Oh Evan...

Little Evan is developing quite the skill. It has to do with bedtime...and poop.

We get them all tucked into bed and before long the bedroom door slowly creeps open. A squinting, blinking, smiling toddler stands in the doorway. Slyly, he says, "I have to poop and pee." We can't very well tell him, "No, go back to bed." So we take him and surprise surprise- he goes! Not sure how he is learning to hold it until after bedtime. One night he even went multiple times. Meaning, that he had the triumphant joy of coming out of his room more than once.

Finally, a couple nights ago, he had been up several times and was going down again...for the night. He seemed to agree with that. Soon after I left the room I heard Evan: "Eli! Eli!" I opened the door and Evan was at the top of the bunk bed's ladder right by Eli's head. "Evan!" I said, "Don't wake Eli up!" Evan turned to me and said, "But what is a bull dog?"

Oh, the pressing questions we ponder late at night...

Pukquasiokunabo

Yesterday was soup kitchen day for the boys and me. I made a concentrated soup in my kitchen so that I wouldn't have to carry a heavy soup pot across the parking lot. It was so yummy. I was very happy with my soup-cooking skills. 25 minutes before we were supposed to be serving, I took the boys and the soup over to the mission's kitchen. I turned to soup on high to get it boiling so that the pasta I had just added would cook and so I could add water. I started getting everything else ready- we serve hot drinks and buttered bread with the soup.

Then I noticed a strange smell. I looked over at my precious soup. What?!!! I grabbed the lid and the smoke POURED out! The basement immediately filled up with smoke. Nooo!!! We dumped what was still liquid into another pot and tried to think fast. By this time I had 2 people with me trying to remedy the situation. Only 15 minutes to go. I opened a couple windows, desperate to get rid of the smoke so as to make the situation less obvious when people came in.

I was trying to make it okay. I thought that the burnt taste (and yes, it tasted very burnt) might not be so obvious if the room wasn't filled with smoke. I'm ashamed to admit the dumb things I was trying to tell myself about why it wouldn't matter to our guests if the soup was burnt. So I won't.

Soon it was time to open the doors. We had pulled some leftover soup out of the refrigerator and were frantically trying to thaw it. If we used the scalded soup, but added good soup to it, maybe the flavor wouldn't be so...umm...flavorful. It was taking forever to thaw, but people were coming in. We served tea and coffee and told them that it was going to be a bit late. "No problem!" they said, "We can wait!" Nothing (at least not in English) was said about the cloudy air or the smoky aroma.

Finally we served the soup. (My delicious creation burnt to a crisp!) We didn't mention anything about what had happened in that very room just 30 minutes earlier. The first few bowls of soup were handed out and nothing was said. "So far, so good," I told myself.

Then I heard a woman's voice pipe up for all to hear: "Who made the burny soup?" Standing there by the reeking soup pot, I slowly raised the hand that was not holding the ladle. All heads slowly swiveled to look at me. With all eyes on me, I reluctantly confessed, "That would be me." And we laughed. And people assured me that it was fine. And some (though not as many as usual) even requested seconds. They told me that they were used to cooking over a fire. In fact, my soup now tasted like pukquasionkunabo- some kind of flour, milk and duck fat soup. Yummy.

So I think I've earned myself a reputation. When they're around me and not speaking in English, I'll have to keep my ears open for one of the two words I now know in their language: pukquasiokunabo and me-gwetch. The second word means 'Thank you' and I have heard it a lot in three weeks. Even yesterday.

Old Friends

Where to begin? We had such a good time with the Bontragers last week. It was so good for all of us to be around old friends. And it was nice to be able to show them a bit of our world. Of course, the boys were in their heaven too.

They got here Tuesday evening. We put the boys to bed at a decent time. Evan woke up several times during the night. The first time he was wet. As Kendall and I were helping him, Eli eagerly got out of bed and said, "Good morning, Evan!" as he breezed by him to go out toward the living room. Unfortunately for Eli, it was still the middle of the night and he still had to wait a few hours to start the day with Isaac. Also unfortunate for Eli was the fact that he was heaving into the sink at 7 am. I was quite unhappy about that since our fun was just starting and the Bontragers still had lots of vacation left. Not a good time for anyone to get sick. But we prayed and others prayed and that was the end of that.

Eli and Isaac spent hours playing outside in the snow on Wednesday. That day we went for our winter picnic. We had hot ham and cheese (burnt, of course), s'mores and hot chocolate. (Thanks to Jodi!) Thankfully, it wasn't too cold. We came home and most of us took naps. Then it was back outside for the big boys.

Thursday- Thanksgiving Day! Jen made her famous hearty hotcakes for breakfast. The guys took the big boys sledding (or sliding, as they say up here). We also made a very nice Thanksgiving Dinner. My first ever. Unfortunately, dinner was not all that we envisioned it to be. J It included whining, pooping and puking. So we skipped the going around the table saying what we were thankful for and put all the kids down for naps. (We were quite thankful for naptime.) Then we adults sat around and had our coffee and yummy pumpkin pie. We were all refreshed after naptime and ready to move on. (Except that my youngest son couldn't seem to move on from his exceptional whining. That never ended and only intensified as the week went on. He put on a spectacular and amazingly frustrating show pretty much the whole time we had company.)

Kendall and I were sad to see our company leave Friday morning. It was so good to be with Jen and Ben. We've worked hard at making friends the past 5 months. And it has been rewarding for the most part. But there's nothing like old, comfortable friends. I think Eli best expressed our feelings about seeing them leave. I kept trying to prepare him for their departure. He would just answer, "I know" and didn't act too bothered. We stood at the window as they loaded up in the van. As the van pulled out of our drive, Eli didn't say a word. He just turned around and walked back to his room. I followed him after a bit and found him lying facedown on his bed. He wasn't crying. He was just lying there. I knelt down beside him and started rubbing his back. He turned his head and looked at me sadly. We didn't say anything. And that's sort of how our Friday was- rather gray and heavy.

One of the most fulfilling parts of our time with Jen and Ben was watching Isaac and Eli interact. I am amazed at how well they get along. They really care about each other and don’t fight. When one is sad, the other one wants him to be happy. It was good to see Eli interacting with Isaac again because it seems that they really build each other up. They both think the other one is just the best and that boosts their confidence. That was one of the difficult things in moving. It seemed like Eli’s confidence level dropped a bit. In Goshen he had some really good friends and adults that knew him and cared about him. In a new place, he was a new kid. In the long run, I don’t think a temporary drop in confidence will hurt him. It will probably even help him. But it was hard to watch. So it felt so good to watch these two buddies loving each other and laughing together again.

Early morning.









Art project with Ben and Jen.

Picnic in the Snow

Dance Party!