A Fairly Normal Day

We had good spring weather today – pouring down rain one minute and beautiful blue skies and sunshine the next. It was like playing the lottery when I went outside as to whether I’d make it to my destination without getting wet – even if there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. All day long it was like rolling dice – the clouds would come and they would go and when they came there were as dark as could be and I couldn’t even see the buildings next door for all the rain coming down. It was pretty exciting. There was a rainbow in the sky nearly every time I looked. I loved it.

I left school early today to attend The Praying Women’s group. It gives me a great opportunity to talk in Norwegian and also more practice listening to it being spoken. Those women talk fast and I’m getting pretty good at following along. Often I understand all the words, but the meaning is lost on me so I need to ask for clarification, but for the most part, I’m holding my own. The Good Teacher Inga says I shouldn’t be so hard on myself – that I’m doing very well and even if I don’t speak properly, people are able to understand what I mean, and that’s all that matters. And my good friend Paula even wrote me an e-mail and said she was impressed when she was here visiting that I was able to talk to everyone and understand them when they talked back – so I guess that’s something. I just know I sound like a two year old when I talk so it’s embarrassing for me, but it certainly doesn’t keep me from talking. That would be a downright shame if I couldn’t talk! But even My Pal Vestina said I need to knock off the complaining. Okay, already….

Hearing a language being spoken is so important so that’s why I keep going to school. I have so much yet to learn. Kaleb doesn’t hear much English now and it’s starting to show. That kid reads a lot – so often he learns a new word without hearing it spoken first and it’s always funny when I hear him use that word for the first time and he doesn’t really know how to pronounce it. Yesterday when we were talking about discrimination and people’s prejudices against each other, I told him wars are started sometimes because one group of people think they are better than another group - for the silliest reasons. He said, “You mean like the protest –ants and the Cath-a-holics in Northern Ireland?” I totally cracked up over that one. He might have coined a new phrase “Cath-a-holic” – gotta love that. And what about those protest-ants? But he was nearly crying the other day when he realized he now uses both English and Norwegian in a sentence without even thinking. He’s worried no one will understand him when we get home if he says something in Norwegian accidentally. I told him they would just say, “What?” But all three of us are guilty of using the easiest words in both languages so we often talk a mixed sentence - but we all understand each other so it’s our own version of “Nor-lish”, a secret language used only in our household. (It sounds better than “Eng-wegian.”)

A few days ago I realized Kaleb’s hair looked kinda funny. His bangs seemed to be off for some reason so I tried to straighten them out and there wasn’t enough hair to cover his forehead. I asked what the problem was and he said he cut his bangs at school. He was playing with some kind of putty the teacher uses to hang papers up on the wall and he got it tangled up in his hair and couldn’t get it out so he just cut it off. I was thinking he looked kinda dorky these past few weeks but I couldn’t believe it took me so long to ask why. So much for being an attentive mother. (See photo of him “playing” with other boys and check out those bangs.)

Kory rested his back a little this morning but then got up and cleaned house before I got home from the prayer meeting. He was walking kinda funny when he went over to cousin Odd’s house to help him on his bedroom expansion. Odd said his mom, Tante Kari, isn’t doing too well. We’d hoped to go visit her tonight in the hospital because she had her hip replacement surgery yesterday, but she’s feeling terrible and doesn’t want any company. She needs prayer, and lots of it. Poor thing.

The days are getting so long now it’s hard to get to sleep. I have been up until after midnight the last several nights and the sky is still a nice shade of blue when I go to bed. The sun is up before 5am - so summer is fast approaching. I love how the seasons are so defined and the days change so dramatically from summer to winter. The tulips are all in bloom now but the hard rain has taken its toll and breaking off the pedals. Isn’t it interesting how our lives are sometimes reflected in nature?