For A Season…..

It was gray and windy outside today. Colder than we Southerners are used too. We shrugged a little deeper into our sweatshirts and cranked the car heater as we drove home from the dentist, chatting happily and rocking out to Christmas tunes. The rain began to drizzle lightly, when we pulled up to the red light at the intersection.

There next to the road, huddled near the bus stop shelter, stood wizened old man. His eyes shone blue from a pink and wrinkled face. He wore a shabby jacket that was made for a frame much larger than his. He had layers of clothing pulled together under the jacket to shut out the chill. A clean white beard distracted only briefly from his bright orange hunting beanie, which he had pulled down close to his eyes to help shut out the rain. His eyes were haunting and they told worlds that his sign did not. His sign read simply, “Please help, I’m very hungry.” The neatly trimmed beard, the dashed pride, the worn clothing from a charity, the cane he leaned on, the arthritic limp as he held his head up and met onlookers gaze told that he was a new to his circumstances…… but his frail frame evidenced that he’d needed help for awhile.

His eyes were clear and lucid, not the blurred or holding the frantic look of one under the influence. He was trying to maintain his dignity as he peered humbly from behind his sign. An elderly gentleman that could have been a father or grandfather, turned to begging because of life’s circumstances, unable to compete for jobs with younger men, too late in life to start over. My heart went out to him, and God gave me a nudge.

Then my daughter read his sign out loud, the words hanging in the car. The Gremlin squirmed uncomfortably. The Christmas tunes seemed to blare through the silence. “What do you think we should do?” I asked quietly. Sarge piped up, “Can’t we help him?” I handed the Gremlin my purse, “Dig through and look for dollars and change.”

We had left the stop light, but we eased our way across the lanes of traffic and turned the car around. Bouncing excitedly, my daughter pointed to a Wendy’s sign, “We can get him food from there!” The Gremlin waved seven dollars, dug up from the recesses of my purse, “We’ve got enough…..look Mom, he’s still there! I can see his orange beannie!” The Imp continued to bounce in her seat, “We’re coming, Beanie Man! We’re coming!” The Imp and I quickly went in and ordered a meal for the man and a large hot coffee. The Imp gathered napkins, ketchup packets, creams, and sugars to lay carefully in his bag, before bounding back out to the car. We pulled out of the Wendy’s and headed towards the bus stop shelter scanning. The children were very excited. I began to wonder what to say, how would we get to him on such a busy road and what circumstances had put him here? We reached the bus stop area and the rain poured steadily now. The Beanie Man was no where to be seen. We saw a figure walking away and drove in that direction. The Imp bouncing and calling, “We’re coming, Beanie Man…..We’ve got your lunch and coffee!” The pedestrian looked up and smiled and the Imp’s face fell. It was a young business man in a longer jacket. “Over there mom!” pointed the Gremlin, “Lets go that way and look for him.” And so it went. For the next 20 minutes we hunted all over for the Beanie Man, driving up and down the road. Checking the parking lot behind the bus stop. The kids even had me drive slowly along the ditch with the bridge, thinking he might have taken shelter. The Beanie man disappeared without a trace in less than 7 minutes.

“What do we do now?” the Sarge asked. I admitted that I wasn’t really sure. The Sarge reminded me that maybe we could give the meal to the man that sits in front of the gas station sometimes. Frustrated, the Gremlin insisted that we check the road that led to 2 churches that were nearby. “If I didn’t have food, I would look for a church…..they would help! I think we should go home by the road that leads to the churches and see if he is going there.” I steered the car down the two lane road. The children were plastered to the windows looking for a glimpse of the orange beanie. He wasn’t on the road.

The Imp spoke up from the back, “Head home mom. God is going to bring him to us.” Her brother’s incredulously demanded an explanation. “Just have FAITH. I prayed about it and if we all pray, God will bring him to us on our way home,” her words allowed no argument. I prayed she was right and we all said a prayer for the Beanie Man. The older children became more sullen the closer we got to home. Sarge asked the Imp if we could give the meal to the man at the gas station, if the Beanie Man didn’t show up by then. The Imp said she was sure he would show up before then, but that we could do that if he didn’t. The Beanie Man didn’t show up. The gas station man wasn’t at his corner either. The children were upset.

We talked about various things that God might be trying to teach us. The Gremlin was the most frustrated. Sarge couldn’t think of anything that we could learn from this little adventure. The Imp wanted to know why God wouldn’t let us help him.

Update:
I’m not sure how we missed the Beanie Man. I didn’t know how to answer their questions either. I did the best I could. We decided that we should keep gift cards to food places or a bag of food in the car anytime we go into town. As an adult, I’m not sure what to tell the kids….I don’t really think this is something I can “make all better”. It is still bothering them and we all keep looking for the Beanie Man and worrying about him, when we are out.

As many know, I am just a little freaked out by Immunizations. I believe that many of them make sense and are good. On the other hand, I distrust the medical community and realize that they tend to “push” things before they are fully tested. I struggle often with the “God provided doctors to help us” vs. the “God designed our bodies to fight infections and we are interfering with that process.” Hubby does not share my struggle. Except for 1 or 2 vaccines, he thinks we should do what they tell us. The chances are very low that there will be any problems anyways.

With his blessing and having researched EVERY immunization that our children had due, I took the boys to the doctor last week. They sailed through their boosters with no problems. So far, so good……maybe it was just me being paranoid. I took the Imp in for her boosters and well check. She was good and the staff reinforced that we liked this new doctor.

Then it happened. The Imp woke up covered in a red bumpy rash that was spreading as we watched and waited for the doctors office to open. She itched everywhere and the site of her immunizations was the size of a baseball and a very angry red. Benadryl seemed to help a little. Her breathing was good, but her ears started to burn and she complained that her chest was getting tight. I took her in.

One and a half hours later, with $20 for a doctor visit and another $39 in prescriptions to fight the allergic reaction, I was given this little gem of wisdom. My daughter is allergic to the Chicken Pox vaccine, or the MMR vaccine, or egg products that were used to make them (she has no history of egg allergies), or something in her environment. Because they gave them both in the same arm and only millimeters apart from each other, they aren’t sure. This is very unusual and they wish they could tell me more, but since the child won’t have to have either vaccine again, her boosters are complete, they don’t see reason for concern. Also, the medications that they are giving her to stop the allergic reactions are very strong. As they wear off, I can watch the rashes return and see her arm swell up again. She is on them around the clock. They are “fairly certain” that us countering the immunizations with medications won’t totally make the shots pointless. Hmmm. Fairly certain. Great. Further, what are the chances of her reacting to another immunization made with egg products? Yeah……go figure….I’ll let you know when I’m on the other side of all the itching, swelling, and countering the vaccines with “rare” side effects with the additional meds that help keep her airway from shutting down. Yeah, I’ll get back to you on that. Grrrrr.

Today was Christmas Craft Day for our home school group. This is an insanely large event that we dread each year. This year was no exception. The field trip coordinators planned it and sent out the 1st two e-mails. The RSVP’s were piling up and still coming in. Then our main planner’s family was shipped to Idaho for her husband’s job…..a mere 2 weeks before the event……and the 2nd in command had a family emergency that sent her to another state for over a month!

The board debated whether to cancel the event, but with 80 children RSVP’d , and still more rolling in, we called on our prayer warriors and encouraged our leader to carry on. (She claims to be a “craft-challenged” person, but she makes a beautiful snowflake ornament. She doesn’t like the chaos and unpredictability of these types of events, but her gift in organizing and details helped the event go smoothly. She had not signed up for this, but recognized that God may use the chance to grow all of us.) We offered to help and recruit our teens to help. We prayed hard and she pulled us all together beautifully. Today was the much dreaded anticipated event!

What was going on: There were 100 children participating, plus a slew of strollers and infants (who were being passed around to be cuddled). Smaller toddlers tagged along to “help” older siblings. The mom’s of older children volunteered to man the various craft tables. The mom’s of littles tried to keep them from running like screaming banshees around the paint tables reigned in and “on task”. Teenagers and mommies helped little hands paint ornaments, string beads, scoop bath salts and cocoa mix, and and tie fleece pillows. The afternoon was spent in an overwhelming din of noise, sticky projects, paint smudged hand prints, and silver glitter dustings. At the end, each child went home with 2 ornaments and 1 project to use as gifts for grandparents or family members that need yearly reassurance that home schooled children can do “normal things” too and be socialized….at least occasionally.

What was going on below the surface: An exhausted mom received encouragement that she would survive the toddler phase, even though she hadn’t slept for almost to 3 months and had 4 children under the age of 6.

Another mom was prayed for, on the spot….after tears sprang to her eyes when someone asked a casual, “Hey! How are you doing!?”

Old friends paused conversations to greet new members and introduced them to a few more friendly faces.

I watched a teen girl pick up and dust off a little girl that had been running when she tripped and fell. The teen sagely encouraged her to come be her little helper at the craft table, to avoid future incidents.

I watched a teen boy comfort a preschooler who was disheartened when his project came apart….carefully gathering the beads and helping to put it together again.

The mothers of older children seemed to understand the “desperate” look of some of the younger moms. I overheard several offers of, “Why don’t you go visit for a few minutes…..we can help your little one get set up to paint.” (To which these young mothers almost sobbed out of gratitude to actually have a chance talk to a person over the age of 5 without interruption……just for a few minutes.)

Wisdom was shared among generations……as were tears, and hugs, celebrations of little mile stones, heart aches, and sweet fellowship with our Savior.

It was a coming together of very different women, but we all had a common bond in Christ…..in our children…..in our homeschooling.

After thoughts: It was loud and chaotic, but beneath all the paint smudges and spilled glitter, there was an undercurrent of love, support, and encouragement during a season that is when many reach the bottom of their well. THIS is why we do this each year. We fret, we plan, we organize, but that is just for the surface stuff……each year, God has come through and touched countless hearts and prepared us to continue on in the purpose that He has called us to.

Sarge is a teen, but I think it is just setting in for me. I was chided recently, “We don’t have play dates mom, we hang out.” Nerf guns and playing war is a thing of the past, now we have air soft and paint ball and the game of war looks much more real. (And yes, they show me bruises and welts and tell me how awesome their war games are.)

His tow headed friends with sweet little voices have grown taller than me and resemble men more than children. Their voices have either dropped or are in the process. They eat like ponies and they are like puppies with lots of strength but little control as they wrestle and goof off.

Somewhere along the way, my sweet little boy has turned into something that resembles a man. Sigh.

Hubby gave me some time to do food preparations by taking the kids outside to play soccer and football all morning. We had all the usual fixings and everything was made from scratch this year. I taught the Imp how to prep the turkey and make gravy, since those were the only things she hadn’t done yet. (She has enough experience in the kitchen, that she could probably pull off the whole meal with very little supervision! She is a huge help.)

After our meal, Sarge and the Gremlin cleaned the kitchen, did the dishes, and put them away.

Then, exploring the woods behind the house was on the agenda. A logging trail was found that led to several other trails before dumping out into a clearing by a road. Evidence of hunters was found, so our exploring party stayed clear of that area. We checked rifle season in this area and decided to stay out of the far-back woods until it is over. Yikes!

Wishing you all a very Happy Thanksgiving. Kiss your spouse, hug your kids, and reflect on all God’s blessings.

We have returned to our normal school schedule and all is well again.

This week we planted 25 little pots of seeds and they have already started to germinate. We plan to try a winter garden this year. I’ve started about 10 plants of romaine lettuce, several bunches of scallions and about half as many bunches of leeks. I’m also trying to start up an herb garden with basil, oregano, parsley, and fennel (all these will make awesome Italian seasoning). I’ve got the space to start growing our own garlic too, but haven’t got the cloves yet.

Today the boys and hubby worked in the yard, clearing the back wood vines off the fence and burning the overgrowth that they cut down. We hope to reclaim the land behind our fence. It is ours, but it is pretty heavily wooded and overgrown. That will be our winter project. While the boys did this, the Imp and I made bread. I have a new recipe to try and we ran out of homemade bread a couple days ago.

Got to get back to the family, we will work on my truck after lunch…..it needs new seals and bearings.

Two more days under our belts. We are slowly approaching normal. Laundry is caught up. Floors are vacuumed and I am almost rested enough to bleach all floors, wipe down walls, and steam clean our couches and carpets. (Maybe by Saturday, I’ll have the energy.)

I spent yesterday grading assignments that were completed during our illnesses. While we (adults) were ill, we had healthy children moving ahead in math and language books if they were able to be rambunctious. (Reading is never an issue with the boys and the Gremlin is already well into The Lord of the Rings book that he picked up “just for fun” while we were all recuperating. I swear, that child devours books!)

Sometime while we were all sick, our box of school books arrived from Sonlight. (Yay, box day!) Since we were too sick to care, we hauled it to my office and there it sat. Last night we opened it up and poured over all the books and titles for the year. Box day is HUGE at our house! All the kids gathered to go through the books and help me color code them (by school year) for our personal library. We organized all the books and added another shelf to our library. On Monday we will begin our new materials. Sarge is very excited because he has been begging to get into WWI and WWII in depth, for some time now. I was happy to see several old classics that I remembered reading in junior high.

I’ve got to get my crock pot started. I’m making a hearty sirloin stew with veggies for dinner. If there’s time I’ll make up a loaf of homemade Peasant Bread to dip in it. Yum!