room of doom

The school was huge, dim with florescent lights, ugly and stinks of mildew and oldness. Young junior high schoolers filed in slowly talking in anxious spurts. The air was filled with a mix of perfume and the smell of sweaty young people. Teachers wore polite smiles and motioned students into the gym for the welcome to school speech from the principal. Students hovered by the door as if walking in would pair them with their doom. Several students had to be urged repeatedly to enter. I had never before seen size 14 shoes taking 6 inch steps. Student's eyes widened as they scanned the gym filled with new faces. Many froze in the doorway. I actually saw a few mouths quiver. And no, not just mine and other overprotective, dramatic parents. Parents waited lined up outside the gym not knowing whether to stay or go. We were offered to come stand inside the gym in a space facing the massive bleachers. It felt like the room of doom. I was afraid to go in too. I had what I hoped looked like a pleasant half smile plastered on while I stood in my child's line of sight. I prayed wildly, " o God please help me not cry, that would embarrass her. I don't want to do this. I want to take her home now. " I even showed some compassion on the other students and prayed for some of them that looked as if they might be sick any second.

As I was driving home before it was time to get her I prayed " please help me think of something good to say about this for her." We home schooled for many years and loved it. it fit our family and our lifestyle. Negative changes in our finances has meant many negative changes for our family. As I prayed to find a positive I kept thinking of how scared those other students looked too. We are not alone in this. You are not alone in your room of doom. When I picked her up and asked about how it went she didn't have a positive either. After all my prayer, all I had was I'm sorry, and a very sincere I love you. She smiled. Sometimes that's all we have - but it's enough. When we have to enter the room,or situation, of doom-it's good to know God is with us, beside us in the stinky, ugly place. It sure helps to have a voice that cares say, I'm sorry, I love you. How many times as parents or even adults are we all just wandering around feeling like a deer caught in the headlights? This stinky school will be a temporary thing but hard choices come. May God send you friends to push you out of the road.

New cook in the house

As of this week, we have added a new cook to our kitchen. I am a fortunate mama to have so many hands in the kitchen. Of course many hands means many mouths to make requests, demands, sing, and talk, talk, talk. And let's not forget feeding these mouths. Two teenage daughters growing like crabgrass in our garden. The youngest of the two has joined our family, through an international adoption, just months over a year now. She has been wanting to cook since she came. One of the first questions she asked was, "can you teach me cooking?" We started very slowly with very supervised helping me. Her first ten years were in an orphanage, and the closest they let the children to the kitchen was the sink.

We began these cooking lessons with many obstacles. The first was limited communications as she spoke no English, and my Russian is limited . Another obstacle was the assumptions each made on how things work, take the meat out of the package, don't crack an egg over an open drawer, not every dish can go in the microwave, and others. We have many humorous memories from cooking together. Making my husband a birthday cake left our little kitchen looking like a Saturday night tractor pull arena. She spilled the cake mix into the trash can when trying to cut it open, dropped let's just say more than one egg on the floor, and classic-pulled the bowl from the mixer too soon. I poured oil into the drawer-while trying to explain why it is important to close them when cooking. I felt like we were trapped in an I Love Lucy episode. I laughed until I cried as the oil dripped from the drawer. The next time I said we were going to make a cake, months later, she went to get the mop.

A year or so later she made cheeseburger pie doing all the work herself. I was cleaning in the kitchen near her giving instruction and making her read the directions herself before each step. She was curious how there would be bread on top by pouring the Bisquick mixture over the other items.
I did not tell her this was her turn to try solo; I just made sure I was busy so it was up to her to do each next step. When we sat down to supper and I shared that she had made the meal, she beamed. We did not even need the mop.