There's SNOW place like home!

Aberdeen and most of Scotland have been blanketed by an early winter snowfall over the last few days. This early frosty weather has caused travel and school transport chaos big time, but also has created opportunities for winter snow play to make the long weekend enjoyable (the kids are off school Monday and Tuesday for inservice days). We all pulled out our snow boots, woolly socks, long underwear, and waterproof gear and headed outside to play.

As you can see, Caleb also needed his Ben 10 goggles to keep the snow out of his eyes! Perfect for when a car drove past him and splashed dirty, salty water into his eyes, only he didn't have them on then! But now he won't take them off....

We had friends from Baytown visiting with us last week, Shawn and Sarah Aghajan, and they too got to experience first hand the trouble caused when a few inches of snow drop out of the sky. Caleb and I took them to see Dunottar castle about 13 miles south of Aberdeen, but the snow was so bad that getting there was dodgy, the path down to the castle not terribly safe, and the castle itself was closed! In the end we had a lovely lunch in Stonehaven and took pics from a safe distance...

Yes, Shawn messed that one up! (just kidding Shawn!) It was an amazing time for pictures, as the sun shining down magnified the snow clouds over the North Sea in the background.

Yesterday was Sunday, and after church we had soup and then went outside with the requisite gear to do some sledding (well, three of us anyway). I'll try to add a video below of Adam and Brian sailing down the hill in front of our flat, with Caleb giving them the turbo boost push-off. The best part of the afternoon was Adam learning to throw snowballs--he loved the whole idea, even getting them thrown at him! His chuckles made frozen fingers and ice up the nose worth it all! And let me tell you, with the arm he's got, he'll soon be a force to reckon with!

That's all for now. Enjoy whatever weather you have...we're going outside!

Worthwhile struggles

I know it's been a long time since I last wrote anything, and as soon as I have a minute to remedy that situation I will. But, in the meantime, on this cold Friday morning I will leave you with the link to an article I wrote for Biola magazine, the Fall issue of which has just come out.

I receive the quarterly Biola magazine all the way over here in Scotland, and enjoy looking through it as a link to my history and the chance to see what and how Christians around the world are getting involved with life. However, I had started to become disillusioned that there was so little mention of the issue of disability within the pages, and wrote to the editor to express my opinion. After all, disability is the main priority of our life, and I know we are not the only ones.

He wrote me back straight away and asked if I would be interested in writing about our story and what I am doing with my life now, so I did. To be honest, I never actually thought it would come out, mostly for lack of my experience as a writer! But now that it has I'm glad to have shared and grateful for the place that the Lord has given me to be planted and bloom.

Worthwhile struggles indeed, and I don't take credit for writing that title. Enjoy!

Holidays again

One begins to wonder when the Brits get any work done for all the holidays they have!! Here we are again, that time of year when the potatoes used to get picked by school children, so they would be given two weeks off in October for the "Tattie Holidays". Trouble is that now school children just hang around the house with nothing to do for two weeks in terrible weather, so the Tattie holidays only succeed in messing up our lives. Can you tell I am not fond of this time of year?

At any rate, the boys and I have plowed into our two week purgatory with high hopes, taking walks, eating hamburgers, and trying to get some things done now and again with our days "off". Adam is not in a happy-to-stay-at-home phase so we're forced out a lot, and the rain the last two days has not helped. But we are nearing the end of our first week and still smiling. A little.

Honestly, holidays are the most psychologically depressing time for me. They are the days and weeks when I really see and feel just how different Adam is from other children, and how much is not available to us that others have at their disposal. Quite honestly, I get very jealous. I see other friends who stay at home and watch movies with their children on rainy days, or bake cookies, or paint pictures, or read stories. I see Caleb who would love to do all that, and then I see Adam who would start throwing things out the utility room window (like my courgettes!) and break all the paintbrushes, etc. I see the gap that lies between the life I would like to lead and the life that is mine, and it's all I can do to pray that the Lord would grant me a little bit of hope, that He would grant Adam a little bit more development, that He would grant us all a little bit more patience and humour with each other.

It's not easy, and I often struggle to find the balance between leaving enough space for us to experience each other and planning so much that the house of cards crumbles. Today I lost the plot because I had forgotten one thing that led to the collapse of another thing. And stress, and rushing around. All totally not helpful to someone who is wanting to learn to just be. I do pray every night that I would be forgiven for my terrible behaviour of the day, and be loving and gentle toward my children the next day. But I pray that every night. So maybe either what I'm praying for is not quite right, or my standards are too high? I actually did think today, "you know what? Tomorrow I'm going to shout at the boys at least once, just like I do every day. So let's pray for something else tonight, ok?" Maybe that something else would be the ability to accept the gifts that are right in front of me, instead of wishing for those that I think would be better. I'll let you know how that one goes.

Guest post opportunity

My lovely friend Amy Julia Becker has graciously given me the opportunity to contribute to her blog, Thin Places. It was a chance to write about Adam, a chance I never turn down! The feature is called "Perfectly Human", and I highly recommend going back and reading previous posts if you have time, they are wonderful. It was truly a tough act to follow!

See it here. Hope you enjoy, and hope you forgive me for letting that suffice for today.

The comments keep coming

If any of you looked at the last post that I referenced, written by my friend Amy Julia Becker, you should have a look at her most recent post. You can click there or on the link on the right. It's worth looking at to see, written in black and white, some of the horrible things that people say about "those children." And Amy Julia's surprisingly calm and thoughtful response to it all.

The comments she quotes might surprise some of you, sadden or pain you, but they have been heard by all parents of disabled children. Yes, even me. I said in my comment to her that one time a mom, a nice, upstanding, middle-class mother, said to me in the park "I could never have one of those", referring to my Adam. She wasn't being malicious, she was being both honest and completely transparent in her ignorance. She is probably a person who has never had anything go wrong in her whole life, so why should she start by welcoming a defective child into her life?

I get it, that we humans like choice, we like getting things right and things going right in our lives. We have emotions and thoughts that are occasionally painful to others or painfully stupid, and sometimes we let those loose on the world. It doesn't bother me, because I am happy with my choices and with our family. But...

I still can't figure out the but. There is definitely a but there...maybe it's that protective impulse to want people not to say or think those things because someday Adam may learn of it. I guess also it's a desire to want people to at least be willing to see more, to be open to more. To consider for one minute that a child with Downs, or cerebral palsy, or Edward Syndrome is just as wonderful a gift to welcome as any "normal" child. I want people to see that life is complex in its imperfection, and running away or trying to shield yourself from that imperfection just limits you from...well, life.

I'm pretty sure you don't know what you can't do until you try/do it. But maybe that's just me. And no, just to set another myth on its tail, you don't need superhuman powers to raise a disabled child. You just need to do it, same as any other child. I'm not special because I'm caring for Adam, I'm special just like everyone else on this planet. And blessed because I'm caring for Adam.

A really good article

A friend of mine/ours named Amy Julia Becker has written a post for NYTimes.com. In it, and in a previous one, she talks about her experiences as a mom of a child with Down Syndrome. I'll have to look back for the link to the other article, but the link to her most recent one is here. My comment is number 64, but the wealth of viewpoints in all the comments is worth taking a look at if you have time.

Whirlwind (Whirlpool?)

It's been a rather full and quick few days, so I'll give you a rather brief and compact summary of it all!

Daddy came home Friday evening, safe and sound though late thanks to British Rail. The boys and I toured Union Square mall while we waited, making sure to exhaust all fun potential in the escalators and buy a birthday present from a local shop. When Daddy came out of the train all eyes were on him and his 75 pound bag (weight, not price!). Whenever he goes to Oxford to work with Mr Bernd he always takes a lot of books, and this trip was no exception. He still had room in his bag for some gifts for the boys, though--this time two hand puppets from an Oxford toy shop. Still haven't decided who is the mole and who is the fox, but they are sweet.

The boys then spent most of Saturday with Stevie, our angel from next door, while Mommy and Daddy did their workshop for Welcoming Church Forum. If you want to see what that's about, look here. Stevie took the boys to the beach where Adam had his first ever birthday party. I don't know how many people wait until their child is 7 for them to be invited to their first birthday party; needless to say it was a fun event for him and us. Sadly we couldn't be there, but Stevie told me all about it and it sounds like the kids (and Adam) had a blast. I would have been nervous about him, but it was a girl from his class with Down Syndrome, who I know for a fact is in love with Adam anyway, so I figured he was in good company! They all had a great time, and we had a lovely day on our end discussing issues of disability, worship, inclusion, belonging and growing as the Body of Christ with 18 people from around the city. Day well spent, four very tired people at the end of it!

Sunday, and a lovely church service and back into the groove of the swimming club. This time Daddy joined us, and by 5pm again we were all warm, tired, and ready for a pizza. What a quick weekend!

I'll have more this week on further developments in Adam's school and education experience. It is not great at the moment, for reasons Adam--bless his heart--cannot express to me but thankfully his teacher can. I am still trying to find the right way forward, the right people to talk to, and the courage to put up the fight that I suspect is coming. Pray for me, and for Adam, that we would be able to get him the support he needs to enjoy school and get as much out of it as possible.

Off to bed!