Oh, well, You can't win them all! :(

Pooor Evvy.:( She's only a peer counselor and a flutist and a good student and...
But she didn't make the cut for the track team.
A whole week of staying after school and running at her hardest effort. She does the quarter mile in 1.15, but that didn't cut it.
I couldn't even talk to her for a whole week, she was so tired. She was #45 in the tryouts out of 46 people, but when the cuts were made, No Evvy.
I said, Ev, did you cry? Were you embarrassed? Nope. Next.

What's next, she asks? She is so resilient and fast. I can't keep up with her. How come Enoch doesn't want to try out for anything?

They have such an interesting dynamic, that duo. We call them thing one and thing 2 after the characters in the Cat in the Hat. The precociousness that was their toddlerhood and their middleyears has grown into a delightful humor in their teen time.

They are always cracking me up; with their antics. Thank God, no practical jokes, just funny stuff. They study well together and they interact well together, but what happens next year when En goes to Cox Mill High and Evvy's left behind. I am sad to think about it.
They are growing up and the dancers of the family. Enoch's hobby is imitating Adam Savani in dance and style, at home. At school, he's just a quiet child, I hear.
(like they tell me:() "Mom, I am getting ready to tell you a joke", is the joke of the family. I used to be important to them, now I'm just the newscaster.
He said, "Mom, I have to be careful that people don't think I'm smart because I wear glasses." I don't want to mislead people. That's okay, En, I said, nobody's fooled by the glasses, son. You either is smart, or you ain't! :)

Write, right, rite, ("For the LOVE OF PETE")

Now we are attempting to wrestle word power into the intensely pictorial Walker mind. My blessed little ones and big ones challenge the grace of God in my soul as they resist my attempts at injecting vocab and verbal acumen into their lives. We have only one life to live and in this one, I have been retarded in my ability to pass on to my children the verbal ability that my dad passed onto me.
We spent hours in the car, spelling at eachother. He did the spelling and I did the listening. I spell like that, to them and they all look at me with glassy eyed ambivalence. The printer's daughter and the speller's daughter and the architect's daughter and the printer's grandson are illiterate. Eli Whitney's cotton gin and the Printing press have allowed us to learn and to spell.
Any and all ideas are welcome.

"Pick your poison..."

I remember how Dad would say, "how many do you think that this infraction deserves?" If we said 1, he would say ok, you will get 5. If we said 5 he would say ok, you may get 2 or 3. It was very hard to pick a number when it came to spankings. Heart pounding in your ears and conscience smarting from some bad behavior and then, to top it all off, choose your poison. That, I think was worse than the spanking itself. However many we got, the message was received. We always deserved more than we received.
If I were God, I know that there would be some mercy, but far less than there is. God showed me that one day in a dream. The snow was coming and I dreamed that there would be 10 feet of snow. Incapacitating the city. When I woke to the snow there was 10 inches of snow. The difference between my mercy and God's mercy was at least 100 times. God's interpretation of infinite for me in my finiteness. God's mercy is new everyday. Great is His faithfulness.

Micah---He has told you O man what is good and what the Lord requires of thee. But to do justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.

Help me Lord to love mercy!

And Now it is Spring!

The pre-Spring fever seems to have passed from our house and a warm snap is felt in the weather around our area. The daffodils are dancing everywhere. From home to church, the world looked aglow with the scent and sights of Spring.
Last week's snowfall is, but a faint memory and the beauty of the warm damp ground is inviting a planting season.

It is this season where I am grateful for the beautiful memory of a new, new house when we first moved in. The memory of my freshly laid carpet stings my mind as I labor to try to find that, just moved in feel to my carpet. It has been tramped upon and beat upon and played upon and now to find the triangles that were my delighted carpet enjoyment is all but frustrating.

We entered this house on the first day, to the smell of the freshly laid carpet and linoleum. The glue was still warm and the triangles that I refer to are the triangles of the carpet fibers coming up off of the carpet. For weeks we would go to sleep and wake up to carpet fibers coming up off of the carpet and vaccuuming them down was fun. We made fiber balls and threw them at eachother. Finally, the carpet was worn enough to not produce those fibers in the night. We missed them when they were gone. Now, every once in a while, like when we get our tax return we splurge on a rental of the rug doctor to bring back the new love, my triangled carpets.

For Christmas, someone, from Church gave us a Kohl's gift card and I bought a "Floor shark". I really like that thing. It heats the water and mopping the floor with freshly heated chemical water is delightful also. I don't like the smell of heated ammonia, though:). Spic and Span or the other gentle cleansers smell wonderful when mopped in with the shark. It is a cleaning utensil that is my newest enjoyment.
It helps to get some of those muddy floors tolerable with the likes of my crew's hurricanes.

Baaaaarrreee!

Elyse is sick, now and she acts so much like Grandma Monica, it is hysterical...
I told her how Grandma would call Uncle Baaarrry with her West Indian accent. I cooked rice and peas and have been enjoying the flavor and the taste of it for a week. Pure blooded Walkers are allergic to coconut, except in pie. So, I have to eat my rice and peas behind their backs as they enjoy the macaroni. The older I get the more definitive the cultural differences become between the Boddens and the Walker traditions. They are quick to identify the differences and defend my rights to be a Bodden in a decisively Walker household. Not one of my children is a West Indian and to imagine Elyse acting like Grandma, without a smidgeon of West Indian is a humorous anecdote, in itself. I have to translate what she says in her stubborn fully American way into West Indian to understand it.
It has helped me so much to imagine the reality that she is so like my Grandma and that that is why we enjoy one another's company so much. She is like my right hand and now with the 2 girls designing and sewing and knitting around. I feel like Grandma has set up a sewing shop in my house down here.

She carries a big bag with all of her sewing ecoutrements, I'm not sure why, she never hems anybody's skirts at church. I still remember the speed with which Grandma could hem a skirt. 1 2 3 and it was all hemmed up. Not me. I will stay with a hem out for weeks and think nothing of it. Elyse has a huge bodice set up in her room which she tries the clothes upon to look at it before putting it on her own body. Their designer eye and their fitful fingers are destined to put some kind of product of seams and thimbles out there one day. Until then...."Listen to the joke?...Barry? those are the stories that I tell them...

Awwwww, Mom!

I never thought that would be a happy sound from my son. Awwwww, mom, little Spanky (Ezra) said to me this morning. The week long flu fever has broken and he is back to his normal self, maybe moreso. He is complaining and jumping around and what a delight to see him being himself, after a week of a limp and semiconscious 5 year old. I remember having the flu when I was little and I slept alot. I am rejoicing and happy to see him being his own naughty self.
It will still be a couple of days of grace before the naughtiness warrants a real spanking. For now, a verbal reproof, with a giggle under my breath at the insolence of being 5.

"When We All Get to Heaven..."

20 Years ago today, Dad and Baby Ben
What a day of rejoicing that will be... When we all see Jesus, we will sing and shout the victory.


Benjamin Banneker Walker was born 20 years ago today. Each year I get strengthened to read another card of comfort. I get another word of encouragement from the Lord. Each year the Lord seems to unwrap my mummy shroud of pain and allow my pained heart to look back at some of the circumstances.
The scriptures say, can a woman forget her own son, she may, but He will never forget those who come to faith in Him.

I look forward to the grace of God and what He is doing and how He could reunite me with my eldest son. I pray for the grace to hang on until that day! Pray for me.

Yesterday, the clouds looked like a Dr. Seuss train

painted in the sky by a masterful artist and carrying fun and happiness for all of the children. There were swirls and curls as the clouds whisked by our morning window and we got the call at 5:40 to say that school was cancelled.









Hooray! Hip, Hip, Hooray! I think we have school so that children will appreciate the time that they are at home!
We had about 3 inches of snow, the most. The Cat in the Hat couldn't have brought a more fun day for the children. It is amazing that God can bring a holiday out of the sky.







We had about 3 inches of snow, the most. The Cat in the Hat couldn't have brought a more fun day for the children. It is amazing that God can bring a holiday out of the sky.
Before 7 they were outside filming the fun, which I haven't yet learned how to download to my blog, or I wouldn't have to write about it. I would just let you see the fun they had. Let me remind you that these are the same children who can't find their shoes at 7 oclock to catch the bus. Interesting how a snow day wakes everybody earlier. :)
Snow balls and snow angels, mud and soot and more mud and more cleaning for mommy.:(
It is all part of the fun!
The icey conditions made travelling and the roads difficult and we did have to take our time. We saw a few spins on Sunday night during the initial blizzard portion.
For me, the most beautiful part was the sunrise cloud train. I wouldn't have missed it. They went to Freedom Park, after I went to work where the best of the photos were taken. Enjoy!

The Snowy Day, By Ezra Charles-Anthony Walker

I was sick all night and when I woke up, the earth was covered with white. My sisters and brothers wrapped me up and blew my nose and out we went to make a video with me as the star and my siblings as side characters. We made snow balls and snow angels and snow pictures and then I got too cold and wet in the nose to stay outside. The snow was all the way up to my heels. We haven't seen snow like this in a long time. Not since we left New York, which is snow country.
I was too little to remember the snow in NY.
Anyway, I came inside and then we ate breakfast.

March First.

What is a woman to do? is my question at the end of every February and God's answer, every year is March first. Now, I said, Lord, I've been Marching, what's next...
The answer is...March Second!


A hymn.

Father, I know that all my life is portioned out for me,
The changes that are sure to come, I do not fear to see,
I ask Thee for a present mind, Intent on pleasing Thee

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