things I think about when I have time to think

Snot happens.... A lot in our house. It's flu season, I have 5 young children and I'm a doctor. I meet germs everywhere , I bring them home. And so do my kids. So it is predictable, and all makes perfect sense . But it is still quite a sight,  the amount of snot that 7 sick bodies are able to generate... What makes even more perfect sense is how easily that word rolls off my tongue. It is a word which, in my previous high-heeled before-5-kids life , I would have been mortified to publicly speak. Never snot, but it's more socially-acceptable cousin, mucous. Now, veteran that I am, I unashamedly tell it like it is, it's snot. And there is no one who wears it quite as elegantly as our MiniMan, our snot-box delight of 2-and-a-half years. Cuddles with MiniMan are always worth the tell-tale snot-trails they leave behind. Unless you are EdeeBee. "Eeeeeuuywww, Mum, he's got snotttt!" There is genuine panic on her 5yo face. All fixed by

This is a story my 11 yo Tianna MooShoo wrote for a school assignment. I've left it as it is, unedited, unpolished (I had to subdue my ridulous control-freak nature to not correct the spelling and grammatical errors! ) . I love her conversational writing style, and her story is beautifully moving, yet dotted with just-enough humour . And James was impressed by the sheer length of it - he is a man of far fewer words than Tianna and I, haha! And Yes, yes , I know I'm her mum, which kind of negates my opinion, but I think she's very talented - and I hope you enjoy it too. Please comment if you have a moment, she will lap it up! Christianity behind the bars… Once there was a boy called Jacob. He lived in a nice house with parents who loved him  so much, in England as an only child, but only till he was about twelve years old. But, if you ask him, he will admit that he deserved it. Ok, here’s what happened… It was a cold winters day on Tuesday mo

    Sara is dying , but she is l iving through it ... choosing joy. I read about her story at her blog , and was so moved.... to change my perspective , to choose to take every trial and suffering, and to reframe it , to find joy in it.  Joy is the perfect ending to life. And there is gratefulness in being able to choose to end life that way, when so many can't or won't or aren't able to.  This post was so beautifully sad , yet so full of that joy , of abundant life, and of the peace of knowing that this short life is only the beginning, there is so much more. Thank you for sharing this xxx Please read Sara's post, it will touch your heart... http://gitzengirl.blogspot.com/2011/09/choose-joy.html ----

It's well after goodnights, and I' m trying to sneak silently down the lights-all-out passage, knowing full well that the slightest noisy footstep will alert my supposed-to-be-sleeping kiddies ....  And just as expected , and quiet as I am,...  I pass their bedroom door, and am stopped by a little voice ... Eeeeease Mum, eeeease... out!   My 2 year old JoJo, who has the cutest, smallest, but most insistent voice,...  Cuddle me Mum ,... eeease! (in JoJo's toddler-speak 'Eeeese' translates to a rather melodramatic Pleeeease ). And it's very hard to ignore. I step into the room, he's standing up in his cot, 5 different types and sizes of Buzz Lightyears strewn around him... big blue eyes and wide smile.   And again, so hard to ignore... I bend down and give him his requested cuddle. Got you, Mum! followed by a victorius giggle. Got you JoJo! I reply. This is our familiar dialogue , the one we exchange several times a day, every d

A friend of mine writes to me in pain.  Someone in her family has just lost a child , a newborn, only a few weeks old.  It had been a traumatic passing, the baby had not left the hospital, there had been invasive investigations and even more invasive treatments, tough decisions that his parents had had to make to try to keep him alive. But still, he slipped away.   A perfect baby, made in the image of his Creator, .... born to live, but not on this earth. And we are left with such a vacuum , such sadness in loss, an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness , of there being no point. But in believing in our God , there is always a point. Our God doesn't make us for life on this earth, he makes us to eventually live alongside Him. Some of us get there sooner than others. And it's hardest for the ones who don't, for the ones who are left behind with this heavy empty grief. I send my friend a song, a powerful beautiful song with lyrics that always bring tears to my

Jo-Jo is trying to fit a fat-bottomed BoPeep , a battle-stanced Buzz Lightyear , and their red-haired 'Little People' daughter into a one-seater Fisher-Price helicopter . He has set up the doll's house as any boy would.   The first floor is a landing bay for his helicopter and there are jungle animals in the attic. BoPeep has been transferred to a safari touring bus.   He's judged it more suitable for fat-bottomed creatures than the helicopter. She is joined by a chunky zebra and a large rock, very suitable travelling companions . But Woody and Buzz aren't doing the sight-seeing thing, they hang out at the helipad and await her return - because this is what blokes do. And I am strewn across the sofa , taking it all in. With a long-bodied sausage dog stretched out in the sun alongside me. EdeeBee is setting up a kitchen in JoJo's doll's house. She's trying to teach her baby brother how to make tea , speaking very slowly so he'll understa

That's how it started... Now I have lost a friend. And I am left ruminating and ruminating and ruminating again.... and wondering wide-awake at night when I should be sleeping... Am I a selfish friend? Is my life too busy to make time for my friends? And if so, how do I change that, what should I cut to make that time ? This feels just like high school, the messy ways we navigated our friendships before we knew better... But now I am an adult, and I do know better...   I know first-hand the hurt that comes from being careless with another , the haunting that lingers when I should have managed things differently...  I thought I had learnt this lesson, that I had grown past this,... yet here I am . There is a lovely wonderful breath-of-fresh-air friend who has told me in no uncertain terms that I no longer have time for her, ...and so we are no longer friends. My husband did see this coming. And he is allowed to say I-told-you-so. He knows my capacity

Tonight, I watched my beautiful brave 8yo having a seizure. I kicked into automatic doctoring mode , and then, when it was finished, I just held her for a very long time.  She curled her long-legged 8yo body onto my lap and we just sat on the couch. I smoothed her hair and teared silently into it so she wouldn't see. I kissed her forehead repeatedly, and we talked about every subject but the one I kept thinking about.   And we prayed. I laid my hands on her and prayed for healing, for God's protection and perfection and wholeness. My husband had had to go out shortly after it had happened. The other kids were hastily put to bed, and Skyla and I just sat together like this for a very long time. It had first happened 3 years ago. 3 episodes in the space of about 2 months. We'd not really been sure those times, they could have been simple faintings, but I had taken her to see "the funny doctor" , our lovely paediatrician, anyway.  Mostly for re