KRAZI KIDS - PART II - KERRY

I am her mother, therefore I can read her mind.

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Exams, tests, homework, work, work. Teachers are trained to torture. Mothers are trained to back them up. What do I need to know all this for, I don't even know what I want to do with my life yet. (therein lies the answer). This is travelling through the mind of this disenchanted teen.

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Then I put in my two cents worth of course - WRONG MOVE.

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"Is your homework done, have you started learning for the exams, they are just around the corner you know, you cannot waste too much time". At this point she does that thing they do with their eyes, you know, toss them about in their sockets.

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"Mom, you are so PREDICTABLE." I think 'O reign over me drama.'

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I will bet my bottom dollar that before she fell asleep, hard at studying of course, this is what she was thinking, sure looks like it huh?

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On this particular day it had been quiet for some time, too long. No attacks on the kitchen for coffee and food, the Roxettes were not blaring forth from her sound system. That 'better check this out' instinct kicked in, I went to check and found - THE ABOVE SCENE.

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At that moment I was grateful for my choice to teach pre school children, when children are still keen to show everyone how clever they are and are always willing to please!

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Kerry had a reading problem similar to dyslexia, so reading did not come easily to her. But I am proud to say that she aced her matric, and today holds down a well paid job with most of her work being done on computers. She lives with her husband and children in Middleburg which is in a rural area where farmers are always needing parts for their machinery. She knows all these parts and knows exactly what to order.

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I believe these stolen 40 winks did her no harm after all, and it certainly did not have any adverse influence on who she became or what she was eventually capable of doing once school days were left behind her.

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I am reminded of this pray I taught them when they were 5 and started their school years.

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ANGELS NORTH ANGELS WEST,

SOUTH AND EAST JUST DO YOUR BEST

KRAZI KIDS - PART I - SHIRLEY

"I am going to be a nurse, like aunty Brenda" - this from my 10 year old first born.

Shirley was particularly close to her aunty Brenda, who sadly passed away earlier this year due to ovarian cancer. She had never had a check up in her life, despite bearing 4 sons.

Some early history first would be good, here it is and I do remember it WELL.

Every year, from the childrens infancy, we would make the long journey from Salisbury to my in laws Angora goat farm not far from East London. First. We would travel by, wait for it, steam train most of the way, through the Rhodesian countryside, through the Karoo as far as Alice Springs in the Cape, where we would unload 3 tots, all our bedding and a camp cot in order to catch the connecting train which would take us to East London. We spent 3 nights and 2 days on the train. The youngest "kid" was 9 months old and spend most of the journey in her camp cot which was assembled and put onto the top bunk. Quite safe and well wedged in. When she was not in the cot she was crawling around the floor. You know how clean trains are? So you get some kind of picture of what they looked like most of the time. It was pointless changing clothes so I would give them a splash in the tiny compartment sink, put clean under clothes on and over this the sooty overall would go.

For many years after that my sister in law laughed at the memory of picking us up and the only white part of them were there eyes!

Years went by and Shirley dearly wanted to be like her aunt, whose first vocation in life had been nursing before she married a farmer.

So from standard 7 upward all her school reports were sent to Greys Training Hospital, the best training hospital in Natal. She was accepted in her matric year. For the Christmas of her matric year we even bought her a fob watch used by nurses. That is how close she realised her dream. She never got there though, and just maybe I know why.

What she wanted to do and who she was meant to be were two different things entirely.

One day I went through my candid camera photos and found THE ABOVE PICTURE.

Now does this look like an aspiring nurse to you? nooooooo, that is a very eeuuww expression I see on her face. She is helping her Aunt stitich the leg of a R3 000 ram. Notice she cannot even look at it!

Today? Shirley is in a happy marriage and home schools her two daughters. Who woulda thought?

I learned two things from this story, firstly, it may take many years before we fall into the roll God planned for our lives. It does not mean that we cannot dream and plan, for that is a good thing, we must be prepared in our hearts and minds that when we are at the threshold of our dreams and goals, we may discover that it was for the wrong reasons we wanted what we wanted in the first place.

Secondly, Never neglect your body, for it is the temple of God and is given to us to take care of. Have your checkups when you should, many lives are saved by doing this and too many lose their lives too soon as Shirley's aunt did by thinking that nothing would happen to her.

Happy dreaming!

GO WELL, BOKKIE

Yesterday afternoon, we lost our beloved Bokkie.

She was sitting on top of the window rail and simply dropped like a rock, hitting her head on the way down.

A light went out for us, our ray of sunshine. Our funny, lovable, territorial, and often bad tempered little parrot was dead.

The four eggs she had laid, see 2nd last blog, still in the soup bowl.

Andy, my husband came to me (I was working downstairs) with tears in his eyes and said "we will have to bury Bokkie". But I had shared my toast with her only that morning, she was on the eggs not two hours prior to this, it was not possible.

Whether she had a heart attack we will never know, but all we have left of her now are these feathers and we have kept 1 egg.

I will save slowly for another parakeet, as they are wonderful pets to have, but it will be a while to do that, and although we cannot ever replace Bokkie and her strange little ways that always made us laugh so, hopefully we will find joy one day sharing our lives with another little creature such as she.

We so missed the morning routine this morning.

PRESSIES, BALLOONS, SWEETS AND GAMES

128. Yes, that is the official number of birthdays my children have had, combined that is, and the number of parties I have prepared, baked for and games I have organised during my childrens' growing up years. The tot in the picture above is Lisa, my third and youngest daughter on her 1st birthday in Salisbury, Rhodesia as it was known then.
Lisa sent me photos of HER daughter Natalia's 7th birthday party. They look as though they are well pleased with their efforts, don't they, lets look at a couple more...

Here is the cake, all about the sea and mermaids. Did you make this Lisa?
Here is the table all set to catch the eyes of excited children who are drawn to sparkling and edible things!

All these photos stirred my memory and she dragged me with her long fingers once again, out of my comfortable place in front the the computer and took me on a journey back into the past to another lifetime that seems so long ago and yet at the same time only yesterday.

Dad is appointed the job of blowing up the balloons, fathers are very good at this I discovered as they are normally full of hot air! (joke) Couldn't resist that one, sorry!

The little celebrity has chosen her cake from the "book of children's birthday cakes" and with my sleeves rolled up I attack it and pray that it will turn out to look just a little like the one in the photo. I always took a photo of the cakes, and look at them now and can't help but marvel at my genius! (another joke).

GAMES. Oh dear. What an exhausting task. We had pin the tail on the donkey, oranges and lemons, blind mans buff, musical chairs (a favourite always), ring 'o roses, this was grans favourite, she participated in all the games and kept order as well. The girls would wait for her to come and then they would all run out and leap on her at once! Many years later Brian did the same thing but I bet she was glad there was only one then!

THE MOMS mmmmmmmmmm. They had to be there as the children were very young.

THE DADS - well, no surprises there, they were all out the back with their beers and talking about their jobs, some things don't change.

Their dad was in the police force and all the children were the offspring of policemen, it was a very close community, were a clan to be sure. We did Moses and the children of Israel proud back then!

AT LAST it was 5pm and everyone started drifting of. There were always some die hards who would stay half the night, but that seemed to be the way of things in Rhodesia. Lunch braais would end at midnight after everyone had eaten every morsel of food that was left, danced all night to 60's and 70's music....it was great!!!

I took my little tribe of sticky, dirty and tired little girls to bath them. And the the best part. After they got their second wind and we were all on our own, they went through the presents one by one again, examining them all more closely, any new books, always a hit, would be the bedtime story for that night.

And as another party came to an end, I inspected the 'damage' to the house, but those were the times when I reflected back on the day, and the happiness many little children had had, and it lightened the chore by far!!!