Let all mortal flesh keep silence

My musical Christmas wish to all of you:

Eika turns Eleven

The past year has been a full one for our oldest.  She has created all kinds of things, finally traveled beyond North America, become an aspiring gymnast, and so much more.

 A rug woven using a hula hoop for a frame

Hand-sculpted and painted bowl

Getting acquainted with a crocodile

Pouring out love at Kibuye Hope Hospital in Burundi

Soaking up sunshine on the shores of Lake Tanganyika

Beauty in Bruges, Belgium

 

Looking way too grown up

Gaining confidence, strength, and poise

Making lotion

Dressed as the perfect Pippi

who are you,little i

(five or six years old)

peering from some high

window;at the gold

of november sunset

(and feeling:that if day

has to become night

this is a beautiful way)

               

                                 --e.e. cummings

Instructions for triumphing over Mondays

1. Give your three-year-old a pair of sunglasses.  Tell him they are spy glasses.

2. Give him the vacuum hose.  Tell him it is a spy gun.

3. IF he is wearing his special spy glasses, and IF he says shu-ZAM at just the right moment, his spy gun will magically make things disappear.

4. Point to all the crumbs (dried-up play-dough bits, wood mess and splinters by the wood stove, etc), sit back, and marvel at your genius plan.*

*raisingourebenezer.blogspot.com, the Willis family, Jude the Spy, and Hannah the Spy Mom are not responsible for other items that may inadvertently disappear if your spy is left unattended with his spy gun.

Milestones (or cliffs)

Yes, Henry's birthday was two whole months ago, and I'm just now posting about it.

The day began by opening his few treasured presents:

(a drone thingy that flies, or is supposed to fly, once you figure out what the instructions mean)

There were also Lego sets, birthday money (woo hoo!), and a few boring pairs of jeans and such.

His birthday request was that we could go to the Yaak River, because why would you not want to spend your birthday jumping off a cliff?

We wrapped up the day with the requested angel food cake, strawberries, and whipped cream. I guess this proves that he really is my kid, after all (I know that this issue has seriously been up for debate, considering his love for running).

And just like that, he is nine years old.  

Savory Greek Pastry on a Thursday Afternoon

I have come to a shocking realization:

Each day continues to have only 24 hours in it. This means that each week insists on holding steady at 168 hours.

So schedule cuts have been made this school year. (Wait, really? We have been busy every single night this week.)

The sad news is that none of my kids are taking music lessons this fall. For the past 8 years, there has almost always been one kid or another learning piano or violin (or both). But it is not the passion these days, and something had to go.

In effort both to enrich the upper elementary grades with practical extra-curriculars as well as to get cheap help in the kitchen, we have implemented a rotating lunch prep schedule. My older kids have been cooking lunches and snacks for themselves for quite a while, but there is a caveat this semester. One person fixes lunch each day for everyone, instead of each person choosing his or her own culinary adventure. This can be anything from leftovers to boxed mac-n-cheese to homemade spanakopita—cook's choice.

It's working pretty well so far.

 

Super-simple 12-step process to better kitchen lighting

I guess for every 10 posts like this (which is so much of my life), I have to be positive and share a less defeating project.

Enter The Pendant Lights.

Step One:  Order super cool, on-sale pendant lights just in time for Father's Day, since for the last 4 years your husband has been commenting on his desire for more light over the kitchen island.

Step Two:  Let the lights sit in their boxes in the front entry for six weeks.

Step Three:  Admit defeat when he pronounces his judgment that the clear glass "shade" (hung at eye-level) does nothing to shield one's eyeballs from the increased wattage emitted from even a frosted bulb.

Step Four:  Scheme about ways to cover the shade with patterned paper, paint, or some other pinteresty thing.

Step Five:  Again admit defeat when your husband comes up with The World's Most Boring Idea Ever: this product from the hardware store.

Step Six:  Let the pendants, along with the can of frosting spray, sit on the counter collecting dust for three more weeks.

Step Seven:  Send your husband and two oldest kids on a six-day vacation with his dad's extended family on the other side of the country.  The day they leave, invite an extra three-year-old and five-year-old to come play with your three-year-old and five-year-old.  While they are happily busy doing this

and this,

break out the painter's tape and newspaper to cover the wooden part of the pendants.  I mean, assuming you don't want frosted wood to match your frosted glass.

Step Eight:  After taping one-third of one pendant light, waste an hour (give or take) skimming pinterest for frosted glass inspiration.  Find nothing interesting that doesn't use a stencil of some sort.  Lament the absence of a wild, yet graceful, tree branch stencil at your disposal.

Step Nine:  Make popcorn for the kids, who are now watching a movie.

Step Ten:  Double-check that there aren't any fabulous ideas out there on the interwebs, you know, because hey, it would be hard to get this painter's tape straight using only one hand (the other hand is shoveling popcorn to your mouth, of course).

Step Eleven:  Get down to business.  Tape off the wood.  Practice on a little jar.  Spray the pendants. Scratch the design using a tool designed for any purpose but this.

Step Twelve:  Have your hunk-muffin of a hubby hang the radiant beauties while divas pose and a couple of bucks face off on the nearby kitchen stool.

And switch 'em on!

Why ten-year-olds are brilliant (or, how to save yourself from birthday cake PTSD)

Every time I set out to make a birthday cake, I tell myself that *this time* I'm going to keep it simple.  Yet inevitably, by the time the balloons have lost their helium, there will be a heap of a mom somewhere in a corner, rocking in the fetal position, swearing that never again will she decorate a cake.  It has something to do with the artist in me that refuses to keep it simple.

I have found the solution:  The Big Sister.

She has a couple friends over.  Gets creative.  Cuts the center out of one of the birthday plates, squirts some frosting around the edges, and voila!  We have a Doc McStuffins cake!

Yes, I admit that the controlling, wants-every-birthday-cake-to-be-baby-book-perfect side of me has to be talked down and told to go lock itself in the closet.

But check out the birthday girl.  Does she look even one percent miffed that I did not spend 9 hours concocting perfection?  

Nope.  She was hardly even fazed when we discovered we forgot the candles.

Oh and one more bonus--now the cake matches the plates exactly!  Nobody even guessed the secret until we lifted the picture off to serve the delicious creation.

Fun Summer Activity (i.e. a new way to get injured)

Jump on the trampoline in your bathing suit (or undies, if you prefer) with scads of ice cubes.

 Just because.

Something good.

These two are equally serious about one of life's most important topics:

Ice cream.

Jude and his Great Granny Iris

Four More Lives

The time we spent in the "NICU" at Kibuye Hope Hospital made it hard to say good-bye.  In my last post, I told the story of the tiny set of twins that won the struggle without aid of incubators, nasogastric feeding tubes, or electric monitors.

Those aren't the only stories that need to be told.

That Monday I spent five hours helping feed and warm Francine's twins, there were 3 other mamas with their premature babies.  Another of the moms had twins also, so between the mothers there were 6 babies in that room.

Friday we got the report that the other set of twins was doing great, gaining weight, and had been sent home.

But the other two babies had died.

The mamas in these last two pictures now have empty arms.  

"When great trees fall in forests, small things recoil into silence."  
--Maya Angelou

One Drop at a Time

There is still so much about Burundi that is yet unprocessed, both in my computer files and my brain.  Almost three thousand photos swim around in disarray; how do I begin to categorize and organize and share? 

One of the experiences that is most deeply etched in my heart is that of my time spent with new mommas and their preemie babies in what here in the states we would call the NICU.  I loved being at the hospital in general, but I especially loved my time with these beautiful women. 

The day before we left Kibuye for Bujumbura, Eika and I accompanied Dr. Pfister as she delivered supplementary formula to Francine for her tiny twins.  The baby girls were a few days old, and the outlook was grim.  Weighing in between 2 and 3 pounds each, their little bodies couldn't stay warm.  They couldn't latch on to nurse, and it was hard to imagine the miracle it would take for them to thrive.

Eika and I couldn't say more than "Amahoro" (hello), but we sat down with the new mother and fawned over her fragile bundles.  I expected her to feed the babies right away, but she didn't.  After a little while I pointed to the bottle and the babies, and she got out the feeding syringe.  I held one baby while she tried to feed the other.  For almost five hours, we took turns holding and feeding.  During that whole time, the babies never woke up, never cried, never opened their mouths or sucked or squirmed.  It was constant work just to get them to swallow one single drop at a time.

The next day after we got packed up and ready to leave for Bujumbura, I walked back up to the hospital one last time.  I was scared to go in the room, envisioning that maybe only one of the twins had made it through the night.  But God's mercy is greater than our faith--they were both still breathing!  

Three days later the report came that they were both still alive.  After we came home, I continued to get reports from Dr. Pfister and Heather about their progress.  Two more weeks became a month, and they were gaining weight!

About a month after we got home from Burundi, we got the exciting news that the twins were doing well enough to be sent home!  

Proud mama Francine and her twins Mukuru and Butoyi

Sweet Anna Fader who sewed mattresses for the new incubators

Pediatrician Dr. Alyssa Pfister, overseeing the progress of these and so many other preemies at Kibuye Hope Hospital