Training my "Wisenhiemers"

The trip yesterday, was alot more to talk about, for Evvy than it was for her brother, last week. I just about, could have been there with her. Stories of the silliness that she and her partner in "crime" occupy themselves with, is just adorable. She is a chip off the old block.
I was remembering one of the prayer group retreats when we had had a sober and crying prayer time about the sacred things, when I was a sophomore. My friend Maryanne and I thought we would inject some levity. It was getting too heavy for us. We said, I'd bet the girls wouldn't even notice if we moved the crucifixes off of the walls and put them on their beds. We were trying to make a graphic illustration about our neglect of the sacred in the everyday, just to cry about it when we are abruptly brought in focus of it in a prayer meeting. Well, we moved everybody's crucifix off of the wall and onto their beds and the girls came back and thought that there were ghosts in the monastery, where we were staying. They were screaming and instead of coming clean, we shut the lights off on them and then the whole floor was screaming and crying. We didn't expect that response. Sr. Annelle seemed to understand our childish pranks and we got quite a talking to about it. I think they raised the age of entry into prayer group to Junior year after that. We learned a lesson and it took a while, but, they did laugh about it when we were able to explain what we were going for.
Whoever came up with that word Sophomore it was totally appropriate. Children need some room to grow and get those sophomoric tendencies out of their system in the fear of God. Sr. Annelle loved us through our simplicity. She didn't judge us as unspiritual because we were silly. My Evvy has a partner in crime and she is up to just some of the same silliness as her mom. I love it!

Last night, the concert, Today the band goes to Carowinds! Hooray!

Carowinds Amusement Park, Evvy's destination today!

What an improvement we've seen over the year of fluting and now she goes into the "big time" in Middle School. Mr. Mills has worked so well with them and taken a lackadaisical middle school child like my precious Evvy to a member of the band. By herself she is a fluter and alone but in the band she's... Well listen for yourself.




This is the Harris Road Middle School band featuring Evvy. I couldn't get close enough to get her face but she is on that side if you look closely.

Tonight Flutilla is fluting!

The torrential rains have not diminished. It seems that God is increasing the water tables here in North Carolina. It was a foggy morning and then the skies opened to a wonderful shower. We took the opportunity to clean Emma(the dog) it was such a gentle but strong rain. It always seems strange that the air is no cooler after the rain than before.






She has a concert here at the school and I am off. Just enough time to get her the kacky shorts that she needs for the concert and the concert that they are playing at the amusement park tomorrow. She is such a fortunate child. Fluting is her thing and now she is the tallest girl in the family next to mom. We will see if any of the girls will grow to be taller than me. I keep that little bit of leverage for my influence over them.
Evvy is not a natural musician. She works when she wants to and doesn't. She is mostly a social butterfly. Her band friends and her peer helper friends are delightful to see. Blooming flutilla is one of the nicknames for her. We are all jealous because she is so beautiful. Not really jealous but we have a standing joke. The 2 girls (now girl and woman- Ev and Em) have mirrors on their sides of the room. I go into the room and look in the mirror and say mirror mirror on the wall...etc. Each of the mirrors say that their owner is the fairest. I play the wicked step mother and attack them for their beauty, it is loads of fun, even now that I don't have any little girls anymore.:(

Emily is moping around with a severe case of senioritis. I forgot to tell you about her award ceremony. She had alot of credits toward graduation before senior year so she really concentrated on her arts this year and it seems that she is glad that she did. She is considering what to do next year and she is concerned and so are we. But she has won an art award before graduation. That was the picture with her teacher that we had below. We are very proud of her efforts and her taking this last year of school, instead of graduating early. She said she enjoyed it.

Memorial Day!

Ben planned and took it upon himself to pack the stuff for our Memorial day celebration. Hot dogs, chicken, potato salad, burgers, macaroni salad and lots and lots of bread. I'm not sure why we had so much bread(it must be a Walker thing):). It looked a little overcast, so I was bent on staying home not to picnic in the mud. We went out there anyway. It was muddy. Yuck! Mud and wetness, but we cooked and we ate and we walked and after all the fun, we went to the courts. Enoch played with me for about an hour and then Ben came out on the courts and the skies opened. First the gentle rains and then the torrents flooded us. So, at least we went home wet, if not exercised, we were wet. It was fun.

I catapaulted myself into a homesickness cry when...

I started to think about what a timely and beautiful gift Muffy was in our lives. 26 years ago we all thought that life was over. Grandma was leaving us. We were in a deep grief and here she came. The light of that season. I started to remember that and I couldn't even write for a week.
Grandma would never have seen her great-grands if there hadn't been a Muffy. Muff was a nick name that aunt Amy thought up. I cried and cried for days missing you guys. I'm better now.
Grandma was the first grandchild to Ma and she would talk to me about that. Muffy was the first great grand and I know that she appreciated every minute that she got to hold and see that little "sweet muffin".
After that grief season, came my Enoch's birthday. We rejoiced and jumped and enjoyed the day while I was still picking myself up from my homesickness. My Enoch is a big boy now. A helpful son and a kind brother, most of the time :). Providentially, he had a class trip to an amusement park, he had a Sunday school birthday party and a home birthday party. He was very excited and happy with the fun stuff that he was able to do on his day. He missed no exciting ride and came home pooped. It was delightful to see.

15 years ago today my Enoch came into my life.

I named him Enoch because the scripture verse that "Enoch walked with God and was not, for God took him"; comforted me. I would get concerned that God would take this next son. Everytime I stood over the crib and looked at his little face, I would remember that God is sovereign and in charge of life and death. This didn't lessen my concern but it did help me realize that my watching him wasn't going to keep him alive. He's still here and nearly 6 ft tall and size 11 shoes and a boy with alot of potential. He's dear and quieter than the rest and now drifting outside of my influence. It's a little sour to see him distance himself, but that is what life is supposed to bring. I am not ready for him to be 15 but it is upon us.

I find it so interesting that we have...

so many examples of loving sisters in our family that it is too many to count. Grandma Hanst didn't have a sister and I feel sorry for her. But Grandma and Auntie, "Ruthy and the girls", Mom and her sisters:}, Grandma Monica and Aunt Glo are just a few.
I went over to Grandma Ruth's house, when my girls were little and the telephone rang. Grandma said, stand right there! The tone of her voice meant don't even move another muscle, don't pick it up and don't walk away from it. She let it ring and then it stopped and then it rang again. It is Aunt Iva, she said, pick it up. I picked it up and sure enough it was Aunt Iva and I was now privy to their wonderful love language of sisterhood. They had a special ring and Grandma wanted Aunt Iva to know that Jayne and the girls were visiting her and she knew that I would never call Aunt Iva myself, so she commanded me to pick up the phone and speak to Aunt Iva, thus updating her on my life. That is sister love. I was so insulted by the commanding tone and the forced servitude of those days that I really couldn't understand the lessons. Ben, on the otherhand, understood everything Grandma Ruth was saying and often interpreted her "savage" ways to me.
Once we were with Uncle Charles and Ben was singing Grandma Ruth's praises, over and over in his way. And Uncle interpreted that relationship for me. He helped me to see that she was a nonverbal teacher and that what she wanted us to learn was the care of this man was important. Her Grandson in law was very special to her. She served him and talked his language and got dressed up when he came over and I was totally blind to the sweetness of their relationship. Learning to prize and be comforted in the relationships we have, even with the pricklys is sometimes difficult. Not so hard with sisters, but the other people...
I wonder if you remember some special sisterly surprise lessons that you learned from the old ladies that we knew?

And then came...Tone----I know I write about this all the time but...

This picture reminds me of the bunch of us girls sitting in the window when mom went to the hospital to have Tony. We were waiting for cousin Karla to come and watch us and we were in the window in that room. Amy could not understand why mommy was going to the hospital to get another baby. Amy was running around and the rest of us were in the window looking at the stars and praying for a boy. Those were the years before sonograms and everytime mommy went to the hospital it was a surprise. Please, Please God, can we have a boy, so that we don't have to keep going back to the hospital every year... That is what we thought.

All these artists in my house and I can't get a one of them to paint that picture for me. We were in the window until it was time to get ready for school. A boy?
I can still hear the cheer from the whole community! Wow! We got one! One of the best gifts from heaven we ever got...

Did I tell you that I was the one...

Who gave Amy a cyst? I didn't suck Elijah's face when I saw him after all of these years. I have given up sucking cheeks now that I am grown, but I don't know. If I ever see my Amy again, I just might regress into my old, big sisterly ways of biting a cheek or two. She was so cute, when she was little. I didn't know that it would give her a cyst. I couldn't go to Dr. Parris, to take the cyst out of Amy's cheek, but it was me and Dr. Lang's lamp together, that caused a cyst to grow on her cheek. Wasn't she just the most adorable thing?
I remember missing the potty with her several times. "Take her to the potty!" ...It was always my fault when she missed. It was her fault when she made it and my fault when she missed. That is the joy of being the big sister. I hate going into Rochdale potty, let's see if she can hold it one minute more...OOOPsS! accidents do NOT happen, Dad would say, they are caused. I was the cause.
The raspy voice of the alphabets song rings in my mind when I reminisce about the little face round and delicious. "I love you alphabits, where ever I go..." We were all so tiny that we could all fit in the back of the car in those days and have a little room to spare. Can you just imagine how small we were?

Well, our company is gone and I really didn't have the energy to entertain him as I would have. I hope it is not that many years before we see him again, or you.
The joy of big sisterhood is getting to entertain little, new strangers every year or so for the formative years of your life and then launch out to bigger things. Now that I am retired from entertaining little strangers, it is just the reminiscing that is left for me...I love you "alphabits"!

Happy Mother's Day, MOM!

Mother's day was full of surprises! This is just one of them.
My flora is added to, by a beautiful hanging plant of fuschia, of which I am especially grateful. I am hoping to be able to keep it alive for a while. God was gracious to water it for me last night and I want to remember it since it has been 25 years anticipated. I love the beautiful and bountiful plumes of the fuschia. Thanks to my family for their precious consideration of their mother in these ways. I had a great day, except for the many remembrances of my own foibles of motherhood that sometimes get me down. Thank God for mercy to the undeserving!

I was unusually tired and knocked out in my bed when the crew came home...

last night. Maybe not unusually, these days, the change has got me taking more zzz's regularly, the children tell me. Anyway, I was fast asleep when a package came upstairs for me. Mommy this is for mother's day. Semi conscously I spilled dirt all over my bed and said its beautiful and turned over and fell back to sleep.

I just love it. Why is this dirt in my bed? oh, 6 am, I said to Ezra. Did you see it? Did you like it? What? My Mother's Day present, mommy? Oh wow! I looked again and there it was. The first present from the last child. A tomato plant and poetic card and a hand painted pot with compliments just for me. The first Mother's day gift of the year. Wow! I am so grateful for his energy and spirit and then Ethan came behind with some of the same type of stuff and beauty. I am basking in the goodness of God expressed to me from these little fellows. You are beautiful, mommy, they keep saying. I feel very tired and they are jumping on me and spilling dirt and being the loving selves that they are and I have to rise, out of my bed and out of my sadness to greet them. Wake up! and smell the tomato plants there's love there. Happy Mother's Day!

When He wakes up I will get pictures of the man that is visiting with us. Elijah is so grown up!

My arms never did get long enough to do my hair!

I cried and performed whenever my mommy did my hair. I cannot imagine the patience that she must've had in dealing with just my head of hair alone. I said, mommy, when can I do my own hair, like Julia? She said when your arms get long enough. I could not imagine why my arms were shorter than Julia's and she could do her own hair and I could not. I was just never, ever dexterious enough to do it. When my daughters see me coming with a brush at them they laugh at me. Hair has never been my strong point.
Mommy when will I be able to do my own hair?

Wrestling the red dye out of his hair was a trip!

Where are all of the artists when it is time to clean up the mess? They went to church last night, so I missed everybody when they came in and I woke to the red dyed head and glued up face of my Crazy hair boy.
Don't worry mom, Dad will cut the hair, it's time for a haircut anyway! Nope! They left me to wrestle it out of his hair. I did what I could in the first rinse and the rest is up to the next 10 baths to get it out. Why do I have boys who are opposed to haircuts? :{
Another twisted ankle came from the tweens fighting before I came in from work. I guess there are worse things that could happen with unsupervised children. Evvy was pushed down by her big brother, (much too big to be fighting). Our dog Emma thinks that it is the style for the girls to be limping in the family and she is imitating us by limping also. No problem with her feet, though. Sprained ankles must be contagious.

Ethy and I at the special Olympics at the lighting of the torch! Its awefully loud, but precious to see the special runners and the special wheelchair torchbearer. Turn down the volume!