Instant Gratification

Hannah and Elias reminded me today that we live in a culture that is used to instant gratification. We went to an apple orchard to pick apples. The orchard itself was about 35 minutes away from home. Not terribly long but long enough for Elias to start complaining that it was taking too long when we were still 10 minutes from our destination. Later in the day after waiting in line for a few minutes to buy food Hannah started whining that we were waiting too long and that she didn't want to stand in line anymore. Shortly after getting the food Elias showed up in the building to complain that we were taking too long. (He had been left to guard the table and our apples).

In the afternoon as we got out of the car to go into Ikea Hannah began complaining that she was thirsty. I ignored the whining until she directed it at me, "Moooommm I said I am thirsty!" I reminded her that I am not a drinking fountain so she would have to wait until we git inside where they do have a drinking fountain.

These incidences didn't seem like much at the time that they were happening but then I began to think of how many of our wishes and expectations are met instantly on a daily basis. We can walk into a fast food restaurant and walk out with a hot meal in five minutes. If I want to know the weather forecast I don't need to wait for the news to come on at 10pm I can just log-on the Internet and find out. Most grocery stores and large stores like Target and Walmart have express lines for people with a small amount of purchases. I can pay my bills online, no waiting in line at the post office to buy stamp, no waiting for the check to get to the biller and clear with the bank. If I want to send a message to a family member I just need to access my e-mail and presto they get the message minutes later. My daughter needs to get home from school, I just jump in the car and drive there to pick her up. Sure she has to wait but not as long as she would if she had to walk or rely on public transportation.

How different would my world be if we had to grow all of our fruits and vegetables then can them so they would be available all year. What if we didn't have a car, or computer or TV. Would we be better people or bitter people? I'm not ready to make any of these changes but I think I would like to get back to a simpler and somewhat slower way of life. Elias and Hannah lived in a village in Ethiopia that didn't have running water, no electricity, no one had a car, they lived off the land. Their family worked hard to care for each other and their neighbors. Tow years later that village hasn't changed but my children have. I need for them to stop always thinking of themselves first. Maybe that will change their attitudes about what they are owed instantly.

First Day of School

Elias, first day of 2nd grade

Earlier this week Maya and Elias had their first day of school of the new school year. Elias is in 2nd grade this year. This year he has a new teacher and different students in his class than he had the last two years. He was nervous for the last week leading up to the first day. He was really worried that he wouldn't know anyone in his class and he was worried that 2nd grade would be too hard. His nervousness led to some angry, rude and inappropriate behavior. All of that has disappeared since the first day. He knows a number of other kids in the class and has found that the school work is right at the level where he left off a month ago. He has also started running in the mornings to wear off some of his energy. One time around our block is a half mile. He can run around it in 5 minutes. I told him if he practices every day he will be one of the best runners by the time he gets to high school (only 7 more years).

Elias getting off the bus

Maya, First day of 5th grade

Maya is in 5th grade this year. She is now in middle school. Maya, too, was nervous for her fist day because this year she is in a new school, an all-girl charter school. Her classes start at 8:30 and I have to drive her there every day so our mornings are becoming pretty streamlined. One hour between getting up and walking out the door. Four other girls in 5th grade transferred from her elementary school, a few 6th graders are from her elementary school as well. Though she was worried about meeting new people she already made a friend in her violin class. Her friend has a brother and sister who were adopted from Ethiopia two years ago! Sounds familiar.

Maya getting off the bus

Hannah continues at her same day care. She has been working on recognizing letters and numbers. She surprised me earlier this summer by knowing so many letters. She loves to do work book pages of copying letters, finding matches, opposites, dot-to-dots and other preschool activities. One more year for her until she starts school.

I am continuing to co-lead Maya's Girl Scout troop. We split our troop over the summer since only some of the girls would be at the new school. We have 4 girls so far and hope to have more from the school join us soon. In addition I'm spending a lot of time in the car driving to soccer practice and games, Cub Scouts and swimming lessons. Not to mention all the driving to school and back each day as well as back and forth to work. I need to make some more CDs to listen to in the car.

Camping 2009 edition

A couple of weeks ago we went camping at a nice campground on a nice big lake. We eplored the trails, threw rocks in the water, made campfires, cooked hot dogs, made s'mores, held races through fields and around the campground. We played card games and board games, games of catch and beach ball soccer. All was great. Then it started raining during our second night and rained all day the next day. It was a light rain so we drove to another state park to explore their wooded trails. We stayed pretty dry. We returned to our campsite for lunch, ate it in the tent then played games and read books in the tent to waiting for the rain to stop. The tent started to leak after 14 continuous hours of rain so I decided to just pack up and go home. As soon as I made that decision it started to pour. All the kids help to get packed as quickly as we could, however, Maya really helped a lot. She stood out in the rain helping me to pull down the tent, gathered our camp chairs and other supplies left out in the rain that still needed to be packed in the car. She didn't complain once even though our clothes we were completely soaked through. I rewarded them with a stop at DQ on the way home. By the time we arrived home a couple hours later it was sunny. At the campground was rained on for another 24hours after we arrived home so it turned out to be a wise decision to leave.

Even though the trip ended on a wet note my kids still want to go camping again. I am glad they like camping because I love it. Next year I am hoping to go on a longer trip. Maybe a trip to the Black Hills of SD to see Mount Rushmore.

Last Night

Today I have been thinking a lot about God. I don't consider myself to be deeply religious but I did grow up attending church and believing in and loving God. There have been many times that I have felt His presence or influence in my life and accepted it as normal. There are times that I am taken aback by His work though and realize that He really does work miracles. Case in point; last night.
I am a nurse at a busy children's hospital that is connected to an equally busy adult hospital in fact the ERs are just a short hallway away from each other. Last night I was helping out in the ER early in my shift. It was fairly busy and getting close to midnight. A team of doctors and nurses had just finished performing a procedure on a teenage boy. The boy's father left the room to go to the restroom and he collapsed either in or near the bathroom. A nurse quickly helped him get up and into an empty exam room and alerted other staff about what was happening. The father was complaining of chest pain, was diaphoretic (sweaty) and clammy. A team made of nurses, doctors, respiratory therapists and a nursing assistant went into action. Within minutes of his fall he had an IV started with blood work drawn, he was hooked up to monitors and had oxygen applied via nasal cannula and an EKG was performed. The doctor looked at the EKG for 5 seconds and announced that we needed to get this man to the adult ER NOW. He was having a heart attack. They rolled him out and down the hall to the adult ER. His wife accompanied him there after being assured that her son, who was stable, would be well taken care of and would not be left alone in the room. From the time of the man's collapse to the time he was wheeled into the adult ER about 10 minutes. He likely was taken to the cardiac cath lab within the half hour. I was able to follow up with the nursing staff later that night and found that the man was doing well.
At first I looked at the event as a tragedy. Here is this 50 something year old man suffering a heart attack, his son is in the hospital, his wife is torn about who to be more concerned about. But what if he hadn't been in the hospital when it happened, what if he had been at home? Would the paramedics have arrived and get him to a hospital in time? Would he have just died in his sleep? Maybe there was a reason his son was suffering last night. Maybe he was suffering so his father could be saved. It wasn't his father's time to go, he needs to be here still. He needed to be saved. I am in awe of His work. I am confused by the way He does his work but it saved a life last night and for that there are many who are thankful.

I heart Facebook

I just had a friend from Kenya contact me through facebook. He moved back to Kenya about 5 years ago. We kept in contact for awhile through e-mail. But he didn't always have internet access, then I lost his e-mail address when I changed service providers. The last time I had heard from him was almost two years ago. Apparently Facebook has made it's way to Kenya, he created a profile, looked me up and added me as one of his first FB friends. I love Facebook!

Mini vacation

We took a mini vacation last weekend to see Lake Superior. Oh we met up with friends too but the main attraction, in my perspective, was the lake. Growing up I lived 5 blocks from Lake Superior, our lives revolved around the lake even without trying. We spent many days at the sandy beach torturing our bodies "swimming" in the 60 degree water then building sand castles and eating food that was just a little sandy. We also visited the rocky beaches often, throwing rocks, eating more picnic meals and collecting the beach glass. My favorite place is a rather secluded rocky beach that we had to walk through yards to get to. I took my kids there last weekend.

Our hotel room had a view of the lake. That's an understatement, we were a mere 200 feet from the lake. Maya and I watched a ship come in with lights on around 10pm while the other kids slept. In the morning we raced to the canal to watch a ship go through and under the lift bridge, a first for Hannah and Elias.

I hadn't realized how much I missed the lake as an every day occurrence until a recently. One day I was driving around running errands, it was 55 degrees and windy, a typical spring day near the lake. Suddenly all I wanted was to go to the lake to sit and lose my thoughts in the water. Of course the lake was 2.5 hours from home and I had children coming home from daycare and school in about an hour. I did the next best thing. I went home, booked a hotel room and called a friend to let her know we were coming to visit. I'm glad I did.

I will never go to Chuck E. Cheese's again!

About 3 years ago I took Maya and her friend to Chuck E. Cheese's (CEC) just for fun. I hadn't been inside one since I was little so I wasn't exactly sure what to expect. Well the restaurant was older and therefore a little dingy. It was small and very crowded with all the games inside but the girls seemed to have fun. I bought pizza, pop and a bunch of tokens we spent a couple of hours there. A CEC you are awarded tickets when you play a game the tickets can then be turned in for cheapo prizes. The girls were pulling tickets out of the machine like crazy. Chuck E. Cheese even made a couple of appearances and tossed tickets out to anyone willing to gather them up off the floor. So by the end of the night we had a lot of tickets. Shortly before the girls ran out of tokens the mom of two adorable kids gave me her tickets (about 10 in all) before they left and I added them to our stash. Her kids were little and hadn't done many games, mostly just rides. As the door shut behind that family a woman, who was sitting close by me, came over and told me that the tickets we had just received had been stolen from her son. I told her I didn't think so because I had noticed that family playing some games earlier in the evening. She tried asking me just how many tickets I was given and how many my girls had. Ignored her and gathered up my girls as soon as they were done. We fed the tickets we had through the ticket counter and printed a receipt. The girls had collected around 300 tickets, enough for a couple of nicer prizes. As they were pondering over their choices the woman approached us again and asked "Just how many tickets do you have?" as she tried to look at my receipt. I ignored her. She went to the 19 year old manager and complained. He came over and told me there was a problem. I explained how the girls got so many tickets and offered to show him my receipt for all the tokens I bought. He admitted that he didn't think we had done anything wrong. The girls picked out their prizes and we left quickly.

Fast forward 3 years. Our Girl Scout troop decided to spend their hard earned money at a day at Chuck E. Cheese's. I convinced my co-leaders to go to a store in a different suburb than I had gone before. The evening started out okay. The restaurant was bigger and cleaner than the one I had been to before. WE got our food fairly quickly and then the girls and Hannah and Elias started playing games and the trouble started.
1. A teenage girl approached Maya asking her if she could have her tokens. My refused then turned to me and told me she wasn't sure what this girl was asking her. The girl took one look at me, said "Oh?!" and walked away.
2. Elias found me after about a half hour and told me another child had taken his cup holding his tokens and tickets. He had set it behind him on the seat of the driving game he was playing. The boy just walked up and took it while he was distracted.
3. The same teenage girl walked up to the ticket counting machine I was using, reached around to the front and hit the print button. I called her on her scam. She said "Oh, my bad." I told her it wasn't her bad she did it on purpose and that I had seen her trying to scam my other girls all evening. She walked away. I did get my receipt and finished counting my tickets.
4. A girl walked up to the table one of my co-leaders was sitting at with all the tokens (before we ate) she was eyeing all the cups with tokens. My co-leader asked her is she could help her - the girl gave her a disgusted look and walked away.
5. At the end of the day several of the Girl Scouts reported kids trying to take their tokens or tickets, kids pushing their way to the front of the line to play a game, and people (adults and teens) asking them questions they felt uncomfortable answering - how old they were, where they lived, what school they went to etc.
Apparently Chuck E. Cheese's attracts people who do not have the same morals that I have. Therefore I will never go to a CEC again.

He Bikes

Yesterday afternoon I finally fixed Elias' bike. The chain kept coming off and this time it was really stuck between the gear and the bike frame. I got it apart, got the chain back on, and tightened the wheel up to the frame and made some other adjustments. The back wheel now spins perfectly.

I had taken the training wheels off weeks ago but Elias still needed to practice balancing before he could practicing pedaling. Elias, happy to have his bike back, started coasting down the driveway with his feet inches off the ground. HE kept veering off to the left, I reminded him that he needed to look up and steer. He still veered off to the left. He blamed the bike. "The bike doesn't have a mind of it's own. It does what it is told to do." I told him. He grumpily agreed but still was blaming the bike under his breath. I went off to investigate the lawn mower.

After awhile I noticed that Elias was now coasting down the driveway, turning onto the street and pedaling a few feet before losing his balance. He even started on the street, pedaled a few feet and lost his balance, falling into the grass. He was yelling at the "stupid bike." "That's right," I said " the bike is saying to itself that it doesn't like this boy riding on it so it's just going to keep pushing you off." He giggled at that and went for another go at it. He continued for awhile until I told him to come in for dinner. He was furious at the bike at this point and shouted over and over that he was going to put his training wheels back on. I kept silent and just led him into the house.
After dinner there was still enough time to go back outside. I went to work in the garden, Elias started back up with trying out his bike. The dinner must have worked wonders because after a few minutes he yelled at me to watch. He was riding. More than a few feet, he was riding down the street. He turned himself around and started up again. Again he rode down the street again, and again and again. He did it all by himself. I never even got the chance to run down the street behind him holding onto his seat. Though I supported him from afar and encouraged him he did it himself.

That's Elias. He can't stand to be wrong or not be able to do something and he won't give up until he can get it right.

Way to go Elias!

Oh! I figured out the trail-a-bike problem and attached it to my bike too yesterday. Hannah and I took a few trial runs down the street and back. She loved it. Now that Elias can bike on his own we can go on some bike rides around the neighborhood. Now we have a whole new batch of parks and playgrounds we can get to without driving.