Cameron started wearing contact lenses at 5 ½ months old. I’ll never forget that first day. How he screamed and we cried and the lenses kept slipping and we wrestled with tiny flailing arms and legs and each other. It was full contact and it took over an hour, each lens.
This morning Cameron – 5 ½ years old – put in a contact lens on his own for the first time. I wanted to weep but I was too busy high-fiving him and shrieking like a girl. So today my heart is very, very thankful because sometimes in this earthy life we get glimpses of how God takes impossible and calls it possible.
Maybe today, even if November has arrived dressed differently to how you’d hoped, maybe today you can give thanks anyway without asking for anything to change.
My 39 things for the week:
1720 Making toast in my kitchen for four children – busy and blessed
1721 St Alban’s old boy phoning to ask if he can bring his girlfriend for dinner
1722 Scott giggling after a butterfly in the garden
1723 Cam’s tireless colouring in of battleships, fighter jets, rescue helicopters and all things thrilling
1724 Lego expo – super cool for the boys
1725 Swinging high in the park and feeling dark thunder clouds close and bright
1726 Finding baby Annabelle’s dummy buried in the playroom bed – chuffed and honoured that she is at home in our home
1727 Scott home all week with tonsillitis – so much reading and snuggling and little-boy conversation and carrying him about and love
1728 Kind email from Scott’s school wishing him a speedy recovery
1729 Supper with Shirley E and Shirley S at Moo-Moos
1730 Coffee with all three of my sisters for Coral’s birthday
1731 Cam’s show-and-tell last week, on guide-dogs (which are diurnal animals although Lola who could have been a guide-dog if she wasn’t quite so wild seems to be crepuscular because that’s when she asks for food)
1732 Picking (unclaimed) kikuyu grass runners with Scott in the veld
1733 Delicious joy of a predictable novel: of course she gets the guy
1734 Hanging off the jungle gym with my boys
1735 Comforting Cam in his fears and feeling him soften
1736 Reading to the boys about secret caves and baddies on the lawn in late afternoon shade
1737 A new mentorship connection with a young lady who wants more of God
1738 Clean(-ish) kids play area at Pappachino’s
1739 Sharing a delish chicken kebab with Kirst
1740 Strange uncontrollable urge to do handstands in the garden
1741 Coffee and cheesecake and jacarandas gently swirling from high shade at Blos
1742 Excitement in the Computicket queue as Bruce Springsteen tickets were being snatched up across the country and feeling like is was Wimbledon and we’d all slept on the pavement to get a spot
1743 Booking tickets to hear an old man sing old songs that make everybody feel young
1744 Clear view in clear crisp air from a koppie over the city
1745 Our furtive foreign turaco back in the garden after a lengthy absence
1746 Cam’s gentle concern: ‘Mom I’m sorry your head is so sore. Maybe you should go and lie down.’
1747 Murray taking over all things domestic so that I could sleep for a day
1748 Nearly nearly nearly time to put lights in our windows again
1749 No dishwasher and the warm soapy catharsis of sinks of dishes
1750 No motorised garage doors and the calories I must surely burn each day opening and closing the doors manually
1751 Boys’ wild excitement at sleeping in the tent with Dad in the garden on a Friday night and even having a midnight feast which was consumed at roughly 19h20
1752 Being a cake-sale mom and serving squashed-but-fresh hotdogs to small people counting out small change
1753 Looking through last year’s photos deciding which to print
1754 Lamb on the spit
1755 Table tennis hilarity with the staff of Saks Taylor & Brauer
1756 Cam’s kind-of photographic auditory memory
1757 Meagan’s smile
1758 The first wisps of Christmas like fragrant incense caught on the wind
Dalene Reyburn 
