Detta är Dagen

This is the day the LORD has made; let us rejoice and be glad in it.

-Psalm 118:24


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Wednesday, October 29, 2008

Similar, yet different.

Lots of people say that Annie and Will look so much alike. Just for fun, I dressed Annie in some of Will's hand-me-downs and took some pictures a bit like the ones we took of Will when he was 11 months old. Most of the people who look at this blog missed out on the pictures of Will's first couple of years of life, so the old pictures should be fun along with the new ones.

NOW do you think they look alike? :)

Tuesday, October 28, 2008

Well, Will is now done being contagious and has had a really mild case of measles- he didn't even seem to notice his spots and seemed fine the whole time. Now the spots are faded and he's had a couple of good days. Yesterday we went to the playground again, which was nice. It was Nate's birthday, so we got to see him at lunch time as well for a few minutes.
One of our friends offered to babysit for us so that we could go out for dinner and have a date. We put the kids to bed and dashed out the door. It was the first time we've left both kids and taken a date, and I think we only took one other datewhile we've been in India (in Jan 07 ) , so this was a nice treat and rather strange to be out without our kids.
Anyway, we took a taxi to the other end of Mussoorie and went to a fancy restaurant way up on top of a hill. The food was yummy and it was quiet and well-kept. There were lots of old pictures, paintings and skins and stuffed heads of big game hanging on the walls left over from the glorious days of the British rule here. It was a very nice outing. We walked all the way home which was also really refreshing. Happy Birthday, my man! :)

Thursday, October 23, 2008

It's not so bad.

After a week of fighting colds, Will had a high fever a couple of nights ago while Annie was cutting her third tooth, and none of us slept very well. Will spent yesterday laying around and asking for naps and I managed to give both kids baths in the afternoon as if to say "good riddance, you mean and nasty Cold!". We tucked two happy, recovering kids in bed last night with a good night story and everything.Then this morning, when I was helping Will get dressed, I noticed that he had some spots... and as I looked more closely, I realized it was not just a few, but they were rapidly taking over his whole body! Teeny tiny spots everywhere. We went to the Health Center and several nurses gathered around my little boy and named it "Measles". Measles? Who gets measles? They told me I could take him to the hospital to make sure. No thanks. I told them I didn't really care what it was called as much as I cared about what to do for my Will. Nothing. There is nothing to do but watch it take over his body, keep him from scratching it (yeah right!) and watch for secondary infections. So I am beginning to feel like a real parent these days. When it rains, it pours, and I just have to laugh, throw up my hands and say, "Who'd have thought we could handle all of this?!" And really, it's not so bad. One nurse's advice: "Take pictures!" :)









Monday, October 20, 2008

last week

Here are a few pictures from around here last week.

Nate cooked a delicious Sunday morning breakfast complete with bacon, eggs, tomatoes, toast, and tea. I'm so spoiled!
Will "helps" Auntie all day long - here they're doing laundry.
I took the kids down to the playground at the school to escape the painting at our house for an hour. Annie was left in her backpack since I couldn't face trying to keep her from eating dirt and everything else that day.
Will enjoyed himself immensely of course, entertaining himself with the sand and a little cup I had brought. I'm glad he's not in school yet - he just needs to play the days away right now.
We stopped on the trail above the gym because Will begs us to stop and watch the work everytime we walk on this path. This time, he said, "Mamma, you take a picture please", so I did. :)
The week ended with a bang. Wednesday, while the painters were still lazily plodding along with my bedroom, the mattresses arrived for our beds (which I had ordered about a month ago), and Annie and Nate got sick with a terrible cold that is still running it's course. Thursday, the painters finally finished and I kicked them out of my house and began to reclaim it. However, the 'alarm installers' also came that day and managed to do very little damage to our freshly painted house, and another man came to replace our gas line to our stove - finally. Friday was a day to begin reclaiming the house but the weekend was fairly sleepless with Annie so sick. Today Will has the cold too and my throat is sore. Here's a picture of my sick little Annie.

But my favorite picture is this one of Will on our way back home. These are the last steps before our house. Our house is up along the path (you can see the rail up to the top left a bit) and last year I took this path daily and called it my 'commute' to school. The steps and path remind me a little bit of the paths at Kwada (a lake we went to in Africa).

an attempt

I've been wishing I were an artist lately. This is the best I can do for now, but I thought I'd share it anyhow, because it might make sense to some, and others might just smile and see lots of fixing that could be done. Enjoy! :)


An Attempt to Articulate.

Oh to sit and pen a rhyme
that’d float upon the wings of time;
to swiftly transform muddled thoughts,
such lovely lines skillfully wrought;
to chant the truth poetically and touch some part forgot.

I long to write in poetry
with meter to craft breezy, free,
enchanted dance that words with rhythm be.

Amazed I gape at the sharp mind’s skill
to paint a picture and spread the thrill
of a moment, a season, a struggle of will-
the guts of reality spill.

Oh to brave a slim communication
with a nameless, faceless, feeling person.
I hunt for words that’ll clarify,
for rhyme that fits, for what won’t die-
for both of us, our hearts to pry
open.
-J. Burchell 19 Oct. 2008

Saturday, October 18, 2008

Blessed

The house is quiet as midnight draws near, and I have just spent the past hour listening to a very helpful message from Steve Saint about suffering and our incredible God. Wow. I found it helpful and encouraging and am putting the link here so you also may be blessed through it.
"The only sure way to maturity that I see is through suffering"- Steve Saint.

http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/MediaPlayer/1673/Video/

Sunday, October 12, 2008

Will's 3rd Birthday


Happy 3rd Birthday, Will! For probably the first time ever, we got up before Will and woke him up with singing, cake, tea, candles and presents.


Thanks for the Farmer Will book and farm animals, grandma and grandpa et co., for the cutting book and big balloons, mormor and morfar, for the transformer car, great G and G, and for all the phone calls from afar. Will also loves the camel Nate made for him, which will hang on his ceiling when he's not using it.


(By the way, that's a freshly painted bedroom!)
And we had a little party with many of Will's friends. It was fun for all of us.


Will had a really wonderful day! Happy Birthday, my boy!

My Thankful Delhi Musings

A couple of weeks ago Nate came home from working in the woodshop with this cool camel 'marionette' which he had designed and made to give to Will on his 3rd birthday. Here's a picture of him finishing up stringing it. He had it completely done before we left for Delhi and it is SO neat!
Will and Annie in the train passing the hot hours together.
We took a rickshaw from the train in the north of Delhi all the way to the south of Delhi where we stayed and it took us around an hour in the dust and heat.
It was nice to be staying close enough to the hospital that we could walk or take a cycle rickshaw there in just a few minutes.
After enduring a few miserable days of Delhi, we were back on the train bound toward home. We got seats at the end of the car where there is one fewer chair, so we were able to put annie's stroller there and she slept for a couple of hours - that helped. What we didn't remember was how the passengers line up to exit the train about half an hour before their stop and they just stand in the aisle waiting... in our space... for what seemed like forever.
For those who have never taken 2 class non-AC trains in India, here's a picture of our car during the last hour of our travel when it had finally cleared out and cooled off a bit.
We have taken worse train trips - like when we rode in 'ordinary class' for 16 hours and we were packed in a car with benches like we were cattle. We've also taken sleeper class, 3AC, 2AC, AC chair class, and AC chair class with complementary meals and tea. That's 7 different types of train travel and there are still several more that we've not taken yet. This trip was hard because of our two white, rowdy kids and the discouraging circumstances surrounding the trip - the worry of seizures, and the exhausting news that we'd be changing medicine but wouldn't know for a long time if it would work or not.
In my last post I promised to list some things I am thankful for:
-none of us were sick during the entire trip
-the location of the hotel was great -near the hospital
-will's MRI was normal
-we got to eat at Subway, KFC, and cafe coffee day several times each!
-we found lettuce and avocados and they mostly survived the long hot trip home! YAY for a couple of days of lettuce SALADS!!!
-will lay down for a nap when we needed to do the EEG, and he slept so we didn't have to drug him (smile)
-we bought a really nice french-english picture dictionary that Will loves looking at
-we had good discussions with two senior neurologists about will's medication
Delhi makes me thankful that I have a roof to sleep under, a warm, soft bed, all the beautiful clothes I can imagine, a loving and brilliant husband who plays with our children and gives them all a father can. We have enough money to buy whatever food we want to eat and whatever books we want to read, and toys we want to play with. We take warm showers, can get clean and out of dirt and dust whenever we want, and we feel generally safe and cared for in our community. We don't have to put up a piece of plastic in a smelly, dirty section of town as a shelter from the sun and rain. We are so blessed by God - and I have barely begun to write about all the blessings we know.
Perhaps most importantly, I find that hanging out in a hospital just generally makes me thankful. I spent the hours looking around and seeing so many people with more desperate problems than ours. A man hobbling down the hall with a cage around his leg where pins have been inserted -has he been wondering if he'll ever walk again? A woman lying across some chairs in the waiting room writhing in pain as she clutches her head and crys from a massive headache or problem in her brain. The man with her doesn't know what to do -how to help her - how long everyone will be looking at them. A woman with a 1-year old baby girl who doesn't seem to even be able to hold her flat head up very well yet. The baby's face looks squashed so that I can hardly look at it - and I'm ashamed that I am not more thankful for the blessing of healthy children. I am ashamed that I worry so much about Will. Yes, Delhi leaves me feeling incredibly blessed and rather ashamed for the ways I grumble about the amazing life I've been given by our Father in Heaven.
1 Th 5:16-18 Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

back home

We're back from Delhi. I'll try to write more details soon, but essentially, we had lots of tests done on Will and the doctor said that he is having two kinds of seizures and suffering some side effects from the medicine that has been helping one kind of seizure - so, we're needing to change medication but we won't know for about 2 months if it is working or not since we have to ease him onto it. I found many things to Praise my God for during our trip, so I'll try to compile a list of those to share, and there were many frustrating and discouraging things as well, which I'll try to let go of (smile). We are thankful that Will had a very detailed MRI done which showed that EVERYTHING is normal in his brain - this is a huge blessing. We also had blood tests done and the results were fine, so he's not in any critical danger. We are simply trying to get the seizures under control without Will suffering any major side effects.
Then there is the painting project. Suffice it to say that this was only barely begun when we returned last night and it is well underway this morning- but we are only barely living in our house at this point... grrr. I'll be glad when it's all over with and there isn't old paint falling off the walls, or new paint to bump up against.
Well, that's it for now. Annie is asleep in her stroller since her crib won't fit easily out of her room where they're painting - oh what a mess!

Saturday, October 4, 2008

to Delhi

We're off to Delhi in just a few hours taking Will to see the doctor again about his epilepsy. We're catching a taxi at 3:00 am so we can make it for the train that leaves at 5:00 am, which also does not have air conditioning. Our home is all packed up because we're hoping that the painters will come and paint it while we're gone. I will be very 'put out' if they have done nothing when we return! So I'm off to bed for a few hours of sleep. Thanks for your thoughts and prayers.

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Dreams Lome Tuer

Yesterday we were at the Stationers Shop in town and Nate pointed to a display box with the caption: Dreams Lome Tuer.
You see, in India, people try to follow the general shape of the letters when they're copying a word down and you can spell a word any way you like. Oops, forgot a letter? No sweat, just add it later - the order shouldn't make a difference. It is helpful if it is spelled somewhat phonetically, but let's be realistic, many people can't speak much less read English, so any way you spell it will do. It seems that simply having words is what matters. Can you figure out what English phrase inspired this caption?