Some rambling thoughts about Christmas

Every year, time seems to move at its normal pace until we hit December 1st. I keep thinking I have TONS of time to get ready for Christmas. And then we hit the 1st and everything goes into overdrive, between church commitments and school activities and various other family and friends kind of activities, and I end up rushing to finish everything that needs to get done in the last 10 days before Christmas. I always feel a little fed up and exhausted and relieved that it's almost done, and there's just nothing right about that. For a number of years we've celebrated Advent as a family, and every night at dinner we read some great verses and talk about what we've read, and then we light a candle. It's great, and meaningful, and it tends to keep us a little more focused on what's important. But we're now a week into Advent, and we haven't had time for it. Well, we haven't made the time, I guess.

I love to read Jan Karon's Shepherds Abiding every year around the holidays. The main character reflects on the fact that "...jumping into the fray the day after Halloween was akin to hitting, and holding, high C for a couple of months, while a bit of patience saved Christmas for Christmas morning and kept the holidays fresh and new." I have a hard time not getting caught up in all of it though, what with Christmas stuff in every store, commercials on TV, and endeavouring to memorize Christmas music every week at choir practice. I find that if i'm not careful, it all becomes quite tedious and exhausting, and the real point of Christmas is lost. So it's all about finding ways to inject real Christmas into everything. I love John 1:14, which says "The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory". When I really sit and think about what that means, it makes the hair stand up on the back of my neck a bit. I love the verses in Isaiah, too. And listening to Handel's Messiah.

I've been thinking a lot recently about what Christmas will be like this year without Dad, and dreading it. It's so strange to be shopping for everybody but him. And I'm sad that last Christmas was his last one with us and we didn't know. But on the flip side of things, I can't help but think about the fact that Dad has met Emmanuel face to face! The Word! God's glory has been revealed to him, and Dad is understanding more about Christmas now than he ever did when he was here.

Thinking about that makes me want to try and capture some of that perspective for myself. So heading into these next 19 days, I'm going to try to shift my focus; away from tedious choir practices and shopping and work deadlines and the myriad of other things that clamor for my attention. And instead think about this:

For unto us a child is born,

unto us a son is given;

and the government shall be upon his shoulder,

and his name shall be called

Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace

Isaiah 9:6

Raw

I woke up at 2 this morning...thinking/worrying about things i didn't get done over the weekend. I didn't get out to my parents' to get their mail and pick up cheques to pay a couple of things; didn't go to the bank with the POA so that i can activate their new visas; didn't talk to Wilmot about the house...blah blah blah. So i read for a little, hoping to fall asleep again, but i could tell it just wasn't going to happen. So at 2:30, i went out to my parents' house. I picked up the mail, got the cheques and got some winter type clothes for my mom. Cried the whole time i was there. We really need to sell the house, because it just makes me SO sad to go out there. Sad to think that they will never be back there, and that there will be no more Christmases or birthdays or Sunday lunches out there. I know that we will still have those things, but it won't be like it was. And i know that eventually i will accept it, because if there's one thing i have learned in the last 2 months its that you can get used to anything. But the grieving is so hard and so tiring. And catches me off-guard too.

It's such a strange time, with the normal stuff all mixed in with the upside down parts. At times I feel guilty for not being sad all the time, and for laughing and making plans and enjoying fall colours when there is so much that my dad is missing out on and will never enjoy again, or at least not in the same way he always has. Hanging on a bit by my fingernails today...

Psalm 61

Hear my cry, O God; Attend to my prayer.

From the end of the earth I will cry to You,

When my heart is overwhelmed;

Lead me to the rock that is higher than I.

For You have been a shelter for me,

A strong tower from the enemy.

I will abide in Your tabernacle forever;

I will trust in the shelter of Your wings. Selah

It's like the Great Canadian Minebuster, only less fun.

These last 4 weeks have had a nightmarish quality. Dad has been in the hospital and just isn't well. We've been riding a roller coaster of good, fairly lucid days, and heartbreaking days where the man in the bed is a stranger to us all. I don't think i've ever cried so much in such a short span of time. And interestingly, there have been many laugh until I almost pee my pants kind of moments. Because when Kimberly and I spend any amount of time together, we will find something to laugh about.

It was probably a good thing Kimberly wasn't at the hospital with me this weekend, because i was having a hard enough time holding it together on my own. The man in the bed next to dad is 101 years old, slightly hard of hearing, and apparently obsessed with a clean shave. His family visits him quite regularly, and we're forced to sit in silence while they chat with him because they have to shout at him to be heard. And of course, dad talks in a whisper, so it's a perfect storm of conversation improbability. Or something. You know what i mean.

So today, Mr. Smith's daughter came to visit, and the conversation was punctuated with questions about the whereabouts of his electric razor. Daughter would ask questions about how he was sleeping, or if he had eaten, etc., and he would give a perfunctory response and then ask WHERE'S MY RAZOR? And each time, she would tell him that it was in his drawer, but apparently he was looking for a favourite razor. After about 15 minutes of DAD, WOULD YOU LIKE A GLASS OF WATER?....WATER!.... W-A-T-E-R!!...DO YOU WANT A DRINK?, interspersed with inquiries about the razor, Daughter decided to take a break and go visit her 96-year-old mom, who is a patient down the hall. Later, Daughter came back with David, the grandson. So David goes over to the bed and says HI POPPA!! HOW ARE YOU? and Poppa says WHERE'S MY RAZOR? The conversation continued in the same vein, until with the final request for the razor, David says YOU DON'T NEED A SHAVE ANYWAY, POPPA. YOU LOOK PRETTY GOOD! and Poppa says YEAH, I DO. At which point, I was just about on the floor. Daughter and grandson left, promising to look at home for the razor he wanted.

It seems odd to find so many funny things to laugh about when there is such an underlying feeling of sadness too. But i don't know how you could help but laugh at the sight of a patient sitting outside the hospital with a half full urinal bottle sitting in the basket of his scooter. And laughing just seems to make all the ups and downs more bearable.

Reading the Psalms is good, too. Here's my favourite part of Psalm 34:

The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them;
he delivers them from all their troubles.

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Thanks for praying, friends.

Wish I could be one of those fun moms...

Today when I picked up the girls from school I was so excited to see that Lauren was bringing home her class’ pet hermit crabs. Aren’t I a party pooper? I’m sorry, but I just immediately flashed forward to a hysterical “MOMMY!! HAVE YOU SEEN T-PAIN AND LIL WAYNE??” moment. Oh, did I not mention that those are their names? Someone in Lauren’s class suggested those, and apparently the majority ruled and so they were christened. Neither one looks like their rapper namesake, but maybe with some really low-riding jeans and some serious bling there would be a greater resemblance. (honestly, how hilarious is it that I found a picture of them at underarock dot com??) Lauren and Emma have decided to call them Hermy and Sheldon, so in a heartbeat they went from hip to nerdsville.

I asked Lauren what needed to be done for the crabs tonight, and she assured me that they only need a couple of food pellets. Thankfully, we are not responsible for cleaning out the tank or anything. There was some talk about letting them out to walk around, but when the girls heard my “you’re going to let them out on my KITCHEN TABLE??”, Lauren heaved a big sigh and said “not necessarily…”. They don’t seem to have any odour, which is good (although Will did say he thought something smelled liked corned beef). I’m not big on odours, although I can tell you quite honestly that I have never seen anyone react as badly to a strong smell as Emma’s friend Kendra. She was in our group for our zoo trip at the beginning of the month and I was just about on the floor every time we went into a pavilion to look at the animals. She would make the most astonishing gagging/hacking sounds. The first time it happened, I truly expected to turn around and see her lung lying on the ground.

Sorry, went off on a whole other tangent there. So here's hoping that the crabs don't keel over tonight, and go back to school tomorrow safe and sound. I told Lauren that she'd better keep an eye on Inky, because she was scoping out the tank like "hmm...hermit crabs...it's what's for dinner".

Grade 3 Road Trip

So today I went on a trip to Safety Village with Emma's class. The trip had an interesting start; I arrived at the school to find a tearful Emma, who was hoping that I had brought her bike helmet. The very bike helmet that I asked her 842 times to put with her bag AND LEAVE IT THERE. The bike helmet that was in fact lying on the floor in the living room, having been used as a football earlier in the morning by her siblings. So I raced home, hoping to get back before they were ready to get on the bus. No such luck. I screeched into the parking lot and ran to the bus, cheered on by the 3rd graders hanging out the windows chanting "GO, CAROLYN GO!!". And I wish I was kidding about that.

We got to Safety Village, which is a really cute kid-sized town where kids learn about road safety and bike safety and other good stuff. We were somewhat dismayed to discover that instead of having the place to ourselves, we would be sharing the village with another school, since some nob had double booked the slot. Officer Astrid said that there would be a total of 80+kids, rather than just our 20 or so.

I have to say that Officer Astrid MADE the whole experience for me. As soon as I heard her name, I grinned to myself because I immediately thought of The Office; the one where they throw the baby shower for Jan and her baby, Astrid. Only, Michael gets the name wrong, and they wind up getting ASTIRD printed on the personalized M&Ms. So of course, I couldn't think of this police officer any other way. Especially since she was just such a bizarre personality.

Officer Astrid treated the kids like they were in boot camp. She stood with her feet at least shoulder width apart and kept hollering "YES, SIR" or "NO, MA'AM" at the kids when they put up their hands to answer a question. She yammered for about 10 minutes about how short on time we were, and how difficult it was going to be to get everything done in the time we had, and there was no time for shenanigans, and there was to be no talking without raising your hand...you get the idea. Then she regaled them with truly horrifying stories about bikes that got totally mangled by trains, and what can happen to you if you put stickers on your helmet. She talked about sustaining terrible soft tissues injuries...if you didn't break your neck first. HOLY COW.

After 45 minutes, she finally ran out of horror stories and told us that we'd be moving on to the helmet inspection. And when one of the kids shouted "FINALLY!!!!", I wanted to add a big AMEN.

The kids rode around the village on bikes, and most of them actually stopped at the red lights and stop signs. Then there were others who were completely in their own world and just cruised on through the intersections without a clue, rode on the wrong side of the road and pulled illegal U-turns all over the place. Was it wrong that I found all of that hilarious? I also loved Officer Astrid's wrap up at the end. She said the same thing about 50 different ways (which seemed to be her gift); namely, that she hoped the kids had enjoyed themselves, and that she and the other volunteers, parents and teachers had all worked very hard to make it an enjoyable experience. And that basically, if they didn't have a good time, it was their own fault because they had obviously come in with the wrong attitude. Well alrighty.

I love the school trips where something out of the ordinary happens (that doesn't involve me holding a bag for some kid to barf into on the bus ride home), so this will definitely be one that I remember. Now if I can only be sure that I won't have nightmares about the stickers on my helmet...

Superwoman, I am not.

There are a number of blogs that I follow daily and really enjoy reading. And recently I've been asking myself how in the world do they do this? Specifically, how is it that they are able to blog every day, on top of everything else they have going on?? Pioneer Woman lives on a working cattle ranch with her husband and 4 kids, and among other things, she cooks and gardens and renovates her beautiful home....oh, and homeschools the aforementioned 4 children! And she blogs about all of it. In one of her blog posts a little while ago, she mentioned that she even cleans cow poop off her front porch. I am completely impressed, let me tell you. (Particularly because there has been dog poop from some random dog at the bottom of my front lawn for a day or so and i have been unable to steel myself to pick it up.) I feel pleased with myself if I'm able to make something relatively healthy for my family for dinner that doesn't get slapped on a cookie sheet, never mind taking fabulous pictures of it all during the cooking process. (Did I mention that PW is also a photographer?)

However, this is not going to be a whiny post about all my shortcomings. It was just something I thought about when I reflected on how long it's been since I last posted here. I won't bore you with the details about the myriad of things that has kept me from my blog (work, killer cold/virus, laundry, mammogram, to name a few), but I will tell you about an outing I had with my parents this week.

Dad has Parkinson's and goes to see his neurologist twice a year. Truthfully, I loath this excursion. It's a big, long, boring drive (2+ hours, round trip) and the appointment itself takes all of about 5.3 minutes. However, the doc is extremely well known in his field and has won awards for his work in movement disorders, blah blah blah. Thank goodness it's only twice a year. But in the wise words of Miley Cyrus "ain't about how fast I get there...ain't about what's waiting on the other side...", it's all about the drive. (Excuse my Miley reference; we've been listening to A LOT of Hannah Montana movie soundtrack over here).

My dad hasn't been behind the wheel in a number of years now, but man, can he drive from the passenger seat. He doesn't even try to be diplomatic about it. I lost track of how many times he said "Where are you GOING?" on Wednesday, with the implication that I was about to drive the car into oncoming traffic, or maybe somehow had forgotten where we live. It used to really tick me off, but I find it's more effective if I'm just over-the-top cheerful about it all. After a few chirpy "You're right! I COULD have gone that way...but I'm going THIS way!!" kind of comments, he backs off a little. Thank goodness I have him and mom there to find parking spots for me, though (she said, sarcastically):

Dad: There's one!
Me: (having already spotted it) Yep.
Dad: Up by the door.
Me: (waiting for the guy to actually back out of the spot first) Got it.
Mom: Oooh...there's a nice close one right by the door!
Me: (grinding my teeth a little) I'm on it.
Dad: Get that one by the door.
Me: Yeah, I think I'll actually let the guy get all the way out of it FIRST!! (depending on where we are in the drive, there may not be any room left for chirpy).

Fun, right? Even better was the conversation after we'd been to the bank, when dad was grumbling about a few pension issues that apparently hadn't yet been rectified...a conversation between Dad and I that was punctuated every 15 seconds by mom saying "But did MY money come in?" or "But MY pension came in, right?". Kinda reminded me of those little kids that are relentless in trying to get your attention..."Mom. Mom. Mom? Mom?? MOM!!!"

So this is one facet of my life at the moment. And I do think a lot about blogging about this and other things, but sheesh. There is effort required. However, I'm not going to worry about being a superwoman and try to do it all. Miley says "life is just a party, so come as you are" (seriously...HM movie soundtrack going all.the.time), and I guess she's right. ;)

Grade 3...OH THE DRAMA

Emma and I had quite the conversation on the way home from church tonight. It seems that 8-year-old girls can be quite catty to one another, and she was filling me in on a few squabbles that have taken place at school recently. We talked about how some people can seem crabby and argumentative, but that it’s a good idea to not take it personally, since you don’t know what’s going on in the other person’s life. I said, “Who knows? Maybe she’s just having a bad day because her mom yelled at her that morning” (a scenario I’m quite sure Emma can relate to). And this is how the conversation went after that:

Emma: Well, I think I know why Suzi (not her real name) is kind of crabby…she had an operation on her arm a couple of years ago.

Me: Oh, and she’s still upset about it?

Emma: Well, now she has a fake arm.

Me: I’m sorry… did you say a fake arm??

Emma: Yep. She has one fake arm and one real arm. Once, we were in gym and she smacked me with her arm and I was like, OWWW!!! And she said Oh, sorry about that Emma. That was my fake arm. It has metal in it.

Me: (a little dazed) OH…and does it look like her other arm?

Emma: Pretty much. It has veins in it, but there wasn’t any blood in the veins until March Break. She said she had some blood put in on March Break.

Me: Well, I guess all of that would make you crabby once in a while. (I don’t know…it was hard to know how to respond after the whole vein thing)

Emma: Well, that and also she lives with her aunt…her mom drinks.

Me: OH!!

Emma: And her dad too.

Me: OH MY.

I'm not quite sure what to make of all of it, really. I think we'll add her to our prayer list. The part about living with her aunt is probably a sad truth, unfortunately. But I think i need to check out the arm for myself!