Children who love

Children have often been a source of light for me. I have admired their sense of purpose, their kindnesses, their creative ways of coping with life and their wonderful senses of humor. I know there are countless similar acts out there among you.

A few that have touched me this past week:

Ezra, 5, whose ankles and knees were aching the other night. As his mom massaged his legs, she explained he was having growing pains and they should pray to ask God to help him with the pain, he paused in his tears and said, "ok, let's pray for Margie too cause her ankles hurt too." He also sent me a “get well” card. Thank you Ezra!

 

Various hospital & doctoring illustrations by Ezra

Kaiden, our 12 year old grandson, told his twin brother, “No, you go first, you’re older.”

Uh-huh.

Ava Lou, 5, brought her mom two sealed envelopes to mail to us, her grandparents. About the same time, her dad noticed his stash of quarters was missing. On questioning likely culprits, Ava began to cry. She had taken them to send to us because, in anticipation of seeing us this weekend in Fargo at the hockey tournament*, she wanted us to have money we could give her for treats. (It’s our habit to buy them treats and she was trying to generously help with the cost! NOT steal the money from her dad.)

Granddaughter Isobel, 9: “It is important and good to say ‘thank you’ for the presents you send. I love the earrings with cuffs and the nail polish and jeans. Thank you.” (She hardly ever uses contractions.)

And finally, this from our son when he was five. It recently made its way back to the refrigerator door.

Self-correcting Priorities

 “God’s kingdom is made up of people like these” Mt. 19:14. (The Message)  So thankful to be part of this great troop of children. What privileges we share! What joys and sorrows!

*Sadly, after all, we will not be able to join our family for Anson’s hockey tournament in Fargo this weekend. My back went out. When it takes you twenty minutes to get to the bathroom and back? You’re in trouble. I guess from horsing my kneeler around and shifting to crutches and walking boot. Whatever. Trying again to be “spiritually philosophical” about things out of one’s control. 

Thanks for stopping by. If you have any children acts of kindness encounters you'd like to share. Send them to me.

Rabbit Den

Our granddaughter, Manessah visited us over her spring break. While she was here she did a fun little project. On the landing going down to our basement there is an old, old fuse box on the wall dating back to when the house was first built. The old wires had been cut and the breaker box was moved to another spot when the house was rewired a long time ago. Inside, the box was dusty and dirty and a few ancient fuses lay along the bottom. A small 220 outlet box stuck in the middle leads to our electric stove on the other side. I had never thought of doing anything with it. Didn’t even ever clean it out.

Manessah decided it could be a secret little den. You could open the hinged door and surprise! there would be a little world living beneath the floors of Toad Hall – a tiny Rabbit Den. She fashioned furniture, painted a window, put up a clock.

She has gone home to Tennessee now and we miss her. It seems that life is never equally spread when those we love are far away. Our thanks to H. & P. who gave a gift ticket to make this visit possible.

The old fuse box with a hinged door.

Box clean, supplies ready.

Windows bring light. Good.

Hanging wall art.

Ready for living.

 

Going south

Tuesday.

Slept unscathed in a tornado alley last night. (Southern Illinois) At 4 am the sirens sounded and we learned there were tornados in the area. You know how I love weather and consider it an important topic of conversation. I was almost as hysterically happy as local meteorologists. To go from snow flying in Minnesota to mid-Missouri where insects began ing our windshield to Marion, Il where we could hear bird song and peepers in the pond out back. Head-jerking.

I am headed to our daughter and family in Chattanooga. Anita is helping drive because Denis couldn’t come. Okay. Honestly? She’s driving, I’m playing the dashboard.

Denis had to cancel lectures for this coming weekend at CCS and the Paidiea conference as he fell – I don’t want to say hopelessly, though it  can feel that way – behind. Cancelling engagements is not good news for them or us. But last week his dad was in the hospital in Mpls and his mom is also having serious health problems. Denis made five trips up and back, and expects to make more. They don’t have any assistance or plans to get it, so navigating these shores is difficult. This would not surprise those of you who’ve helped parents through this stage of life. Crises happen and they don’t check your calendar first. (That sounded trite.)

We hope some lessons are not lost on us. We are taking notes and saying to one another: WRITE THIS DOWN: Children! Before I become a dangerous driver, cut my license in half and hide my keys. Do not listen to my howls.  … and many other such-like things.

We thought one of us should still make the trip to Chattanooga since some little people hadn’t seen us in a long time and were hoping white-haired grandma and no-haired grandpa were coming. It’s hard to go without Denis; he feels very sad not to see them. But Anita is a wonderful traveling friend. We’re highly entertained by lots of things, like Kentucky dams and bar-b-q and country western radio. Just heard someone sing he wanted  “faster horses, younger wimen, older whiskey and more money.”  What a family man!

A Beaver’s miscalculation

 

My grandfather, Pete Frolander, was a carpenter, who built wooden boats, log cabins, and the kind of furniture you might find today in faux-rustic condos. With a dusting of sawdust on his cap and a pencil behind his ear, he smelled good to me – like pine trees and lake water. While he worked and I was a little girl underfoot and not interested in dolls, he allowed me to hammer nails into scrap lumber. When I was done he proudly displayed them in a corner of his shop the same way I now tape my grandchildren’s colored works of art on my refrigerator. My hours of pounding, bending nails, dinging up the board, no rhythm or pattern – just spikey works of juvenile miscalculation and effort.

I’m not sure why finding a large poplar tree felled toward the shore of Pike Fish Lake in Superior National Forest reminded me of him. Until I walked over to it, I assumed the wind had taken it down. As I examined it, I had a smack-the-forehead moment. There were incisor marks on the stump and piles of chips all around it. This was the work of a beaver. After looking at it I realized this rodent woodcutter had neglected to stand back and see that a picnic table was going to be very much in the way of his project. Still, I was impressed; it was almost a work of art.

I guess that’s when I thought of Grandpa who often said “Measure twice cut once.” There’ve been countless times when I thought I had everything measured and under control and pressed send or pulled the trigger only to learn, no, it wasn’t quite right. It all landed on the picnic table not in the water. But he also said to be a good carpenter you can’t be a perfectionist. You always need to be fudging, repurposing, working the angles, and saving this or that up as extra for another day. No longer being a child did not necessarily reduced the number of mistakes I made, which could be a downer until, and even to this day, I go ahead and remind myself that most of them are not cause for panic and they might even have an upside such as an increase in patience with both myself and my environment. More on this later. (I’ve been on vacation.)

Chewed by Squirrels

Last night we slept with the window open. The unconditioned air was soft and cool, pooling and rippling across the bed. This morning’s temp was 47 degrees. Pancakes and sweater weather.

 That makes up a little - us needing to come back from a week off. The Kaufman’s cabin, so picturesque and inviting was a restful gift to us and our family. Sometimes the lake water felt warmer than the air and you could float through surface layers that made you lazily dangle your feet until you hit gasping pockets of ice way below where fish monsters dwell. We never tire of watching loons dive and call, reading in the sun, playing Snorta with the children, eating grilled slabs of meat. Favorite comment: “Could this please not be a winning game?”  Paige, 5.

This week our wireless has constantly been dropping. We’re certain squirrels have chewed through the wires out there at the utility pole. They’ve done it before, but getting Charter to actually check it is like getting Heidi Klum to be nice. The tech comes out and we learn our modem is on the fritz after all. He also discovers the old cable coming up through the floor was stapled and dry-walled into the basement ceiling, circa 1989, is completely unreachable (and WHO did THAT?) and it’s so old it’s first generation cable wire and with the wireless we are paying for, it is like attaching a garden hose to a fire hydrant. He’s been here and gone, service is still rotten.

My computer is also unhappy, spiking a temperature, rising to 99 degrees C with only a few programs running. A thermal sensor gone bad, my Mac mentor thinks. I’ll need to take it to the Apple Store, and he coaches me on how to talk to the geniuses there. They’re not likely to listen to me. And WHY is THAT? So he says call him in Tallahassee and he will pick up even if he’s teaching class. That’s love, huh?

These don’t seem like trials, not compared to what could be happening or what is happening to so many elsewhere. I know that and I apologize. So leave it here: work is a challenge to everyone. And so are other things.

But I’m listening to Paul. He says: “We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope.” (I Thess. 1:3) I need all of this - the linking process laid out clearly. I want it sopped up, festooned on my dull heart and head - especially: Your endurance inspired by hope. Kiss my pathology good-bye. It is Christ I love and work for and hope in. Everything else gets chewed by the squirrels.

I've been away

Been distracted. Busy. Tired. Lacking bloggerish energy. But I'm coming back, I think.



But here’s my favorite comment from Paige and Anson - other than…”Grandma, I’m going to miss you soooo much” -- Anson, 5 Paige, 3 were embracing in the kitchen. Both were laughing, dancing, falling down together.
Paige says: “Anson loves me very much.”
Anson clarifies: “No I don’t. I was just huggin her.”

After a week of not eating more than two bites of anything I made, except Kraft macaroni and cheese. (I wasn’t offended.) Today jackpot. They left for home today, staggering off, stuffed like little snakes having each eaten five large buckwheat pancakes with maple syrup, one egg over easy, four pieces of bacon, two glasses of juice.

Lay off the garlic-stuffed olives

Sorry, I’ve been away on travels south of home. Not able to post. Today we leave Chattanooga. Hard to leave. Kinda heart-achy. Can’t seem to get enough of Sember, Shaun, and grandchildren.
Denis found this among the calendar events, school papers and pics clipped to the refrigerator and says if I don’t post it, he will. So… from our oldest granddaughter.

Assignment: Descriptive Paragraph.
Directions: Describe a favorite relative.
Grade: 95%
My grandmother is a sweet old lady with snow white hair and blue sea eyes. Even though her breath smells like old smelly garlic her lotion smells like Magnolius and sweet butter. Her clothes are like winter rains. Most days she is quiet as a little white mouse. Her voice is like a Mockingbird singing in the breeze.
- Manessah LaRose

This December Life

Late last night we heard a tapping at our back door and there was Anna D., her hair covered with snow, shivering and cold, she’d just got off work at the hospital and was snowbound, needing a place to stay for the night.

We’ve been getting snow now for the past two weeks and Denis has been out shoveling quite a few times, but yesterday afternoon a storm that began with a few flakes and swirling drifts ended with six to nine inches by this morning. People have been hurrying past on their way to work, breath steaming, walking up the middle of the street. I saw a neighbor wade through the snow to his front door with four Canadian geese by the neck – he’d been out hunting! Others are scraping cars and running their snow blowers.

Seems like long ago when on a hot day last summer I saw these little tutus in a pricey store in the Nashville airport and immediately thought, Christmas for granddaughters! They were alarmingly cute, but not for $85. So I sketched them, avoiding the stares of the clerk who was pretty sure I was going to shoplift. This week I made one for Paige and Isobel. I know little girls dream of being the princess or the dancer. They do.

I don’t know if they’ll like them or not, but making them was almost reward enough. There are a lot of things we pretend to do for others, but really, it is for ourselves. When finished, I admired the layers of tulle, the sequins and silk flower petals floating in the folds. I felt some kind of accomplished, like maybe I’d have worn them myself, tapping my three year old brain parts. Soon enough most of us we learn we can’t become anything we want. When I was a girl one day Dad taught me how to take care of a horse that had a very nasty cut on his fetlock. That was when I abandoned dreams of ballet. I soaked and cleaned his leg every day for ten days. The horse adored me as though he knew the pain I caused would heal him, and I thought, not that I wanted to be a veterinarian, but a people doctor who squirted disinfectant on fetid wounds, sewed cuts, removed tumors.

Only later did I learn I’d no capacity or resolve for that sort of education. Am thankful God’s destiny was a different one. How often do we know what our future holds and how we will manage to live it? Over and over again, we experience God’s care in shepherding us through places that hold both sorrow and deep joy.

The delight of hair

Manessah, our granddaughter, arrived for her annual summer visit with hair down the middle of her back. She wants it cut off. All of it. “Too hot,” she says. At the salon she decides to donate her heavy mane to Locks of Love – an organization that makes wigs for kids with cancer. Her hair is so thick and heavy the stylist said it was enough for three wigs.