Seth Calvin and Tigger Hobbes

Once upon a time, there was a young, mischievous, funny, sly boy named Seth Calvin. Calvin's constant companion was a bright orange, striped cat named Tigger Hobbes.

Calvin and his best buddy did everything together. They played cowboys and indians, cops and robbers, knights and knaves. They rode trains and space ships and flew airplanes. They caused their babysitters grief and mom to pull her hair out.

They fought hard together and played hard together. But they loved each other. And whatever scraps they had, they usually made up.

One night mommy was tucking Calvin into bed. Calvin turned toward the wall where his ever faithful Hobbes was and threw him toward the foot of the bed.

"Why did you throw Hobbes?" asked mom.

"Cuz I'm tired of him bugging me when I'm trying to get to sleep," was Calvin's reply. "I'm tired of him not listening to me when I tell him to stop."

Stifling a chuckle, mom asked, "Aren't you always bugging him?"

"Nope. And I need to get to sleep."

And so ends a great friendship.

At least until the next great adventure.

Snow!

It snowed today. And even though I get tired of winter pretty fast, today I very much enjoyed the excitement of my kids - ecstatic about the first snow fall - trying to make a snowman.

Even more, I watched the wonderment of children from far away countries who have never seen snow before. Some things are priceless.

It's been a good day.

Heartbreak

She awakens with the dawn while her children still sleep to begin her day's labour. If there is enough flour, she will in all likeliness make them injera, a pancake-like bread, for breakfast. If there is not, she will try to scrounge enough beans for one meal that day to feed her family. She hopes there are enough beans until their rations come again in a few days.

And so begins one day in Dabaar, the largest refugee camp in the world located in Kenya. A camp that was built to hold less than 100,000 immigrants has now swelled to 230,000. Most of these immigrants are from war torn Somalia.

Trying to find enough water not only to drink - dehydration is one of the worst problems in the children of the camp - but cooking, bathing and washing clothes is very difficult. There are essentially two types of weather: extremely hot and the rainy season. The rainy season might relieve the oppressive heat, but brings with it the constant threat of flooding. And more mosquitos. And malaria.

In her stick hut - even more primitive than that of Little Pig #2, no joke - she beds down for the night on the ground. She finds it very difficult to sleep; keeping the netting around her and the children can be difficult and the constant buzzing of the mosquitos distracting. The heat is still oppressive. But she is exhausted for one other reason. She is pregnant and due any day with baby number five. Before she falls into her fitful slumber, she prays one more to time to Allah that her papers will arrive soon.

She awakes the next day to start the cycle again. This time she is summoned to the United Nations base. Her papers have arrived. She is to leave in one week. With her four boys. Perhaps she has a husband, perhaps not; rape and sexual immorality is rampant in the camp. So she begins her preparations to leave the camp in one week. She breathes one last desperate prayer to Allah.

Please, please don't let my baby come before I leave.

Her baby does not have the necessary papers to leave the camp and the country.

Two days before she is to leave, she gives birth. She faces an agonizing decision: to leave the camp with her FOUR boys ONLY and leave her baby behind, OR, to stay behind, perhaps forever, and never give any of her children a chance to live without poverty, to get an education, and to be healthy. To just break the wretched cycle.

Two days later, she leaves the camp. With her four boys and WITHOUT her baby.

And her heart is broken.

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One month ago I met Mar Lay Hla Ka, Mwee Eh Ka, Soe Soe, and Thart Shay. Those four precious boys got on my bus for the first time with their mother standing guard at the bus stop.

Today, I learned their story from the principal of the school. And I have cried off and on all day. I cry as I write this story. Last year I got to know some wonderful kids with some heartbreaking stories. This year is a whole different situation, and this story is the most heartwrenching one I've heard yet. None of the boys or their mother have had any education; they have never had a clock and do not know how to tell time. The first day the mom didn't know what time the bus came and didn't understand the clock so she stood out at the bus stop at 7:00 a.m.

She now lives in what she would think of as luxury. A three bedroom apartment that has running, ENDLESS water. But she is without her baby.

And I really don't know what to do about any of this. I just know that suddenly, more than ever, my house is too grand, my belly is too full and my bed is too soft. I get to sleep beside my husband and I have two beautiful children. I live across the street from a woman who comes to this country with hope for her boys but scars in her heart.

And I know a Saviour.

ABC - The Amazing Alphabet Book

Sometimes I'm really daft. Right before my very eyes, in my own house, was this amazing book that I believe has helped Seth cross a major hurdle in learning. I was trying to put Mrs. Wizzle's suggestion to use (but still struggle with coming up with my own creative words and songs, etc.,) when I remembered this book. Now, because of the silly words and silly songs we made up to go with the silly words, Seth is doing much better with his letters. In fact, today he actually began to understand and say some blends, like li, le, la, lu, lo as well as saying blends using the letters b, t, m and r. We were both VERY excited.

Again, thanks to this book, Mrs. Wizzle, and even "Mr. Wizzle" - the gummy worms he gave Seth at camp meeting have been the greatest reward for him (yes, even at 9:30 a.m., but sometimes I'm desperate!) - mother and son are doing much better.

Letter To Parents

Dear Parent:

In front of the First Elementary School, you will notice two signs. In case you have forgotten how to read, note the picture of the sign to the left to help remind you of what this sign looks like. Just in front of these signs there is several hundred feet of parking.

Monday through Friday, from 8:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m, in between these two signs - picture to my left - there is a spot reserved for something called a school bus. Again, in case you have forgotten how to read, please note the picture at the very top of this letter and have your translator point it out to you.

Now, I realize that you are a special family. Special families are families that think that they are the only ones who would possibly need to stop in a NO PARKING ZONE and that they are the only ones with true, extenuating circumstances. However, I'll let you in on a little secret. Your school, First Elementary, has several special families. In fact, your school has so many special families that you really should consider getting together to form your own Special Family Club. Each of these special families think they have special reason to take up the space designated for a school bus - picture noted above. And because there are so many special people at your school, the spot designated for a school bus to park is taken up many, many times per week. Which means that the school bus has to stop in the middle of the street, hold up traffic, sometimes for up to 15 minutes, and have children walk onto the road to get on and off the bus. As you can see, if you have any brains at all (and herein lies the problem), this is truly not ideal.

This is my suggestion to you. Go downtown to SGI and pick up the newest edition of the Saskatchewan Driver's Handbook. Turn to page 20, subsection 3.3, to the part titled Stopping And Parking. Please read the section at the bottom that says "You must not park where signs prohibit parking". Again, if you need a translator, have your translator read this section for you. Then, turn to page 63, subsection 4.5 to the part titled Traffic Signs And Signals. You will notice many pages of PICTURES, one of which prohibits parking in a school bus zone. And again, have your translator help you understand this if necessary. If you still fail to understand what the meaning of this is, please do everyone a favour and book an appointment to do the written portion of your driver's licence OVER AGAIN. Or perhaps book an appointment with an optometrist.

If all of the above fails to make you understand that, in spite of your specialness, you are not to park in a school bus zone, then perhaps having a parking enforcement officer spend a few days hanging around the school will. Getting hit in the pocket book usually works wonders.

I thank you for your serious attention to this matter. Remember: If the temptation becomes too much to walk that extra ten feet from YOUR designated parking area because you are in a rush to make it to little Johnny's hockey practice or Suzie's piano lesson - a few extra bucks in parking tickets might just make it impossible to pay for those things that are so important to your special family.

Kindest personal regards,

Atilla the Hun
Your Friendly Neighbourhood Bus Driver

Note: Please pray that I overcome the temptation NOT to really hand this letter out at my school. It was written in jest, but my goodness, does it ever tempt me.

Hiding

It has become a goal of mine to accumulate enough stories of my kids' childhood to eventually amass them into a book to give them when they're older. When they would appreciate them. Like at least by age 47 (if I'm still alive then). If I ever do accomplish this, guaranteed that at least half of the stories will be about my son's misbehaviour in church.

I warned my son during prayer before church last night to stop being a pest. He was tickling my ears, sticking a pen in between my arms, almost poking my eyeballs out, just to name a couple of things. So, we eventually took our routine weekly trip downstairs. To the OLD SANCTUARY (for any Mark Lowry fans).

As we were marching to our secret place, he became concerned.

"I'm still a sick boy, remember," he reminded me, because he has been fighting a seriously debilitating disease a cold, after all.

After giving him two swats on the area where God intended swats to be, he had his cry and we had our chat. After his assurances that he would obey from that moment on (and my managing to refrain from rolling my eyes at these assurances), we left our secret place to go back upstairs. He stopped me at the foot of the stairs to air a concern.

"I don't want anyone in church to see my eyes," he said.

"Why not?" I asked.

"Because they might think I got a spanking," he answered. Now what would possibly give them that idea? I wondered.

We march up the stairs slowly. As we approach the door to the sanctuary, my son stops to take cover.

And so confirms to anyone who might be watching that he is either playing hide and seek, or is in fact, bothered by the brightness of the sanctuary lights.

Impossible Variables

My mom is going to be 65 years old in November. Her main wish for her birthday is that she get a recent photograph of her entire family, since the last one was done 22 years ago. You would think that this would be fairly easy to do, since we have a "budding" photographer in our family, which keeps the cost down significantly.

Well, it isn't, and at this point I'm losing hope that we'll get it done.

The first obstacle is that the only possible time we can all meet AT THE SAME TIME (which is kind of important if you want it to be the entire family) is on Sunday. Every other day and evening of the week somebody is working. Our second obstacle is that we have to have a second photographer, since our budding-photographer-relative kinda needs to be in a few pictures. So, for the last two Sundays we have planned to run home from church in the morning, change into nice casual attire, and then meet at a previously decided location.

It was hotter than normal temperatures the past two weeks. Three records were broken in the province. Except last Sunday. That was the day it decided it was tired of being hot and that the earth needed a drink. And it rained cats and dogs. Obviously pictures last Sunday were cancelled.

Now, today. This Sunday. Sibling #3 (I won't say which one that is, except that she has the youngest children) was concerned Saturday because her youngest child was getting sick. There was also 40 percent chance of rain in the forecast for Sunday. Sibling #3 warned Sibling #1, 2 and 4 of this, so it was decided that they would just have to get up Sunday morning and play it by ear. Sibling #3 was pleasantly surprised that her youngest offspring awoke happy, with no fever, and only a slight cough. The skies still looked gloomy, however, and the forecast still called for 40 percent chance of rain. And, it was very windy.

Sibling #3 discovered, with great bitterness, that the rest of her Siblings had a privilege that she didn't have. Perhaps they never used to have this privilege in years' past, but at this point they have arrived at a place in life that Sibling #3 was not. And that was the privilege of SLEEPING IN. So, while Sibling #3 was up with the dawn, her other Siblings slumbered. She was left to wonder whether pictures were going to take place or not because of the weather. Since Sibling #3 had more work to do to prepare, with younger children, she had to make a decision. And that decision was to awake another one of her Siblings (the one who was least likely to bite her head off) and ask them whether there should still be pictures in light of the cloudy skies and Oz-type winds. Sibling #4 said that she thought we should still plan for pictures, even making the decision just after church if necessary.

Immediately when church was out, Sibling #3 set about trying to convince Sibling #2, the budding-relative-photographer, Sibling #1's wife, and the rest of the relatives at church that since it wasn't raining, even though it was windy, that pictures should still be done. After all, Sibling #4 agreed with her, right? However, it was discovered at that moment that photographer #2 could not make it to the photo shoot. And so thus all plans were again kiboshed.

Sibling #3 called Sibling #4 after church to tell her that pictures were cancelled only to discover that Sibling #1 and Sibling #4 had already discussed it and decided that it was much, much too windy (and cold) for pictures and that they weren't going anyway.

Broken down, here are the unique variables of actually trying to get pictures done in our family:

a) whether it's raining;

b) whether it's windy;

c) whether it's TOO sunny (according to the budding-relative-photographer);

d) whether it's perfect, mostly cloudy, non-windy, non-cold, non-rainy, non-snow weather, between the hours of 1:00 - 3:00 p.m on a Sunday afternoon;

e) whether NONE of the family members, particularly the smaller children are SICK;

f) whether the second photographer can make it or not;

g) whether the spouses of Siblings 1 through 4 get too cranky about the whole process and tell us to jump in the lake (particularly the male spouses of Sibling #2 and 3);

h) whether any of the relatives love one another at all by next Sunday, the next presumed attempt.

I realize this is a lengthy story and it's meant to relieve tension and find some humour. However, to anyone reading this blog, trust me when I say that if you ever decide to try to have family pictures - particularly if your family has more than ONE person - just let that thought pass on by. For the sake of peace, harmony, love, and sanity.

Here's to next Sunday.