My Superhero Sons

My sons would be so embarrased to know that I was blogging about them - but I had to share this with you. My twin sons are serving missions for our church in the Dominican Republic. It has been hard work and besides learning a new language they have had to adapt to new culture, and live with conditions they are not used to - like taking bucket showers and using bleach to wash dishes.... and they are loving it!! They are my new superheroes and their super powers are the fact that they are able to turn this old, crabby mother of theirs into a bumbling mess of tears with just a sentence or two, a hand written letter and those most beautiful photos I get nearly every week.... And on top of that - they have teaching me things that I will work on always! What d'ya think about those powers??

Here is what they are teaching me:

To be grateful
"when you lose everything you have and realise you can live like this or that people do live like this -there’s no other life. Last night we taught a lesson at 8pm with no lights. It was so so dark! We still taught and still felt the spirit. That’s what it’s about!"" What an inspiration you are to me my son - be grateful for whatever I have, even if it is nothing - be grateful!

Perseverence

"The missionaries found Sister ####  in 2011 and she continued coming to church every Sunday and hasn’t missed a day since. She has never partaken of the sacrament but always sits there reverently, anyway me and my companion found her in our area booklet and decided to drop by. She explained that she [was ready and wanted] to be baptized so me and my companion re-taught everything which she knew and then got permisson.... So after 3 years of perseverance she finally got what she has been waiting forever for. She participated of the sacrament yesterday for the first time. What an experience that was." I always need to be more persevere more!!

Time for Work and a Time for Play



I have learnt from my baby boys that they are working hard and not to worry that they are idling away their time :-) It's good for me to remember this always.... Seeing their busy desks makes me happy to see first they have a lot of the things they were sent with ;-) and also they know how to organise themselves ;-)

Prioritising

After skyping with happy to see first sons (first time we have seen each other in four months -  one of two calls a year),  and showing us his split sole at the bottom of  his shoe - he sends this email "I miss you both a lot even though it’s only been 10mins but I love you both heaps and heaps was nice talking to you both too. Miss home a lot but yeah remember my shoes please haha but yeah. " He knew what was important - but he knew his shoes were a priority!

Happiness

One thing I have learnt from mymissionaries, something I always knew but has been rewarding to re-know it - is what happiness is as a parent. True happiness for me, as a missionary mama is to see my sons happy - like joyful happy, regardless of their surroundings, environment, new language, different culture and practices - they are happy - and because of that - because I can see the light in their eyes - my life is happy!

 I hope you are learning from those around you because lessons can be found anywhere!

Yours in friendship

Mxo

Like riding a bike.....

I have been back at work for one whole week now and its just like the saying - its just like riding a bike -you never forget how. But for me - going back to work is probably more like the last time I got my big frame on a bike - not a pretty sight, very unsteady and my thighs started to burn faster than you could say "giddy up" :-) So going back to work has been like that! :-) Well, maybe not so dramatic but definitely an interesting ride so far.

As you know - the three people that read my blog - make that four because I email it directly to Mr M ;-) I have been off work for eight months... which in the life of a reduced-to-one income family is one pile of unpaid bills too long - so going back to work has been a godsend in that sense....

Here are the things that I have learnt about getting back onto this bike called employment.

1) Be happy to have a job
I thought that when I finished work, with my set of qualifications and experience, I would be marketable, and therefore anyone would be happy at the least and possibly falling over themselves at the most :-) to have me on their staff. Well, after my first rejection, I thought ok - so I didn't want to work there - but after the third one without making a short list - I knew I was in big do-do. The trouble, as the days moved to weeks and months is that there are a lot of people out there that are just as marketable if not more, and we are all competing in a job market the size of a broom closet.. Added to my concern was my realisation that I am getting older as well, and that wasn't hard enough I was competiting with kids that are just out of university - fresher, less experienced and therefore possibly cheaper to hire. True, I have my Masters degree - but really, even that qualification is aging..... so when this particular job came up and I went on to interview - I was very concious of how blessed I was to even have got that far! I will always be happy to have a job.

2) I never want to forget
My sister asked me a really good question that stumped me and I have kept it in my mind ever since. She asked me if I was going to start spending stupendously again - well, these weren't her words but mine but you get the idea ;-) and I answered - "I am never going back there again, because I know what it is like to go without!".... So as I have just spent more in the weekend than I have in the past eight months - I HAVE to remember what is like to go without - otherwise I haven't learnt anything!!

3) The joy of money
Recently, I was paid for some contract work I was doing and the first thing I did was get uniforms for my sons and some clothes that they needed and it made be happy. I took my son to A & E and paid for that and it brought me joy because a few months earlier my other son had to sit his illness out until I could get to a cheap Dr. Having money has brought joy, and I only experience this joy because I have known what it was like to have none.

4) Things are things
Lessons are repeated because people like myself need to be reminded every now and then... and this little episode of mine has been no different... A week or so before my mother passed away I wanted to buy her something for mother's day. I remember being in a shop in the Sylvia Park mall when this overwhelming realisation came upon me that there was NOTHING worth buying because she was not going to be able to take it with her!! That was five years ago, and I had forgotten that. But after being out of work - I was reminded again, that things are things.

5) Priorities
Before I finished work I remember saying "I don't know when my children were no longer my priority". When they were little I had to be there when they finished school and then that turned into being away days, nights, weekends, and just not being around only to wake up one day and all of a sudden they were what I called "self raising flowers". Although said in jest, it cut me deep because being a mother is my one thing that I want to do well..... so I finished work and sorted out my priorities and now putting that into action is in play. I am doing really well 8 days later and look forward to building on the great start of coming home, leaving work behind and being present for the family ;-) There is one thing I know for certain - failure is not an option this time round because I have some dear friends and a all-seeing sister to keep an eye on me!!

So these are my lessons for my first week back at work.... it really is just like riding a bike - you never forget how to it... and no matter how ugly it might look - it's all about the ride. Ask me how I'm going after six months ;-)

Yours in friendship,

Mxo

Just another day............ NOT!

I have heard a few times in my life people saying that Christmas is just another day..... and they don't really get into it.... Today, I was told that because  I was part of the "people who love Christmas" I didn't understand.... well, actually I do. I know that Christmas is commercialised beyond recognition, but here is what I have learnt about Christmas and why I get over myself and get into it!!
 

I want to thank my beautiful mother for instilling me the christmas spirit and regardless of her desperate situation - Christmas was never cancelled and it was never just another day..... Here was a single mother with nothing yet all I remember is the joy we got from putting up our tree, the love of the decorations (which I saw for the first time in a long time as an adult - and cannot imagine what we saw in them ;-)), and the Christmas story. It was never about presents (although I have to admit - I have never quite grasped this concept ;-) even my sons who think they are near to homeless will be getting something ;-)), but always about family and being together with good food. When she got a new tree it was a family decision and quite a large financial investment for her yet it was something that she valued and we learnt from that. The first Monday of December the tree would go up and we would decorate it after reading the Christmas story. The children would enact it. We had a lot of fun and love was abound!

It wasn't always that easy for her though. On the 20th of December 1983, my mother's sister, her husband, a family friend/relative and their six children were returning home after doing some shopping. A truck, according to the police reports, we later heard turned the corner and jack-knived into the path of their van. That accident killed my aunty, her husband, their only daughter (my cousin), a son (my cousin) and their friend/cousin and left their four reamining children orphaned and in hospital spread across northland. I remember vividly the instant my mother was told of the accident and will never forget that day. The pain, I am sure, my cousins feel every day and not just at Christmas time but has that been enough to cancel Christmas? No. I want to wish my cousins a very Merry Christmas and thank them for being an example of living through the worst day of their lives and yet turning out to be good people. I love them.

Some years ago, I ended up at the back of an ambulance and in hospital. It turned out after about two days in there that my appendix were moments away from bursting and already infected..... I was rushed into theatre for an operation on christmas eve and spent christmas day on morphine ;-) The children quickly learnt that Santa was actually not very well that year and after she got out of hospital would visit them.... I remember wrapping presents in pain because Santa's husband had NO idea ;-) Yip, I think that year the boys realised who Santa really was ;-) They were seven. I learnt that year that Christmas was about being grateful for good health and family and presents and even Santa was waaaaaay over-rated!! 

This year there are no presents under our tree. The boys think they are the ONLY ones in the world that are not getting presents this year! One of them is taking it into his stride and knows that things will turn around - he hopes ;-) The other one is struggling with the concept and has offered to go without food so he can see something go under the tree with his name on it ;-) I am grateful for their cousin who said that he was told that they wouldn't be having christmas presents this year and when he asked his mother for about the millioneth time - what they were getting for christmas - she said "vinyl & carpet" (for their beautifully renovated kitchen and dining room) ;-) I thank my sister-in-law for teaching my children that Christmas is about priorities and even though there are no presents this year - we are still having Christmas!

So, for me, when I hear people say it is just another day I wish them alittle bit of what I have. I wish them the spirit of giving and sharing, of laughter and family. It is one day when we should release ourselves from worldy troubles and remember the birth of the Saviour and how blessed our lives are for it. And however we chose to do it - either with new vinyl under our feet or a $2 secret santa gift - then so be it.

Whatever you do, please try and make it more than just another day - make it an awesome day of remembering. Enjoy it, even if you have to 'fake it 'til you make it' for the children's sake..... so that when they grow up to be my age - they know that christmas day is sooooooooo not like any other day of the year!!

Yours in friendship,

Mxo

Teaching an old dog new tricks....

Now I have an old dog. I've talked about her before and could easily fill a book about her.....

I got Simba (a Bichon Friese cross) when she was a little puppy the year my sons were born. Originally intended for my mother - she quickly attached herself to me like a paua ;-) I have heaps of memories of her but my fondest are when she was a puppy and she would be all curled up under my neck while I had a son on each arm propped up by pillows and off we would head into our little afternoon nap....   or when the boys would be in their cot and start crying which would set off this little dog who would run up and down the hallway to try and get my attention, so I would know that they needed me - as if the crying of twin babies wasn't enough to wake the neighbourhood ;-) I love my dog.

She has seriously grown old. Cataracts in both eyes which give her that classic glassy look that our old folks get, absolutely deaf, fused bones in her back, arthritis, a pair of struggling kidneys and now a weeping benign tumour on her back that is refusing treatment - but she will still get up when she knows I am home - something that used to take her seconds now takes a good several minutes.... but she comes and I love her.

I can't teach her anything new... unless it is around the location of her food and water ;-) She can still, at respectable 16 years is old remember the old ones - she can fetch tennis balls, and catch a tennis ball in her mouth, but forgotten a really important one like scratching the door if she needs to go out, or bark for one of us to open the door....

Here are some things I am doing to teach myself new tricks

Just do it!!
I have an appreciation of what it must be like for Simba in terms of getting old - but I am tryying to break the cycle as someone who is slowing becoming more forgetful with age - and learn a new trick. I am learning a whole second language ;) Recently I have enrolled in a Te Reo Maori course called Te Putaketanga o Te Reo through Te Wananga o Aotearoa 

It may take longer - but it is worth it.
One of the first things we were asked to do was to find and write our pepeha (our connections) and recite it in front of our class first and then later in the evening in front of other classes....Now I guess this would have been an easy task for most of the class as they knew theirs - or are still connected to their Marae and their whanau. It appeared easy for the young ones because they pick things up soooooooo quickly. But for a number of us, age and upbringing was against us, in terms of having little to no exposure to the language or the culture... and off we went. The learning took most of the day - but I said it aloud to my class mates then I did it off by heart in front of a crowd of about sixty people - and almost died!! - but I did it and it was awesome. The recitation wasn't awesome - in fact it will go down as one of the worst speeches I have ever made, EVER - but the accomplishment was choice and the learning - beautiful.

Make it relevant
My Kaiako (tutor) talked us through the many parts of a pepeha and the significance of what we were saying and I felt myself learning.. which helps when learning something new. New things have to mean something when you get older. For my brain to learn it, it needs to put it into a context and prioritise it with everything else that is going on. When once, it would have been learnt and stored in minutes or seconds - now it has to be given a place in my fading memory and the explanations made it read and worthy of a spot up there in my brain ;-)

Be ready - and don't waste any more time.
It took longer than it probably would have when I was younger - but I wasn't ready for this journey until now. In fact, its twenty two years since I first took a Te Reo Maori class at University and I am finally ready for this. I am a second chance learner, I am older and I am learning a new trick.....

Don't be afraid to take on new things. It's not going to be easy peasy like it was back in the day but like the Hair Dye advertisement - you are worth it. If the truth be known - research shows that the best way to keep your brain nice and fresh (although getting older) is to learn something different all the time ;-)

Have a great week whanau

Yours in friendship

Mxox