got washed up.  I made a sampling in six different spots of this beach.  In sections of 9 square feet, the average number of sea urchins was 58! 

We gathered.  The kids were even more delighted than I was with each find.

On a day soon after, Gemma, Josh and I were walking up to the lighthouse on the shore when Joshua spotted a star fish.  I looked a lot closer.  He was right.  That sucker was hard to see because it was the same color as the sand.  We picked it up-it was about the size of my palm.  Small and cute and brilliantly designed.

Two minutes later, he spotted another.  And then another.  He has eyes like an eagle.

Then Gemma and I started spotting them, too.  It was as though Joshua had taught us what to look for.  But here was Gemma's emotional arc:

First--kind of a little jealous that her brother was finding these awesome star fish.

Second--absolutely thrilled that she could find them, too.

Third, and here is our human nature, summed up in her statement, "I want to find a really big one!"

How quickly treasure wears out.  And we didn't find any big ones.

***

I have mentioned that Gayl and Pedro hope to move soon.  They have been divesting themselves of Gayl's massive collection of antiques, collectibles and memorabilia because their new place won't have the room to store it. 

She is almost done with this process.  Their "basement" is first floor below their home that must sit on pilings because of hurricane codes.  So it's a 4 car garage, and half of that used to be full.  Now, she's down to one wall. 

Which prompted Gemma to say, "It's not any fun to go into Grandma's garage anymore." 

***

Pedro's atemoya tree was producing while we were there.  This is a Peruvian fruit he remembered from his childhood and tracked down here in the States where a California grower has developed a hybrid ideal for Florida. 

You won't find this fruit in stores, I imagine, because they would not ship well.  Bryan thought they were OK.  The kids liked them, but in small doses.  And I ate the heck out of 'em.  When ripe, they are soft enough to break in half with your hands.  Then you use a spoon to scoop out the flesh, which is white and with the texture of a mango.

It has big black seeds, beautiful as beads, that are easy to spit out.  And it tastes like nothing else I've ever tasted.  It's a citrus.  Kind of.  It's sweet.  Atemoya.  If you ever get the chance to eat one, eat it.  (Which is advice you would need if you ever met this fruit without an introduction.  Given only its outside appearance, eating it might not seem like a good idea.) 

***

Bryan went deep sea fishing our first Friday there.  I went with him back in 1998, before we were engaged, because I had this young, romantic notion that couples were supposed to share each other's past-times and Bryan loves to fish. 

About 36 minutes into our trip aboard the "Bobby B," I threw up and continued to do so until I ran out of gas and fell asleep in the door jam of the boat.  My afternoon was better as I was empty and the water was calmer.  I spent it sitting on the captain's deck, where I asked Bobby B to tell me his sea stories.  He had quite a few.  I'm pretty sure that some of them included drug use that he did not mention.

Since then, I have not gone out.  But Bryan tries to each time we visit and each time, he hardly catches a thing.  It's not because he's a "bad" fisherman.  Give me a break.  You drop the bait down where the captain has parked the boat and you hope that something bites the hook.  It's not like he's tying his own flies. . .

This time, Bryan went out and everyone on the boat caught the legal limit.  He came home with 3 big ziplock bags full of grouper and snapper. (The crew cleaned the fish for him.) 

And, for the first time in my life, I ate an entire meal of fish.  Twice, actually!  The fish was so fresh, it didn't taste like fish.  It just had a texture and tasted like whatever spices Gayl had used for the dish.  So, in this sense, it was delicious.

***

We took the kids out one night to see all the Christmas lights on the island.  The business go all out.  But the best display of all was by the Sanibel Community Church that had decked out their entire courtyard and all their palm trees and hung a beautiful sign, 'Wise Men Seek Him' by their beautiful, huge nativity. . . I had an easy time imagining how much Jesus enjoyed their decorations.

We drove into the parking lot so the kids could have a good long look and Joshua exclaimed, "I want to be a church!!"

Why?...

"So then I could be all lighted up!"

***

Another from Joshua:

What is your favorite Christmas song?

"I Wish I Married Christmas." 

***

And another, when we told the kids we'd be going to low tide.  (That is, when the tide is low, low, low, we can walk all the way to the second sand bar.)

"We're waking up early tomorrow to go to low tide,"  Byran said.

Josh asked, "Is there ice cream there?" 

***

We went to the Farmers' market on Sunday morning.  It was the kind I like--e.g. some food grown locally, several merchants selling tasty things in small quantities so we could get a little of this and a little of that--like an amazing wheat bread, a small bag of figs (which the kids had never tried) and, best of all, a wensleydale and cranberry cheese.

Wow, did I ever enjoy that cheese.  Had never had wensleydale before, but Wallace mentions it in one of the Wallace & Grommit movies, so I seized the opportunity to try it. 

The whole experience demonstrated to me how much I like cheese.  Since getting home, I've tried a new one each week from the commissary cold case--a safe bet like Gouda, an unknown like "Blarney," which I have liked.  Hoorah for cheese.

***

We were to fly home on Christmas Day, but our flight was cancelled due to the snow in Atlanta.  3 extra days there!  No complaints here. . .   Bryan had to leave on Monday, the earliest possible, to get back to work.  But my flying alone with the kids is no problem.  They are such pros at travelling. 

(When we boarded this flight, on which we'd gotten the last 3 seats, they saw that we were in the very, very last row.  I was thinking, "Sigh. . . it's going to be hard to get off this plane in time to make our connections."

They were thinking, and saying, "Hooray!  We'll get our drinks from the drink cart first!")

On that Monday, then, Bryan left first thing and the weather had turned cold--down to the mid-50's.  No beach.

I spoke to my kids in my "Attention!  Announcement!  Plans for the Day!" voice.  They know this voice.  They listen attentively when I use it.

"Did you know that when I was a child, my mommy didn't drive?  That's right--Grandma Anne doesn't drive cars.  She never has.  So how did we get places when we wanted to do things?"

Their eyes narrowed.

"We walked," I said. "Now let's get our sweaters.  Off we go."

And off we went.  I love walking.  Getting from here to there.  Or just taking a long walk.  One of the things I loved most about our time in Korea was that I walked nearly everywhere on post, pushing Gemma along in her stroller.  I hardly ever walk outdoors here in Colorado.  How much sense does that make?

I want my kids to appreciate walking, too.  Especially when they have a whole day to spend on nothing in particular. They seemed to sense that it was an adventure.  They knew I planned to call Pedro and ask him to come pick us up when we had gotten "there," and there was something about not having to walk back that made the afternoon spill out in front of us with ripe potential.

Early on, Joshua found a stick of sorts.  It looked almost woven, with pine-cone-like leaves closed in all around it, running its full length.  It was amazing.  He held onto it.

We stopped on a bridge and looked out from there for a while.  We stopped for lunch a little over a mile from the house, at the Lazy Flamingo.  Soon after leaving, I realized we'd left Joshua's stick on the table and we rushed back for it, but they'd already cleared our mess. 

"Did you come back for your Frisbees?"  The waitress wanted to know.  The kids' meals come served in them.

"No," I said, "We came back for his stick."

"A stick?"

I started telling her all about it, trying to describe it, not because I thought she would say, "Oh that?  I kept it for myself, but now that I know it's yours. . ."  I just wanted her to know that it really was an extraordinary stick and that we weren't crazy to come back for it.

I tried to console Josh.  "I'm sure there are more.  We'll look for one the whole time we're walking."  We found several other remarkable specimens--a weed that looks like a starfish, these leaves that are velvety and softer than even lambs ears--but no woven stick. 

We walked into the trailer park (yes! on Sanibel Island!) where they keep exotic birds and a few lemurs one of whom Gemma and Joshua called "King Julian."  (Of course they did.)

By the time we got to the end of our walk--a little shop at Periwinkle Place shopping center where Bryan needed me to get 2 more gifts for his office people--we had not found another woven stick. 

Pedro and Gayl came and got us.  According to the car odometer (which did not measure our foray into the trailer park), we had walked 3.3 miles. 

We told them all about our adventure, including the stick.  Gayl found what we were describing in a book of trees native to Florida, and she happened to know where one such tree was growing.

The next day, after we were done packing but long before we had to leave for the airport, she drew a treasure map for us to find that tree.  It was in the neighborhood and Gemma navigated for us.  There it was!  A Florida North Pine (maybe that's not the right name. . . I would check, but it's 2 AM Sanibel time as I write).  I've never seen any tree like this one.  It's technically not a pine because it's. . .green stuff is not technically a needle.  Not a leaf, either.  It's boughs are made of these woven sticks, attached the same way needles are.  They grow long and beautiful and the kids were again astounded by the bounty. 

***

So, this trip was delightful.  Simple.  The looking and finding didn't happen in Grandma's garage this time.  With a beach and a few extra days and good legs to walk on, it didn't need to.

***

There are a few more snapshots to share, but they will keep for next week.  Here's a hint about them: Amy and Pedro Attend Fitness Class Together.

Yes, Pedro.  The guy who is 84 years old. . . 

A New Year

What are you going to call it? "Two thousand eleven" or "Twenty-Eleven"? 

I'm going with Twenty-Eleven, because a) I said Twenty-Ten all of last year and b) I never once said One thousand nine hundred ninety-nine.

As for the decade between, I was fond of "Aught" as in, Gemma was born in "Aught-Three."

As for our weekend?  I say: Forget Spring Cleaning.  What you need to do is re-arrange a lot of furniture and change the entire function of a few of your spaces.  This is what we tried, and 72 hours later, there are several corners that have been vacuumed for the first time in, well. . .the point is that we've accomplished a lot.

I'm not sure what that means to Bryan.  In a practical sense, it means we finally decided how to use our basement space and our office space and so furniture is finally serving the right purpose in the right place.  It is impossible to describe how pleased this makes me.  We spend a lot of time in this house.  We do a lot here.  It feels great to know that we are using this space well.

Does Bryan feel this, too?  As recently as the Fall of Aught-Nine, when Sister #1 was here to help, the basement was to be/was already in part 'Bryan's Room.'  Including huge display cases full of various combat helmets.  We even asked Sister #1 for her opinion as to what would look nice hanging where--the ink sketch of the panzer launching shells over there or here?  The sign written in French, translated, "Place of Lt. Duplume, killed by the Germans, 1903-1944" on this wall or that one? 

By the following Spring, I had asked Bryan if he would move out of the basement and make way for a homeschool and kids-toys space.  To his credit, he said, "Sure."  And it's not because he couldn't say "no" to cancer--this was after most of the treatment was finished.  He gave up his man-cave because that's the kind of sacrificing guy he is. 

Is he as pleased as I that our home better-ordered?  His answer: "I'm pleased that you're pleased."

When he goes to his office, his cubicle can look exactly as he wants it to.

Now, a couple months shy of a year later, we have finished the last stage of moving stuff.  The kids asked me, when I began this last stage on Friday, "Why are you changing those?"  (e.g. moving the trunk from the foot of our bed downstairs in exhcanging for two small tables that are now upstairs) and I said, "Because I'm stir crazy!"

"What's that?"

"It's what I am right now!"

Why so ready for change?  I've been trying to put my finger on it.

A few specific notes on our labors--

In some ways, Bryan is a Man of Action living the life of a Man with a Wife and Kids.  Are all men like this?  I find it slips out when he sets about tasks that pose a physical challenge.  (For Bryan, these are not "tasks."  As in, twenty minutes ago when we came upstairs to turn it for the night, he said, "I've shut down basement operations for the day.") 

So, yes, the "slipping out" -- as in, when he was reaching under the stair railing to unscrew it and make way for the heavy top of the postal sorting table we were wrestling to the basement, he said, to the rail, I presume, "Come on, baby. . ."  Like an action hero trying to finesse a hot wire in order to make a last second escape.  Only it was a railing.  And two screws.  And all the time he needed. . .

Another example:  We were about to start moving the bottom half of that same postal sorting table.  It was crazy heavy.  Cumbersome, of course.  We knew it would be tricky to wind it all the way down.  As we put hands on to life it, Bryan said, "OK, boys and girls, let's rock and roll." 

I think all of this is adorable. 

Today included switching out some bookshelves in Joshua's room. I found on his shelf, tucked to the side, The Pied Piper of Hamelin.  Do you know this whole story? 

The piper leads the rats away to drown in the river, sure.  But did you know that goes to the mayor to collect the payment that had been agreed upon and that the mayor would not pay up?  The piper warned him, but the mayor wouldn't--the rats were dead and gone, why should he? 

So the piper played again and lead all the children of the village out, into the hills, through a mysterious door in a mountain, which then shut behind them.  None of those parents ever saw their children again.

How's that for a fairy tale?

Gemma and Joshua were suitably horrified.  Not quite freaked out.  But definitely uneasy.  Josh especially. 

And yet, here I find the book in its own special space on his shelf (when there are lots of other places we keep books that he could have ditched it).  It was as though he found comfort in keeping an eye on the thing that told about what would be most horrible. 

My own shelves?  Yes, I've been sorting like crazy.  Pitching a lot.  Re-organizing.  I came across the booklets and pamphlets about chemotherapy, and how to love the person who's doing chemotheraphy, and Herceptin, and Radiation, and. . .all of it.  I put it into a banker's box instead of pitching it, telling myself that one day (soon, I think) I will try to write a book about this, and I will want these patient "resources" to make fun of.  I added to the box the giant bag of cards and notes and letters so many sent to me.  The pictures Mom drew for the recovery after my first surgery that illustrated for the kids "Mommy's sleeping" (for my door) and "Hugs This Way" (for the trunk at the foot of my bed, that I have just swapped out for two small tables) that directed them to approach me on the side that wasn't healing.  I put my wigs into the box.  My hats, too, except for the 2 baseball caps my aunt bought for me that I like so much. 

The lid barely fit.

Gemma saw this box and asked what it was.  Why I was saving those books.  I couldn't answer her without choking up.  Done with it, yes.  But, like that book Josh put aside on his shelf, there's something about this box that needs a spot in our storage closet, right where I know it is. 

Happy New Year.

A Merry New Christmas

An American-Christian’s Christmas. It’s a tricky one. I don’t have to rehearse the litany of Christmas-as-related-to-materialism issues for you. You are living with them, too. You make your peace with them as you see fit.




The problem is that Bryan and I didn’t feel a lot of peace with these issues. We had this ideal of celebrating Christmas as the birth of the Savior of the world, the day God came down to pitch His tent among us. But in practice, we were training up our kids to look forward to the presents. We could say, “Think about Jesus, Think about Jesus, Happy Birthday Jesus!” all we wanted. But, come on, when they know that Christmas is The Day they open Presents, are these children really supposed to care that much about Jesus?



In practice, we were teaching them to say, “I love Jesus’ birthday because I get lots of presents!”



As for my part: so much energy spent trying and hoping for a gift that would please and delight them and make “this year’s” Christmas one they would “never forget.” Maybe Bryan didn’t feel that way about it, but something about the mother inside me felt that way. And so built into the celebration was also the expectation that our delight would be or could be in the presents.



We’ve had only 3 Christmases, really, where we had children old enough to understand the whole “wake up and open presents” thing. The first two, there was a sense of let down in each one. Not in the moment, of course. In the moment, it was fun. But before even just one day was over, the happiness from those gifts had worn out. Well, duh, Amy. Stuff doesn’t fulfill you and it won’t fulfill your kids, either.



The third Christmas, I only remember being glad to have a day off from radiation.



I entered this Christmas season with a deep sense of foreboding. Gemma just turned 7. Time was running out to set a new course for our family. Enter a new Christmas.



The new Christmas isn’t about not getting any presents. Presents are fun. I like getting them. I really like giving them. But Bryan and I also had to take a hard look at our kids’ lives as compared to how we grew up.



When we were children, we got gifts on our birthdays and on Christmas. And. . .that was kind of it.



Gemma and Joshua? Sheesh! They get stuff all the time! They get goodie bags from birthday parties. They get stuff from AWANA throughout the year. They get souvenirs when we travel, which is a great deal more than Bryan and I traveled at their age. They get souvenirs when Bryan or I travel. They get gifts when people visit us. And when grandparents come. And they get things when we find it for pennies on the dollar at garage sales and auctions.



And this is all just extra stuff! When it comes to supplying their physical needs, we give them everything right when they need it.



Believe me: there is no shortage of toys and craft materials and, and, and. . . We are flush with stuff. There is more stuff in their future, throughout the whole year. It really is OK that Christmas is not going to be another day on which they open presents for themselves.



And a new Christmas doesn’t even mean no gifts at all. There are other people in our kids’ lives who wanted to give them gifts. Bryan and I didn’t tell the kids, “You won’t get gifts from us, but don’t worry, because so and so will send you something.”



But others did send them or give them something. Gemma and Joshua opened these gifts early, throughout the season of advent, and it seemed to me as though they enjoyed the presents even more because they were surprised by them, and because they were spaced out.



All the while, Christmas was still coming. Would this be the year our Christmas would really be a celebration of Jesus’ birthday? Because, as Bryan and I see it, if Christmas really is about Jesus, then it’s pretty clear whom the gifts should be for.



I was hesitant about suggesting a new Christmas to the kids. Mostly, I did not want to create any resentment in them towards Jesus. As in, “My parents are Jesus freaks, so we don’t get to have any fun.”



But the Holy Spirit suggested to me, “Don’t underestimate their compassion.”



So one day, a few weeks before Thanksgiving, I sat down with Gemma and Joshua and the Samaritan’s Purse “gift catalog.” This is an outstanding organization. They work in the poorest parts of the world, caring for people in the name of Jesus. The gift catalog gives a description of the things we can give a poor family simply by giving American dollars to Samaritan’s Purse: a water filtration unit that lasts for a lifetime ($100), a flock of chickens ($14), education to rescue a woman from exploitation by giving her a trade (a mere $70...)



After perusing this catalog, I said to the children, “Mommy and Daddy spend a certain amount of money on Christmas presents each year. What if we used that money to buy things for the families like we see in this catalog?”



Do you know what Joshua’s reaction was? He shrugged. He’s only 4. There’s nothing in a 4 year old that looks forward to Christmas morning as an old school Christmas morning.



Do you know what Gemma’s reaction was? Her eyes got big and she smiled a huge smile and said, “Can we give them chickens?!?”



So that was our plan as Christmas approached. We weren’t sure what they would think when the day actually arrived.



Then it came. We woke up. Had breakfast. And I am telling you the truth: There was not one scintilla of “She looked around, saw there were no gifts, then remembered, and her shoulders slumped a little but at least she didn’t complain.”



No mention of opening presents at all!



The four of us sat on the couch with a dollar amount written on some paper. Then we shopped for Christmas gifts and subtracted the amount as we went. Water filtration units. (My choice) Two dairy goats. (An idea we all liked.) A fruit tree. (In honor of Papa Pedro.) A stocked fishing pond. (Bryan’s choice.) Chickens. (Gemma, of course.) Honey bees. (Joshua’s idea.) Clothing and shoes. Soccer balls and other sporting equipment. (The children both insisted.) And several mosquito nets to protect babies and small children from malaria.



Then we sang “Happy Birthday” to Jesus and blew out candles for him. (Technically, this was an electric candelabra Grandma Gayl had up, and Josh unplugged it at the right moment.)



And so a New Christmas was born. It’s beautiful. I’m already looking forward to it next year.

Gingerbread

What is it about gingerbread houses that I like so much?

Long time readers know that each year, we host a house decorating party.  Bryan bakes all the pieces.  I whip up the icing and assemble the structures.  Last year, in a fit of madness, we made trains--an engine for each family and a box car for each child.  In the recovery period after chemotherapy and before radiation, it somehow felt like the normal thing to do.  In fact, we did it twice: one party for our home school co-op families, and one party for our cul-de-sac.

This year, we made a house for each child and a country chapel for each mother.  Why do I enjoy the whole thing so much?  I think I've put my finger on it:  It's a party, yes, I know about that part.  Assembling mass quantities of houses is a problem-solving excursion.  I like figuring out how to get not just 1, but 15 roofs to dry right without having to hold them in place. 

But most of all, gingerbread houses combine a practical challenge with the ultimate whimsical goal.  On the practical side: How can I make  my house look nice, with a design that somehow makes sense while on the other side, I know I am constructing something that makes no sense whatsoever.

A gingerbread house?

What would a prospective home buyer have to say?  "It's nice.  Good neighborhood.  Good square footage.  I just kind of wish they had downgraded from peanut m-n-m shingles to regular and then used the cost savings to install indoor plumbing." 

Or: "I love how the landscaping looks.  But I don't think the Oreo step-stones could withstand a hard winter freeze and I'm afraid the candy canes would attract deer." 

The kids have their own view of it.  The first year we did a neighborhood party, Gemma had just turned 4 and Josh was about 18 months.  We decorated one house together and proudly put it on our kitchen island for display and nibbling. 

Gemma, Bryan and I were in the family room when we heard an explosive, disastrous smash in the kitchen. We ran there to find that Josh had climbed up, tried to pry a piece loose and brought the whole thing tumbling down to the tile floor where he now sat, eating part of the wreckage, not noticing that we'd all rushed over to him.

Gemma wailed at the sight.  Her house!  Her beautiful house!

Then she looked down at Joshua and despite her anguish, did the math.  She, too, joined him in gathering the carnage and eating it, though she was crying the whole time.

Bryan and I were laughing and laughing.  And taking pictures.  I just finished putting that page into the scrapbook.  (Do you hear that, Sister #2?  I am a full 3 years behind!!) 

Our current houses and chapel will sit undisturbed for a while starting Wednesday, when we leave for Florida to spend Christmas with Bryan's parents.  This will very likely be their last Christmas in their island home.  For several reasons, it is time for them to transition into a planned retirement community that is just across the bridge, on the mainland.  They are both in excellent health, so at least the move is not shaded with a twilight of decline.  And the place they plan to move to is beautiful.  A robust social life awaits them.  But it's a change, and probably not one that is part of their ideal world. 

Isn't that something, though, to have lived for 14 years on an island, just a block from the ocean?  Their house is so pretty, a two bedroom, open floor plan, jewel box of a home, with a great big deck Gemma likes to sit on in the mornings when she's there, eating Papa Pedro's exotic fruit and tossing the pits and seeds over the railing.  And that fruit!  Their entire lot is covered with either short ground cover, or a plant that produces something edible, including many kinds of mangoes, abajacava, bananas and a bunch of fruits I'd never heard of before Pedro planted them. 

It is a short walk from there to the ice cream store, a short bike ride from there to the light house, a short drive anywhere around an island that is about 12 miles long.  Bryan and I think of it as the place where we fell in love, during the visit when I was first meeting his parents.  (He called it "checkpoint zulu" because it was the last point of approval to get before the engagement.) 

We live in a place of beautiful skies that rise and set against mountains.  But they don't compare to a Florida sky, rising and setting in extremes upon a Gulf.  Their home, and the place where it sits, seems like its own little fantasy that we step into (during winter months, and not being there in the summer is an important part of the fantasy).  Really, with just a couple pieces of licorice thrown onto the roof and some Gummie Bears iced around the doorway, it would be a whimsical dream come true. 

B, G and J Day: Toppers

B:

The island in our kitchen is undersized.  There are at least 9 square feet on the side of it that need to be filled to keep the space from seeming awkward.  Right now, those feet are filled with a child-sized table, which has been of some use to us.

But now the kids are bigger, and they do their crafts and art work on the big kitchen table, and with increasing frequency, the kids have some kind of project going on the kitchen table when dinner approaches.

Ah, wouldn't it be nice to have a bigger island with a breakfast bar and tall stools so that we would have an additional place to eat meals if and when projects are launched on our table?

So began a few months of trying to trouble shoot and problem solve.  At one point, the idea got as big as replacing the entire island, which meant replacing all the flooring on our main level and also replacing all our counter tops.  We didn't want to go that big, but when it comes to home improvements, sometimes a chain reaction triggers.

The problem with simply replacing the top of our existing island with a bigger top than is already there is that it would be stupidly expensive to match the Formica of our other counters, a piece of granite would look ridiculous and a big ole slab of butcher's block came with an insane price tag. 

What. To. Do. . .  

We were the auction house on Friday to preview a set of shelves for our basement when I saw a huge desk with a beautiful oak top.  I mentioned to Bryan, "How about this for the top of our island?" 

He didn't scoff at me, per se.  But he shot me a certain look.  A certain purist, this-is-a-desk-and-who-takes-apart-a-perfectly-good-desk-except-those-who-do-not-properly-respect-furniture? look. 

Well, then. 

Not two hours later, we were at a furniture store, looking for a counter-height table that might work.  If we could find one the same width as the island, we could make the two abut, right? 

No such table at that store.  Nor anywhere on-line.

But I got to talking with the salesman about having a top custom made for the island from one of their furniture manufacturers.  Bryan caught the end of this discussion, knew that the salesman would look into it for me, and said, once we got to the car, "Well if you're serious about that idea, I think that desk at the auction would work."

Willing to take a desk apart, are you?

"Well. . . it's not an antique." 

He got the desk top (and the desk that is attached to it) for $20.  I'm fairly certain this is cheaper than the custom-ordered table top quote will be. 

G:

The kids and I went to a community production of Robin Hood the other day.  It was put on by the Academy of Children's Theater.  The production was excellent.  The script was a disaster, which means the play itself could not be great.  But still:  Good direction, quality performances.  It was impressive.

Gemma has seen other plays, you know.  And has never said much about them.  This time, with such a boring, talk-heavy, plot-less story unfolding on stage--one that was hard for me to understand, let alone Gemma--I thought I might have actually damaged any enthusiasm she might have one day for performance.

Instead, she said on the ride home, "That lady mentioned there are acting classes for children 6-9 and I am 7, so can I do that class?"

Huh! 

She brought it up again later, on her own, so I asked her why she would be interested in trying it.  She said, "I could learn new things and find out what acting is all about and make new friends." 

Huh!

So I signed her up.  Knowing how to speak in front of an audience, knowing how to take direction, knowing how to work with a cast to create a finished project--these are all really good Life Skills I'm glad to encourage.  Being in plays and musicals was one of the highest highlights of my adolescent years.  If Gemma tries it and likes it, I will drive her to as many rehearsals as she needs to attend.

She starts in January.

J:

Speaking of performances, our co-op had "Presentation Day" at which each child prepared and delivered an oral presentation on a bunch of different topics related to Colorado history.  It was amazing.  All these kids did a really, really super job.

In the middle of them, Joshua curled up on a bean bag chair to watch.  This was fine, except that he kept squishing his feet in and out, making the beans in the bag crunch.  The noise was distracting.  And rude.

I asked him to stop and he didn't.  It could have been that he didn't realize the noise he was making.  Or it could have been that he was just being a twit.  In any case, I made him leave the bean bag and come sit next to me on the couch.  This ticked him off. I had to bring him upstairs so the show could go on without us.

He eventually collected himself.  He eventually rejoined us.  The rest of the time with our friends was just fine.

Later that night, I was hugging him and I said, "We had kind of a hard day today earlier, didn't we?"

Josh said, "Yes." 

"Do you remember why it was hard?"

He said, "Yes, you made me cry when you wouldn't let me sit on that bean bag."

Hmm. . . 

"I didn't 'make you cry,' Josh.  I just told you that you couldn't sit there because you were making a distracting noise."

Hug continues.  Nothing is said.

But my point was not yet made.  "Josh," I began, gently, "Maybe today would have been easier if you had just obeyed Mommy right away." 

Now, I'm about to punctuate his answer in just the way necessary to communicate his exact tone:

He backed up from the hug, looked right at me and said, "Maybe it would have been 'easier' if you had just let me sit on the bean bag chair."

I got to tell you: I so admire his mental acuity for language. Only 4 1/2!!!!  And yet, his powers cannot be used for good unless we also train him up to be virtuous and to walk in fear of the Lord.  So I laughed.  Bryan heard all this and laughed.  And then the discussion continued. . .

Another related story:

One morning this week, Josh had been pushing the envelope with me.  You know how kids do that.  I called him on it, told him that just one more little thing would get a spank.  Now, please get dressed, both of you.

They were upstairs in the bathroom when I heard Gemma shriek.  A minute passed.  Another shriek.

"What is going on?"  I called.

Gemma reported, "Josh held the toothpaste cap up to the water and it sprayed water all over!"

Several minutes of drama and discussion ensued, in which we determined that he did it twice, that the first time was an accident, but that he chose to do it the second time on purpose.  And I spanked him. 

After a spank, my children need to tell me (or Daddy) that they are sorry, and we tell them that we forgive them, that God forgives them, that we love them so much, and we hug and the whole issue is completed.

But Josh wouldn't say he was sorry.  He kept clinging to this defense that "it was an accident," though I had already shown him that if he did it twice, it could not have been "an accident."

I sent him to his room to have some time to calm down and collect himself.

A few minutes later, he was out: calm and collected. 

"Hey, Josh," I said, and patted the couch next to me.  He sat there.  I said, "Are you sorry you sprayed the water the second time?"

And he said, "The water didn't get into the bathtub."

What?

"Gemma said the water went 'all over' but it didn't go into the bathtub.  So it didn't go 'all over.'"

I laughed and laughed and laughed.  Was I not supposed to?  I couldn't help it. . .

Finally, I explained what the phrase "all over" means.

To which he said, "But the tub is in the bathroom, so the water didn't go all over."

Heh heh.  Here's the difference between Joshua as a child and Amy as a child:  When I marshalled a defense like this--and I did it often--the people responding  to me were only ever irritated that I was "splitting hairs" (Mom liked that phrase) or "bickering," or something else of equal annoyance.  ("Oh, Amy! You always have to have the last word!") (No, you could have had the last word, so long as it had been "I see your point," or, even better, "You're right.")

When Joshua says these things to me, he is saying them to someone who loves a good argument!  Who loves to parse words!  Who is not the least bit bothered to have to present an argument of my own for why his does not work.  I can't wait to see this blossom in him.  I can't wait to help him develop and hone his skills in rhetoric and logic

And poor, Joshua.  He doesn't know that as these arguments arise,  he's never going to win with me anytime soon.  He is so out-gunned.

Bring it on, little boy!  I am delighted with you.  I am delighted to know that you spent your time in your room thinking of an argument to respond with.  (Of course, in terms of character, it's not great that he didn't want to take responsibility for his mistake, but we dealt with that.)  I am delighted that you sense the power of words and what they can be used for.

And one day, when you do win an argument with me, I am going to tell everyone all about it.

Turkey Triage

Some excerpts from the past week:

Gemma and Joshua wrapped up their swim lessons for November.  Gemma now knows the 4 major strokes, though they are far from perfected.  She seems not to know that swimming lengths of the pool is "work."  It's all one giant, fun time for her.

Josh, too.  Though he has not been told to swim lengths yet.  Because of his age, he "should" have been placed in the pre-levels.  But because of his progress this summer, I signed him up for the Big Kid league.  They didn't ask for his birthday, and I didn't tell.  I was walking by him at one point and tried to catch his eye just so I could wave.  He, instead, was fascinating by something in the water (perhaps on the pool floor?) and after a few seconds of staring, just stuck his whole face in to get a better look, as though the water were no barrier at all. 

So fun to see.  I'm still not as comfortable as that.  But my technique must be improving because I can swim longer now.

***

Gemma was the Special Student at her program at school (where she goes for one full day a week--it is called the Home School Academy and she loves being part of her K-1 class of 10 students). 

Being the Special Student required that she make a poster about herself and present it to the class.  The temptation to intervene and "improve" her poster was great.  But I held off.  I really did.  My only contribution was getting her the photographs and supplies she wanted and making sure she had spelled everything correctly.

Her teacher told me she did a great job, and that she now knew "everything" there was to know about Sparks.  (This is Gemma's AWANA club.)  This I found heartening.  Her scripture-memory club was the one thing she was most excited about sharing!

She also included a pink ribbon and told, so she told me, the class that her mom is a "breast cancer champion."  Interesting. Of all things to say about me. . . 

***

Joshua does not know his ABC's. He can't identify most of the letters. He has no interest in learning.

This does not worry me.  You don't need to write in words of comfort and assurance about how he is a boy and how boys develop verbal skills later et al.  Truly:  I am not worried.  If he ends up being one of these kids who does not read until he is 12 years old, that's fine.  That's one of the advantages of home schooling.  He (and Gemma, for that matter) are not on any institution's time table.

But I still try.  I surround him with all the same tools of literacy I surrounded Gemma with.  When his letter-switch flips on, there will be letters available to him.

So, the other day, when he finished up his table work during our "school" time, and asked to play a game out of my home school cabinet, I pulled out one he had not yet seen.  The Leap Frog Fridge Phonics game. 

It was inside a non-descript box, waiting for him.  This game is clever.  It includes one big piece that plays the ABC song and 26 additional letter pieces. You put one into the big piece, and a song plays that is specific to each letter and the sound(s) it makes.  Genius!

I told Josh, "This is a special game you haven't seen yet.  But it's noisy."  He grinned.  "So you can't play it down here while we are still working.  You can wait until we go upstairs together, or you can go upstairs to discover by yourself right now."

He took the box and was off.

Clump clunk, up the stairs.  Rustle bang.  Music plays.  Rustle bang.  A little more music.  Rustle clunk. Then clum clunk, back down the stairs.

He appeared with a scowl.  A piercing scowl, that is, aimed straight at me as though I were guilty of a trick that was very much unappreciated.  "This," he announced, plunking the box on the table, "Is the ABC's!"

Can't blame a Mom for trying.

***

We spent Thanksgiving in Hastings, Nebraska, with my brother and his family.  Bryan baked pumpkin pies the few days before.  He makes his own crusts, and culls his own pumpkin mush from his own garden pumpkins.  So this pie-making evolution is one that spans a few months.

He finished late Tuesday night and gave me some directions as he came to bed, for what he needed me to do the next morning with the pies. 

The conversation that night went something like this:

(I was already reading my book.  Bryan enters.)

B:  Can you do something for me tomorrow?

A!: Uh huh.

B: Can you ________(insert white noise here because, come on, after 11 years of marriage, doesn't he kind of know that once I'm reading in bed, I am no longer listening to anyone else?  I'm done.  Done with the day.  Done being nice to other people.  Done practicing good manners.  I am now in the "going to sleep" process, which, for me, includes at least a solid 45 minutes of reading before the light goes out.  I'm not going to apologize for that.  Bryan has his own "going to sleep" process, too.  His only lasts about 16 seconds from the time he gets into bed to the moment he is asleep, but it's still a process.  And I don't interrupt it with lengthy instructions for the next day's details.)______ for me?

A!: Yeah.

The next morning, I came downstairs to find pies scattered all over the counter tops, island, and inside the fridge. 

I called him at work.  "Good morning, Baby Duck," I began.  "Uh. . .what am I supposed to do with these pies, again?" 

Wrap them, now that they've cooled.  Freeze several in the outside deep freeze.  Prepare some to be brought to Hastings.  "And those little ones," he said -- oh yes, the little ones, because he has several individual, personal-size pie tins -- "I thought we could bring with us on the road."

"On the road?"  I asked.

"Yeah," he clarified, "As little pie snacks." 

Pie snack.   This phrase tickles me.  Pie snack. I couldn't get over it.  I still can't. 

Later that afternoon, as we loaded into our sedan for the 7 hour drive, Joshua saw the pie snacks going into the cooler.  "Is that a snack for us?" he asked, with great optimism.

"Yes," his father replied.  "It is an exquisitely delicious pie snack for us." 

And this was funny, too.  That word exquisite.  Have you ever heard it used naturally in a real-life context that does NOT include a reference to fine jewelry or art?

Exquisite.

Go ahead.  Try to use that word today in normal conversation and see if the person you speak it to doesn't trip over it. 

***

Thanksgiving was a delight.  John had cooked the turkey the day before, and he and Bryan prepared all the side dishes the day of, so it was a logistically relaxed kitchen.  The kids played together all day.  Adults chatted and caught up with each other around tasty appetizers and wine and, frankly, too many cups of iced coffee rounded off by Caribbean Cinnamon creamer.  I may be brunette, by I like my coffee blond. . .

Are there certain people in your life you like to make laugh?  In some crowds, I don't try for too much humor.  Maybe these are crowds that have already demonstrated an unwillingness to laugh (at me, anyway) or they are crowds that already have a very funny person in them and I like to be among those laughing.  I realize that I really like to laugh with my brother and sister-in-law and to make them laugh, too. 

If you are this type of personality, you'll know that it's not anything you try for.  Trying is the surest way to be not funny.  There is just a certain chemistry in the air that encourages you to say stuff.  Stuff you might not say if you were to think it through first.

Like, when we were sitting around at dessert time having a lively discussion with family and a few others guests who had dropped by and, suddenly, the door was opened to another guest: Fr. Walsh.  And I said to my brother, with a fake scowl, "Hey!  Who ordered the priest?" 

Not that the priest heard me. 

Later that night, after the guests had gone, 6 of us remained around the kitchen table to play a family favorite: The Questions Game.  I won't describe it for you. . . but it requires only pen, paper, and people and I have never not had a great time playing it. 

Part of the fun is that people can either go for the laugh or go for the win (sometimes they can do both. . .) and that night, John went for the humor.  I laughed so hard, again and again--the put your head on the table, shoulder-shaking, tear-streaming, gut-busting laughter that can never be foreseen.  It just shows up.  When we're lucky. 

The next day, the upper part of my abs ached.  It was an exquisite pain. 

***

One guest there was an old lady.  (Am I supposed to say "older"?  Of course she was "older."  50 is "older" to me.  This lady was old.  In anybody's book.)

She was a former student of John's, from his memoir writing class.  Over a year ago, through a tragic yet petty set of mis-steps, a stack of her writing at least 6 inches thick got thrown away.  She had no copies of it. 

Somehow, this got mentioned to someone who mentioned it to Susan who told John and though he had thrown away the final projects of all his others students (as all teachers do--what?  are we supposed to hang on to everyone else's work???) he had saved this woman's. 

This Thanksgiving, she and her husband came by to say "hello" and to collect an inch of her work back from what she had lost. 

Her husband explained that she liked to write, that she specialized in capturing all her family and personal stories for posterity, but that without a class that demanded homework, she would never sit down and actually do it. 

I could relate.  (Though I'll tell you: What does this woman have going on in her life that she can't "make time" to write?  Geez.  I implore all of you to remind me once my nest is empty: Amy!  Get to work!)  So I shared with them how I keep this blog, how there are a few people who e-mail me to tell me I'm a lazy slacker if and when I miss my Sunday deadline, how this keeps me honest.  More honest than I'd be otherwise, that is.

They both looked at me blankly.  "We don't do computers," the husband said.  I'd gathered this.  The woman's final project was all hand-written. 

Still.  Blogspot is very easy technology. . .

He also commented that at my young age, I'm "just at the beginning," and "what do you even have to write about?" 

Ah, I smiled.  You have a point there, sir. . .


***

Gemma turned 7 last Tuesday.  We gave her a birthday present and we ate at IHOP and her friend next door gave her a book titled Gemma the Gymnastics Fairy, which of course shocked us all because Gemma is not a popular name in America.  But other than this, we delayed our celebration so we could spend it with her cousins in Hastings. 

For the occasion, Gemma, Josh and I made a pinata.  In the shape of a turkey.  Long time readers know already that I love pinatas.  Love to make 'em.  Love to watch kids beat them.  Love the sense of occasion they bring to any celebration. 

Instead of loading it with candy, Gemma prepared a goody bag for each person who would be there.  She did this all on her own, using the cards she had made in her Home School Academy art class, and some of her own stickers, and some of her own Halloween candy. 

We used a big balloon for the turkey's body, a small one for the head with a cone of paper for the beak and a loose, pink balloon for the waddle.  I attached the head to the body by means of a toilet paper roll and then cut two wings out of a cereal box.  It was brilliant, really.

We paper mached that sucker periodically over two days.  On Wednesday morning, hours before we were due to leave, we painted it.

Then, in an inexplicable moment of exquisite stupidity, I lifted that bird up by the head and cracked the neck clean off.  

DOH!!!!

What to do what to do what to do what to do?????  The kids looked at me with great concern.  Gemma's suggestion, "We can duct tape it." 

While I applauded her willingness to find a solution and her faith in the when-all-else-fails duct tape strategy, I announced, "Turkey triage!!!" 

I mixed the paint into the bit of paper mache paste I had left and used paper towels to re-paste the neck into place.  Joshua stood watch with the space heater, moving it in stages around the wound to dry it faster.  And it worked.  Disaster averted. 

Gemma beamed at me as I worked quickly.  She beamed when she saw that the neck was fixed.  She beamed when I packed it, our bottles of wine and their puffy winter coats into a laundry basket for safe transport.

Her celebration on Friday was perfect.  John and Susan got their chocolate fountain going and we stuck Gemma's candles into a piece of the pound cake that would later be used for dipping. 

Joshua thought this fountain was a wonder.  He dipped some stuff, took his plate to his seat, climbed onto the chair and surveyed his goodies.  He spied a strawberry that, somehow, had no chocolate on it and said, "What's that for?"

Then we whacked open the pinata outside.  By the time we got back in, it was already 3:00.  We'd planned to come back to the Springs after the party.  But, eh, 3:00 is late in winter time.  And we were having such a nice day, we stayed one more night and shoved off first thing Saturday morning.

I asked Gemma if she'd had a good time.  She had a great time.   Did she like her little party?  Did she like the pinata?  Did she like spending 2 whole days with her cousins?  Yes, yes, and yes again.  She liked it all very much. 

We listened to the remainder of The Railway Children on the way home.  (An audio book we'd been enjoying since last week.)  And we listened to all of Charlotte's Web, too.  She loves audio books. 

This is a 7th birthday she will remember fondly.  There is no colored ribbon for a mother and father who would champion it for her as we have done.  Just thanksgiving.  One day. 

An Argument for Memory

Let's take the StoryTime Machine back to a year I do not like to revisit: my freshman year of high school.  It will be instructive.  This was the Fall of 1989. 

I'm telling you now: my recollection of these details might stun you. 
What's more:  I've never told this story before.  I've hardly even thought of it until just recently.  But before recent history comes ancient history. 

Hence: the Fall of 1989.

This year, my high school had hired a new Theology teacher names Cameron Cehola.  This was Czek name, he told us on the first day.  There we were, 23 or so students on our first day of high school, staring agape at a teacher who had just told us his first name. 

Forget "Cehola" and its ethnic origins.  Who in the heck is named "Cameron"? 

He had earned his Masters degree in Theology.  This was shocking, too.  You mean to say that people actually studied theology?

Mr. Cehola was a young man.  He would sit on his desk, gripping the front edge with both hands as he leaned forward and swung his legs.  To demonstrate what, exactly?  I think it was to show us how very engaging he found our young minds.  To show us he was interesting enough to dispense with standard teacher formalities and get serious, instead, about opening the world of theology to us. 

If this was his strategy, he had miscalculated.  We were not the class of kids in Dead Poet's Society who rejoiced to find an inspiring voice singing in an institution of academic oppression.  We were just in Theology because that's where the guidance councilor scheduled us in Immaculate Conception High School because that's where our parents had sent us. 

Most of us, anyway, saw things this way.

A few held Mr. Cehola in utter disdain.  I recall Lauren Guidice's older sister, who was a Junior, bragging to those of us near her in study hall (which was all ages) that she called him "Cam" to his face, repeatedly.  I remember feeling so scandalized by this older girls' boldness.  Had she gotten away with that?

Maybe there were a few others who were like me: I didn't know what to make of a guy who sat on his desk as he taught us, or who wasn't actually Catholic (we discovered early on), or who used words like "exam" instead of "test," and "hypothesis" even though this wasn't a science class. 

Part of me was Dead Poet's Society-ish.  I did find it thrilling to have a teacher who wanted to make a challenge out of his class.  Even though it was Theology.  Do you know that for our first "exam," we were to memorize the Beatitudes as found in the Gospel of Matthew???  This was an extraordinary assignment!  Memorize part of the Bible?  No way!  (I experienced 11 years of formal, Catholic school education--grade 6 through 16--and this is the only time I was required to memorize scripture!)

I responded to the challenge gladly.  I remember sitting on the Sorce's couch, where I was babysitting one afternoon, memorizing those Beatitudes, thinking that I was going to blow Cameron Cehola away by getting a perfect score on his exam. 

There were other things to know for this exam, and I studied them, too.  I went to class the day of and wrote out my answers and left confident that I had aced that thing.  Do you remember that feeling of knowing you've done well on a test after you've prepared to do well on it?  It's been a long, long time since I've taken one. . .  I miss that feeling. . . 

We came back to class the next day and Mr. Cehola had already graded our exams.  He handed them back.  There was a red mark on mine.  Points taken off.  It was surprising.  My grade was a 98%, and yet there could be no rejoicing until I looked into something.

I consulted my notes that I had transcribed from the chalkboard.  I looked back at my test.  I was not wrong.

The question had stated, "Define 'theology.'"

My answer (and I promise that I am going from memory here, sick though that is): 

"Theology is the study of all things in relation to one another in light of revelation."

(Today, I would quibble with that definition.  But back then, all I knew is that this is what Mr. Cehola had written on the board and told us to know for the "exam.")

I asked, basically, what I had lost points on.

"Ah," he said smugly.  "Theology is the study of all things in relation to one another by light of revelation."

This drew scoffs and some guffaws and a bit of outrage from several others who had also prepared for the test. 

To which Mr. Cehola took up his perch on the desk and launched into how the two words were different and their uses created a world of difference between his definition and ours.  My peers tried to argue that he was being too picky.  He easily defeated their argument because, well, he was right.  There is a difference between "by" and "in."

Finally, I had the chance to weigh in.  "The point is not that we got the definition wrong.  The point is that we all wrote down the definition you put up on the board."

This shut everyone up.  They liked what they were now hearing. 

Mr. Cehola, not so much.  "I would not have put up the wrong definition," he said.

"Let's check every one's notebooks," I said.  "If we all wrote down 'in' instead of 'by,' we'll know what was written on the board." 

He refused to check.  He hopped off the desk, made another comment from the previous argument--the one he could win--about the differences between the two prepositions.  And he tried to go on with the lesson.

I couldn't let him.  I couldn't.  The injustice of it consumed me.  It was so logical for him simply to fix the problem.  Recollect the texts.  Award 2 pts to each student who deserved it.  Move on.

But he couldn't admit that he'd made this mistake.  And that's when I decided he was a fraud, and my disappointment crashed on top of the injustice.  I was incensed.  I would not let it rest.  There was nothing he could say that would make me stop arguing the point, which the rest of the room found very entertaining.  They cast their lot with me.  This teacher now had a full-blown uprising on his hands. 

He announced that we were all to write out answers to some BS chapter questions.  It was seat work.  Silent work.  Nothing was resolved about the test.  I was crying.  Seriously.  It was that important to me to hear him admit that he was wrong and I was right.  But it wasn't a pride thing.  Everyone in the room knew I was right.  In this way, I had "won." 

I just needed to hear him say it out loud.  I never did. 

Something clicked over for him, though.  Something about that day, plus all the days of upperclassmen calling him "Cam," plus, most likely the biggest dynamic of all, something about seeing this high school for a couple of week and realizing that there were a lot of average kids inside of it--something made him quit.  His job.  I mean, he left the school. 

A replacement came soon after, Mrs. Diesing.  We loved her.  And she either stood at the podium or sat behind her desk.  And though she was one of several people who taught, as the text book did, that the wondrous stories we read in the Bible are "biblical myth," she also confided to us one day that she, "Reads the Bible while take a bubble bath--it's corny, I know, but I do it because it relaxes me," thus making her my first teacher ever to say that she read scripture. 

So much for ancient history.  Flashing forward now:

The other day, Joshua was still in his pajamas.  We were ready to start our school work, for which we all must be dressed.  I asked him to go upstairs and change.

"But Mommy," he said, calmly, "Sometimes you stay in pajamas all day."

"No," I said, calmly, "I get dressed every morning before we start school work."

He insisted, "There are times when you stayed in your jammies for a long, long time."

"No there aren't," I told him.  Then, sternly, "Please go upstairs now."

He headed upstairs, but was now perturbed.  Seriously.  "I know it's true," he pleaded.  "You stay in your jammies sometimes!" 

"When, Josh?  Like when I was sick???  Like when I was doing chemotherapy?  Is that when I stayed in jammies????"

"No," he said with certainty, now at the top of the stairs.  Talking down below to me through the railings.  "When we came home from Betsy's and Daddy brought us but you were here and it was all day, that's when."

I had no idea what he was talking about.  Still don't. 

But he said it with conviction.  There is something he knew that I didn't and he wasn't stalling to avoid getting dressed.  He just needed to hear me validate his point.  I remember that feeling.  I remember that it wasn't about getting a different result out of the other person--100% or 98%?  who cares?--it was about the argument itself.  It was about what I knew and needing the other person to acknowledge that what I was saying was important.

I could hear his frustration.  What others would take (understandably) and have taken (understandably) to be an argumentative spirit or bratty-ness, I understood this was just what God built into him.  He loves words.  They are important to him.  It is impossible for him to move on from the place of being misunderstood.  I know that feeling. . .  

"OK, Josh," I told him, "I don't remember the time you are talking about, but I agree that there have been some days when I have stayed in my jammies for a long time.  Today is not one of them.  We both need to be dressed."

He nodded at this.  Clearly, I had scratched his itch.  He stood and the galloped like a horse to his room where he got dressed in just a few minutes. 

I kind of feel like I passed this exam.  Blessed are they who remember the past well enough to apply it to the present.

Veteran's Weekend

Yes, yes, I know Bryan is the veteran in this family.  Thank you, Bryan.  And thank you to all serve. 

Now, let's talk about me. 

I am a veteran of something, too.  Pre-school motherhood. The days of caring for little ones are behind me.  I don't think I had realized it until this weekend.

We left on Wednesday afternoon for Weston, MO, where we have some land and a big tobacco barn that was full of. . .shtuff that Bryan needed to get rid of.  We also have dear friends in the area, Helen and David, and, from our time in Korea, Parin and her family who are now stationed at Leavenworth. 

Bryan spent both days selling stuff out of the barn.  The kids and I spent Thursday with Helen and David and then Friday with Parin and Jason, and their two girls, who are the same ages as our two kids.  A delightful time all around.

A note on our drive out:  The kids travel so well now, it is painless to drive long distances with them.  We were not commited to making it all the way out and with two hours to go, Bryan considered stopping in Topeka for the night.  But then we caught a talk radio program that covered something outrageous.  It really got his dander up and with this mighty shot of adrenaline, he felt great for the tail end of the journey.  We checked in at 1:45 AM. 

This is also where I noticed the first difference.  Gemma and Josh can both do everything for themselves in the back seat now.  And they're both thrilled to watch DVD's on their little players.  There was a time when I could not sit for 20 minutes without having to turn around for some reason or another.  This time, Bryan and I had the chance to talk for a couple hours without interruption.

Aunt Helen and Uncle David are the kids' Godparents.  Helen has a giant service dog.  I would tell you the breed--it's something French--but I don't remember it and you've never heard of it anyway. His name is BroJean and he's wonderful.  The kids love him, too.

We discovered on the weekend of our ParTAY, whence BroJean sat outside with Helen, several of our neighbors and a yard full of neighborhood kids, that this breed shepherds.  At least, BroJean does.  He just couldn't lie still.  He could not stand watching a bunch of children scatter and run around.  So he got up, loped over on his long legs, and proceeded to herd them into a group, either by circling them, or nudging them, or--yes indeed--nipping them.

Well.  Just one.  And it happened to be Mr. Colorado's daughter.  Mr. Colorado loves dogs more than Colorado, I think, and was very understanding.  Instinct.  What can you do?  Besides, Kate was fine. . .

Helen, David, BroJean, their doberman who is called Tootsie, the kids and I drove over to our land.  The dogs love to run there and I was glad the kids would have a chance to poke around, too.

The went for it.  Almost immediately.  It was cold out, but something about the fields and thickets beckoned.  Later, Helen remarked to me, "Um. . .We have 2 kids and 2 dogs wandering around out there that we can't see."

I shrugged and said, "BroJean is with them.  I am completely confident he's watching over them." 

This is why shepherding dogs are so great.  Why we had planned to get one if we had moved to that piece of land.  Why we would still get one if we end up moving to the country at some future point.

Would I have let them go off if they had been much younger?  No.  But this is what it means that Joshua is now older. I know how he thinks and he has the maturity and good sense to stick with his sister and not do anything stupid.  (Like what, even?  It's not like we have cliffs to jump off of. . .)

They eventually returned.  After nearly an hour.  BroJean was right by their sides.  Joshua's wool coat was stuck full of thistles, which gave us some clues as to their adventure.  I asked Gemma what BroJean had been doing.  "He was just by us the whole time," she said.

What a dog! 

Bryan made a wad of cash from the sale.  I had Gemma count it.  In our conversations throughout the day, certain turns of phrase would come up, like, "barn-burner," or. . .a few others that now escape me.  One of the kids would ask us to explain, and we would.  Helen said, towards the end of the afternoon, "I'm seeing that homeschool is really just an all-the-time thing."  Yes.  On days like that, I am reminded of it.

By the way, the name Weston, Missouri might seem familiar to you now due to recent news.  Those maniacs from that cult in Topeka scheduled a protest at a fallen soldier's funeral the weekend before last.  They have to obtain a permit to protest, and they have the constitutional right to one. 

The townspeople of Weston knew their rights, too.  They organized in about 24 hours.  Over half the town turned out to do the following: 
Take up all the parking spaces along the funeral route and surrounded the protest area;

Wire up a sound system from one of the bars and blast "Amazing Grace" and other songs whenever the protesters started singing;

assemble the Patriot Guard (a biker group that will show up whenever requested for this purpose) to gun their engines whenever the protesters tried to speak;

stand right in front of the protesting group with a giant flag held up so that none of their hateful signs could be read;

and, of course, stand on the flag line approaching the funeral home to specifically honor the fallen. 

This didn't just hit CNN and other national news, it actually got international coverage as well.  Letters poured into the Weston Chronicle from all over the country.

The hope, I would think, is that other towns will use this as a model for handling future attempts by these hideous cult members and after a year of getting shut down systematically, they'll find some other way to garner attention and money. 

It was a glorious day for Weston. 

Helen says they'd like to see "Pull a Weston" enter the vernacular. 

I entertained visions of what this would look like 50 years from now.  My best hypothesis: it will come to mean, "to take up space or opportunity another party thought it had privy to."  So, when you pull into a parking space someone else is waiting for, you would be "pulling a Weston." 

No part of that carries the sheen of honor.  But that's how language is. At least, that's my prediction for how this language will go.

Finally, David, Helen and the Ponces had dinner out at the best BBQ place I've ever enjoyed, and it was a joy to revisit it Thursday night.  The kids were a delight to have with us and once again I found myself really liking that we can all like having them around. 

Quick Josh story here:  I brought their scooters with us and they zoomed around David and Helen's cul-de-sac for a while to burn off their pent up car energy earlier in the day.  Josh's scooter needed a quick inspection, and when I gave it back to him, he jumped on and yelled, "Ride on!!!" and zoomed away.

What a boy.

On Friday, the kids and I got to Parin's on-post house at 9:15.  We did not leave until 9:00 PM, and this following a leisurely day of the kids playing somewhere else and Parin and I chatting and chatting and. . .you know, there are just some friends you can re-connect with without labor.  It was awesome.

In all that kid-playing, there was not one single squabble.  The four of them just got along really well, and had a hard time saying good-bye when it was time. 

Parin remembered, "Amy, we used to sit on the floor with them in Korea and say, 'OK, Sarah, now we share the toy with Gemma, and Gemma says, 'Thank you'" and on and on. . .   I had forgotten!  But she was right!  We used to pour a lot of energy into teaching those girls basic kindness and manners.  All the Mommies in our little group did, actually, and I know now what an unusual blessing that was.

Well.  There we were.  Reaping what we'd sown.  Polite, sociable children who loved to just play, play, play with each other! 

Saturday morning, we took the time to swim in the pool before loading up for the long ride home.  Instead of movies all the way, we listened to some audio books.  That's a simple pleasure, too.  We had finished up Paddington before the trip, a book that made all three of us laugh out loud as we tootled around town.  This time, we listened to Clementine and it was short and sweet.  Then we started The Railway Children, published in 1906 or so.  Normally, books that old are not written in language that I or the kids want to listen to.  But this one. . .we are all enchanted. 

So.  I sign off as a happy Veteran.  Those early years were not easy for me.  I am thankful for them, of course.  For some mothers, those baby days are the highlight of parenthood.  For me, they were the woods that I knew I'd get through one day.  That day is here!  God was so good to have helped me persevere to a season of sweet harvest.