Scrum

Touch

I had one of those freeze-forever moments with Scott this week. I put on a Watershed CD and we danced in the lounge, just sommer. It was pretty appropriate. ‘I see your blue eyes; they shine on me…’ He gets deliriously happy when we dance and spin and rock and the blue eyes get shinier and shinier and the award-winning flirtatious glances all the more melting. J

Pause

Scotty is still in the doldrums of diarrhoea – so much so that we had to push pause on his (early) birthday party, which we’d planned for today. He’s pretty cheerful, all things considered, and must be on the mend because this morning there was a microcosm of rugby happening on our bed at 6:00am. Two boys scrumming, squealing, squirming, flailing arms and legs and mashing digestive biscuits into our duvet.

I’ve been reminded this week, amidst my inner grimaces of frustration at being sick, of Elizabeth Elliot’s injunction not to say ‘laid aside by illness’, but rather ‘called aside to stillness’. Shoo. The discipline just to pause.

‘Let all that I am wait quietly before God, for my hope is in him.’ – Psalm 25:5

Engage

Wednesday was a real victory for Cammy in terms of engagement. We met Leigh and her little Rebekah (2 ½ ) at Irene Dairy for coffee and a play date. Cam was ecstatic about playing on the tractor and the jungle gym, but when we got there he hovered around on his own, talking to himself and moving aimlessly from foot to foot, not unhappy but not quite sure where to go and feigning nonchalance. Leigh had encouraged Rebekah to fetch Cam and take him to where she was playing. Cam said, ‘Where’s Rebekah? She hasn’t fetched me.’ Rebekah trotted up to Cam, grabbed his hand and led him to the jungle gym. He beamed enormously, ‘Thank you, Rebekah!’ It was awesome! He needed help because he couldn’t see where to go or what she was doing. He asked. She came. They jungle-gymed happily. Thank God for the way he is growing Cam in these social signals that normally rely so much on vision.

Earlier in the week, Cam engaged with Scott less constructively. I found him in the garden with Scott and the hosepipe – drenched and drenching, respectively. Scott was yelling and bedraggled. Cam was guilty and apologetic and trying to talk me out of imminent punishment. I was trying very hard not to laugh.

Other good engagements this week: the iLead Conference, prayer, lunch with a St Alban’s old boy, coffee with my boss, a lot of time in bed watching Jungle Book on my laptop with Cam, tea with friends, the help of family, the advice of a paediatrician, the love of my husband.