Gillian got her braces this week, front teeth upper jaw. She has a bad overbite and the orthodontist was adamant about taking care of that now.
She is very excited about it, but I can tell they don’t feel very comfortable.
She chose color green to match her eyes, she said.
I can’t believe we’ve had to start with orthodontic work at such an early age. I thought I had a few more years of traveling before I had to use that money for dental work, but it has to be done. What is interesting is the fact that the dentist said she might need more braces at a later time. I’m just glad we live at a time when braces are hip and our needs and those of our children’s are taken seriously and meticulously.
Jefferson wasn’t outdone when it came to dental work this week. He had two more teeth pulled out to make room for his adult teeth waiting to come out. He is done for a while till his adult teeth come out, and then we’ll go from there. Hopefully this preventive step we took of pulling baby teeth out will help his adult teeth to come out straight and with enough room.
James has been saying he has FOUR baby teeth that are loose. I read him the book D.W. tricks the Tooth Fairy (where D.W. is jealous of Arthur’s fallen tooth), and then complimented him on his pearly teeth. I told him I was very proud of his diligence in brushing and flossing every night. I think he received the attention he was seeking. As for Charlton, we are just happy he lets us brush his teeth; he has no ambition in that front, at least not yet.
Gillian spent some one-on-one time with dad on Saturday. She helped him wash his truck, and then when the job was done, they drove to Jamba Juice and spent some time with each other talking and slurping their smoothies.
Jefferson also got to spend some quality time with his dad. They have been working on a computer game called Minecraft, a game of building and strategy. His friend Jack introduced Jefferson to it, and Jefferson has been obsessed with it ever since. At one point James lost their place in this web world, and Jefferson became very distressed, but Elijah searched one night all the possible ways to find your way back, and helped Jefferson get back to where he wanted to be. This made Jefferson exclaimed how grateful he was to have such a smart dad to help him and such a sweet mom to let him work on it even though it was not his computer day. James and Gillian have been enjoying it as well, but this is Jefferson’s thing with dad.
I felt bad that James messed up Jefferson’s game and because of that they were giving him hard time. I decided he needed some fun time with mom, so I took him to play for a couple of hours at a fun place called Fairyland. It’s a very small and modest version of Disney World, but it was still very fun. They say it was when he visited this park that Walt Disney came up with his idea of Disney Land many years ago. We went from one nursery rhyme landmark to another. I told James that since this was his day he could lead us anywhere he wanted. I was touched when he would say let’s go and try this and that because Charlton will like it. James’s favorite place was Captain Hook’s pirate ship where he pretended to be Peter Pan. Charlton got excited when he saw a gnome blowing bubbles, as well as Snow White surrounded by her elves. Charlton had to give his princess a hug. We ended our experience by watching a puppet show that was offered every two hours in one of the outdoor playhouses inside the park. We didn’t want to leave, but we had to pick up the older kids from school.
Charlton has been enjoying this beautiful weather by going to the park every day. I figured that after reading to him the best thing was to take him outside and let him play.
He is very funny, this one. He loves to play by himself or with friends as long as he chooses to do so. And unlike my other children who loved climbing ladders and going down slides by age 18 months, Charlton has no desire or courage to do so. He is satisfied playing in the sand box or climbing steady steps. He loves trying anything as long as his siblings are with him. Let’s hope his sense of adventure will emerge soon, otherwise I’ll have to bribe him to try new things. Although I did try just that when he was taking an awful long time going down the slide the other day, but it didn’t work. I told him I would give him one piece of candy if he went down on his own. But it didn’t do the trick. He was scared that he would fall and asked me to put my arms around the bottom of the slide. You should have seen his face as he was going down. I wouldn’t have thought Charlton would be the careful one out of my four children. His physic just doesn’t match up with this side of his personality.
I haven’t been feeling that well for a few days. I think I had a mild cold, but my whole body ached and my nose was stuffed. As a result, I didn’t feel like doing much, which is ridiculous because as the mother and the CEO of the family I can’t afford feeling like that. I had to take kids to school and after school activities, dentist appointments, grocery shopping, park, reading time, story time, and many more. So the only area I could slack was laundry. Well, as you might have guessed, even that caught up with me. One morning after the boys had taken a shower, they came downstairs with their upper body dressed and the other half wrapped in towels. They informed me that there were no more clean underwear. I sat them to eat their breakfast as they were, with towels wrapped around their bottoms, and then went and search up and down for clean underwear. Well, needless to say, there weren’t any, so I had some washed and dried. While waiting for underwear to get done, my boys played UNO with each other on the floor. It was sad, but very funny at the same time. I decided I would hide a stack of clean underwear just for these kinds of emergencies. We were late for school not more than five minutes. I’ve never washed and dried underwear in less than 15 minutes. I thought they got washed long enough, and the boys didn’t know the difference.
During my sick days, besides reading a storm, I’ve been watching good BBC productions. Since I was in a Charles Dickens reading groove, and especially after watching Nicholas Nikleby, I was happy to see that PBS was showing a new adaptation of Oliver Twist artfully done by Masterpiece Theater.
Oliver Twist was the first Charles Dickens novel I read, and I was very young then. As I watched this production, I couldn’t help sadness come inside me knowing that there was such cruelty in the world toward children. I have no doubt that it still goes on in many countries even nowadays. I’m sure that when I read this novel at my young age of 10, I thought this was just that, a novel. But today I knew and felt the meanness of people and hardships of the children then and now. After the movie, I read a few articles about Charles Dickens, and his influence in improving children’s life conditions. He truly had a lasting effect on his audiences, and it was partially through his books that Queen Victoria was introduced to the harsh realities of the working class life. Oliver Twist was the first book ever to have a child for a main character. It was a stark reminder of the harsh working conditions of young children, the poor standard of orphanages, and the deep gap, not only financially but emotionally as well, between the working class and the wealthy. However, as all of Dickens’s books do for me, Oliver Twist brought out the importance of being kind to each other regardless of color, social status or wealth. We are truly each other’s angles on earth.
March 8 is the International women’s day. In Albania, this was mostly Mother’s day. I have the fondest memory of my brother and I going and getting my mother a special gift. Even at a young age, I loved writing her cards. They are not much, just expression of love for my mother, but they mean so much to her especially now that I’m not there. We also used to get for her each year a bouquet of mimosa flowers with their sweet smell permeating the whole house. My brother, being there in Albania at the moment, had arrived yesterday at her doorstep with an armful of mimosa and then taken her out for dinner as it used to be our tradition. She had tears of joy and gratitude in her eyes.
That made me think of the little things that make us mothers happy. A note, a flower, a meal cooked with love, a kiss and a hug, a smile, an encouragement, a foot rub, an honest praise, a simple, but thoughtful gift, are but a few that make me happy as a mother.
As I was thinking about my mother yesterday, and in particular of the blessing of motherhood, I felt this clear thought and gratitude in my heart. As my children are growing up, I’ve been thinking a lot of my life and my goals and what I need to do now to get there later. I’ve felt inadequate for the work force and even going back to school sounds hard at the moment, which I thought was my forte. I felt that being a mother hadn’t helped me much in my professional development. And then the Lord sent me one of his tender mercies. I had this clear vision in my mind of the woman I had become because I had chosen to be a mother and stay home with my children. There is no professional job out there that could have helped me develop the skills and the character traits that I’ve been able to develop as I’ve served my children and my family. Those character traits are eternal and will be with me forever. I’ve not only developed strengths that make it easy for me to administer life in its practical everyday issues, but I’ve developed and continue to develop through service and stretching of myself a clear vision of what my potential as a daughter of God is. I’ve seen myself become more humble, service oriented, kinder, more patient, more loving, more forgiving, more understanding than I would have ever become if I had taken a professional job. The act of letting go of yourself and putting the needs of others above yours, the act of working hard without any immediate rewards, the becoming someone somehow invisible to the world in order to make something way more than just visible (our children), in fact eternal, is something that cannot be named or put a price tag on. Being a mother has prepared me and continues to prepare me to achieve my eternal potential. It has made me a better person. Now that is worth more than any degree on earth.
On this day when we celebrate women of yesterday and today, I salute every woman who has had an impact in my life: my mother, my mother-in-law, my friends, my teachers, my woman authors, artists, philosophers, scientists, politicians, religious leaders, my daughter, grandmothers, and cousins. Wherever you may be, may your life be enriched by someone as you have enriched mine.
These past weeks haven't been only work for Gillian. Last week her class went on a field trip to the Conservatory of Flowers and had a tour guide tell them about plant adaptations. We saw various flowers and plants that adopted to their environment in astonishing and very original ways. I couldn't help but feel the power of God's wisdom in His creations. To have plants with no actual brain cells work their surroundings and what God has given them to their benefit is beyond fascinating to me. I wish I had enough time in this life to learn about how things are created and connected, but there is so much one can learn. No worries. There is always the next life.
After the tour, we took the kids outside and let them eat lunch and play in the grassy lawn. The sun was shining and a light breeze touched our skin.
I enjoyed relaxing and seeing my daughter playing sweetly with her friends. I think it is because of her innocence and kindness that all of her friends who are boys feel comfortable playing with her. And of course because she has a grand imagination worthy of any boy's attention. Just today I went to say 'hello' to her during lunch time, and she was telling them a story and had everyone's attention. She was the only girl at the table; the rest of the girls were out in the school playground probably talking to each other about boys. I laughed out loud at the scene.
