Memory Ramblings...

I can only remember two Sunday School events from when I was growing up. Both were some sort of Sunday School Picnic I think. The first one was when I was probably 4 years old. We had a new (to us at least) car; a station wagon that I got to sit sideways in the back trunk area on a fold-down seat of some sort. At the picnic, there was an enormous log climbing structure or playground object that somebody got hurt on - I can't remember if it was Tina or myself, but I DO remember the little plastic clown cake balloons that my dad cheered me up with afterwards.

The other Sunday School event was either a picnic or a class treat of some sort and it occurred when I was around 12 years old. Aunt Helen had given me an old poem and asked me to memorize it to recite aloud. I had lots of time to work on it, but by the night before I was to perform my feat of memorization, I had only made it to the 16th stanza. So, I crammed all the way to the Orchard the next morning and managed to get those last 4 stanzas into my head just in time. Of course, 20+ years later, I can only recite the first 16 stanzas without peeking at the paper, but I was able to pull it off the day I had to stand up in front of everybody.

Anyway, a couple of weeks ago, I took Dolly out on a mama/daughter date while I had some errands to run. At some point, the poem I learned came up in our conversation and I recited what I could to her as we drove along. She was fascinated by the story being told and we spent a lot of time discussing the meaning of many of the words. Tonight, she found me as I was moving various kids through the bed-time process and told me she still remembered part of the poem and she recited the line or two that she had picked up from our date. It got me to thinking that I should put it here so I can find it easily anywhere.

After all, it was pretty much my first introduction to written poetry. I was completely captivated by the music of the words and I know that this poem greatly influenced my own writing style.

The Slave-Girl's Ransom

So beautiful, and yet a slave;
Her dark eyes flushed with shame;
Her usual soft and gentle eyes
Flashed at the cruel name.

So beautiful, so timid, wild,
Like a frightened fawn she seemed;
And 'neath her lashes, long and dark,
Her eyes with terror gleamed.

"Who bids?" the auctioneer's coarse voice
Rang through the market-place:
What shame, what terror filled her breast
And dyed her downcast face.

They bid, their voices rise and fall
On her unheeding ear,
Unconsciously she hears it all,
Yet does not seem to hear.

At last 'tis o'er, an Englishman,
With features kind and grave,
Has paid a wondrous price to buy
The beautiful, young slave.

Advancing with an eager step
And pleasure ill-concealed,
He speaks - the slave-girl stands erect;
His voice his race revealed.

"You, and an Englishman?" she cried,
Her proud lips curl with scorn;
"Unfettered by dark slavery's chain
In Britain's freedom born.

"You! whose own people come to teach
Of freedom for the soul,
And bid us live a Christ-like life
With heaven for our goal.

"You preach of freedom, life, and love,
And yet you make us slaves;
You tell us of a perfect peace-
We find it in our graves."

She paused her fierce and fiery eyes
Fixed on his face the while,
And, heedless of her bitter scorn,
He answered with a smile:

"Yes, I have bought you, but 'tis not
To make you slave to me,
I paid the price that I might have-
The power to set you free."

The fiery light died from her eyes,
The flush died from her cheek,
And silently she stood, too much
Dismayed to move or speak.

"Here is your freedom," and he placed
The gift within her hand,
"Go where you will, the ransom's paid,
'Tis all they can demand."

A moment more the proud young slave,
With mingled hopes and fears,
was kneeling contrite at his feet
With sobs and gladsome tears.

"Oh let me be your slave," she cried,
"I'd give my life for thee;
You gave me freedom, now I feel
I never can be free.

"You bind me not with iron chains,
They bind my limbs alone,
But now the stronger cords of love
Around my heart are thrown."

The fair young slave found liberty,
Yet still remained a slave,
And served with true, unfaltering love
He who her ransom gave.

So Jesus, who with greater love
And greater ransom still,
Has bought you with his own life-blood,
Poured out on Calvary's Hill,

Would seek to break the chains of sin
That bind you as a slave,
And with His tender love would win
The soul He longs to save.

Give Him who died, your love and faith,
And like the slave-girl be-
To serve Him, "faithful unto death"
Who died to set you free.

-Author Unknown

Ephesians 1:7

Sweetness...

Tonight after all the kids were in bed, I was tidying up. When I got to the play room, it looked like I had a week's worth of work to do, and started sorting and tossing, and collecting as I started with clearing a pathway through the main walking area. About 4 feet into the room, I ran across a piece of paper that was mostly crumpled. I unfolded it to see if it was somebody's treasure, or just another piece of trash. This is what I found and it made me melt inside.

I turned it over and at first I wasn't sure if it was missing parts or not, but even if it is, what was left was lovely.

Of course, now another hour has slipped past and I probably don't have time to finish cleaning the play room really. I should have gone to bed before I got started on that, but it's little things like these, that make the long days worth every minute of frustration and exhaustion. It's little things like these, which are the windows that peek in at my real treasures. It's little things like these, that make me feel very inadequate as a mother because little things like these shouldn't be such a surprise to discover. And it's little things like these, that inspire me to try harder to understand and appreciate these fast growing, ever changing, not so little any more, precious children that I have been honored with the job of raising!

She's almost NINE!

Skyline

"The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handywork."
Psalm 19:1

(April 18th, 2013)

"From the rising of the sun unto the going down of the same the Lord's name is to be praised."
Psalm 113:3

'Thinking of my Grandma today. Some things don't need words. Sometimes words just get in the way. And sometimes words can be too late. Words can be a gift, and they can be passed down from generation to generation too. But there are no words that can take the place of love.

"Better is the end of a thing than the beginning thereof: and the patient in spirit is better than the proud in spirit."
Ecclesiastes 7:8

What do YOU keep in your Pockets?

"I spy a gas cap that is black... Two sets of keys and one gray sock."

After we drove Sir to work this morning afternoon, I stopped to get something for the kids to eat before we headed home. I didn't want them falling asleep without eating lunch, and long car rides tend to lull children to sleep. Especially, when it's close to sleep times.

So, we piled out of the car and I noticed that Ricka's hair elastic was on the floor with her socks and shoes. I put the elastic in my pocket, put her socks and shoes on her feet and took the three littles inside. Once we were settled at a table, I reached into my jacket pocket to get the elastic so I could fix Ricka's hair. Except, I couldn't find it. Finally after fishing around in my pockets with no success, I emptied all of the contents onto the table and found all sorts of stuff. Here's the complete list:

one gas cap (I've been looking for that for two weeks now)

two sets of van keys - from swapping van seats this morning.

two soothers/pacifiers/whatever you call them to calm your infant

my cell phone

a noteworthy wad of crumpled tissues - you'd think I had kids or something.

one dime

a mis-matched sock (I found that in the door of the van beside Ricka's seat when I cleaned it out yesterday)

a hair clip

a broken plastic knife Butler was using on play dough a few days ago.

half package of Hall's cough drops

one McDonald's salt packet

Emma's blue rubber flower ring

and the hair elastic I was looking for.

And now it's time to go swap the van seats again before we have to go pick the other kids up.

Starting Over

"Huh?"

I took a picture of this guy smiling last week. He's been smiling for more than a month now, but I just hadn't caught it on film (I guess 'film' isn't the right term anymore, but you understand). And yes, I realize, he's not smiling in this picture - he just looks like what I thought when I discovered that in my most recent blogging slump, Blogger changed a whole bunch of stuff and I had to start figuring it out all over again. I hate strongly dislike change. Most of the time at least.

Anyway, after I finally got a picture of him smiling, I immediately went to blog it. After all, I've not blogged anything for so long, if I finally had a minute to post something, and something to post (that wouldn't take ten years to reiterate) I should get to it. So I uploaded the pictures on the camera and though, 'hey, if I'm posting, I might as well throw in a few other recent pictures of life around here' and I chose a few, edited them on my computer and started my post. But some of the pictures refused to cooperate. My edited changes were being ignored and I didn't have any more time to figure out what the problem was. After all that, I realized I don't even have a blog name for my youngest son. And by then I didn't want to blog anything at all. Too many obstacles and frustrations and not enough time to sort it all out.

I complained to Sir, but he was up to his ears in his own problems like college exams to study for, and fixing his computer that had given up the ghost (which included salvaging data off his dead hard drive) and getting over his latest bout of being under the weather. Busy husbands do not immediately understand that when you complain about your blog that you want them to tell you how to fix it. Or that you want them to fix it for you. They think you're just venting (which is usually the case when you just want them to listen and not fix anything). So, Sir just listened and went back to his own problems and I was still stuck and frustrated that I didn't have enough time to figure out my blog problems before my next interruption was due. A few days passed and I complained to Sir again after I tried to figure out what Blogger had changed. Eventually I figured out I'd need to ask for help. Sir spent five minutes experimenting and then told me what was causing the trouble I was encountering. He even told me what I'd need to do to fix it. And then he went back to his own pile of things to attend to that was still up to his ears. I'm not even sure I remembered to thank him for taking time out for me. I think I did, but it won't hurt to do it again.

So, now that I think I've got my blog working properly again, the rest of this is just a handful of pictures that I took during the last half of April with a few comments sprinkled in.

Puzzles!

Butler is a puzzle whiz. He loves doing them and he's actually pretty good at them. He's up to 100 piece jigsaw puzzles now, and he never looks at the box until he's done. And that's just to check that the picture he made matches the box it came in. I think that's pretty good for a 3½ year old. :)

Hmm! There's that yellow bucket the bean bags belong in. It's been missing since about when this picture was taken. I guess I could just go find another ice cream bucket and put the bean bags in it. The yellow bucket will probably reappear within 24 hours once I finally stop waiting for it to show up.

I'm not sure what to call this guy here on my blog. J3 'cause he's my third son? I kindof think that's a bit boring. Besides, I don't like to type numbers - they slow me down. Jaelsy or Jailsy because that's his initials spelled phonetically? I'm not too excited about this, but it's better than typing numbers. Halibut or Hal? I think that's the fish with both eyes on the same side of its head... this little man of mine seems to be permanently pulling to his right side. I'm sure he'll grow out of it eventually, but he often reminds me of those funny looking bottom fish. Mr.Manny? Little Mr.Man? That's what I catch myself calling him at home, but to tell you the truth, I think it sounds a little corny. I guess I'll have to think about my options for a bit or keep thinking up new ones.

In this picture, I just missed his smile. He'd been grinning at me until I pulled out the camera and then he didn't get any better than this expression. I think he does that on purpose. Eventually I did catch him in the act of smiling - even if it was on a different day. That picture however, will have to go in my next post because I'm going to bed now and I don't want this to stay a draft any longer. After all, I might not get back to posting it for another week. :)

I kindof like the sound of 'Hal'. What do you think?

Hide and Seek - in real life.

Early one morning not very long ago (as in yesterday), the Mommy's alarm rudely went off. Depressingly, it does this nearly every single day, but on this particular morning, the Mommy turned it off, and managed to roll over her giant tummy where she propped herself up on her elbows in preparation for the next step of getting up (the getting out of bed part). Anyway, once she was propped up on her elbows, she promptly fell back asleep with her chin in her two hands. (According to the Daddy, she spends quite a lot of time sleeping like this, but that isn't part of the story.) When she woke up again, she was 25 minutes behind schedule and so the day began in a frantic rush.

While the Mommy hurriedly filled breakfast orders, and packed school lunches, she was hollering at her brood of slow-moving, half-awake children to pick up the pace in order to get back on track. First Dolly emerged into the blinding light of the living room and without hesitation took up residence on the couch with the nearest blanket. Then PC joined her (at least out of his pajamas, but not quite in his clothes for the day). Next Ricka announced she had been abandoned and Dolly was assigned 'rescue duty' (which is really just getting Ricka out of her crib). So Ricka and her 'blan-keet' (that must accompany her everywhere) joined the crew on the couch.

This is about when Emma snugly rolled over on the top bunk bed and pulled the blankets up a little higher and Butler staggered out of his room and to the (now getting crowded) couch. Some bickering and squealing ensued, but the mommy had some breakfasts ready by this time and called various ones to come and eat. At this house, there is only time for school children to eat breakfast before it's time to race to school. Still no sign of Emma in spite of the repetitive summons. She is nearly dragged out of bed with much scolding and marched to the dining room table amid constant protesting. "I don't want to go to school! I don't want to eat breakfast. Can I stay home today? I'm cold! Can I got get a sweater? I'm tired. Can I go back to bed?" etc. etc. The protests are ignored. Breakfast was supposed to be over 3 minutes ago which means time had been made up, but they were still 15 minutes behind schedule.

Breakfast is rushed through, the children are sent to get into school uniforms while the Mommy works on packing the last of the lunches, pausing every few seconds to holler at someone to leave someone else alone, or to hurry up, meanwhile she forgot to include a fork for PC. (He reminded her when he got home from school and explained his untouched lunch - but that isn't part of the story either). Finally the lunches are finished, the backpacks are filled and the Mommy dashes to her room to get dressed in the few seconds everyone seems to be possibly cooperating.

Ricka screams at someone. Emma laughs (which means Ricka was screaming at Emma). The Mommy sticks her head out of her room and calls the girls to the hair-doing counter in her bathroom. They need to be called again. At last! The children are fed, dressed, packed and groomed. The older three rush to the car where half of them fight over who unlocks the door, who gets in the car first last or in some other place order and who is or isn't the boss and has the final say meanwhile, while the rest of them scatter about the house. The Mommy finds Ricka in nothing but her diaper. After throwing some clothes on Ricka, and digging Butler out of the toy box, she loads them into the car. By this time the other three have figured out how to get into the van. They race off to school still nearly 10 minutes behind schedule, but make it through the doors without needing to sign in at the school office.

Back home again to pick up the Daddy. The Mommy runs inside to get his lunch and look for Ricka's blanket - somehow they'd made the trip to school without it and Ricka is letting this tragedy be known. The blanket isn't in sight and there's no time to turn the house upside down to find it. Besides, the Daddy was ready and they shuttle him to the skytrain. Home again and able to stop and breathe, the Mommy and the littles, build the fire, look for the 'blan-keet' (to no avail) and then stop to eat breakfast after diapers are changed and pajamas are traded for regular clothes.

All during chore time/ play time the blanket is forgotten. It isn't remembered until almost lunch time when Ricka was getting very very fussy. The Mommy thought the fussiness was mostly because it was lunch time and little people get hungry and fussy just before meals are ready to eat. She made lunch and then looked again for the blanket while Butler and Ricka ate.

Now the missing blanket problem was starting to get serious. Soon they would have to go pick the older children up from school, and the afternoon trip to school is when Ricka always begins her afternoon nap. The Mommy started looking everywhere. At first mostly in the obvious places like underneath the couch that the blanket was last seen on, in the beds or on the bedroom floors. But then, when the blanket was not turning up, she started looking elsewhere. In all Ricka's favorite play areas like the Mommy's bed (maybe it fell underneath the headboard? No.), or the big cupboard in the empty old dining hutch, and of course she checked the big cardboard play boxes that came home from Costco with last month's groceries. But no blanket in sight and time was running out. Each sweep through the house got more and more detailed, but the blanket wasn't in the dryer, or the bathtubs or the library book laundry basket. It wasn't in the doghouse, or under the Mommy's bed and it was not in any of the bathroom cupboards or drawers (one of Ricka's favorite forbidden places to play).

They had to leave for school without the blanket and Ricka cried inconsolably all the way. She fell asleep just a couple minutes away from the school and there was peace until school was out and the older children noisily piled into the van. The trip home was more bearable - there were more distractions, but when they got home and it was time for Butler and Ricka to go for naps, the wailing resumed. Nobody seemed to know where the blanket had gone. PC and Dolly helped look, but it wasn't in the pantry, or the bird room it wasn't underneath the school desk. There was no blanket under the other beds, no blanket behind the couches, it wasn't in the kitchen cupboards or even in the refrigerator. Ricka would have to nap without her blanket. Instead, she wailed.

Butler went to sleep, PC went down for a nap, Dolly rested on the couch and Emma went down for her nap (in the same room with weeping Ricka). Emma wasn't planning on napping. She found it much more entertaining to converse with Ricka and eventually the Mommy joined them to enforce the rules. As long as the Mommy stroked Ricka's shoulder, Ricka would quiet down - she really was exhausted. And Ricka slept. Fitfully, and with little whimpers, but she slept. Eventually Emma fell asleep too, and the Mommy tip-toed out of the room just 10 minutes before 'nap time' was officially over.

The search resumed once all the children were up from naps, but there were chores to be done, homework to be done, and dinner to be made. Still no blanket turned up and it was still missing by the time they left to pick the Daddy up from the skytrain. While the children were supposed to be getting ready for bed the Daddy and Mommy searched for the blanket and then in a last hopeless attempt, the mommy emptied the shoe box. She'd looked underneath it and behind it earlier in the day, and even glanced inside a few times, but other than noting that it looked like the shoes were where they belonged for a change (in the box instead of in front of the box) that was as far as she'd gotten.

The blanket was in the shoe box. Carefully and completely out of sight close to the bottom, deep inside. The Mommy was relieved, Ricka was ecstatic, and eventually all of the children were finally ready for bed. Then the Mommy asked the children who had put Ricka's blanket in the shoe box, for Ricka wouldn't have buried it like that, and she most definitely would have known where to retrieve it from. Dolly didn't know. Butler didn't know. PC had no idea. And Emma matter-of-factly admitted to confiscating and hiding the blanket before leaving for school that morning. The reason? Because Ricka had been mad at her (remember the screaming the Mommy heard while she got dressed that morning?). Yeah. And apparently, Emma 'just forgot' about it while everyone else was frantically searching for the blanket all afternoon.

So the children were sent to bed (Ricka with her 'blan-keet' and a huge, adoring grin) and the bedtime circus began. But at least it didn't include a wailing 18mo. old suffering from a blanket addiction withdrawal.

The End.

Some things Make you Thankful

I started making my teriyaki sauce marinade at about noon today. First I measured out the soy sauce, and then got sidetracked warming up leftover pizza for lunch. Once I got the kids up to the table and served, I got back to the sauce project. I started measuring out the sugar, got halfway through that when I ran out of sugar in the main container. As I headed to the pantry, thankful there was a refill sugar to grab, one of the kids had some urgent question that they insisted needed my attention. I answered the question as I walked back to the kitchen with the sugar. Please note that my pantry is a whole eleven feet from my kitchen stove (and yes, I measured that distance especially for this post).

When I got back to the stove, I couldn't remember how much sugar I'd already put into my pot. Eventually I figured out how much more sugar I needed to add (that involved dissolving and tasting) and I turned the burner on to start heating the sauce to a boil. But by then the kids were done eating and I was sidetracked with washing them up, stirring the sauce when I remembered and being thankful that I was supposed to heat it on a low burner setting each time I stirred it and found it was still unburnt.

Then the phone rang - it was Tina. While I was talking to her I discovered Butler had a dirty diaper so I changed him while I talked to her on the phone. By this time it was almost nap time, so I put him to bed and walked back to the kitchen just in time to find my teriyaki sauce had finally come to a boil and was about to boil over. It did start to boil over as I moved the pot off the heat and then it continued to boil over for a couple seconds as it cooled down. So, I had a huge mess to clean up on the stove top, but I was thankful it was a glass top and that I'd wiped it clean before I started the teriyaki project and that made it a little easier to clean. Besides, it gave me more time to talk to my sister (I've found that you can talk and clean at the same time very effectively).

It wasn't very long before it was time to feed Ricka again so I put the rest of the kids down for naps and sat down at my desk to reply to an e-mail while she nursed. When Ricka was happy again, I took the meat out of the refrigerator, measured out the teriyaki sauce, mixed it into the meat and then started putting the ice cream buckets of meat (there were four of them) back into the fridge to marinate. The second bucket I grabbed, slipped out of my hand and fell onto the floor perfectly upright. The impact had split the bucket down the side and around the bottom, so when I went to pick the bucket up it started to dump. Then I was thankful that I had half a dozen more ice cream buckets in the cupboard just inches away. That made salvaging the meat that didn't dump out easier.

I put the undumped meat into a new bucket, picked up and rinsed off the two cups or so of meat that did dump out, added them to the bucket and measured out more teriyaki sauce which made me thankful that I'd made an extra large batch of sauce today instead of making exactly what I thought we'd need for my marinade. Of course, I don't have a lot of extra teriyaki sauce now, but I didn't have to start over either.

And when I got to cleaning up the huge puddle of teriyaki sauce that leaked out of the cracked bucket, I was thankful that the bucket dumped AFTER I'd put the kids down for naps so I wouldn't have to worry about them walking in it.

It's only 3:30 and ALL five of my kids are asleep! And that is definitely something to be thankful for.