Sticking to the theme… sort of
Like nerds we’ve been doing a weekly theme
with the boys. (Because I need help. When I’ve exhausted all possible playing
and climbing and riding options I panic.) It’s pretty random: we’ve had
pirates, swimming, tepees, gymnastics, birds, fruit (seeded and of-the-Spirit),
and this week, Greece. We mainly picked Greece as an excuse for Murray and me
to bask in memories of Skiathos and Naxos, and so that I could make us souvlaki
and tzatziki in pita, which the boys weren’t interested in eating. Cam said
he’d rather have a fried egg. He told his OT the next day that it counted as
food from Greece because the egg was, in fact, quite greasy.
Just the two of
us
The boys have been at home with me for
most of my August holiday. But one day this week I sent Cam to school and kept
Scott home. The next day I sent Scott and kept Cam. I wanted them each to have
a special-alone-love day.
Things I’ll treasure:
Scott and I ran errands, played
iPad-iPad and went to the park. He picked two Namaqualand daisies. He sniffed
them, enraptured. (Well, he blew on them. That’s how he sniffs things.) He
clutched them ‘til they were squashed and sweaty and he wouldn’t relinquish
them even at sleep time.
Cam and I built things in the playroom,
had Milo at the Wimpy and read The Enchanted Wood. We got to the
part where they meet Saucepan Man, who doesn’t hear very well. So like, Jo will
say, ‘What is that?’ and the Saucepan Man will say, ‘Cat? I
don’t see any cat! What cat?’ It goes on like this for chapters. Cam got the
serious contagious giggles every time and we laughed so hard we had to stop
reading to compose ourselves.
Extra miles and miles and miles
Yesterday we drove miles and miles
through busy rainy streets to Prinshof School for the Blind. Two of Cam’s
future HCS teachers went miles of extra miles and came with us to look,
listen, learn. The people at Prinshof went miles and miles to affirm, suggest,
equip. They are so excited that Cam is giving mainstream
schooling a try. They want to support us, for miles of altruistic miles. My
folks went miles and miles to keep Cam happy on the jungle gyms so that we
could talk about the difficult things without him. We visited the preschool
class. The teacher and her assistant are going miles and miles to floodlight
the black or blurry worlds of the bright lives in their care so that they can go
miles and miles, too.
Scott van Gogh
This morning Scott ate his Tennis
biscuit into the shape of a pig and then did excellent snort-snort noises.
Seriously, I think that’s amazing. It’s like Michelangelo sculpting the Pieta
and then doing performance poetry. Just sayin’.
Scared
One rainy afternoon this week we were
blanket-burrowing on the couch and Cam suddenly swallowed tears and said: ‘I’m
scared of dying.’ And I thought, I’m scared of messing this up because this is
one of those moments he might remember forever and I’m unsuspecting and
unprepared and unsophisticated. So I went with my gut which said: Hug…
hug. Pray. Talk. Talk some more. Hug. Hope… that perfect love will
cast out all fear. (1 John 4:18)
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