The Fairy Costume

It always starts the week before the previous year’s Halloween.  Once we’ve settled on the current year’s Halloween  costume, the options for the following year begin to be discussed. It’s because in the mind of a Drama Princess, who loves to “dress up” and eat candy, shouldn’t every day be Halloween?  And with so many choices, and only a limited number of Halloween nights, it’s just really difficult to narrow it down.  So there is always a hint of regret that we didn’t go with the Medieval Princess, or the Super Girl (princess), or the Snow Princess…which leads to the following conversation:

“Mom, next year I want to be a (fill in the blank ____________). 

“Let’s wait and see how you feel about it next September, okay?”

“Okay, but I won’t change my mind!”

Well, last year, when dd9 was “Ariel” the mermaid princess (thanks to a gift card from Papa Gene to the Disney Store) she was making plans for Halloween 2010 and thinking perhaps a fairy, again.  She was a butterfly, fairy, princess all at once – in first grade.  She was an indian princess in second grade.  A mermaid princess last year…you are detecting a theme by now I’m sure.  Anyway, she wanted a fairy costume, and she wanted me to make it.

What seemed a fairly simple process in August, became not so simple in October.  I won’t go into the experiences at the fabric store, the incorrect fabric purchase, the trip back to get the correct fabric, the indecipherable pattern jargon (turn out the facing and stitch down…what?) or that I haven’t sewed anything from a pattern since Ian’s 2nd Halloween doggie costume (13 years ago).   Suffice it to say that we achieved Fairy Costume, and it wasn’t that painful, and it was done BEFORE Halloween. 

I think she looked absolutely ethereal!

Halloween 2010

Passport to India!

358 million children under the age of 15 in India

One of the bright spots of our homeschooling week has been “Going to India with Chris” with the Sonlight “Passport to India” program.  A wonderfully engaging young pastor named Chris from Washington DC is visiting India for the first time, with a small crew, and is sending back photos, videos and statistics.  Startling statistics. 

India has been on my heart ever since the United Methodist Women did a geographic study of India and Pakistan.  The study was somewhat focused on the religions of India, the unfairness of British rule and the disaster of partition.  But along the way we also learned about the Dalits, and the unspeakable way they are treated.  About the same time, Christian musicians Caedmon’s Call released a CD entitled “Share the Well) with music from their mission trip to India. 

Now, Grace has a wonderful opportunity to learn about India!  We watched the first two days of videos on the website www.mypassporttoindia.org and learned a lot. 

• We learned that in India there are over 1 Billion people, speaking thousands of languages, worshipping millions of gods.  
• We learned that there are 17 toilets for every 1 million people. 
• We learned that 1/3 of the people do not have access to clean drinking water. 
• India’s slum population has doubled in the last 20 years. Dharavi, where Slumdog Millionaire was shot, is the largest slum in Asia.  1 million people live in one square mile of space.  In fact 42 million Indians live in slums. 
• Mumbai, the richest city in India, and the second largest city in the world with a significant global presence, has half of the population of 14 million living in slums.

Sounds a little dark doesn’t it?  And yet, in the midst of the slums there is a slum church, run by a local  Christian woman, where children come for a snack, games, songs, and Bible stories.  Chris mentions that in the midst of unbelievable stench and poverty, people were happy, smiling, and excited to hear about Jesus  Christ.  We spent a lot of time over dinner talking about what we would want to “take with us” if we could only have one set of clothes.  If we lived in a dwelling the size of my home office, how would we want to share that space between the four of us.  I think Ian plans to move out!  What books would we take?  We wondered about being happy in those conditions and they wondered why people here in America aren’t so happy.  And we wondered why they don’t seem too happy to hear about Jesus.  We don’t have answers exactly, but we have a lot of ideas!  And a few things that we want to think about some more.

More backtracking…

Thanks to all who have been praying for Ian! 

It has been eventful the last few weeks, with exotic (for us anyway..we rarely go to the doctor) tests, and physical therapy twice a week.  Odd that in the midst of the hippocratic hecticness Ian timed a personal best record on a 6K ERG (that’s a very fancy rowing machine) at crew practice putting him up with a few of the top rowers in his weight. 

So, Friday morning was a bit of a shocker as we learned that Ian has a condition with a big Latin name that ends in itis which means inflammation, and in the middle, spondo which means spine.  He will need to take an immuno-suppressant drug to get his immune system to back down from “over protecting” his spine.  This over protection creates the swelling, which is giving him pain.  So far so good, except this medication has to be injected…by needle…every week…by me. 

I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. 

Pour it on LORD, I’m going to need it!

As we left the doctor’s office, my mind buzzed about things that need to “change” in the household to accommodate his injection, his reduced immune capacity, and my queasiness at sticking needles full of cytotoxic medicine into my son.  Ian was…hungry. 

 ”Can we go to Subway?” 

Ah the resilience of youth.  Lunch.  After lunch, ”You know, Mom, there’s really no point in going back to school now.”  So off to therapy, and then to the boathouse for  Crew practice.  Ian’s fine…

I’m not.  But I will be. 

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understand; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.   Prov 3:5-6

Farming ants…

 Yes!  and it was actually pretty fun!

Setting up and maintaining an ant farm in order to watch the behavior of social insects was one of the projects in the Flying Creatures curriculum we worked on this fall – and so you are asking – why are ants in a flying creatures curriculum?  Well, Grace informs me that the Queens fly in order to establish a new colony, with the male ants who have emerged from their pupa stage (conveniently) at the same time.  They swarm, mate, and then the males, well, they die (sorry!) and the Queen begins a new colony.   

Here are some photos of our ant farm: 

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I went looking through my posts for something else, and found this post – unpublished from early last fall!  So, here it is!