Blowing Bubbles

 

 

 

ahhhhh....my third son and last child of four....love doesn't begin to describe my feelings for him.  Pure joy and delight are the things he brings to my life.  My other three children were young together, and I was too busy sometimes to savor their childhood, not just mothering them but also as a full-time public school teacher and then as children's director in a quickly growing church.   My own mother died of cancer when my oldest child was three and upon the birth of my second child, so I was also dealing with heavy grief for a lot of years which seemed to create a cloud-like sadness that hovered over anything involving my children, because I couldn't help but ponder how much Mom would have savored every moment of their growing up.

The distance that the passage of time has put between me and her loss has created a sort of buffer to those deep feelings of grief, allowing me to be more present to the milestones in Coleman's life.  More often than not, it's not the milestones like birthdays or the start of school that I enjoy most, but just the fun that he manages to eeek out of every day.  Last night when there was just an inkling of light left in the vast stretch of sky that spreads out over the open fields around our home, Coleman disappeared.  I asked if anyone knew where he was, to which one of his older brothers replied, "He went out on the porch, but I don't know what he's doing. " (Normally afraid of the dark,  I couldn't imagine what he was doing out there by himself at that time of night.)  I stepped outside to find him in nothing but his underwear, knees folded up in front of him in one of our porch rockers, blowing bubbles using the dishsoap concoction with the small plastic wand that has delighted children for years.  He casually said, "Hey, mom.  I figured it out."  "Figured what out?," I asked.   "How to blow the big bubbles," he replied.  "You just have to go really slow when you puff your air out."    I told him he had five more minutes to make his bubble discoveries and then he had to come inside and go to bed.

Before falling asleep myself last night, I read a periodic mailing that we receive from Make Way Partners Corporation, a Christian mission agency committed to preventing and combatting human trafficking.  In it, there was the story of another 5 year old child halfway around the world in Hope of Sudan orphanage.   She has sufferred the loss of both her parents and siblings, and knows war, famine, drought, and disease intimately.

I cried as I thought about the fact that Umaa has never gotten to blow bubbles.  Solely due to  where she was born, Umaa's short life has been full of  hunger, torture, death, uncertainty, fear, and resulting rage.  I pondered, as a mother, what it would be like to look into the eyes of your crying, hungry child and have to say yet again that you have no food to give them.  I thought about what I would want to do to anyone who brought any form of harm to my son Cole, and then how gut-wrenching it would be to stand defenseless as the slave raiders of the Islamic regime in Sudan continue to daily bomb and raid villages, ripping children out of their mothers' arms, separating them forever.

We are not talking about horrors of the past, that blacken the pages of our history books, about which we can do nothing in the present.  We are speaking of atrocities that are occurriing while I sit here on my comfortable couch typing.  Women in these areas of Sudan don't spend time as I did this weekend, figuring out where to hang a new picture, because many of them,after fleeing their bombed villages , are seeking a safe place to hide from the slave raiders, and don't have walls surrounding them on which to hang anything.  These women aren't buying different varieties of lettuce to plant in their fall gardens, as I also did yesterday, but instead aren't sure if they will eat anything at all for days on end.

Oh, it is so much easier to quit trying, quit caring, quit hoping....as Kimberly Smith , co-President of Make Way Partners says, "just quit, and clamor about with some stuffy activity to fill up the chasmic void like work, food, wine, or churchy activities (otherwise known as addictions)." Don't we all want to live sorrow free? Since we can't control the sorrows we face in our own personal lives, most of us prefer not to add to that pile by ignoring the sorrows we can halfway around the world, since they aren't right under our noses where we can see, hear, and smell them.

Eventually, brokenness will be made whole.  My brokenness, your brokenness, Umaa's brokenness.  God has good things in store on the other side of the valley of the shadow of death and we will ultimately share the victory with the One who wages war against all evil....but in the meantime, what?  Although it might seem self-preserving to bury our heads in the sand, we are called to "bring good news to the oppressed, to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and release to the prisoners."  Whose brokenness are you called to help heal?  In God's ecomony, we do have a role to play.

Kimberly Smith's role was to begin an organization with 2 criteria for selecting where they minister:
1-This organization only goes where women and children are at hightest risk of human trafficking, forced prostitution and other forms of modern-day slavery and 2- This organization only goes where there is little or no other help available because it is considered too dangerous, too expensive, or too remote for others to go. Please go to www.makewaypartners and learn 5 ways you can join this amazing organization to rescue and restore hope.

Just as Umaa must now learn to cope with her rage that is actually righteous anger against the injustices inflicted upon her, we too must learn  not to ignore our anger and sorrow upon being informed of such injustices, but to act in our own little corner of the world in  a manner befitting a child of God and in the way in which He calls each of us to respond.  Ask Him what he wants you to do....he will show you.  I pray you and I will both choose to respond in the ways He reveals.


 

What's a Tobacco Basket, anyway?

I love the Christmas Season....to me, it truly is the most wonderful time of the year, second only to the spring when my yard slowly comes alive with spots of color that surprise as various and asundry bulbs push their way through the thawing ground and tiny buds on flowering bushes and trees create the most lovely smell when the wind blows.  Yes, Christmas is second only to spring in my opinion.... I am so grateful to live in a place where I can enjoy the changes that each new season brings.

The memories and the traditions that serve to make Christmas so special , though, are also what make it so hard.  By definition, traditions remain the same, and yet life forces change.  Neighbors move away, kids grow up, and loved ones die.  Unlike the changes of nature's seasons, these are not changes that I savor. 

I miss my mom more than usual at Christmas, in part because she loved this season so and always made this time of year very special for my family.  Since moving ten years ago to her former hometown, four years after she passed away, I have been blessed with sweet surprises that I have not anticipated.  Because I now live where she grew up,  I often "run into people" who knew her and who are eager to share about their interactions with her.  One such encounter took place this fall in an unexpected way.

I was attending an auction at a large farm just a mile from our home early one Saturday morning.  There was a large crowd already present when I arrived so I parked along the electric fence on the side of the road and walked through the pasture to join my fellow bargain shoppers in the gravel drive.  I quickly was greeted by several friends whom I had seen at the high school's Friday night football game the evening before, and the conversation centered around the big win.

The cool morning and friendly conversation were just the start of a divine day.  I was pleased that the auctioneer started the bidding in a politically incorrect way with a prayer followed by the Pledge of Allegiance (there was a large flag on a tall pole in the front yard of the home),  and I enjoyed purchasing  a few unique items that you just can't find at the mall or Walmart.  I brought my first load of treasures home at lunch time to make sandwiches for myself and my kids, and then headed back to the auction, planning to bid on a really cool old English bicycle that I never planned to ride but really wanted.  I thought that simply leaning it up against our white fence as if a friend had just ridden up on it would make me smile each time I  approached our home after a long day at work.

Well, while waiting for the old bicycle to come up for bidding, I noticed a small stack of really large baskets on the ground by the bike.  I didn't know what they were, but realized that one of them was stamped "Roxboro, NC" which is a neighboring community where my grandmother grew up.  I began asking questions, and the nice old farmer in overalls beside me explained that they were tobacco baskets, used for taking the tobacco leaves to market for sell in the early to mid 1900's.  Because my own granddad and great- granddad were both tobacco farmers, I was immediately interested in acquiring one of the treasures, though not exactly sure what I would do with it.

Well, after a fellow auction-goer accidentally purchased 4 of the baskets for $20 each (he had thought he was bidding on only one), he quickly agreed to sell me the one of my choice for $15 in order to re-acquire some of the money he had just inadvertently spent.  Of course, I chose the only one that was emblazoned with "Roxboro, NC" even though it's condition wasn't as good as that of the other baskets.  As I smiled to myself, I considered the possibility that one of my farmer relatives from the past had actually hauled his tobacco leaves in the basket I was now toteing around myself.

When I got my basket treasure home and researched  the history of tobacco baskets in North Carolina,  a post from a woman in Pennsylvania (where apparently tobacco wasn't grown and therefore tobacco market baskets weren't needed) immediately caused me to feel quite fortunate to live in "Tobacco Alley".  Apparently, she had been searching for three years for such a basket, and had finally purchased one for over a hundred dollars, feeling quite lucky with her acquisition.  She'd be sick if she knew there are probably farms all over  North Carolina where folks are tripping over the baskets piled high in their barns collecting dust and being knawed apart by barnmice.

The best surprise of the day was yet to come however.  As I was carrying my basket to the car, a gentleman I didn't know approached me and tapped me on the shoulder.  I thought he was going to ask me if I wanted to sell my tobacco basket to him for a profit, but instead he asked quietly, "Are you Carol Ray's daughter?"  (Ray was my mother's middle name, acquired from her father who was at war when she was born.  Hillsborough is the only place she's known as Carol Ray instead of  by her maiden name McKee or her married name Knight.)  Feeling a bit surprised, I responded that I was indeed her daughter, a bit taken aback because my mom has been dead for almost 15 years and the way this man spoke of her made it seem as if he'd just talked to her the previous day.  He then smiled shyly and said, "She was my first girlfriend....a real sweet girl.  I am sorry she passed away."

He shared his name, I shook his hand, and then he helped me load my truck as I prepared to return home to stay this time.  When I later spoke to my dad, he responded, "Well, I never knew about him.....I thought I was her first boyfriend."  My grandmother later told us both that this first boyfriend was from Caldwell Elementary School, no longer in existence, and that the clandestine love affair had taken place when my mother was all of six years old and in the first grade.  We laughed , and I only wished my mom had been there to laugh with us.

I did find the perfect place to hang the basket.  After cleaning it well with the garden hose, and then spraying it with clear lacquer to give it a slight glow and to warm up the tones in the wood a bit, I hung it like a large piece of artwork on a bare wall in our stairwell.  Because it's Christmas, there is now also a cedar wreath at its center, but even when the Christmas decorations come down , the basket will remain. 

Cheap tobacco baskets at auction.....just another unsung benefit of being a North Carolina country gal....that and the decorated Christmas tractors that folks park in their large front yards decked out in Christmas lights.   There are three such tractors within 500 yards of each other about a mile from our home.  I love passing them on a dark night as I am driving home in December....makes hanging lights from the eaves or bushes just seem passe! 

Merry, merry Christmas!  Hope you enjoy your own unique sights, sounds, and smells of the season wherever you live.

       

                                                                         

Tomato Candy

I love my garden, small as it may be.  There is nothing like being a busy mom who at 5:00 realizes she has absolutely no idea  what her family will eat for supper (know anyone like that?) and then glances out the window to be pleasantly reminded that everything she needs for a delicious salad , or just BLTs  (if you have bacon in the fridge), is right outside her door.  Now that three of my children are older, I can even send them "grocery shopping" just down our front porch steps, with nothing but a basket in hand - no shirt, shoes, money, or car keys required. 

We've had delicious ocra, cucumbers, squash, peppers of all colors, musk melons, and large tomatos all summer but the best surprise from this year's garden was without a doubt "Sweet 100 Cherry Tomatos".  These plants mature in 65 days and produce large clusters of sweet cherry-sized fruits.  Even my four-year old would pop them in his mouth one after the other, barely giving me time to rinse them, when I would carry a small bucket full into the kitchen.  One day, as he was munching away, I said to him, "Better than candy, aren't they?" to which he quickly replied, with tomato juice dripping down his chin, "You must not have had the kind of candy I have had."

I always start planning next year's garden when the end of August rolls around and my small plot begins to resemble a cemetary - more dead than living.  One of my plans for next year includes using the plethora of cherry tomatos I have high hopes of again producing to hold a salsa-making party for friends in the "neighborhood".  If I provide the tomatos and jars, and each one of them brings another ingredient, we can all end the night of chopping, mixing, gabbing, and laughing, with a couple of jars of the most delicious salsa you've ever eaten.  A co-worker , who used to live in Texas and brought this recipe with her when she moved to NC, shared it with me.

I call it "Shelly's Salsa."

Ingredients:
1 can whole peeled tomatos (or fresh ones from next year's garden)
3/4 of a medium size onion, chopped
4 sprigs fresh cilantro (or a palm full of dried)
2 cloves garlic
1 tsp.salt
2 Tabl. lemon juice
2 fresh jalapenos

Put all the ingredients minus the tomatos in a mincer or chopper until they are at an agreeable consistency.  Add the tomatos and mince or chop  a bit more. Stir in just  under a tablespoon of cumin.  (Shelly says the cumin is the magic ingredient - "If there's no cumin, it's not Mexican.")

After the salsa is made, grab a bag of tortilla chips and enjoy the company of friends around a table in your garden.   Simple pleasures are best!  (Warning - all tomato-eatin' 4-year olds may want to join you around the table....be prepared to share!)

The Real Housewives of Orange County (North Carolina)

I am very blessed to have a dear group of four friends with whom I meet a couple of times a month in order to encourage and pray for one another.  At our last get together, however, there was more clucking than praying going on, literally.  Upon arrival at my friend's home, we heard what can best be described as loud, agonizing chicken squawks, at which point I hurried to the window to peer into their backyard coop to see what  all the ruckus was about.  Her son was sent outside to check on the chickens, at which point she began to tell us of the previous day's events.

Weeks earlier, her entrepreneurial and hardworking 14-year old son had embarked on a money-making mission, involving building his own chicken coop in the garage of their home in order that he might purchase his own chickens and eventually sell his own eggs.  Diesel, the pit bull in the neighboring backyard had killed one of his first chickens, requiring that he re-think the size of his initial coop. He and his father and younger brother decided to build a second, larger coop that would allow the chickens more room to roam about without fearing the aforementioned pit bull predator.  Well, during construction of the second coop,  a second chicken went missing, but the mystery didn't take long to solve.  A good friend of the family and owner of Diesel, 12-year old Blake, stated somewhat excitedly as all the boys sat poolside," You ought to see the big black bird my dog killed yesterday," to which my friend's son replied, "That big black bird was my new chicken."  As we discussed the ins and outs of maintaining friendly relations with neighbors we love amidst the challenges that free-ranging chickens and dogs on large plots of land in the country create, the discussion took a slight turn.

Hibbard's Hen House  (for building plans contact Brian Hibbard)

Just a few months prior, another friend in the group, who is a city-girl transplant to the neighboring metropolis of Cedar Grove, had experienced her own chicken dilemma.  She and her husband had purchased what they thought were 26 hens from a new acquaintance who happened to be Hispanic. ( I share his ethnicity because those 26 hens turned out to be 25 roosters and one hen, and my friends are hoping that this dire misunderstanding was due to a language barrier and nothing else.)  Well, if you know anything about raising chickens, you know that you can't have 25 roosters in one chicken yard....in fact, I'm told that just one is ideal.  This overabundance of testosterone  resulted in gang wars scarier than anything LA has ever seen - the Southside Gang stayed near the pond, the East and Westside gangs near the garden and goat pen, and the tougher Northside Gang claimed the area near the coop.  The yard was becoming a warzone , and my Cedar Grove friends deemed action, as unappealing as it would be, was absolutely necessary.





Cody "the Godfather" Rooster

 I called this particular friend on a particular day this summer and asked her 3rd grade son Liam if I could speak with her.  When he shared that she wasn't at home, I asked if his dad Brian was too busy to speak with me briefly.  Liam immediately said, "No he's not real busy.  He's just in the backyard killing our 25 roosters, but he's got some help." (I wonder what busy looks like to Liam.)

 When I inquired about who might be helping with such a desirable task, he responded that 60-year old Miss Elaine from their church was there as the chicken- killing expert.  She had skillfully shown Brian a few various and asundry ways to do the deed, and following her demonstration, Brian chose the method that involved wielding an ax, only to regrettably learn that his ax needed sharpening.  As my friend Kayli thanked Elaine for her help and apologized for the despicableness of the task, Elaine wiped her dirty hands on her overalls as she stated, "Oh don't apologize.  I just love killing me some chickens.  Reminds me of special times with my sister, because that was a job we always did together as girls." (Don't make girls as tough as they used to, apparently. My own daughter thinks the dirty dishes in the sink are gross.)  Thankfully, Kayli has a huge, and now full, freezer - just hope she doesn't invite us over for chicken and dumplins anytime soon.

Liam's hen, Ruby



A former member of our prayer group, whose daughter, upon the occassion of her 16th birthday had wanted her own chickens, worked with her husband to build the necessary coop to accomodate this birthday wish.  Unfortunately, what had started out as an act of motherly love on a beautiful afternoon resulted in an unexpected visit to the emergency room when her husband shot a nail through his wife's hand with a nail gun....ouch!


The only poultry we've ever had on our property was a rooster, the end result of a second-grade incubation science project at my daughter's school,  the first year we moved in our home.  That rooster met an unfortunate end one day when we were away from home and my brother's dog, who lived next door , did what dogs naturally do.  I've often pondered building our own coop and purchasing some new fine-feathered friends; however, after this particular time of "prayer" at my good friend's home, I'm re-thinking that venture.

 Most recently, my neighbor across the street apologized for the pre-dawn

crowing of her new rooster .  I let her know that I had been sleeping with the windows open just so I could better hear the beautiful sound.  She immediately said I was the best neighbor in the world for not complaining, but I told her that I was being purely selfish.  The fact that the rooster lives at her house allows me to enjoy the blessing of his early morning wake-up calls without dealing with the inevitable when it comes to raising chickens - carcasses, axes, emergency room visits, and turf wars, both with roosters and dog-loving neighbors .

With four children at home, free fresh eggs would be wonderful, but not truly "free".....



As we left our fellowship time, we all laughed as we pondered the fact that we had been talking chickens for almost an hour.  Don't think they'll be producing a reality television show about us any time soon, but I don't care.  The Real Housewives of  Cable TV can have their botox treatments, divorce lawyers, and tarot card readers.....but the real housewives of Orange County will keep our good friends in the country, both feathered and not!





Summer Reflections

One of my older children asked me yesterday what the date was.  When one is not in school everyday, and  Mondays feel like Fridays, it is difficult to keep up with specifics like dates.  As I heard myself answer, "July 16th", I felt a mild sense of panic.  The middle of July means the middle of summer vacation....where had June gone?  July 16th....really?.....already?
I began to ponder what we had done with our summer thus far and couldn't help but laugh when I reflected back on our Fabulous Fourth.  The Historic Caldwell Fourth of July Parade has been a part of our yearly celebration since my daughter was born 17 years ago, but feels a bit more ingrained since we moved to the community almost 9 years ago. 
Caldwell is literally an intersection, with a wonderful Quik Stop called Handy Andy's on the corner.  When Andy answers the phone, even when I don't share my identity when asking if they sell cream cheese for instance, he'll respond,  "Just a minute, Kristal.  Let me check on that for you."  Handy Andy's sits on the corner of two North Carolina highways, NC57 and NC 157, and is the hub of the parade commotion.  Although both highways are major thoroughfares in these parts, traffic is shut down completely for an hour or so on July 4th each year....all traffic, that is, but  bicycles, horses, and the like!
The parade begins with an announcement to all who have gathered in the July heat to stand for the Pledge of Allegiance and to place your hand over your heart.  Don't you just love a small town where one doesn't have to worry so much about being politically correct?  Most years one of the neighbors brings a pick-up truck full of buckets of sunflowers that she shares with many of the female spectators, young and old alike, as we all wait for the line up to pass by.
In the past, my children and their cousins who live next door have decorated their own bikes with all the red, white,and blue finery we could muster.   As they have aged however, and grown older and wiser, they have come to realize that riding in the parade means missing out on gathering the plethora of candy that other parade participants barrage the spectators with each year.  Now my 14 and 4 year olds alike bring their baseball caps as "loot bags," and the candy generally lasts around my house until almost Halloween.  (Not bad for a 30- minute parade in the booming metropolis of Caldwell.)
Other than children on bicycles, standard parade entrants always include those driving their prize four-wheelers, John Deere tractors, and beautifully restored old cars.   My father, who graduated from the local high school in 1962, enjoys shouting at his former school mates as they cruise the "parade strip", attempting to guess the year, model , and make of the classy old cars they show off.  Amazingly to me, he's more often right than wrong!
This year,  parade highlights included a barrel train, painted in patriotic colors, 6-7 cars long, each car carting a preschooler, as well as an Elvis look-alike. Maybe Caldwell is where Elvis has been hiding all these years???????
I'm so grateful for our traditions, silly as they may seem to some.  In some unique fashion, traditions create the warp on which the rest of our lives are woven.  They are the strong, tight fibers that hold fast, that help us to define our lives, and that give our children a sense of identity.  They also provide the gift of warm memories - praying your own memories fill more than a memory book this summer.

Shuckin' Corn

Our neighbor, who plants the cornfield that surrounds our home, stopped by the other day to bring us a huge sack of "sweet corn". ( In the country, a neighbor is someone who lives within 5 miles of your home, not someone with whom you can shake hands if you stick your arm out of your bedroom window as was the case at our previous residence.)  This nuance was one of the first things I learned upon moving to the country ten years ago.

Something I haven't yet learned is exactly what makes "sweet corn" sweet.  Sweet as opposed to what.....sour?  Sweet to me is a hot fudge sundae or a cappuccino bonbon, not an ear of corn.  I do know that "feed corn" means it's meant to feed farm critters and not my family, and I've heard of Silver Queen corn, too, but I still don't know exactly what is meant by "sweet corn".  Being too embarrassed to ask, I simply thanked Mr. Latta, our generous farming neighbor, and placed the sack on my front porch.

Within minutes, my four- year- old son Coleman came running down our rock drive with his dad following close behind.  They had been cutting down a dead tree, and he had seen Mr. Latta leaving in his truck.  "What's in the bag?" Cole wanted to know as he opened the top of the sack, that was almost as tall as he was, to peer inside.  I showed him all the ears of corn I was preparing to tear into as I placed the kitchen trashcan on the front porch in order to catch the husks and silks.  Now even though I have lived in the country for ten years now, I must say I still dread finding a worm in any ear of corn I'm holding and eventually planning to eat.  The dark, mushy, partly-eaten kernels at the end of the ear are a sure sign that a worm-sighting is imminent.  These worms aren't petite, but are instead quite large and fleshy.  I halfway squinted my eyes and turned my head away as I instructed Cole in how to pull back the husks, knowing that I was likely going to uncover more than just corn kernels.

When my husband Scott joined us on the porch to assist with the task at hand,  we quickly developed quite a rhythm, making fast progress.  I would hand him any ear of corn whose end needed to be broken off due to wormy inhabitants, and he would hand me the ears from which he had just  removed the husks because he deplores the tedious task of attempting to remove the tiny silky hairs that are tightly wedged between the rows of corn kernels.  (Yes, he has the patience to sit alone in the freezing cold on a 12" x12" platform high in a tree until his butt is numb just hoping to spot a deer, but not the patience to pull the silks from an ear of corn.  Go figure???)  Coleman was still working quietly on his first ear of corn, removing just one leafy husk at a time.  As he finished, I saw him jump slightly out of the corner of my  eye.  Correctly thinking he had probably been a bit startled when he spotted a worm, I told him I would finish the task for him.  I was a little surprised at his quick response.  "No way , mom," he said.  "This is fun.  I hope I have a worm in my next one."

For the next half hour, Cole would carefully select an ear of corn from the sack as one might choose a straw in a game of chance.  That arduous task would then either be followed by a sigh of disappointment or a squeal of joy, depending on whether or not the selected ear included the grand prize of a wormy resident. For the duration of our work, my son was hoping for a worm even more than I was hoping against one. He would  often make a fist and pull his elbow quickly to his side with a manly "YES!," gesturing as he's seen his older brothers do, as if spotting a worm in an ear of corn were quite the acheivement and something about which one could feel quite proud.

An hour later, as we were sitting at the dinner table and Coleman was chomping on a piece of corn, he excitedly confided in his 14-year old brother.  "Garrett," he said, nodding his head toward the ear of corn he was holding with both hands."This is my first one."

 "Your first what?" Garrett asked.

 "The first ear of corn I ever shucked," Cole answered, as if he'd conquered a real growing up milestone.  "And I think this one even had a worm in it," he concluded.

"Sweet corn" tip-

Mr. Latta shared on this particular evening that sometimes boiling the corn removes its flavor. He suggested we instead wash the corn and then while it's still damp , wrap it in a papertowel and microwave it for 20 seconds or so.  He was right....easy and delicious!  Try it for yourself the next time you want your sweet corn to taste even sweeter!  (As for me, I'll still be reaching for the chocolate the next time I've got a hankerin' for something sweet.)

Barefoot but NOT Pregnant

Our 25th highschool class reunion is tonight...atleast the invitation said 25th.....maybe it was a typo, because I know I haven't been out of highschool that long.  I remember my own parents' 25th class reunion, and they were ancient at the time.

 I  was considering dress for tonight and realized that I have worn maternity garb to the previous two reunions, because I was pregnant with my 2nd child at our 10 year reunion and with our 4th child at our 20th.  Would be fun to wear a maternity dress tonight just to observe the reactions of our old classmates!

Our first three children were all born within 4.5 years, but there is eight years between child #3 and Coleman, our 4th.  He was a great, big, wonderful surprise to all of us, the operative word being SURPRISE.  As we prepared to announce his arrival to our older three children at the dinner table five years ago,  we told them we had a surprise for them.  Our eight-year old immediately and hopefully verbalized, "I know....we're getting a dog!"  Scott, my husband, said, "No, not a dog...."  My then 12-year old daughter said, "I know....you're going to have a baby!  I've been praying that you would." (She smiled an enormous, knowing smile and didn't seem all that surprised!)  At that, our 10-year old son pushed his chair back from the table with both hands, grabbed his head on either side, and placed his elbows on his knees , lowering his head.  "Mom,"  he said, "you can't be.  How do you know?"  I quickly told him that I had been to the doctor, and that he had told me that I WAS pregnant.  My son immediately said, "Yeah, but did he know how OLD you are?"  Ten minutes later the eight year old  asked in disheartened fashion, "So we're not getting a dog?".

I could now write a memoir  (Coleman's only four , and I definately have enough material to fill it) entitled "Confessions of a Mother of Four", solely about all the ways I have already failed him.  He told his preschool teachers a few months ago when the children were discussing their favorite television shows that his were "Man Vs. Wild" and "Deadliest Warrior".  This revelation had followed other children sharing their love for "Thomas the Train" and "Bob the Builder".  Ooops!

At the top of the list of failures would be that I have never taken Coleman to a photo studio, much to the dismay of some family members, who strangely have never volunteered to take him to a studio themselves.  It's just such fun to put a child in an uncomfortable outfit he doesn't like to begin with, to wait in a large room at Olan Mills with other stressed out parents who are trying to keep little darling's shirt tucked in and face clean, only to finally get called back to the "studio" where you jump around like a bumbling idiot while a 19-year old stranger with the personality of a rock who's never had kids tries to get yours to smile.  What joy!  I can't imagine why no one's volunteering.

Each of my other children has a 4-year old portrait hanging prominently in our hallway.  Since Coleman turns 5 in September, my older children have been periodically reminding me that I have an important task at hand so that Coleman doesn't feel "left out". ( They are all three quite skilled at reminding me of the important mothering tasks that I am forgetting when it comes to their youngest sibiling.)  This responsibility of mine is further exaggerated due to a beautiful portrait of the oldest three children painted by a dear friend who surprised me with this gift before Cole was a twinkle in his daddy's eye.  Because it is displayed conspicuously on our mantle, we've all worried that it might make Cole feel like the family add-on.  Since it isn't possible to somehow crop him into the family painting,  I knew I had to do something about this 4-year old portrait, but would rather shop for school supplies at Walmart on the eve of the first day than suit up for the Olan Mills expedition.

My solution:
1- Let Coleman wear what he wanted - jeans, a tank top, and no shoes, of course, because he is my child
2- Give him some of his own favorite toys - his Cowboy horse and lassoing rope
3- Run across the front yard together a few minutes after supper
4- Take a picture with the simple one-step camera we recently purchased at Best Buy
5- Return to our comfortable air-conditioned home five minutes later

Enlargement at Costco - $1.49
Used frame at Goodwill - $2.98

Chocolate brown spray paint - free (already at home)

Cole's smile and my sanity to spare - PRICELESS!

 Sierra's 4-year old portrait cost us $200.00.  Despite "Man vs. Wild," "Deadliest Warriors," and the fact that none of Coleman's preschool pals are allowed to come over to play anymore, maybe I have learned something!