Solomon

Just a few short weeks ago, I was nearly halfway through my fourth pregnancy.  At eighteen weeks, my midwife visited and was concerned when she couldn't find a heartbeat for the baby.  Days later, Dan and I sat in a darkened room for an ultrasound scan and saw our fifth child curled up peacefully inside, perfect but for his silence.  No heartbeat.

It's true that this was not a terrible shock.  I had felt something was wrong, for so many weeks.  As days of pregnancy had crawled by, the sickening nausea I experienced from the beginning was almost unbearable. I'd never had such stomach cramping and pain with the other three, even during the twins' pregnancy.  The kids and I had experienced symptoms of food poisoning in June after eating fruit that was part of a nationwide recall, and my "morning sickness" seemed to be entwined with normal "flu" symptoms until I couldn't tell the difference anymore.

The doctor was clear: this was not a miscarriage, and at nearly nineteen weeks, was not far enough along to be considered a stillbirth.  It was simply "fetal death", and as my body was choosing not to deal with it, labour would have to be induced.

Dan and I went to the local hospital Sunday evening after a day spent with friends, family, and our children.  We sat in quiet and near-darkness for hours.  Dan played his guitar and we spoke in hushed tones to each other and with nurses as they periodically came in to check on me.  In the end, I was only in proper labour for an hour, and gave birth to our tiny baby boy around 7am yesterday.  He was still in the amniotic sac, placenta fully attached --no complications or need for any other interventions-- it was a complete birth.

Not quite six inches long, weighing about 1 1/2 ounces, this little boy was small but clearly one of ours.  His long legs, big torso, and scrawny arms were an exact replica of his two oldest brothers!  Though I will never see him as they are now I can easily imagine him with auburn hair, freckled faces, and big grins, just like theirs'.

We called him Solomon simply because it means "peaceful", which perfectly describes how we've felt during this time.

My father built a box using cedar wood that Dan found in the woods last autumn.  Solomon, wrapped in blue flannel, rested in the box, and the kids placed treasures inside: a bird drawing from Righty, a long letter from Lefty, and a card from Coo.  Mr J wrote a note and shared some of his special things with his little brother: an English penny, a plastic ring, and three crystal "jewels".  

We buried baby Solomon in his little box, halfway between a white oak and a cedar tree.  Dan played the guitar and some of us spoke out our thankfulness to God for Solomon, in spite of his short life.  Wildflowers are everywhere at this time of year and we gathered handfuls of them to cover his box. The children decorated the mound that remained with chestnuts, acorns, sticks, and more flowers.

We sat outside on the ground nearby as the sun dropped down in the evening sky.  Golden sunshine  scattered ribbons of light around us and the quiet was peaceful.

Sadness is close, always nearby when we think about the unexpected death of our baby.  But a deep peace is near, too, always there.  The life of God inside us is the same breath that gave life to Solomon, and we are at peace knowing that Solomon is now with Him.

Dan and I are so thankful for our parents, who've been so helpful and supportive, and for our friends far and near.  Even though many of you are faraway, we've felt so much love from all of you. :)

All photos for this post were taken by Tracey Stanton.

Everyday vs Different

I push my way through the slog of normal everyday life.  Making breakfasts and lunches and dinners for a few of us or many, cleaning up messes both substantial and miniscule, washing clothes and dishes and small people's hair, reading aloud, thinking aloud, talking loudly, speaking softly. All these things I've done for so long, here in this place, standing still yet so busy.

But my thoughts are occupied in trudging through a long, slow goodbye to all I have known and grown to love in the last thirteen years of my life here in Britain. My normal is changing. Not just that gradual change of passing time, but the all-encompassing change that a move brings.  And not just a move down the hill, or across the city. This is a move to the other side of the Atlantic: a "big" move.  Culturally --yes-- but literally, too. This is going to be something Different.

I've written before about how it feels to think of returning to the culture in which I was born and raised. Today, I'm thinking about how it feels to be leaving this one.

So many thoughts, all sketchy but infused with feeling.  I remember the day I stepped from the plane onto British soil for the first time, sixteen years ago.  Late August sun blazed bright, but the air was fresh and crisp. I fell in love, totally enamoured, with the velvety purple colour of the heathered hillsides.  Blinking in that sunshine, watching the cloud shadows skim across the moors of the Borders, everything seemed new and invigorating but also somehow familiar. I felt as if I was returning to a place that had once been home. 

After that first year, I returned, this time to England, two years later.  I spent many years settling, easing, establishing, learning.  It was much easier than I'd imagined, as if I was slotting my self into a place that was waiting for me.  So much of it fitted with me, with who I was as a person, just as if I were returning to a faraway home.

But now, all feels different.  Different is not knowing when or if we will be back.  Will it be as a family, or one by one, or not at all?  Righty is already saving money to visit New Zealand someday, and Lefty is currently [this week] considering a future career with MI5 when he's not storm-chasing.  I have a feeling that my wandering feet have been gifted to my children, too.  

But someday I will return, even if alone, retracing steps to the places I love.  I will go back to Figsbury Ring, on the Salisbury Plain, and remember.  I will stand in the biting wind and look for my children, my friends, my father and mother, my sister and brother, my husband, there once more. The grassy mound will be empty, apart from myself, but I will see them as they were when we went there together.

I will return to this town, this grubby bustling Midlands city that so many seem to hate, and search for familiar faces.  They will have disappeared, but I will remember.  The familiar treks and paths will open again to me and the past will be there, waiting for me.

I'll go back to the north, to Scotland, where I first arrived.  I will see myself as I was then: seventeen, breathing in everything that was fresh as the cold sea-salt air, new and exciting, and wonder where the years have gone.

It's a weight, this responsibility as a parent.  Which culture to choose for our children?  Because, unlike many, we can choose. We take our own with us, I know, but as parents we're not everything to them.  They will soak up their environment with us, the beautiful as well as the ugly, but the further culture will wash over them too and become part of them. Their accents will change and their horizons increase. Their days of riding round in tiny muddy circles on little bikes in our pocket of a back garden will expand to include gravel roads and grassy fields and bigger bicycles, and something Different. Our car trips and adventures to National Trust homes, our train journeys, the hours spent walking around our town, will all be exchanged for something Different.  I'm capitalising Different because for me it is like the personification of the new.

I don't want to fear Different even though there is so much to fear, because in reality I have no idea what Different will look like.

I only know what I will miss right here, right now, in this Everyday.

Esther

As I leaf through old journals I see in them more stories, tributes to long-ago friends that need to be told.  Here is one.  It's not a cheerful story but rather my first real confrontation with death as a happy-go-lucky eighteen-year-old.

The summer before I went to Bible college in Scotland I worked at a bakery deep in Southern Indiana's Amish country.  My place was in the "cake room", where a team of us [mostly Amish apart from me and a few others] turned out 800-900 angel food cakes daily. I washed endless cake pans, turned out cooled cakes, and mopped floors.  My favourite job was mixing up the cake batter, folding in the egg whites by hand, up to my elbows in sweet-smelling batter.  Esther was one of my co-workers, a tall, fair Amish girl just a year older than me, soft-spoken and quiet.

I returned from Scotland to hear that Esther was dying.  She had told me before about the pain she suffered from.  While I was away, she found out that it was cancer.

Another friend, Mary Teresa, and I went to visit Esther. It was a pitch black night at an electricity-free Amish farm, stumbling out of the car in that dark up to a shadowy porch and into the clean echoing house.  

Inside, kerosene lamps cast a strange brightness within their circle of light, making the unlit areas seem even darker.  The oily smell of the kerosene filled my senses and my stomach dropped.  I felt as if half of my breathing power had left me.  I can smell that kerosene again as strongly as I did then, right now.  I can hear the hiss of the lamps and the creaking of Esther's mother's rocking chair as she sat beside her daughter; also the sound of springs on an iron bed upon which several small nieces and nephews sat silently, tiny bare feet dangling from beneath their nightdresses. Other relatives reposed on various benches and chairs around the room, faces composed into a calm acceptance in the presence of the dying.  All around, set out on tables, were hundreds of "get well" cards inscribed with flowery, upbeat messages, creating a sense that this illness was only temporary and that we would wake up tomorrow to see Esther back at the bakery working away, pain-free.

Esther's dad sat on the bed with the little ones. His eyes were red and often a stream of tears would make its way down his lined face.  Esther's mother cried too, silently, sometimes.  Delilah, the fifteen-year-old sister, came in with a pink hand-crocheted afghan.  "I made this for the benefit supper," she said in a muted voice, showing it round the room.  We exclaimed over it as if a benefit supper was all it would take for Esther to be well again.  

Some relatives stood up, filed quietly out, and more entered the room to take their places.  All sitting, speaking little, waiting.

Esther was so thin.  Her complexion, once pink, was milk white.  Her cheeks were no longer red but now the same translucent colour as her skin.  Blue veins stood out against the paleness of her arms and hands.  Her eyes were glazed over with tears of pain.  She did not rest leaning back, full weight against her chair; instead she strained against it.  The pain was in her hips and lower back, a horrific pain that I cannot imagine, only that it was so strong the most potent painkillers could not relieve it.  Sometimes her dad or mom would lift her gently for a few moments to east the pressure put against her bones, ravaged by the disease.

I spent the forty-five minutes we were there working through my personal coming-to-terms with the situation.  I remembered Esther as she had been the year before at the bakery --gentle, conscientious, often troubled by the pain in her leg.  I remembered the strange, intense impression I had one day when Esther mentioned the pain.  I was scraping the crumbs from the wooden cake-cooling table listening to the sound of her voice die away when suddenly I thought, "In a year she will be dying."  Just as quickly I dismissed it as my natural tendency to dramatise, but that night, watching Esther, I knew it was that uncanny intuition that I have sometimes, that foresight that keeps me connected to a spiritual world, preparing me for her death.  

Mary Teresa stood to go and I followed her.  Our shoes sounded heavy on the wooden floors as we crossed the room.  I took Esther's hand and whispered that I would pray for her.  Her voice was light and she laboured for breath.  "Thank you.  Please come again."

As her hand, weightless as air, slipped from my grasp, I think we both knew I would not be back.  When I looked into her eyes, she was crying, whether from pain or remembrances, I don't know.  I was stoic as we left and did not feel emotional in the car on the way home.  I was too shocked into reality to feel anything. 

Back at home, I was questioned about my visit abstractedly by busy family members.  "She's dying," I said.  Oh, wasn't there anything that could be done?  "No, she's dying."  It did not seem real or possible to any of us that someone just a year older than me was dying of sudden cancer.  

It was two more months before Esther passed away.  She died one of the most painful, lingering deaths I can possibly imagine.  I saw the notice of her death in the newspaper, just a few days after Christmas.  When the telephone rang that night and someone shouted down the stairs that the phone was for me, I knew it was Mary Teresa.  I listened to her tell me what I already knew and thanked her for phoning.

In the fifteen years since, I've experienced other deaths that have been much closer to home than Esther's.  However, I was reminded of her story again a few weeks ago when friends and I finished studying Psalmist's Cry: Scripts for Embracing Lament.  This book was a brilliant exposition of our need to walk through pain and suffering with others, maintaining that if we try to isolate and inoculate ourselves from grief, we miss out on the blessing found in lamenting together.  Looking back on Esther's story, how appropriate it was that her family and friends were right there with her, mourning as a community while she passed from this world into the next. 

"We who have run for our very lives to God have every reason to grab the promised hope with both hands and never let go. It’s an unbreakable spiritual lifeline, reaching past all appearances right to the very presence of God where Jesus, running on ahead of us, has taken up his permanent post as high priest for us..." 

--Hebrews 6.18-20

British Waterproof

Times and things are changing for us and for the people who are close to us this year.  Who are we? Who am I, in the midst of all of this change?  In the leaving behind, I don't want to forget what has gone before, what has surrounded me for the past thirteen years, this culture that once was both alien yet oddly familiar and now is everyday commonplace.  It's been three years since I've returned to the land of my birth. It seems an indistinct and long-ago place of memories and childhood, dreams and the dead.

The now, the everyday me, is predictable and even-keel: dependably so.  I learned quickly and quietly, so many years ago now, alone.  I learned to follow the masses, stand in the queues, and read the signs. So many signs.  Fond appreciation of rain ceased after a few years; I learned to tolerate it as everyone else does and talk about the weather. To small-talk, understand roundabouts [both in driving and in conversations], and have incessant hot drinks to keep myself warm. To watch and listen carefully without arguing my point too strongly, to translate the Anglo differences in words into American in my head, then back again and again, until they muddled into nothing but Anglo.  

I learned the place names, regions, and geographical accents of this place. I learned to understand and appreciate British humour --and the sarcasm so beloved of some members of my family has meshed into this Anglo comedy and become my own. I have a British passport and a basic understanding of the tricky cultural situation in this country.  I appreciate the blandness of the British political system in contrast with the near-religious fervour of the American political structure. I know the meaning of the word chav and see the reality of it in every walk to town, and its utter incongruity to the world's view of quaint English behaviour.  

I feel the tragedy of nearly twenty thousand lives lost in London --and over twenty thousand more elsewhere in the UK during the Second World War-- and wonder sometimes why all I ever really knew about death during WWII [aside from the Holocaust] was limited to Pearl Harbour, when in this country countless families had already borne the cost of Hitler's spiteful vendetta against Britain and buried their dead by the time our two thousand and a half died in Japan's surprise attack.  It's as if the near-romanticism of Hawaii's suffering soldiers was somehow more worthy than the grim everyday reality of London's tragedy of mothers, fathers, and children dying under bombed rubble and burned-out buildings as their lives and history disappeared before their eyes.

I have compromised silently or laughed apologetically while listening to racist snarks about Americans: usually mild but if "Asian" were substituted for "American", well then it would be "real" racism. I've heard the phrase "That's so American" said contemptuously in a tone more bitter than observational more times than I would care to count.

I have laughed into my sleeve whenever one of my own oddities has been dismissed as "so American" all the while knowing the quirk was entirely my own.

I have eaten obligatory fish and chip meals when other Americans have visited, and have taken them on trips to castles and country homes and "quaint liddle villages".

Underneath this British waterproof of cultural behaviour is me: a somehow-not-quite-American.

Genetically I am from far, faraway.

From Frances Marion Frederick, who fought too young in the American Civil War. From Samuel Gardiner, the first white child born in his pioneering family's newly founded county. From the unnamed Native women in our family who were shamed into mythological obscurity.  From my great-great-grandmothers who made new homes in rugged places, sewed clothing and quilts by hand, made their own soap, and chose to remember so little about their European forebears that the truth of their origins blended into folklore.

I am from my grandfather's mother's Polish family who chose to emigrate to a new country rather than send their sons to war.  From my grandmother's family who originated in Yorkshire, once upon a time, yet still remembered how to cook a proper English roast dinner with homemade Yorkshire puddings.

I am from my mother's father, who sailed the seas during the second world war and saw the handful of survivors from the USS Indianapolis, the Navy cruiser torpedoed in the Pacific by the Japanese after delivering crucial atomic bomb components. He went home to become a teacher, married my grandmother, had three children, and after a life of creativity and adventure sits at home alone in Southern California remembering.

I am from my father's father, who spent second world wartime in Okinawa and like a typical boy, came home with Japanese bayonets and other various collected now-rare weaponry. He returned home to farm and barber and have children and live quietly, watching the weather and walking through the woods and making us all appreciate dry humour and dying at home in bed in the same room where he took his first breath.

I am from my paternal grandma who was known to carry a gun in her handbag, and my maternal grandmother who took my brother and I along to a world peace vigil.

Upon returning to their land, the place where I was born and lived unbroken for the first seventeen years of my life, I must step cautiously, listen carefully, learn the culture all over again.  Live with my social mis-steps because my brain is more Anglo these days, and slowly remove my British waterproof, replacing it with, oh, I don't know --a hand-knit sweater [Br. jumper] made by me-- just for me.

Simple Love

Dan and I have just celebrated our eleventh anniversaries, but I'm not about to write about romance.  For those of you who are disappointed, read on anyway.  You might appreciate the links at the end!

About three years ago, together with a group of friends from our church community, we began serving hot, homemade sit-down meals and offering lunch bags to the homeless in our town, one weekend out of every month.  Just two days out of thirty, but so much work, time and effort went into this project, and still does.  Dan and I are no longer involved with the day-to-day planning/running of it, but the project is now called "The Big Feed" and is living up to its name.

During that first year, we took Coo and the boys along with us, and the relationships we began to build with the people of our local homeless/hostel dwelling culture have been long-lasting.  On trips to town we have conversations with the Big Issue sellers and buy hot drinks for the ones begging near the coffee shops.  It's not about feel-good charity; it's about simple [definition: uncomplicated] love, no matter what.  

I learned about simple love as I let them hold baby Coo in that first year.  My tiny daughter was cradled by people who no longer held their own children, lost long ago to adoption or foster parents.  And their stories, these stories, spilled from their mouths as their spirits softened while they watched my baby.  

I learned about simple love as my boys began to call the Big Issue guys by their first names, and shout out a "hey!" to them when we saw them around town, treating them like any other person we knew.

I learned about simple love when it was time to go to S' funeral.  S had been a Big Issue seller for many years and had suffered from cancer for months.  Lefty was intent on going too, so into the car he hopped when our friend Becky arrived to pick us up for the funeral.  At our local crematorium we waited in blinding sunshine for the funeral car.  There were just a few of us, but it was clear that everyone there had been part of S' life in a very real way.  Lefty sat down on the kerb next to N, one of the Big Issue sellers, and chatted.  

As much as I admire my son naturally, as his mother, I was still surprised and impressed at the diplomacy and normality with which he treated the entire situation.  Eventually, it was time to enter the chapel for a service presided over by a local vicar.  His message was simple, and centred around Jesus, and love.  When all was ending we gathered around the coffin to say goodbye, each person taking a single flower and setting it on the coffin for their own individual goodbyes.  I overheard many murmured words, and later asked Lefty what he'd said as he put his flower on the coffin.  

"I remembered what they say in Tintin, and said 'So long, mate!'"

S was not Lefty's relative or a neighbour.  He was not a church friend or a mate from football.  Whenever we saw S, he was not at his best.  He was usually in pain and just trying to sell his magazines so he could go back to bed.  But Jesus' type of love transcends the cultural and social boundaries that we tend to place on relationships, and in Him, we are all the same.  And somehow, my son seems to have grasped that truth: ten-year-old Lefty, who takes reluctant showers once every two days and the Big Issue guy who might have not had one for over a week are equal in His eyes.

For us adults, those of us who are set in our ways and so constrained by our habits and prejudices and lack of mercy... why is it so hard to learn to simply love?

This is my 400th blog post! As a sort-of veteran blogger who has not been consistent in the past [I started in 2005, but didn't blog regularly until just a few years ago] this is quite an achievement!  

For a trip down memory lane, here are links to a few of the popular posts out of the four hundred: Ynyslas [fun in Wales], Calke Abbey [National Trust house visit], Saying Goodbye to Lizzie [the suspicious death of a pet fish], Allowances [money-scavenging adventures with my boys], The Violin Man, and Goodbye Doggieland? [about growing up]. 

Literary Constipation

Yep, I have it.  Just diagnosed myself this evening.  Can't blog, can't finish sentences, can't even write e-mails. 

So... I'm giving myself a bit of a break.  I'll leave you with this until I'm back.

Dan's birthday suddenly appeared on the horizon, and I felt inspired to make this raw chocolate cheesecake recipe from Sweetly Raw.  It was delicious, and I can highly recommend it!

September

Yes... already.  There's no stopping time.  But I'm thankful for so much, so many small things, that when I revel in their simplicity, time slows.

Waking up to cheerful, dreamy sunshine.  Sitting in the hazy warmth reading out of our new history book. Three boys, each working differently, writing and drawing and thinking. Happy daughter singing as she dances alone on the trampoline under that sunny sky. Coffee almost too hot but soothing in its familiarity.  Freshly washed laundry drying slowly on the line. Sorting books and old things, saying goodbye to much yet re-appreciating some things and setting them out to be used again.  Husband who hangs out with the kids so I can search for their birthday presents among the used book stall on the market. Walking underneath the clouds in the shifting shadows they create.  Sweet home-grown red peppers and taste-filled yellow tomatoes in our salad.  Chat with a friend on the phone, managing to catch up in spite of the sleep-ready children surrounding me.  Messy corners restored to order.  Mr J's way with words: "Mum, I love you more than other children love their mums." 

It's nice to know I don't have to be perfect, have it all under control, sorted out, and logically configured.  Appreciating every single moment is the key.  No matter what.  I'm thankful I have had the chance to do this for one more day.

Reflecting

The cup of coffee beside me is only just empty and already I'm ready for another.  It's been one of those mornings.  The kids started arguing early and though they're playing together right now, I feel as if I'm just waiting for the next fight to erupt.  I try to leave them to work through their problems; however, I often find it difficult to know when I do need to step in and dish out some wisdom. When I do, usually that particular "wisdom" I thought I had seems to elude me and I only end up as a referee to the discord.

It's a morning when I'm wishing for solutions. I like clear-cut resolutions, but life isn't necessarily conducive to receiving them! This is Monday, the day I've set aside for thinking about challenges and processing them in a disciplined way.  However, today I'm only full of questions: not many answers, and not even sure how to begin processing. But if I don't attempt a start on even the definition of the questions, it will be one of those days for the rest of the day, when my only goal is to survive until bedtime. And do I really want to waste this day, consign it to the rubbish bin without even a will to redeem it?  

Definitely not.  So, here we go.

1. What is the most important thing that needs to be done today?
2. How will I accomplish it?
3. What practical, everyday things need sorting out?
4. How will I accomplish them, and when?

And answers?

1. Love my kids
2. Hugs and acceptance no matter what
3. Laundry, menu-planning, finish a sewing project, organise the diary
4. Just do it

Wow.  That was easier than I thought!  So now I'm off to get started.

A Day in Our Life

I've been wanting to do this for a while, but it's actually now the "summer holidays".  We are following the mainstream school calendar loosely, so we'll just say this is a detailed day in the life of homeschoolers on "holiday"!  I'll try to write another similar post when we're "officially" doing "school" again.

What are all those quotation marks for? Well, I'm trying to speak mainstream language, but don't quite believe in it myself. A while ago, I requested that my kids refrain from using "school" to describe what we do.  I asked them to use the word "learning" instead.  Because, isn't all of life learning?  Not just the workbooks, but the everyday experiences that go so far in teaching them about real life.  Now they correct me.  If I mention "school", they're quick to say, "Don't you mean learning, Mum?"

Yes, I do.  So I'm not writing about formal lessons, but learning.  If you are unfamiliar with the practise of home education [as many people are here in the UK], before you carry on reading this post, please read this Wall Street Journal article first to give you an idea of what we're about.

Thank you.  Now that's out of the way, let's get on with the day!

7.20  I wake up slowly, three-year-old Coo cuddled next to me.  She is not happy about getting up, so we talk about coffee milk to help her look forward to going downstairs for breakfast.  Dan goes downstairs to prepare our muesli, then returns upstairs for a shower.  The three boys [nine-year-old twins Lefty and Righty, and Mr J, our six-year-old] are already awake in their room, playing noisily with their cardboard footballers and reading.  I can tell from the cool air blowing in through our open window that it's not going to be a warm day. Sunshine is intermittently streaming through huge fluffy clouds, but they soon group together into a dense cloud blanket, with only tiny patches of blue sky visible.

7.45  Coo and I are finally out of bed, and while I throw on my clothes, she is trying to decide what to wear.  Her dress from yesterday needs washing, so we play a game to help her choose a fresh dress for today. This doesn't work, and she still can't decide, so instead I take a few clean dresses from her cupboard and hang them on a low hook in her room. She goes through them several times before choosing one.  Then it's time to pick a pair of leggings. She's not happy with the choices available, so we decide to cut the feet off a pair of her old tights to create new leggings.  Helping Coo assemble her outfit sometimes takes longer than getting myself ready for the day!

8.10  I prepare Dan's lunch.  He's having tomato and avocado salad with mung bean sprouts, a peach, a raw nut and fruit bar, and water.  I've been putting his water into a large jar for quite a while now; it fits nicely into his lunch bag, doesn't leak, and I have no end of these jars: they're a result of the massive amount of peanut butter that we eat!  We also use them for drinking glasses; all but three of our "real" ones broke long ago and I decided to save money and stop buying them!

8.30  We are all gathered at the table for breakfast, but Dan has to eat and go this morning.  Usually we have a prayer time together using the book Common Prayer: A Liturgy for Ordinary Radicals, but we'll do that tonight instead.

9.00  Breakfast has finished, mostly.  Coo is still spooning up muesli, and Mr J keeps evading his glass of water.  Righty has already put away the dishes left in the dish drainer, and I claim washing up duties, as it's a chilly summer morning and I like washing the dishes when I'm cold!  Lefty and eventually Righty are outside in the garden playing catch with the neighbour boy.

9.10  Coo and Mr J are cold, too, and ask about having hot chocolate.  As I'm drinking my way through a fresh cafetiere of coffee, enjoying the warmth, I completely understand their need for a hot drink!  Often they drink decaffeinated tea, but as I have plenty of milk left in the fridge, hot chocolate is a possibility. I heat milk in a stainless steel pan and stir in Green & Black's cocoa and sugar.  They're quite excited about their drink and prepare, fetching spoons.

9.20  Righty returns from the great outdoors and decides to make hot chocolate as well.  He doesn't drink cow's milk.  He turns the gas stove on himself, and quickly mixes up his own hot chocolate using rice milk.  Lefty drinks the rest of Coo and Mr J's hot chocolate.

9.30  Lefty decides to do some math practice, using two of the maths apps we have on the laptop.

9.40  Mr J has Coo busy with his latest project: packaging up his Match Attax football collector's cards into packs to sell.  She is happy to help him, and follows all of his instructions very carefully.  Mr J's other plans for the day including drawing more promotional posters for the LOTR movie he wants to make someday.  These two activities, as well as his drawing, are the creative projects he bounces between.  Often he is busily working as soon as he wakes up, and if we are going out at any point in the day, I have to remind him to put proper clothes on, as he's usually still in his pyjamas!

9.45  Mr J encourages me to give Coo some money to put into her coin purse so she can buy packs of Match Attax from him.  He counts out 25p from a pile of change. At the last minute, he adds another 20p, and adds up the money himself, saying, "She needs 45p altogether."  I make the mistake of referring to what they're doing as "playing", and Mr J informs me, "We're not playing.  We're really doing this."  Of course.  Righty is now in possession of the laptop, busy with maths practice.

10.00 I gather together used towels and cloths from all over the house, including the washing basket, and put a load of washing into the machine.  Mr J helps me put the washing powder in the drawer, shuts the front-loading machine himself, and turns it on. Most days, I do only one load of washing. We don't have a clothes dryer, so unless I can hang clothes on the line, it's difficult to get more than one load dry inside daily.  On sunny, warm days I do as many loads as I can and then have a break for a few days! Righty and I talk about the weather, as it's now begun raining.  It's very chilly.  He thinks the wind must be coming from the north.  We test the wind's source, using the good old-fashioned finger lick method, and sure enough, it's blowing from the northwest.

10.15  Lefty and Righty get online to check the Olympic results from yesterday evening, using the BBC website. They write a list of the football teams left in the Olympics, and when they're playing. They're disappointed about the rain, as their friend next door has gone inside, and they were planning on playing more with him this morning.  Mr J appears dressed in his football suit.  Together, we find his pyjamas and I direct him towards the washing basket with them.  He reminds me that he needs a hook beside his bed to hang pyjamas on, so he doesn't forget where they are every evening.  The boys head outside to play their own Olympic football.

10.45  Coo is busy writing her name on slips of paper. I work on planning out Mr J's birthday festivities which are coming up in less than two weeks.  Coo finds a packet of wildflower seeds and we plant them in a big pot of dirt in our garden.  We come inside and she listens to The Cat in the Hat audio book while I write out a birthday list and work on this post.

11.30  After I've spent some time writing and a quick five minutes scanning through new shops on Etsy, Coo has worked her way through several audio books, eaten a banana, and strung a bead on her "fish bracelet". She pulls a card out of our "Kids Garden" activity box, and wants to do it.  She also has her worry dolls and Purple People out, and decides to play with them first. I set the card, a craft activity for making decoupage stone paperweights, aside for later. Eventually Coo ends up on the trampoline with Mr J while I fold laundry and put it away.  Hmmm... four pairs of underpants for Mr J, two for Righty, none for Lefty.  So either he has been wearing the same pair for a while, or his used underwear is stashed around the boys' bedroom.  I ask him about it quietly, out of earshot of the other boys. He thinks it's probably the former, and decides he will remember to put fresh ones on tonight after his shower.

12.00  We sit down for lunch.  Our lunches usually consist of peanut butter, jam, or honey spread on oatcakes and rice cakes. Righty and Lefty set out the lunch and Mr J helps put plates and cutlery on the table. Coo has gone back to her worry dolls but happily tidies them away when she sees the food.  Lefty puts on a library audio book, Eldest, to listen to while we eat.

12.30  Most of us are finished with our food.  We leave Coo's plate containing a partially-eaten rice cake on it for her to return to later when she needs a snack.  Mr J and Coo have some playtime while Lefty sweeps the dining room floor and Righty washes the dishes. I hang wet towels and washcloths on our upstairs airing racks. Rain, which lasted for an hour, has stopped now and I peg the remaining towels onto the washing line outdoors in the hope that they will dry reasonably before the next shower comes.

13.00  It's quiet time! This gives us a break from each other and allows us to pursue individual interests without interruption for an hour.  Everyone sits on their own bed and reads or rests.  Mr J plays with LOTR figures.  Coo always joins me and usually I read stories aloud to her. We start with a few poems from Now We are Six, by A A Milne, and then read Gregory and the Magic Line, The Big Alfie and Annie Rose Storybook, and Harold and the Purple Crayon.  Today she has also brought along her worry dolls and Purple People; we play with them together.  Sometimes, if she's occupied, I'm able to squeeze in some knitting or reading of my own, but often, she views this quiet hour as "our" time and this afternoon is no exception.  Afterwards she is often happy to play alone or with the others until she starts getting tired just before teatime.

14.00  Plans for the afternoon are under discussion by the three boys.  They are interested in watching the GBR vs UAE Olympic football game that took place yesterday. They decide to tidy up and take their showers as early as 4pm to enable them to watch the ninety-minute game later.  With two hours spare, they plan to fill this time with more football games outdoors, in spite of the frequent rain showers.  I had wanted to take a walk to the post office together but we'll postpone this until tomorrow.  Coo continues to play on her own while I catch up with my writing here on this post. I make myself a cup of afternoon coffee --a blend of half regular beans and half decaffeinated.

14.30  The lads are still outside playing football, but they've taken a short break to eat apples. There have been a few cloudbursts; however, I've refrained from bringing the towels in.  There's a strong breeze, and they will probably dry quite quickly if I leave them alone. Coo has tidied away her tiny worry dolls and Purple People, and is busy playing alone in her room.

15.00  Normally, I would start a few tea preparations now, but as we're having an easy tea tonight I'm not bothering yet. Instead, I use the time to finish writing down Mr J's birthday plans, text invitations to friends for his birthday trip out to Wroxeter Roman ruins, and gather the supplies needed for the craft project Coo wanted to do this morning.  When she sees me putting the glue, rocks, and paintbrushes on the table, she immediately comes running.  We sit together and work on creating decoupaged rocks.

15.30 Lefty plays a game of chess solitaire, while Righty creates elaborate action scenarios with his figures.  Coo and Mr J raid the dress-ups to play Lord of the Rings, and begin acting out scenes in front of the laptop's Photobooth video app.  I overhear Mr J reciting bits and pieces of the Tolkien books aloud during some scenes.  [This is Mr J's great movie project in action!]  I busy myself in cutting apart a worn-out duvet cover in preparation for dyeing.  If tomorrow proves to be sunnier, I may be able to start dyeing.  Then possibly by the end of the week, sewing the dyed fabric into nightgowns for Coo, and some big bags for storage or gifts.

16.00  Picking-up time, half an hour earlier than usual.  We walk through all the rooms in the house, tidying as we go.  On a day like this, when it's been slightly rainy and we've stayed home all day, there's usually quite a mess lying about to be put away. Mr J needs extra encouragement.  He begins to throw a paddy about having to clean up, but when he sees that I'm not buying his tantrum and am willing to help him, he changes his attitude instantly. While I'm waiting for them to finish tidying, I eat a perfectly ripe, meltingly soft peach. What a treat! It's so worthwhile waiting to eat certain fruits until they're in season.  I'm happy to bring in the six towels that managed to dry on the line in between numerous bouts of rain! All three boys have their showers.

17.00 I haven't been able to find the football game online for the boys to watch, and get started making our tea: cheese quesedillas made with wholemeal tortillas and served with salsa, and a big green salad.  Dan arrives home about quarter past five, and we sit down to eat.  This is rather earlier than usual; our teatime normally starts around six to accommodate friends who are joining us. However, today, it is just the six of us. We complete today's reading from the Common Prayer book that we use daily, and spend a bit of time praying for friends and family.

17.50  Lefty and Righty help clean up after our meal.  Lefty normally chooses to wash dishes and Righty vacuums the floor, but tonight they've swapped. Dan unpacks musical instruments he's purchased for work and Mr J sits near him, checking out the weather forecast on the laptop.  I pop a grubby, sticky Coo in the bath and write more of this post while she plays in the water.  Mr J trudges upstairs to give me a full weather report for the week ahead.  He also sells me a pack of Match Attax for 25p.

18.30  The lads sit down together with Dan to watch the football game they wanted to see yesterday.  Coo is still playing happily in the bath, and I crouch on the step-stool in the bathroom to chat with her.  When she is finished, I help her brush her teeth.

19.00  Coo and I sit down comfily on the big bed and finish reading Now We Are Six.  She is completely wrapped up in the gentle cadence of these timeless, beautiful poems. Written for children, they are appreciated by little ones but probably more fully understood by adults, with their clear themes of the joys of childhood and growing up.  Coo still breastfeeds right before bed, so she has a few minutes of booby, as we've always called it, but drops off quickly.

19.45 The football game is nearly finished, and I put on the kettle to make myself a cup of decaffeinated coffee, and prepare to have a quick shower.  The guys tiptoe upstairs quietly to brush teeth and listen to their books being read aloud by Dan. He's reading The Two Towers to Mr J, and Inheritance to Righty and Lefty.

20.30  I still haven't had my shower, as I've been catching up with this, but the three boys are settled in bed with books.  Mr J was possessed by a last minute creative urge and had to draw the England badge and write "Giggs" on his bedtime t-shirt.  [with washable pen, of course]  The sun is shining, low now, in a cloudless sky.  Maybe no rain tomorrow?

Thoughts from today, and a few links

After looking back over our day [this was easy, as it was written down in front of me!], I had a moment of feeling guilty because we'd stayed home all day. I don't drive here in the UK, and often I waste time looking around at others who are more mobile, seeing the opportunities they're able to give their kids, and forget that my quality time at home and walking around our town with them are just as valuable as others' out-of-town adventures.

Then I read this: "Instead of trying to measure up to other parents, reach down and hug your child." Quote of the day, for me! That definitely puts it all in perspective.  Also, I was inspired by the wisdom in this article: Six Things You Shouldn't Be Afraid to Say to Your Child.

Here's a link to a recipe I saw today that I want to try, from one of the blogs I read regularly: Fragrant Vanilla Cake's Raw Carrot Cheesecakes.

And I was reminded of a creative idea, shared by a favourite blogger a while ago: Getting Paint and Markers ON Your Clothing.  I already have white t-shirts for the kids, so I'll see if we have any Amazon vouchers to cover the cost of some fabric paint and markers!  Then all we'll need is a sunny day and we can start creating our own clothes outdoors some afternoon.

This is another "open book" post.

Living in Community

Seven years ago, while I was pregnant with Mr J, we read a book that would change our lives.  

Mustard Seed vs McWorld, by Tom Sine, is an honest and in-depth account of the economic changes coming to the West in the next fifty years, changes that our generation particularly will find themselves thrown into without a choice in the matter.  He talks about globalisation, the growth of corporations, and the economic difficulties many of us are finding ourselves in. Though he wrote this book in 1999, Sine correctly and accurately predicts many of the challenges of our current global economy, including significant recession and increasing economic struggles for the lower-middle and working classes, and the X and Y generations.  He provides very specific solutions for meeting these needs, one of which is communal housing.

Dan and I were inspired.  What did we need to change about our way of life to generate a 21st century, Jesus-centred community that would go against the flow and challenge the 20th-century family ideal: own home, two cars, career-focused lifestyle? We were already functioning with an open home mentality, something we'd felt strongly about since our marriage.

Our "what's mine is yours" philosophy began to be stretched and go further.  We'd already had many guests [both friends and family] visit our home and stay for a few days or several weeks.  My sister Emily lived with us for six months.  Dan's cousin Steve stayed with us one summer when he was in between homes. Our house is tiny by most Western standards: just over 1,000 square feet. However, one Christmas we managed to fit eleven people, including ourselves, into our home for the holiday celebrations! An American friend lived with us for eighteen months, until we set her up with a nice English guy. [Just kidding! Sort of...]

These times of living in community taught us many things.  One important factor that stood out to me was that living in community meant chores were out of the way faster! Sounds simple, but when you're dependent on keeping a house tidy because it's so small that any untidiness eats up precious space, help in keeping it in order is greatly noticed and appreciated. The speed at which chores were accomplished freed up precious time to spend with people. Also, discipleship and support was much easier and more real when those we were mentoring were living with us.

We experienced a rocky time of stress and life changes two years ago, after Dan's father and a close friend passed away within less than a week of each other.  Both were untimely deaths and traumatic in their own ways.  For over a year, Dan and I found ourselves just trying to survive the day-to-day challenges of life with our kids, never mind trying to mindfully include others in this.  We found that apart from a handful of long-time friends and a few new ones, it was very difficult to maintain the level of friendship we had previously had with people.  In crisis, most people aren't quite sure what to do, and in the absence of knowing what to do unknowingly back off. Trying to give people space can sometimes look like abandonment.  I myself have done the same thing in the past, so I'm not passing judgment here! We also realised that the majority of our relationships centred around us supporting them; rather than a friendship of mutual support and encouragement.  When were going through this time of being unable to provide such support, people dropped away.

However, as we've emerged in the last six months from this two-year period of trying to find our footing, we've discovered that our shape has changed.  Existing relationships that include mutual support have deepened and increased in value.  We are being more intentional about our long-distance relationships, drawing strength and wisdom from them. Blogging and social networking have opened up a huge community of similarly-minded people.

And we've begun talking about a communal house again.  Instead of trying to fit our community ideals into our little home, as we've done to the best of our ability for so long, we've accepted that the dreams and ideas that God began to unfold in our hearts seven years ago are big, and we are ready to move into the next phase of our journey.  For us, this phase has a new shape.  An expensive big house shape.

Is this how Jonah felt when he was on the road to Ninevah, after trying to evade his calling for so long?

I don't know that we've consciously chosen to evade ours.  I think it's just that now, the time is right.  The people who are walking closely with us are right.

It's time. And the location doesn't matter at this moment in time.  It will happen somewhere for us, in just the right place.

"Live in such a way that unless God shows up, what you're attempting to do is bound to fail.  This type of abandonment is the nature of the Gospel [of Jesus]." --Bill Johnson

Think we're crazy?  Well then; it's a good thing we're living our life and not yours!


This has been another "open book" post. Next week: what really happens in homeschooling at our house!