Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Of Africa, sleep and other blessings

Bringing up boys in Africa and the Universe

I must get the Mom Prize for Keenness, though probably not the Mom Prize for Choosing Age Appropriate Toys. Yesterday I bought the boys a small world globe for their bookshelf, and for the walls, two posters: a big, colourful map of the world and an awesome depiction of the planets in our solar system. Every mom believes that her kids are geniuses. But I have to admit that Scotty probably doesn’t really get it, just yet… You know, the whole concept of planetary revolutions around the sun. It’s possibly a bit much to expect at eleven months. Of course, Cam doesn’t really get it either, though his questions are insatiable and of universal proportion – like, ‘Why is the world hanging in space?’ Hence my choice of geographical and cosmic bedroom décor.

Cam kept asking me to show him South Africa on the globe, which made me really look at the little blue ball – this tiny picture of what is, in fact, a tiny planet full of billions of tiny people in a tiny galaxy amidst a vastness that is inconceivable and beyond words. I thought as I pointed out what is the tiny continent of Africa, ‘Right now a tragic crisis seethes in Libya, and all over Africa the catastrophes of disease and malnutrition are rife, and the terrifying consequences of poverty and oppression and violence and injustice. And we’re a handful of the millions of tiny people that are part of that, and party to it, and I thought, God is big and we’re here for a reason, and man, is there work to be done.’ And I wondered, ‘How will God use our sons for his glory on this tiny ball we call Earth?’

God, bless Africa.
Guard her children.
Guide her leaders.
And give her peace. ­– Anglican prayer

‘The Lord our God has secrets known to no one. We are not accountable for them, but we and our children are accountable forever for all that he has revealed to us, so that we may obey all the terms of these instructions.’ – Deuteronomy 29:29

Bring on the peaceful zzzz’s…

Plato said, ‘Be kind, for everyone you meet is fighting a hard battle.’ So, be kind, should you run into us this week, because we have begun the battle of what is called, in parental pop culture, ‘sleep training’. If you’re more comfortable with OBE-speak, here’s what we’re doing:

Outcome 1:

By the end of this module, the learner (Scott) will be sleeping through the night.

Assessment Standards:

1.1 The learner is able to find his giraffe blankie in his cot upon waking at night.
1.2 The learner is able to cuddle said giraffe blankie without screaming for the educators to supply him with milk.
1.3 Should the learner really be thirsty during the night, he will be able to find his water bottle in his cot and drink appropriately.

Educators’ guide:

Remain calm at all times. Persevere with the goal in mind. Remember what life was like when you used to sleep for eight hours every night. Remember how much more clearly you could think, and how much more productive, creative and patient you were. Pray.

Bits of beauty this week

Yesterday morning Cam told me he was going to make a worship team. He dragged his bongo drum up to the piano and convinced Maria that she was the pianist, while he drummed enthusiastically. I think God must surely smile at Cam’s fervour. He asked me the other day, ‘Why did Jesus make me amazing?’ J (We’re working on his modesty.)

Other lovely things blown in by the August winds…:

Cranberries, jasmine, Namaqualand daisies, Seattle coffee, nuggets of meaningful conversation, the free gifts of BBM and WhatsApp, Cam drawing a picture of a face for Granny – something he couldn’t do a month ago (big yay for OT!), holidays, good doctors we love and trust, Scott ‘talking’ in whispered mingled vowels and consonants that sound so sincere and so astute, Cam saying ‘Mom, you’re my precious lady’, the guarantee that Spring is almost here despite what plunging temperatures intimate.

‘So be truly glad. There is wonderful joy ahead…’ – 1 Peter 1: 6


Picnicking at Nkwe...

Saturday, August 20, 2011

Scott: 11 months today

Hey my Scott (aka: Scott-a-lot, Scott-Scott, Scotty, Tiny Bear, Little One, Mighty Hero, Tiny Child, Treasure, Little Lamb, Scottabolletjie, and, when you’re sick, Snot-a-lot and Pukémon. I promise not to call you all these things when you’re sixteen.)

You’re snoozing, Dad is out on his bike, I’m typing this on the deck and hoping the barbets will come for the banana we’ve left for them, and Cam is intently scooping sand into Lola’s water bowl.

I thought I’d record here some of the events of this past week, leading up to the momentous occasion of you being one month short of a year.

You’ve had some weird, long-lasting virus. Wow. So much vomit. So many biohazardous nappies. So little sleep. But you’re better now, thank God. You were super brave and still super cute, despite being miz and sick.

You’ve been a Heavenly Baby for just over a week now, though I’ve kept you at home every other day because I’m on holiday. You really love school! I can’t believe how incredibly settled, calm and content you are. Quite the independent little fellow, quietly taking it all in your stride. Of course technically you don’t really have a stride yet, though you’re standing on your own for a couple of seconds, now and then, and you’re starting to negotiate crawling downstairs.

You won’t remember much about Cam at this age, so I’ll give you some details of his week, too. You will have read about his EUA last Friday. The fact that his biggest concern about the whole procedure was that he was going to miss his hotdog at Heavenly Tots (Friday is hotdog day) will tell you something about his courage, and his priorities.

He’s doing swimming lessons twice a week. I think if it were possible to harness his excitement in the pool it could probably power small household appliances. Dad and Granny came to watch him in the pool this week – big hit. You are kind of freaked out by the pool and you cry every time someone jumps in. Never mind; I’m sure you’ll get over it.

Cam is also really into specifics. Aunty Manty did OT with him on Wednesday, and they’re working on drawing vertical lines (‘trees’) and horizontal lines (‘tables’). Cam wanted to know, ‘Must I draw a coffee table or a dining room table?’

Dad took leave on Monday and Tuesday. While you were sleeping on Monday morning and Maria was watching you, we went down to House of Coffees for breakfast. It was raining – the first rains of the spring – and it reminded us of Kendal in the Lake District, where we lived just after we got married. So strange to think that back then we had no idea who you would be!

I’ve blogged before, I think, about the five prayers I pray every day for you and Cam. One of them is for your education, and that one has been resting quite heavily on our hearts this week. Dad and I visited a couple of amazing schools on Tuesday and are wrestling with the decision of which one will be very best for you and Cam. What a blessing that we’re living in a city where we’re spoiled for choice, and that despite Cam’s evident special educational needs, there are mainstream schools that are so excited to welcome him, and you.

Yesterday we went to the Hazelwood Fire Station with Aunty Kirsty, Ben and Kyle. Cam was kind of grumpy and blasé about the fire engine, but the picnic afterwards and chasing Ben and rolling in the grass – now that was cool. You and Kyle, gentle little souls that you are, just cooed and smiled and had snotty noses and got yourselves full of grass and chewed on things you shouldn’t, like firemen cigarette butts. Eew.

Just so you know, Dad and I continue to pray for you and Cam every day and we know God’s hand is on your life. We pray that you would come to know Jesus soon, and that even now you would sense his presence and his peace, and that your little heart would start to recognise the tug of his Spirit.

I can’t believe you’re nearly not a baby.

All my love,

Mom

Xx


Lola, sheepish after getting herself lost for half an hour at St Alban’s on Thursday afternoon. She had Ross, Tracy and me tramping across the entire campus…


Teacher Cam’s ‘painting school’, which he set up in the bath. Here he was just waiting for all the (imaginary) children to arrive, so that he could begin teaching them to paint (with water and a toothbrush)










Saturday, August 13, 2011

Five things

Cam had an examination under anaesthetic yesterday. The pressure in his eyes is still ok, and stable. His contact lens prescriptions have changed a little, and Murray has plans to give him distance vision contacts and little bifocals for near vision.

Today I’m saying thank you for:

1. Chocolate;
2. The perspective that Jesus brings;  
3. Cam coming through another anaesthetic procedure (we’ve lost count but think this was about his fifteenth or sixteenth);
4. Scott being so unbelievably settled within himself – so comfortable in his own little skin – and so forgiving of the hours and hours he was away from me yesterday;
5. The way God places Murray in time and space – the way he uses Murray’s skills and insight and gracious manner. Jacobus (Cam’s ophthalmologist – Dr Pauw) called Murray into theatre again after they came out of Cam’s EUA, to check another little tot, from Mozambique. Murray saw her parents this morning at the practice, to fit her with new frames because they can’t get the right ones in Mozambique.

So we don't look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever. – 2 Corinthians 4:18

Painting with Meagan and Craig on Thursday afternoon












A long wait at the Pretoria Eye Institute… Cam built a fort.

Warning: stay off the roads

Wednesday, August 10, 2011

Letter about this day in time

Dear Cam and Scott

In the whole spectrum of eternity, today in our corner of the world was no big deal. It was a sunny, mild, Highveld day like zillions of others, before it and after it. It was just a dot on the long line of time, involving a tiny intersection of humanity – a handful of people amongst billions.

But in my heart I record time in unquantifiable measures and irregular cadences. Sometimes seconds intensify and swell into huge images that freeze, living, forever. There are whole months and years on my timeline that elbow for space and significance. And sometimes days and nights and weeks fly by in a blur of delight or discomfort or drudgery or danger, and they hardly take up any space at all. On that timescale, today was a little flashing LED light – a bright marker of small but happy consequence that I will come back to and remember and enjoy.

Scott-Scott, today was your debut at Heavenly Babies. You were so brave and cheerful! I intended just to take you to meet your teacher and see your classroom, but I ended up feeding you your maltabela and playing there with you a bit. You are the youngest of the fourteen children in your class. Most of your friends can walk already, but that didn’t seem to faze you. You’re faster on all fours. You have Nadea, Mabel, Monica and Irene looking after you. (They know Cammy, so you come highly recommended.) I left you to play for a while, and when I came back you were eating your Bovril sarmie in the sun with all your new mates, happy as a holiday. I was so very proud of you – a picture of quiet repose and contentment.

Cam, today was your first swimming lesson. You’ve been breathlessly excited and grinning for weeks, and I was a little afraid that when the moment actually arrived your hope might be deflated by reality and wetness. But your excitement only escalated, cozzie on et al. Once you accepted that I wasn’t going to swim with you, and once Tannie Lette got you in, there was no stopping you! You kept yelling out, ‘I’m enjoying my swimming lesson!’ and ‘I do swim like a fish!’ and you were dancing around wildly on the side of the pool when you should’ve been sitting like a lamb waiting for your next turn to paddle or float like a star. Craig is also in your class – he’s already quite a pro – and two impossibly cute little girls who must surely be in line for some kind of Best Toddler Edition Swimsuit Award. You might want to keep in touch with them. Climbing out the car when we got home, completely unprompted, you said quietly, ‘I had a wonderful day. Thank you for my lesson.’ Again later, in the bath and utterly out of the blue: ‘Thank you for taking me to swimming lessons!’

You have a fascinating way of expressing things, Cam. Tonight at supper you were banging your feet on the kitchen cupboard, and listening to the hum of the oven, and you said, ‘Look at the noises of those things!’ You’ve been doing a lot of bongo-drumming and rain-maker-shaking to Beethoven’s ninth symphony – always perfectly in time – which makes for an interesting arrangement. Tonight we also had two quite heavy theological conversations. Here are some fragments:

Cam: Mom, did God pin my body together?
Me: Yes, he made your body just as it is!
Cam: Why?
Me: [I gave the standard Psalm 139 kind of answer: God wanted your body to be just as it is – it’s perfect! He wanted you to be inside this body, and not in anybody else’s body, etc.]
Cam: Whose body isn’t perfect? If you climb out your body is it not perfect?

And then later:

Cam: Is Jesus still at heaven?
Me: Um… Ja, but he’s also here with us.
Cam: Is he here now?
Murray: Yes, he’s here all the time! He never leaves us.
Cam: I can’t see him.
Me: Yes, but even though we can’t see him, he’s here and you can talk to him anytime.
Murray: And when you go to heaven one day you’ll be able to talk to him and see him face to face, as if you’re talking to Mom or Dad.
Cam: Who is Jesus?
Me: God’s Son.
Cam: No. Jesus is God.

Nothing like a light discussion of the Trinity over roast veggies.

Scott, you were already asleep when this conversation was going on, because by six-thirty you can barely stay vertical. You still wake up a lot at night, but a big part of me doesn’t mind at all, because real-world time is speeding like a monorail and I’m trying to capture all the baby time I have with you in lingering-heart time. I’ve also frozen forever a picture of you reaching one arm up in the air in a quiet, gentle kind of amandla!-praise-Jesus-static-wave of jubilation whenever someone you love walks into a room. Your smile could thaw glaciers.

So, my bears, today was lovely and I love you both colossally. Even though you’re only going to read this when you’re much bigger (either before or after you will find it devastatingly embarrassing that your mother writes this stuff), I feel I want to say to you that life is too short to do things that you are not passionate about. I also want to say that in the end, it won’t matter so much what you achieve in terms of plans, dreams and ambitions. What will matter most is being able to look back and know that you were always in God’s will, whatever that may have looked like.

God has also laid on my heart the following Scripture, for you both:

I create the light and make the darkness.
I send good times and bad times.
I, the LORD, am the one who does these things.
Open up, O heavens,
and pour out your righteousness.
Let the earth open wide
so salvation and righteousness can sprout up together.
I, the LORD, created them.
What sorrow awaits those who argue with their Creator.
Does a clay pot argue with its maker?
Does the clay dispute with the one who shapes it, saying,
'Stop, you're doing it wrong!'
Does the pot exclaim,
'How clumsy can you be?'
How terrible it would be if a newborn baby said to its father,
'Why was I born?'
or if it said to its mother,
'Why did you make me this way?'"
This is what the LORD says—
the Holy One of Israel and your Creator:
"Do you question what I do for my children?
Do you give me orders about the work of my hands?
I am the one who made the earth
and created people to live on it.
With my hands I stretched out the heavens.
All the stars are at my command."
– Isaiah 45:7-12

All my love

Mom

xx






Murray had garden shears. Cam had orange plastic safety scissors. Shrubs were damaged.


Tuesday, August 9, 2011

A haiku for early spring

O happy day

August sun gentle
On the garden and my heart
My sins washed away

‘This means that anyone who belongs to Christ has become a new person. The old life is gone; a new life has begun!’ – 2 Corinthians 5:17

Some photos from our cell group weekend away, to the Downies’ Farm. Scott was fascinated by vinyl. Cam was fascinated by Uncle Eric’s Scalextric cars.






Cam ‘tuning his microphone’…?
 

Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Letter about Granny at the end of an era of mornings…

My boys,

You have four fantastic grandparents. Each one of them brings unique and fabulous things into your lives – gifts of wisdom, love, laughter, learning, patience, music, adventure and prayer. Dad and I are so grateful that you guys are so very blessed, not just to have grandparents, but to have amazing grandparents.

But today I wanted to write to you about Granny, in particular, because when you’re older you won’t be able to remember all that she did for you and meant to you in these, your years of being tiny. I want to record it all for you, so that in time you’ll be able to look within your own characters and recognise, and be grateful for, the moulding, teaching, guiding influence that she has had on you both. Also, next week, Scotty, you will start at Heavenly Babies, which means we’re at the end of an era of Granny looking after you in the mornings. I don’t think we even fully understand the privilege of having had her to look after you both, as babies.

Cam, when you were born (early!), Granny and Nanna were the first people that Dad and I called, and they were just exuberant… Six weeks later, when our nagging suspicions were confirmed and we found out that you had congenital cataracts and micropthalmia, Gran arrived with Dad, at the doctor’s. Dad’s car happened to be in for a service that day, so she drove to his work to fetch him and bring him to the ophthalmologist where I was waiting, terrified, with you. Gran waited while we got the full extent of the news, and then she held me while I cried. She knew that none of our lives would ever be the same, but she just kept saying, ‘It’s going to be ok. It’s going to be ok.’ You, my brave shining star, are living proof that it’s not just going to be ok; it’s going to be awesome.

I was on maternity leave for five months. I don’t remember much of that time at all, except for a lot of doctors’ waiting rooms, EUAs, people praying for us, and time spent at Granny’s house. I remember that Gran was a refuge for me, a safe place where I could deal with my fears. One of the clearest memories I have of those five months was watching August Rush with Granny one morning – one of her many attempts to cheer me up. I remember how much it moved me, and how much comfort I took from it, because I sensed that you – like August – had unusual potential that was just waiting to be unleashed on a watching world.

When I went back to work, Granny would fetch you from Maria in the mornings and look after you until I was done at school. She helped to fetch and carry you for the few weeks that you were at the Baby Therapy Centre, and then it was she who discovered Heavenly Babies and Tots, and came with me to check it out.

She accompanied us to countless physio and occupational therapy sessions, taking notes and videos and asking all the right questions when I couldn’t think. She joined blind and VI parent networks and chat rooms and surfed the net tirelessly to make sure that we were equipped with every available resource to help you to cope with your visual impairment. In the first two years of your life, Gran did most of the visual therapy exercises that Dad designed, because I was often too tired, or too numb. She has come up with so many ideas and suggestions of ways to help you to maximise your vision. She has helped you not just to cope physically, emotionally and socially, but to shine. And she has believed in you, unwaveringly, and with heartfelt enthusiasm.

Scott, when I went into labour with you (also early!), we dropped Cam off at Granny’s house. (She did a lot, Cam, to make you feel more secure about getting a little brother. You were mad at me for about a month!) Again, she was the first to come and see you, Scotty, when you had been born later that day, and she was as chuffed as if you had been her first grandchild, not her eighth! You were the littlest of the clan, Scott Gideon, but our mighty hero nonetheless. I think Granny had updated her facebook status with the news of your birth before I had updated mine! She has been a grandmother for thirteen years, and yet still she has looked after you, too, in the mornings, tirelessly, committedly, and with deep affection.

Granny is always organising adventures for you guys. She has taken you to parks, petting zoos, pet shops, playgrounds, dairy farms, museums… you name it. Anything, anywhere, that’s fun for kids to do, Granny has discovered it and made a plan to get you there. She went along to Heavenly Tots the other day, Cam, when your class was visited by the World of Reptiles, to film the snakes and things so that you could see them more clearly, on your screen.

She has come up with such clever, practical ideas for presents for you guys (like your little TV, Cam, and your hiking stick, and just this week, a clock that announces the time when you push a button. And boy, do you push that button… a lot… J). She and Grampa have been incredibly generous. Cammy, they started your ‘Cam Account’, to ensure that you would be able to get whatever treatment, therapy and technological aid you would need. And I think she has spent a fortune on Woolies doughnuts, over the years, because she knows they are your favourite.

Granny is really good at teaching you practical skills – like baking, and recognising different coins, and finding interesting shells on the beach. And there aren’t many grandmothers who would put on a wetsuit and spend whole afternoons in the swimming pool with squirming, splashing grandkids and pool noodles and Spiderman tubes. She also makes sure that you are growing up brave, and helps you to dry your tears and get on with it. Her home, like Nanna’s, is a home away from home for you boys.

God has used your Granny immeasurably, and I wanted to remind you of all this, to honour her and to thank God for the blessing she is in our lives.

All my love,

Mom

xx

Six twenty-eight pm… Six twenty-nine pm…


Hmm… Just browsing for a bit of light bedtime reading…





Cameron on the playground at Heavenly Tots