Malapropisms

I think my kids consider themselves fairly grown up, but occasionally they do or say something that makes me sigh with relief that they really aren't as sophisticated as they think they are.

A while ago we somehow got talking about natural disasters at the dinner table. (Hmmm...natural disasters at the dinner table sounds like someone laughing milk out their nose or burping the alphabet. Let's just say we were discussing earthquakes, tornadoes and the like.) Darren and I were sharing what limited knowledge we had on the subject, when Lauren said "I wonder if salamis are as dangerous as hurricanes". There was a pause, during which Darren and I grinned at each other across the table, and then I said "Oh, I DEFINITELY think that a hurricane is more dangerous than a salami". I was then going to set her straight (very kindly, so as not to make her feel foolish) when Will jumped in. "WHAT?? SALAMI?? NOT SALAMI....IT'S TSUNAMI!!! HAHAHA!!! SALAMI!!!" Sweet boy. Lauren was a little annoyed until I told her to ask Will what an uhlcar was.

But the best one I've heard in a while came today. Emma and I were lounging around this morning, talking about things we want to do, when she mentioned that she'd like to see a movie. I asked her which one she wanted to see and she said "Well, it's called...umm...oh yeah! The Narnicles of Corinthia." OH MY GOODNESS DID WE LAUGH!! All day, every time I thought about it, it would make me laugh all over again, especially because she didn't see what was so funny, initially. So with all due respect to Mr. Lewis, around here we will refer to his great literary work as The Narnicles.

Dead fish, dead fish, red fish, new fish!

Last night at bedtime, Emma came rushing upstairs to tell Darren that Quickster (Lauren's goldfish) was behaving strangely. He was kinda lying on one side, alternately drifting around the tank and coming up to the surface. An executive decision was made to send Quickster on his way, and so he was peacefully ushered into the hereafter. Forgive me...two fish funerals in 24 hours has made me wax a little poetic.

So today after school, Darren and the girls went fish shopping and this was the result; a betta fish. Apparently these fish require very little in order to survive and thrive. In other words, they're perfect for us! I don't want to give the impression that we aren't good pet owners. We've managed to keep a cat alive for 18 months, after all. Sure, she had that whole over-grooming problem and was missing a lot of fur for a while, but still. We never forgot to feed her or anything.

I'm not sure that a name has been settled on for this fish. Darren asked the girls what they were going to call it, and Emma said "RED!!". (It's not really clear in the picture, but the fish is red). Darren suggested that they think about it some more (!), and a few minutes later, Lauren suggested that they could call the fish Rouge. Hmmm...I sense a theme here. They had also considered Speedster, as an homage to the deceased, but that was rejected for reasons unknown. I'm personally holding out hope for Benny, but I guess we'll see.

Emma thinks that the fish seems quite happy in his new home. I get the feeling that this fish doesn't have the chirpiest personality. He stared back at me quite brazenly when I was taking a picture or two of him, and I got the distinct impression that he was scowling at me, as if to say Get a good shot? How about you get me out of this frickin tupperware?

In other news, I should mention that Will is fine and dandy, by the way. He hasn't been mentioned in a few posts now, and I wanted to alleviate any concern that he had dropped off the face of the earth. During one conversation I had with him today, he shared some thoughts with me about Rose The Crossing Guard. He noted that she always wears at least 2 coats, and always has sleeves on. I pointed out that most coats do, in fact, have sleeves. Otherwise they would be called vests. He said that even in the warm weather, she always has her arms covered up. I said "So, what's your point?". His point was that he thinks she has some sort of bionic prosthetic arms that she snaps on, and she doesn't want anyone to know about it. I'm pretty sure bionic prosthetic arms are a prerequisite for most crossing guards, right?

One down, one to go?

Yep. Speedy croaked sometime last night or early this morning. I know he was alive around midnight or so last night, because I checked on the girls before I went to bed and both fish were moving around the tank. I also chased Inky out of the room, as I wasn't entirely sure what her intentions were. I noticed that the can of fish food was on the floor, so obviously she'd been investigating around the tank and had knocked it off. Poor Speedy probably had a stroke, seeing Inky's nosey black face stuck up against the side of the tank.

I have to say that I'm not surprised that the fish didn't last the week. Who knows what kind of shape they were in when we got them in the first place? I doubt the pet shop was prepared to give away dozens of their best fish out of the goodness of their hearts. Combine that with a couple of adults who have little or no knowledge about the appropriate care of fish and you have a fish funeral in the making. For instance, did you know that you really shouldn't keep fish in a fish bowl? Did you know that the general rule about tank size is that you need 1 gallon per inch of fish? We did not know these things.

Darren and the girls came home on Saturday with a very cute little fish tank. It had a purple lid and pretty purple stones and a cute little plastic tree. The orange fish looked very happy in their new home. Except that they were breathing funny, I thought. I said to Lauren "Hmmm...have they always breathed like that?". They seemed to be gulping non-stop, which did NOT look normal to me. Lauren looked at me with great compassion (evidently heartbroken that I have lived for almost 40 years without any knowledge of how gills work) and then explained to me how fish breathe. So I let it go, not wanting to alarm her, but I did tell Darren about it. He wondered if maybe the fish were just stressed about moving from the bowl to the tank, and we decided to wait and see what went on.

In the meantime, I googled some stuff (I think that half of what I know, I have learned from the internet). Probably it would have been a good idea to have googled calculating tank size for goldfish prior to the trip to Walmart. It turns out that the fish were likely doing the weird gulping because they were looking for more oxygen. Whoops. I shared my findings with Darren, and we decided that we would probably have to get a bigger tank. We figured we'd look into it early in the week, what with Monday being a holiday and the stores all being closed. Too little, too late for Speedy.

So this morning before school, an impromptu flushing funeral was held for Speedy in the downstairs bathroom. I'm not sure if any words were spoken over the Bowl (Darren handled the event), but I do know that Emma asked for prayer at devotions this morning. Oh dear. Here's hoping Lauren's doesn't bite it anytime soon.

Fish Fest

This was our big excitement last night. Every year our school has a Fun Fest fundraising event, with face painting, games, raffles and other activities. But this one event was the big draw for my girls. For the second year in a row, they were going to have fish racing. There are 4 little goldfish, each in a lane, and 4 kids stand at the edge of the table and try and coax their fish to the finish line first. Lauren was very disappointed not to win last year, and vowed that she would have a new technique for this year.

So away we went to Fun Fest. We camped out on the hill to eat our pizza dinner, and Lauren pondered her strategy...clapping loudly versus flicking the water with her fingers. She made her decision, squared her shoulders and away she went to stand in line for her turn. She did a combination of water flicking/loud clapping, but unfortunately didn't win that round. We wandered around for a bit and she spun the big wheel (winning a pencil), and eventually Lauren decided to give it another shot. She found standing in line to be more nerve wracking this time, particularly as two of her friends were also in line to play again, even though they'd each already won a fish. I should add that I didn't score any brownie points with the parents of these girls when I suggested that perhaps as they'd already won a fish, they shouldn't play anymore. I got a scowl from one of the dads, and then they pointedly ignored me.

Back to the race. Emma had been waiting her turn in line while Lauren and I were off doing some other things, and it was now her turn. She hollered and clapped for all she was worth, and her fish came scooting down the lane to win first place. She was thrilled, to say the least. Lauren was somewhat consoled, because she was quite sure that Emma would share her fish, if worst came to worst. Emma assured her that she would indeed share Speedy with her, and then away she went, hugging her bag (poor fish). Lauren's turn came, and she clapped and hollered and flicked water to great success. Her fish tied with Lane 4 for first place! As the fish lady was putting Lauren's prize in the bag, she muttered to Darren "Good luck feeding and flushing these!".

So now we have 2 fish. The girls were all about getting a fishbowl and some toys for the fish, and of course a big can of fish food. However, Darren and I are spoilsports and said that we had a big glass bowl at home that they could go in, and we'd worry about fish food in the morning. We figured we'd wait and see if these suckers were going to live through the night before we did anything. Do you know that I was awake at 1:30 this morning, worrying about these stupid fish? I lay there wondering if the cat had gotten at them after we went to bed, and trying to imagine the girls' faces in the morning when they saw the carnage. So of course i had to go down and take a look at them. They seemed fine, except for maybe being a little rotted off that i flicked the light on them.

Two minutes out of bed this morning, Emma asked Darren whether he'd fed the fish yet. She noted that they had not pooped yet, probably because they had not eaten and were VERY hungry. So the fish got a breakfast of chopped up cucumber, which they seemed to enjoy quite a bit, and Emma reported happily that one of them had in fact pooped. Well thank goodness. Now I can get on with my day.

8 Years Old!

I can't believe that this baby of mine turned 8 today! This picture was taken when she was 3 or so, and it's one of my favourites. It's also one of the earliest digital pictures we have of her, and since my scanner isn't working, you'll have to believe me when I tell you what a beautiful baby she was. Actually, we don't have a huge number of pictures of Emma for the first 6 weeks or so after she was born, essentially because there was way too much going on to even think about taking pictures.

Emma was born on Mother's Day in 2000, actually 2 days ahead of her due date. I had been to see my OB on the Friday, and he informed me that, as expected, there was NOTHING going on, and I could easily go for another 10 days before delivering. This was pretty much what I had figured would happen, since Will and Lauren had both been born 10 days past their due dates. So I was prepared. I said "Ok, so when can I come in and have her? I'M ready, even if she isn't." He suggested coming into the hospital on Sunday, but then said "Oh, but you wouldn't want to be in the hospital on Mother's Day, would you?". I assured him that it would not bother me in the LEAST, and the arrangements were made.

Fast forward to Sunday...after a few small mishaps, including having my IV put in wrong (and about a litre of fluid dump directly into my arm), Lauren throwing up in the waiting room, and almost missing the window for my epidural (!!), Emma popped out after a push or two, and all was well. Well, almost. It turns out that when I got my epidural, they punctured the dura (the membrane that protects your spinal cord), and I wound up getting a killer headache that lasted for 2 weeks or so. It wasn't too bad if I was lying down, but how do you lie down all the time when you have a newborn and 2 other small children to look after?

But then things got better. When Emma was about 4 weeks old, she started throwing up after her feedings. I would nurse her, and then burp her, and she would basically throw up everything. Fortunately it wasn't a serious problem, and it turns out that she was just a very gassy baby, but she didn't gain weight like my other babies did, which was a concern to us.

When Emma was about a month old, we went to Will's nursery school graduation. I can still remember how grumpy he was that morning, and he also had a few mosquito bites on his face that looked quite irritated. However, we went to the graduation (where he flatly refused to go and sit with his class on the stage), and then I dragged all 3 along to a birthday party with 13 other small children. Oh, how I would regret that the following day. We got up the next morning, and I discovered that Will had more "mosquito bites" on his chest and back. Yep. Chicken pox. You can imagine my joy at having to call the mothers of 13 small children to give them the good news. Within about 10 days or so of Will's outbreak, Emma got the pox. That poor baby. She was only 6 weeks old!! She still has a scar on her face from one of the pox. (Interestingly, Lauren never got it).

Emma was different from my other babies. She was very wiggly as a newborn, and somehow managed to roll off pillows and cushions on a couple different occasions. She's the only one of my kids who has ever needed stitches for anything. She split her chin on the back of a kitchen chair and Darren took her to the ER, where she wiggled out of the straight jacket thingy that they put kids in to stitch them up . Two days later, she wiped out on the floor at Grandma's and split her chin again, this time getting butterfly bandage things at the ER. A day later, she threw a fit and cracked her chin on a table, splitting it again. Darren was fed up with going to the ER, and put band aids on it himself.

Emma has always been feisty, and she knows her own mind about things. She is dramatic, and funny (but don't laugh when she's being dramatic). We've called her Puny her whole life because she was such a little bit of a thing, and even now she has tiny little hands and feet. She has big, starry hazel eyes and curly hair that she wishes was long like Lauren's. She's very sweet, and part of me hates to see her getting so big.

This morning she rushed into my room and waited for me to wish her a happy birthday. Then she said "So now I can get rid of my booster seat, right?". Rats. I was hoping she would forget about the whole "8 or 80 lb" car seat law. I tried to convince her that having a booster seat is a great thing...you can see better out the window ("I can see FINE without it, Mommy"); you have a place to put your drink ("There are cup holders in the van!"), you'll be more comfortable when you fall asleep, etc., but she just wouldn't have any part of it. So it looks like for the first time in almost 13 years, we will not have a child seat in our car. Sigh.

I guess this is the hard part about parenting...letting our children go a little every year. I'm just so grateful that I can entrust them to a big God who loves them even more than Darren and I do. My prayer for Emma this year is that she will love God with her whole heart, soul and strength (Deut 6:5), and realize how much he loves and cares for her.

It's Oprah's fault.

I sometimes wonder about whether connecting my parents to the internet was a good idea. When my mom first got online several years ago, Darren and I were constantly troubleshooting. Mom would call to chat, but inevitably there would be a question about why something wasn't working properly, or an email attachment wouldn't open, etc. And it was probably a really important attachment, like a picture of a cat in a teacup or something else animal-related that my aunt had sent her. We would go out there for dinner, and there would always be something to fix on the computer. Somehow, the sound would be turned off, even though Mom hadn't clicked on anything. I told my sister that I was going to write a book: "Mom on the computer...One Woman's Journey to Insanity" (my journey, BTW).

Most of the bumps have been smoothed out now, and Mom is able to navigate around to do her puzzles and listen to online sermons from her church, among other things. The problem now is that Mom and Dad tend to believe just about everything on the internet.

When we were at their place for lunch yesterday, Mom told us that a friend had given her a link to an article about Oprah. She couldn't remember what it was, and she couldn't remember what exactly the article said, but what she got out of it was that Oprah is evil. Actually, it was more like EVIL. That was the word that she and Dad kept using. I'm not too sure whether they actually gave specific examples. Kimberly was asking them about it, but I was busy laughing, so I didn't hear how they responded. The part that put me on the floor was when they mentioned that the friend who'd given them the link in the first place thinks that Oprah is the antichrist.

Now, I'm not a huge fan of Oprah, but I don't think she's the antichrist. I think that like a lot of people, her theology is completely screwed up, and she has a very humanistic way of seeing things. I think she's bought the same lie that satan has been serving up since the beginning of time, but that doesn't make her the antichrist. While it is a shame that with the millions of people Oprah reaches every day, the right message isn't getting out there, I haven't heard of any Oprah cults forming. I really don't think she's more dangerous than any other celebrity out there.

I googled "Oprah antichrist" and "Oprah evil" and was amazed at what a following there seems to be for this particular idea. There seem to be a lot of confused (or paranoid?) people out there who are attributing a great many things to this woman that she could not possibly be responsible for.

So just when we thought we were out of the woods, in terms of mom and the internet, it looks like there may be more work ahead. I think I'd rather deal with the spamming issues we had previously, where most of mom's emails had FWD in the subject line. I think mom and dad were a little concerned that Kimberly and I weren't taking the whole thing very seriously, that we just weren't grasping the EVILness. We promised them that we don't watch Oprah anyhow, so I think they were satisfied. Just between ourselves, Kimberly and I decided that from now on whenever anything goes wrong, we're gonna blame Oprah.

Encouraged

I woke up this morning at about 3:15 or so and could not get back to sleep. Apart from feeling a little nauseous (probably the Mars bar I ate right before bed wasn't a good idea, but a girl's gotta have her chocolate fix), I was also having a bit of an anxiety attack. Why do things always look so hopeless at that time of the night? I sat up for a while and tried to distract myself with an old 90120 episode, but eventually I picked up Will's bible and started reading some psalms. I love the psalms. There's a lot of good stuff in there. I read for a while and prayed for a while, and the Lord comforted me and I had a real sense of peace.

I know I'm going to continue to have some anxious moments, but it is such a comfort to me to know that God already knows where we're going from here. He has a plan, and all we need to do is be willing to do whatever he wants us to. Check.

This is the psalm that really reached me this morning:

Psalm 33

Good people, cheer God! Right-living people sound best when praising.
Use guitars to reinforce your Hallelujahs!
Play his praise on a grand piano!
Invent your own new song to him;
give him a trumpet fanfare.

For God's Word is solid to the core;
everything he makes is sound inside and out.
He loves it when everything fits,
when his world is in plumb-line true.
Earth is drenched
in God's affectionate satisfaction.

The skies were made by God's command;
he breathed the word and the stars popped out.
He scooped Sea into his jug,
put Ocean in his keg.

Earth-creatures, bow before God;
world-dwellers—down on your knees!
Here's why: he spoke and there it was,
in place the moment he said so.

God takes the wind out of Babel pretense,
he shoots down the world's power-schemes.
God's plan for the world stands up,
all his designs are made to last.
Blessed is the country with God for God;
blessed are the people he's put in his will.

From high in the skies God looks around,
he sees all Adam's brood.
From where he sits
he overlooks all us earth-dwellers.
He has shaped each person in turn;
now he watches everything we do.

No king succeeds with a big army alone,
no warrior wins by brute strength.
Horsepower is not the answer;
no one gets by on muscle alone.

Watch this: God's eye is on those who respect him,
the ones who are looking for his love.
He's ready to come to their rescue in bad times;
in lean times he keeps body and soul together.

We're depending on God;
he's everything we need.
What's more, our hearts brim with joy
since we've taken for our own his holy name.
Love us, God, with all you've got—
that's what we're depending on.

There are a few things about this one that I like. I like the fact that God's plans are made to last. He doesn't change them from one generation to another. God kept his promise to Abraham after he willingly left everything to go with Him, and thousands of years later, we can share in that same promise and inheiritance. I also like the part where it says that we can't get by on muscle alone. I struggle a lot with trying to do things myself, instead of waiting for God.

The last three verses are good, too. I think I like the NIV version better, though. It's a little more poetical like :)

We wait in hope for the LORD;
he is our help and our shield.

In him our hearts rejoice,
for we trust in his holy name.

May your unfailing love rest upon us, O LORD,
even as we put our hope in you.

I've been repeating that last verse to myself all day long, and it has been a real comfort to me. I like the idea of God's unfailing love resting on us, like maybe a blanket or a cozy sweater. Darren had a good day today and was very encouraged, which was one of the things I prayed specifically about at 4 or so this morning. God really is good all the time.