Saturday, February 16, 2013

Everybody has their SAT story and this is En's.

We've been intending the SAT's for years and years. From birth, we start talking into the children's ears about the perfect score that we intend for them to have. Everytime one of mine has an SAT scheduled, I cry about not having been able to discuss the test taking tips that I have learned over the years. We have baby mobile's with SAT questions and multiple choice ditdots for the baby to bop around with. We ask them vocabulary questions here and there with words that we are sure will be on the test. We've had some false starts. SAT discussions seem a Bodden delight. ie. children who got perfect scores, here and there dotted around us. Where, oh where is the smart "Bodden child" who will verify our teaching skills, by getting a great grade on the SAT's, so we can brag about it? None of our children are there, yet. {we are saving some accomplishments for Stoney to show all the rest of the grandchildren up in,LOL}

It amazes me that other families don't even talk about the SAT's till after they are over. Those are the ones who score the best, I think. Ours are all duds, we lament. They are beautiful children with no ambition for a perfect score. We will have to pay their way through college, or live working at Walmart forever. No shame in that. My children, I have found have very little test taking ability. They are smart in their sphere and test takers they are not. Me, my adrenaline lives for testtaking opportunities, none of them have inherited my lust for the perfect score.

The last time we tried for the SAT's Enoch had forgotten is i-d card. We were soooo disappointed and discouraged. How can we get this elusive test behind us? The wall seemed to grow and grow for the SAT's. The reschedule of the SAT's for us was postponed, on account of snow in January and today was the reschedule. We were holding our breath and crossing our fingers. Will he be able to take the SAT's. I tried to give him every trick that I had thought of for good test-taking. We've been talking about the SAT's from birth. He is not one of the children who takes the SAT's at 12 years old, but he is a good young man, who has dreams that seem always to grow a wall around them and the SAT's began to represent a wall around our dreams for this young man. Last year's scare and emotional time included. I simply cannot go into the cataclysm of events that nearly kept us from being able to transport him to the SAT's because of auto misfortunes. We had a blocker for that tackle and it was Ben who was in charge of the transportation dilemma. Now, we had transportation, identification...what else is coming at us, to try to keep my student from being assessed? We could only guess.

We woke this morning as we had the time before. We got ready and we could feel all of the cumulating SAT stories swirling around in our heads; with the knowledge that this day would be history in the making as all of the other's have become.

I let him make his own breakfast.{maybe my doting on him had jinxed the times before, I thought} We are not going to make a big hullabaloo about this. It will come and go. We drove out the door at 7 to be there by 7:45, making sure that he had the necessary Identification for himself and whatnots. A lunch, a mother's kiss, talking to's. Snow started falling as we got to the school. Students from around were also taking their SAT's. I don't know why I felt like crying. I didn't cry when Emily took hers or Elyse. They had their stories, but not so emotional.

The school that we go to for the SAT's has a nice little campus and darting around in the snow were a community of sundry birds who were playing in the snow. Amazing that they had no care of the SAT's and what they can mean for a person's future. They seemed to tell me not to worry. I listened. God will take care of En. With or without the SAT's he will get along, I know and I giggled to think that God is reminding us not to worry, even about our life situation and the dilemma's that we live under, in this shadow time.

I do wonder if it will stop snowing. It did stop and we left my boy, as if in the kindergarten, although he's a man. I care about him and he knows it. A humble resignation to the inevitable, seems to be the emotions that he exudes. He is really so introverted, that we really can't guess if he's nervous or not. He never wants to bother anybody, in any way. He's got this and we are here for him, either way.

My heart was in my stomach for him all day. This is not easy for a Walker fellow. They are great at design, but tests take them all to their limits. I've seen my children squirm at the thought of a vocabulary or mathematical assessment. I would spare them, but I live in the light of their difficulty in this. All day, I cast my care on Jesus, for my dear boy. I walked and prayed and hollared at anybody I could, namely Ben. He's so patient with me in these days. He must wonder why I care so much about these little things. I do.

He called and I heard the dropping of a weight in his voice. "Is someone coming to pick me up?" He's a man now. 18 and finished the SAT's applications for college need the score for him. He is definitely a hardworking student, but with no SAT score, there is little hope of any future at all, in this world, they say. We know God is in control, regardless. The heavens seemed to applaud the Walker's accomplishment of this high hurdle. The snow came down in drodes to mark the day and we are all in the excitement of a day well spent in the focus on the most unassuming and dearly delighted in, "boy of my dreams", doing the natural next thing. Taking the SAT's.

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Title- The Studious One!

Title-  The Studious One!
artwork by Elyse

Of biscuits and syrup

Of biscuits and syrup
tasty treats

Happy Saturday!

Happy Saturday!
a day at the Raptor Center.

Widdle Emmie in outer space school

Emmie jumped on the bus and off it flew out into the atmosphere. There was a set of clouds with turbulence right above the house and it took a few minutes for my Emmie to buckle her seatbelt. They hit the bump hard and it knocked my Emmie out of her seat and she bumped her head. The video camera came on and the monitor looked through and stated, Ms. Emmie, where are you? You are not in your seat. Where are you? I am alright I fell because I hadn’t buckled correctly. Well jump up Emmie we have a long way to go and you have to be buckled there is entirely too much turbulence in the stratosphere for you to unbuckle now. As soon as we are through this weather system there will be straight sailing but right now you must buckle. Emmie scrambled into the seat with intensity and purpose now. She watched every cloud pass her window and her nose was pressed to the window trying to see the top of the house as it drifted slowly out of sight. Soon they were not only out of sight of the house, the sun came out brightly and just as quickly they were putting on the atmospherical breathing apparatus and the outerspherical lights. The ABA and the OL. These precautions were to make them appear to be satellites to the radar as they were out in the ionosphere. Emmie knew all about this now. She had gone to the orientation and had a good breakfast and it took them 20 minutes for her to get out past the atmospherical pull and to feel the zero gravity. It would be 15 minutes before the gravity simulators would take effect, a glitch in the system which was being worked on. Until then, they enjoyed the couple of minutes of floatation, while being connected to the seats by belt. The first thing they saw everyday was the strataflotsam. The items which had been dumped into the atmosphere by earlier generations. What would their generation do about this ecological waste area that remained floating above their heads? This was a question for the generations. For now it was the area that they had to guide through on the way to school.

Midnight at the OASIS

Midnight at the OASIS
Sunset in Huntersville

My little Emmie

ran to the bus on the first day of the last year of school. 2 buns on the side of her head. She kissed me and ran at dawn to the bus. She was starting the adventure of a lifetime. I would never see that little girl again, she was going to woman school!

My Father and I 1989

My Father and I 1989

to the tune of Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme

A VISIT TO PAPA











Are you going to Mary Immaculate?

Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



Remember me to the one who lived there,



He once was a true love of mine,



Tell him to buy me an acre of land,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



Between the muddy Hudson in Jamaica Bay,



Then, He’ll be a true love of mine,

Tell him to sow in it seeds of pure cream,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



And build Ice cream mountains and buildings of whipped cream,

Then, He’ll be a true love of mine,



Tell him to reap them with sickles of M&M’s,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



And chew bubble gum and eat till we’re done,



Then, He’ll be a true love of mine.



Tell him to run it off down the motor parkway,



Apricots, Chocolate Cherries and Pie,



After your done 50 pushups



and jog down the West Side Highway,



Then he’ll be a true love of mine…

(Don’t wait for me today dad, The kids are sick again, My tummy’s bulging again, My heart is aching again, And now there’s no love there…)





He once was, a true love of mine….So, Girls, I do beg you don't miss your Daddy,Apricots, Chocolate cherries and Pie,You have one short chance to see him on this side, Go visit him and let your light shine.