Shiny happy people

Dear Cam and Scott

The title of this post is from a song by R.E.M. – a really cool band, in your ancient mother’s opinion, that will be ancient history by the time you read this. (Actually, they’re already ancient history.)

Another thing that will be ancient history when you read this is a TED talk by Sherry Turkle. She says the way we (perfectly) present ourselves in virtual space means we’re giving up real (warm body) conversation in favour of (virtual) connection and how that ultimately leads to (dysfunctional) isolation.  I watched it today because I’m doing some research for a conference and I thought, how fascinating will it be to see how the world will be using technology and social media when my boys are teenagers?

Then I thought: might someone who reads what I write about your little lives accuse me of using the perfect distance of rose-tinted cyber-realism to turn you into shiny happy toddlers? Or worse, to edit and filter myself into a shiny happy mom?

So I wanted to clear that up with you. Because ultimately this blog is yours. And because sometimes you’re dirty grumpy toddlers and I’m a tired cranky mom.

I’m pretty strict on myself when I write anything. It has to be honest. Uncontrived. Every word working hard to earn its place. The point of this blog is to archive for you both the cute-funny-precious things and the ouch-bumpy-tough things of your journeys, and to treasure how God gives me sips of his glory as I watch him hold you and unfold you in the palm of his hand.

There are things I don’t really want to treasure, and things I kind of hope you forget. Like me crying when the final tantrum of the day breaks me and I feel like a desperate drowning mustard-gassed soldier in a Wilfred Owen poem (this is seriously ancient history). But there’s God’s glory in those times too because when I get to the end of myself and the only thing left to do is to cry out to Jesus for wisdom or patience or sanity he always delivers. The Saviour saves.

So anyway, it’s been tough lately.

Something is frustrating you, Cam. Maybe you’re picking up my sad-stressed-excited vibes (i.e. next year looms paradoxically dark and full of promise – big scary changes and decisions and opportunity and hope). You’re so sensitive. Maybe you’ve realised that sometimes we cry over your eyes. Maybe you’re mad at the world for being so blurry all the time. Maybe you’re mad at Scott for seeing birds when we lie on the lawn. Maybe you’re just being four.

Something is driving you, Scott. To see how much illegality you can get away with, and how quickly. And to cling to me in the mornings when I’m trying to put on mascara. And to cough. And cough. (And vomit.) And cough.

Yet still, you guys are insufferably, intolerably lovable and loved. I would go through the Wilfred Owen stuff for you any day, and again the next.

Shiny happy Scott, you’ve decided it’s time to start talking, and we just love your tweetalige-preschool jabber (‘Myne juice!’). I love how when we’re grocery shopping together you climb out of your seat and hold up trolley traffic to hug me hard.

Shiny happy Cam, I love how you spell our surname to anyone who will listen and how you say to the petrol attendant, ‘Fill it up with 93-unleaded, please,’ handing over the cash.

Just FYI, this is the also the week Dad and I decided that monetizing some of my blogs wouldn’t be a bad idea, in light of no more Mom-income five months from now. This week I made six shiny happy South African cents. So already I’m really cashing in on your cuteness… J

All my love, and then some,

Mom

xx

Scott washing my car, and his train, and himself.

 Life is short! Wear a party hat!

 Audio books at bedtime...

Celebrating being smacked by the humility bus

To mention just a few of several awkward events this week (ranging from mild to devastating):

I watch Cam’s music class performance (bells and maracas and stuff) and morph into a sad sorry angry mess because he’s left to stare into the blur and no one shows him where to pack away his castanets or when to drum with only one hand. My friend Denise Bishop discovers me howling and mops up the flood. This is embarrassment on the level of good-grief-be-a-grownup.

I have arranged for the College’s resident Professor Emeritus, Stephen Finn, to deliver a Form 4 poetry lecture – on a prescribed poem that he wrote – at 9h00. Which is the time we see the Form 4s for English. In summer. The timetable changes in winter (long story). The Form 4s are seated expectantly in the Auditorium just after 8h00. No professor. The realisation dawns on me darkly. Oops. Everyone laughs; forgives. Yay! Free period! Even the professor graciously scrubs egg off my face.

I’m team-teaching three Matric classes with Bruce Collins. We are discussing the impromptu oral performance of one particular water polo player at the back of the class. I step backwards and trip over three school bags, losing a shoe and most of my dignity while clinging to Bruce’s nonplussed arm and shrieking like a girl. Cringe. This is on the level of squirming-in-my-bed-tonight.

It helps to know that,

The high and lofty one who lives in eternity, the Holy One, says this: ‘I live in the high and holy place with those whose spirits are contrite and humble. I restore the crushed spirit of the humble and revive the courage of those with repentant hearts.’ – Isaiah 57:15

And for Cam, whose brave stillness as he listens for the cue of a bashing tambourine tells me he knows he’s not part of what’s happening around him, it helps to speak these old words:

As for me, I look to the Lord for help.

I wait confidently for God to save me,

and my God will certainly hear me.

Do not gloat over me, my enemies!

For though I fall, I will rise again.

Though I sit in darkness,

the Lord will be my light. – Micah 7:7-8

Confessions of imperfection

Here’s a page from my (Imaginary) Haiku Liturgy for Inadequate Parents, to be read on Sad Sundays:

Temper Temper

Sometimes my dam breaks:

Anger gushes hot, hurtful.

Jesus, forgive me.

Caution: words at large

Let me only speak

Truth and life over soft hearts:

Weigh my ev’ry word

Please please please let it not be so

What if they don’t see

Jesus streaming through the cracks

Of my screwed-up self?

God’s glory in outstripped expectations

May 2008:

Doctors tell us that Cam is destined for a ‘special school’. They say his visual disability means that he will never cope in a ‘normal school’.

June 2008 – April 2012:

God works.

May 2012:

I drive Cam to Hatfield Christian School for an assessment. The stakes: a chance at mainstream education. I am fighting nervous tears and quiet panic but we sing along to Ultimate Bible Songs – Cam’s best – and he stares calmly out the window. Then he says seriously, ‘Mom. Do you think jellyfish have heads?’ The assessment doesn’t faze him. He is charming and chatty and relaxed. He copes magnificently with most things, and struggles with some things. It’s a happy celebration of imminent big school and though we don’t know yet if he has cracked it he jumps through all the right hoops of my heart. Afterwards Granny and Grandpa take him to McD’s for chips and a milkshake. He is monumentally chuffed.

June 2012:

The doctors were right. Cam is officially accepted and welcomed into a very special school. (They were also wrong. No school is normal.) Deo Volente – HCS Grade 00 – Class of 2013.  I'll be there to help him in class or out of class – whatever floats his little boat of learning. We are grateful that Hatfield is taking a chance on us. Hatfield is excited that we are choosing to trust them.

A note for Cam:

Big man, we are so proud of you. You live your life with such exuberance, easy grace, undiluted passion. (You'll want to watch out for that last one. It fuels your tantrums.) We believe in you. More importantly, we believe in the God who had you in mind before he breathed out the universe. He has gifted you scarily. He loves you unimaginably. And although his ways are beyond tracing out, his plans are flawless.

Ultimately all the big things you go through will just become stories that you tell. It’s how you live the big things (and the small things) that will determine the impact of your stories. We are in awe of how you’ve lived your story so far, brave shining star.

Scott has performed the double-thick aqueous-cream head-smear three times this week. Slow learner that I am, I have now hidden the cream. 

Let’s play visual-aid-visual-aid!