Naughty Pink and Crawly Pink

A few weeks ago, I wrote about how much I have been enjoying the addition of two little Pink Ones to our family. Since then, little HM has moved on. We only had her for a couple of weeks, but grew to love her in that short time. Thumbelina is still here, and we are enjoying her very much. She spent a rather interesting evening recently.

Last Saturday, I put her to bed at her usual time. Normally, she goes right to sleep and doesn’t stir until morning. Must have been a full moon, because when I went upstairs to put myself to bed a few hours later, the little monkey was nowhere to be found. Not in her bed, or my bed, or a boy’s bed, or under a bed?! I finally found her, hiding in her closet. I could tell by the look on her face that something was afoot. I tucked her back in bed, told her to STAY, and went to investigate. Yep, she’d been busy.

There was shaving cream all over the bathroom floor. There was barbie hair all over the bathroom floor. And, a beautiful, signed masterpiece was prominently displayed on the hallway wall. A pencil sketch, thankfully. It could have been worse!

The princess had a busy Sunday afternoon, cleaning up after herself!

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In addition to joy, laughter, and shaving cream sculptures, one of my pinks brought something not quite as welcome into our home. After she had been with us for about ten days, I discovered lice in HM’s hair. It was bedtime on a Saturday night, and Lyndon (of course!) was away for the weekend. Poor HM literally freaked out. I was freaking out on the inside, but did a masterful job of taking charge and seeming like I was in control of things. I called the local pharmacist, who graciously agreed to meet me at his store and subsequently armed me with bottles of lice shampoo and some much needed words of encouragement. And thus commenced a busy few days of shampooing hair, combing hair, buzzing hair (only the boys!), and the washing of mountains of laundry. No one else in the house became host to the nasty critters, nor (as far as I know) did we spread the joy to any of our friends or neighbours. Whew!

 

Pink things

Girls. They are different from boys. During the past month, two little foster girls have come into our home. Thumbelina has been here for a few weeks, and HM has been here for a few days. Since girls have graced our home, I have done some things I have never done before, such as:

browse the girl toy aisle in Walmart,

put ponies in a little girl’s hair for school,

rent the movie Barbie Diaries,

purchase matching Cinderella lunch kit and back pack,

call “time to go, boys… and girls”, and,

fold little pink things in the laundry.

Now, besides swords, Pokemon, and animal books, I am picking up hair bands, My Little Ponies, and naked barbie dolls. (Those girls just don’t seem to be able to keep their clothes on!)

As always, these precious little girls have very uncertain futures. As always, I’d keep them if I could. As always, we will just take things day by day.

As I told a sad little girl as I tucked her into bed on her first night in our home, “We are glad you are here and we will try our best to take good care of you.”

 

And the winner is … someone else!

Hey, I just saw that I received an Honourable Mention over on John Shore’s Story in Ten Words or Less contest. The winning entry was: Princess chose the dragon. Frankly, she knew him better. Pretty good, eh.

This was my entry: She lifted her suitcase, dropped the burning match, and left. Do you think my entry may have been inspired by the fact that I have been doing renos for what seems like forever as we try to get our place ready to list?

Yep, we are on the move again. Well, we are in the “preparing to move” phase of moving… again. We have decided to put our little acreage up for sale and, well, see what happens. The past month has been spent painting and fixing and generally sprucing up the place. My dad came and helped for a week, which was awesome and very much appreciated.

What will we do next, you ask? Truthfully, we have no clue. Well, we have a few clues but no real sense of direction at this point. So, we’ll just get the place ready, put it up for sale, and cross the “what should we do now?” bridge later.

ps. Mom had hip surgery a couple of days ago. She’s doing fine but did need a blood transfusion yesterday. Hope you are feeling better today, Mom!

 

Storytelling

I have had the opportunity to speak a couple of times lately about storytelling. Last Saturday, I spoke at a Ladies Day on the topic of Sharing Your Faith Story. It was so great to hear the sharing of women from all kinds of backgrounds as they told about their personal journeys. I loved it. I have come to understand that women do not talk easily or often about themselves. And so I appreciate the opportunities I have had lately to facilitate that. There are some amazing stories out there!

Yesterday, Carter and I headed into the Gravelbourg Elementary School to hear Simon Moccasin, a First Nation storyteller, share stories from his Cree heritage. We both enjoyed it. Carter got to participate in one of Simon’s stories, playing the role of a beaver. He did a great job, bowing over and over to the crowd’s applause when he was finished. So fun to watch.

Also, a few days ago a blogging aquaintance posted a Story in Ten Words or Less contest, inspired, of course, by the famous Hemmingway six-word story: Baby shoes for sale; never worn. It’s been interesting to read the different entries and to see how people try to condense a story idea into just a few words. You can check the entries out at johnshore.com if you are interested. He’s a fun read, no matter what.

In light of the above, I’ve been thinking lately about the power of the mundane. Truly, mundane-ness drives the world. The mundane is what cleans our dishes, washes our socks, and brushes our teeth. And yet, what I have heard from women lately, is that they feel like they really have nothing to share, that their lives are mundane, that other women’s stories are much more interesting than theirs. Not so! I have heard some amazing stuff lately, from women who have sometimes said that they have never shared their stories before.

 

Colton’s decision

Last Sunday, September 13, 2009, my middle son, Colton, was baptized. His older brother, Tyson, was baptized a few months ago. Such a sweet mom experience, to watch the new births of my sons.

Colton, of course, is very different from his older brother. Colton is funny, sweet… a bit of a clown. He is also very close to his dad, and he asked Lyndon if he would baptize him. It was beautiful, watching a father baptize his son. Such a precious memory for both of them, and for me. Colton’s big grin after was priceless.

Colton is twelve, the same age Jesus was when he got “lost” in Jerusalem. His parents found him in the temple, busy being “about his Father’s business”. That is my prayer for you in your life, Colton. That you will be lost in the service of your Father. Welcome to the Kingdom, Son!

 

Goodbye and Hello

In July, just before we left on holidays, we said goodbye to our Little Man. He was our first foster child. We had him for three months.

Yep, it was hard to leave him. I know his family was thrilled to death that he was coming home. His mom gave me a beautiful card. I gave her a hug, kissed my Little Man, and walked back to the car. A very strange experience.

I called Social Services a couple of weeks ago to let them know we were home and ready to accept children if needed. On Thursday, while I was browsing in the huge Michael’s store in Regina, I had a cell phone call asking if we would take a little girl. Carter and I picked her up that afternoon. It is amazing to me how these kids will just take the hand of a stranger and walk away.

Social Worker: This is the lady you will be staying with.

Child: Okay.

Child: Can we have a snack?

It’s crazy. But that’s how it goes. So, I took her little hand and brought her home.

Carter calls her Thumbelina. We still pray for our Little Man all the time.

Goodbye and hello.

 

Blogging Sabbath

I guess that is what I have been on the past few weeks. We have been gone, camping mainly, for most of the summer, and internet access has been spotty at best. But here I am, in the laundry room of the Buffalo Lookout Campground, just off Highway #1, east of Regina, Saskatchewan. And the WiFi signal is coming in strong! So, as I wait for my clothes to tumble dry, I’ll try to update a bit.

No Staycation for this family! We have been on the road. Vacation all the way!

To begin with, the boys and I spent a few days at Mom and Dad’s in Airdrie. Actually, Tyson and I dropped the little boys off at Mom and Dad’s and we headed over to Red Deer to help with their Vacation Bible School. Six of their members (Preacher John and five teens) came to Gravelbourg to help with our VBS, so we were returning the favour. So, the little boys had a great time with Grandma and Grandpa (I think they had only been there an hour and they had already talked Grandpa into taking them to the swimming pool!) and Tyson and I enjoyed helping and visiting in Red Deer.

We arrived home from Alberta, spent about two hours catching up on mail and loading the trailer, and then we were off on the next adventure. The whole family, this time. Our destination was Tisdale (northern Saskatchewan) but we only got as far as Regina the first day. Lyndon was gung ho to try the Walmart camping experience, so we did. We stayed in the parking lot of the Southland Mall Walmart, and, I have to say, it wasn’t too bad. We did a little shopping for our trip and checked out the near-by Chapters for some book bargains. Several other trailers were staying the night as well, so I didn’t feel too weird. I was amazed at how dirty it was, though. There was garbage all over the place. That evening, while Lyndon and Tyson were outside on the grass setting up their new fishing rods, a man came by looking for money. The little boys and I were in the store so we missed this experience. Anyway, it sounds like they had quite a chat. The man insisted he needed money to buy food for his family, so Lyndon asked him about his kids… their names and ages… with the end result being a lighter wallet for Lyndon and an interesting experience for Tyson.

Anyway, after an uneventful night (other than the drive-by compliments of a noisy crowd of teenagers at about midnight), we continued our trek north. We arrived in Tisdale and found our campground, which was located on the edge of town beside the Tourist Information Centre. Out front was a large honey bee statue, and a huge picture of Brent Butt. Honey and Brent are Tisdale’s two claims to fame. The joke, of course, became: To get to our campground, just turn at Brent’s Butt. (Remember, I have three boys!)

Thus began the next part of our summer experience, which we will call Music Camp. Stay tuned.

 

Prayers, please …

My friend Diane had a boating accident the other day, and has suffered a head injury. She is in the hospital in Regina. She was beginning to come out of her coma yesterday. Doctors will be assessing her situation over the next few days. This amazing woman has blessed the lives of so many. She has shown such strength and faithfulness through her years of battling MS. If you could, please say a prayer for her and her family. Thank you.

God bless you, Diane.

 

Trail Ride and Testimony

This past weekend was the annual Christian Women’s Retreat and Trail Ride, here in southern Saskatchewan. I was blessed by the amazing women attending, and the stories they shared. The theme was “Your Story in HIStory”. In other words, Testimony. Although I was facilitating the weekend, I had not written my testimony ahead of time. I thought it would be cool to wait and write mine at the same time the other women were writing their’s. So, as I’m sitting in the cabin and trying to write, with a squirmy Little Man “helping”, my thought was – Okay, this was really dumb! I SO should have written this ahead of time. Anyway, this is the testimony I wrote and shared with the ladies on the weekend.

Fear entered my life when my children were born. I remember being afraid that I would die and then who would take care of my children? I remember getting up to check on them twenty times a night when they were babies. I was fearful that something might happen to them while they were playing outside or at a friend’s house. I worried that my husband might lose his job, or we might have to move, or my children might not “turn out” okay.

But, the thing I was most fearful of was that God would ask me to do a hard thing. And really, that is what all those other fears boiled down to.

Then, I read Stormie O’Martian’s book, The Power of a Praying Parent, and out of that, God changed me in a couple of ways. First, I realized that I wasn’t the only one who struggled with fear. And, secondly, I learned to deal with my fears through prayer.

Now, when fear begins to take me over, I can pray and turn my fear over to God. Sometimes, I give God my fear several times a day! And, instead of feeling guilty for being fearful, God gives me peace.

After God helped me learn to deal with my fear, guess what happened? Some really hard things happened. And God has helped me face each situation with a measure of peace and with the knowledge that He is in control.

So now, Praise God!, I am at the point in my life when I can actually choose to do a hard thing. I can choose to bring a child into my home and love him with all of my heart, all the time knowing that the day will come when I will have to tell him goodbye.

My encouragement to you is to trust God to not only help you face the hard things in your life, but to sometimes even choose them.

 

The box

“We need to think outside the box.”

I hear this expression kicked around a lot these days, and I’ve been thinking about it. The whole “box” thing. What is the box that we are supposed to be thinking outside of? Is it institutionalism? Or, is this just a phrase that encourages us to get out of whatever rut we are in? Is it supposed to inspire creativity? Or, the next great idea about whatever it is we are trying to “market”?

Maybe trying to think outside the box is a good thing. But, I wonder, am I really just building a different box? Or, maybe, just trying to make the box I am in a little more attractive or comfortable or exciting?

I am wondering if Jesus actually called us to LIVE outside the box. And if he did, what does that really mean? What I have discovered is that the box is still there, and while I might be trying to live outside it, and even raise my children outside it, I keep bumping into it!