Near-death experiences, wide-eyed wonder and other cool God stuff

Last week was like the time my sister and I caught a taxi from somewhere in the Sinai Peninsula to Eilat in Israel. With rocky desert wastes as his backdrop, the driver kept turning around and grinning at us, his eyes quite wild with euphoric hysteria. This was terrifying. Mostly because leering at the backseat caused him to swerve into oncoming traffic, and also because he had very few teeth. We thought we were going to die. But afterwards we were rather glad we’d taken the ride because the rush was unbelievable and we learned a bunch of things and there were stories to tell.

Like I said, last week felt kind of like that.

Death

The part where I thought I was going to die was somewhere in the middle of the week, in the middle of the night, in the middle of too many episodes of toddler diarrhoea.

Adrenalin

The rush came from somehow still doing life and playing grownup-grownup amidst the poo and sleeplessness. A conference. A dinner party. A charity walk. The rush also came from playing kid-kid, like cardboard-skiing down a grass slope at a four-year-old’s party (Ben, you rock!) and eating two massive chocolate croissants. In a row.

Learning

I met some people and learned some more about the exhilarating independence technology gives to blind and VI people. The kind of independence that lets you catch taxis across the Sinai. So much software. So much hope. I learned some more about the astounding heightening of Cam’s other senses – God’s glorious wiring of the compensating brain. Like, sometimes he smells people (and Lola) before he sees them. And, riding his bike on Sunday and yakking enthusiastically to Murray all the way, he stopped beneath a thorn tree. To listen. Flap flap. A kite caught in the highest branches.

I learned that being a digital immigrant has its challenges when you’re mom to two digital natives. Scott wails ‘iPad!’ with the same tired-hungry angst he uses to moan for ‘Juice!’, ‘Mama!’, ‘Dad!’, ‘Hat!’ (oh, how he loves his hat) or ‘Raaf!’ (his gi-raaf blankie). Plus, how do you explain to a twenty-two month old that he cannot change channels by swiping his finger across the TV screen?

I also learned that not only can All Gold tomato sauce be considered a vegetable, but like a good pair of jeans, it goes with anything. Scott dipped his cornflakes, one by one, in the hallowed red elixir, and Cam squirted a splodge atop his jelly for pudding.

Peter and Kathi Tarantal spent an evening with our cell group. They reminded us not to let good things get in the way of the best things. And to praise character decisions more than achievements. And to keep life simple. And not to pretend we’ve got it all together. Wow. Lessons for the desert.

Stories

Taxi-in-the-desert weeks do produce fabulous stories. Scott did his first amateurish sprinklings of wee-wee in (well, near) the potty at bath time. I was elated. We shared what can only be described as a Jabberwocky moment. As in, ‘Come to my arms, my beamish boy! O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay! He chortled in his joy…’ He’s into kissing at the moment. He totally loves his sandals – refuses any other footwear – and when I put them on the other day he said ‘Yay!’, bent his foot up to his mouth (as nubile toddlers are wont to do) and kissed a little Velcro strap. He tried to kiss Cam this morning. It was kind of alarming. More like mouth-to-mouth.

Taxi-in-the-desert weeks even birth tender, quiet stories, like how Cam was back to his soft-sweet-self. He found it side-splittingly hilarious to pretend to take out Murray’s imaginary contact lenses at bedtime and giggle and mutter ‘Ah flip!’ He turned anything climbable into a fantastical world of high diving boards and deep pools. He was gentle and super-happy to jabber to himself even when other kids didn’t get it or didn’t include him, and he’s teaching his mom to be happy with that, too.

For I am about to do something new. See, I have already begun! Do you not see it? I will make a pathway through the wilderness. I will create rivers in the dry wasteland. – Isaiah 43:19

 Lounge jamming with concert DVDs...