No Mother's Day Here

Last November, when it was Mother’s Day in Norway, I ignored it. It was too close to Thanksgiving and didn’t feel right to celebrate ME at such an odd time of year. I was holding out for today. But, as I’ve come to discover since living here – being the only one trying to uphold an American tradition in a foreign land, just doesn’t work. A normal Mother’s Day for me back home would involve breakfast in bed, a homemade bird house by my sweet boy, and being waited on hand and foot all day. Not so today. For one thing, Kaleb spent last night with a friend, so there wasn’t even anyone to be a mother to this morning. No breakfast in bed, no coffee, no greeting… a day lost and forgotten on this mother. Oh well, there’s always next year.

Kory and I went to Agape Church this morning. It was a packed house. It seems a small Pentecostal church meeting in downtown Aalesund on Saturday nights, pulled the plug. I’m not sure what all was going on there, but the pastor of that church came and asked the pastor of Agape Church if he could send his “flock” to Agape. They all showed up this morning – including the former pastor. It’s all a little weird, but they did it – they combined the two churches with the hopes that our pastor will branch out one day to do Saturday night services back in the middle of town. Interesting dynamic there and I’m sure there’s more to that story, but I thought it was odd that a church would just shut down all of a sudden. In the US they tend to die a slow death….

We sat by Sabina (age 10) and her mom after church at the café and had coffee and talked. Sabina told Kory how much better his Norwegian is since he’s moved here. Considering I couldn’t speak it at all when we came, I went looking for a compliment in all the wrong places. I asked Sabina if she thought I had improved a lot too in these last several months and she said, “Yes, but you say all your words wrong.” So much for that.

We expected to pick Kaleb up from his sleepover before church this morning, but he called just as we were leaving to ask if he could stay on and play for the day with his friend Andre. Our priority now with him is to get him well connected to some Norwegian kids, so we had to say yes. He couldn’t have been more pleased. We told him we’d come get him before dinner, as we had invited Kory’s uncle and his wife, and his aunt over for dinner (they are Kory’s mom’s half brother and sister). But Uncle Per called this morning to say they couldn’t make it tonight so I called Andre’s parents and invited them and their kids to come eat the food I had already begun to prepare. As it turns out, I saved the day at their house because it was Håvard’s (Andre’s dad’s) turn to make dinner tonight for his family, and he forgot, and they had nothing planned and all the stores are closed on Sundays. They were thrilled to be invited and they even liked the food. Their oldest son didn’t come because he has a big exam tomorrow he needed to study for. I started complaining how difficult it is to learn Norwegian with the two official languages here and all the dialects. Janne (Andre’s mom) agreed with me. All children here must learn both languages and her oldest son was home studying for his grammar test in Nynorsk (the language Kory speaks.) Janne said her son was so frustrated with the language he shouted out, “It’s surely NOT from God!” So it comforted me to know even the locals have a hard time with all the grammar.

It was nice to have some of Kaleb’s friends here for a change. Tobias came over and all the boys were outside playing hide and seek all evening. Janne commented again just how polite Kaleb is and that he always says please and thank-you. Last night she asked if he might need to use the bathroom before he went to bed and he said, “Yes, thank you.” She thought that was pretty funny. She said she’s never heard a kid laugh so hard as Kaleb laughs when he watches a movie. He does enjoy slapstick and for as little as he sees any TV or movies, I guess he has a lot of pent up laughter just waiting to come out. They enjoyed having him around so that was good, but it was sad for me to only see him a few minutes all day today. When I was tucking him in to bed tonight he finally remembered what day it was and then he wished me a Happy Mother’s Day and asked if I liked my present – a day off from being a mother. Ha ha.