Fabulous holiday, blessed Christmas

We are home again after a magic time at Nature’s. The whole family was together – 17 people in the house, and Lola! Cam’s second Christmas was really special! And he actually seemed to know more or less what was going on this year. He kept saying ‘Christmas!’ and ‘Another present?’

Cam absolutely loved the sea, the beach, the lagoon... He rushed into the water shouting, ‘Deeper! Deeper!’ and despite the fact that he stayed in the water until he was blue and shivering, there were tears every time we finally wrenched him away. He was even sleep talking about swimming. His grandparents, aunts and uncles ran up and down sand dunes with him, took him for rides on surf boards and walks in the forest, jumped over waves with him, dug holes, etc, etc. His cousins were also amazing – they caught fish for him to touch, tried to prevent him from eating too much sand, played with him tirelessly... It brought us deep seated joy, relief, healing and sheer pleasure to watch his fearless, insouciant elation, his revelling in God’s creation. My little man teaches me new things every day.

He is a real little linguistic sponge at the moment, repeating absolutely everything we say – very cute and awesome to be holding mini conversations with him! He also sings most of the day. Murray says he’s living in a permanent Gilbert and Sullivan musical... We’ve started potty training and he is getting very good at telling me, ‘Pooh!’ when such an event has occurred. He got undies for Christmas, and he has officially used the potty once, but I do believe I will still be buying nappies for quite some time... :)

In terms of his vision, he is still coping pretty well, despite the fact that his world is now rapidly expanding and we are noticing his need to compensate. We don’t hold him down anymore, when we put his lenses in. He lies perfectly still and cooperatively announces, ‘Tiny lenses!’ On Christmas morning, sitting with my folks, he pointed each time to the respective set of eyes and said, ‘Grandpa’s glasses – Granny’s glasses – lenses.’ He mistook his Great-Aunty Nettie for Granny (they are sisters and do look very alike), and he mistook the model on the box of my Nice ‘n Easy Natural Dark Chestnut Brown hair colour for his Aunty Shaleen - both gorgeous! :) That kind of tells us how much detail he can see. He can make out hair length and colour, shape of face, and maybe some other features? Not sure.

I’ll post some holiday photos on the blog in the next couple of days. There are gazillions... hard to choose!

May 2010 be a year of living in the light – a year of laughter and adventure, growth and prayer, contentment and truth.

‘The Lord directs the steps of the godly. He delights in every detail of their lives. Though they stumble, they will never fall, for the Lord holds them by the hand.’ – Psalm 37:23-24

Merry Christmas

We leave for Nature’s Valley this weekend, so Cam’s blog might be quieter over the next few weeks.

Our Christmas greetings are waiting for you at
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v3ch9l3wQbA

May you be really blessed this Christmas, and may you keep a quiet heart.

Christmas holiday baking with Mom...

Mysteries

We flew down to Cape Town this past weekend. My cousin Kathleen married Vaughn, in Paarl. It was an indescribably special weekend.

The entire Grobler clan (my Mom’s family) was there, barring two second cousins. We took zillions of photos – of cousins, and baby cousins, and aunts and uncles and grannies and grandpas... I was overwhelmed at how blessed we are – and Cameron is – to have been born into such warmth, and such spiritual wealth.

I was also struck by the mystery of God’s ways. My aunt and uncle, Greg and Lyn Grobler, for whom I have mountains of love and respect, lost their two children, Greg and Shirl, in a car accident in 1985. Kathleen was born in 1987, followed a couple of years later by her sister Debbie. Kath and Deb are godly, and breathtaking, and deeply loved. I can’t imagine what our family would be without them – and yet their coming into the world was preceded by such unutterable suffering. It’s a bit like how we feel about Cam and his eyes. We wish that Greg and Shirl had lived, and we wish that Cam had perfect vision. And yet we treasure the path of pain because of the astounding beauty that it has wrought on so many levels. Eish... the mysteries.

Before the wedding we went to the Butterfly Farm outside Paarl. It’s a gentle, close-up place and Cam actually got to see the butterflies that came near, and the birds, monkeys, etc.

Cam slept on the plane all the way to Cape Town, and he snoozed on the floor right through the wedding reception! On the way back to Joburg, he didn’t sleep at all, but at least he didn’t try to run up and down the plane. When we hit some turbulence he grinned excitedly, ‘Bumpy! Bumpy!’

This weekend my Uncle Peter shared another mystery. He said to me, about Cameron: ‘You can see the blessing of God on him; people respond to that without even realising what it is they are seeing.’ That was really encouraging for us. Yesterday a St Alban’s old boy of mine came to visit. He said he wanted to read Ranulph Fiennes’s autobiography Mad, Bad and Dangerous to Know because when he saw the book, he just thought of Cameron. He said they seemed to have the same fearlessness and sense of adventure. The mystery...!?

We got Cam’s class photo from Heavenly Babies yesterday, too. It’s easy to spot the kid who can’t see the camera... He’s gazing upwards with a smile on his face, happy as a clam. :)

A piano!

Cam’s Nanna had it on her heart to buy him a piano, and it was delivered this afternoon! What an awesome blessing – we are so excited! It is 60 years old – restored and absolutely beautiful. We had lots of fun trying it out!

‘O sing to the LORD a new song, for He has done wonderful things…’ Psalm 98: 1

Goggles and patient cousins

We’re trying to get Cam to wear goggles when he swims, because he likes to put his head right under sometimes, and we don’t want him losing his contact lenses in the pool!

Meagie and Craig slept over last night, and I played them an ABC sing-along DVD. I explained that it’s easier for Cam to watch the TV right up close, and they very patiently made room for him, and watched right up close, too. (I realise this is not necessarily a long-term solution...!)

A few things have lifted our spirits lately. Cam has started recognising us in photos. My Mom has put pictures of me in some of his visual therapy powerpoint presentations that she has designed for him (who ever said Grannies weren’t techno-savvy?!). The other day I was drinking my morning coffee from a mug that has on it a picture of me and Cam. He pressed his nose right up to the mug then pointed at the picture of me and said, ‘Mom’ – and that was without his lenses in. This is technically impossible, and definitely miraculous. He did the same with a photo of Murray; then he also got hold of my ID book and did the same again, even pointing to my eyes and nose. Yesterday he was pointing out two of his cousins in photos – ‘Gark’ (Mark) and ‘Niggie’ (Nici)!

Cam just doesn’t seem to notice or interact with other kids much. They certainly don’t freak him out, but he doesn’t really play with them (Meagan and Craig are an exception, to some extent; I suppose because he knows them well). He also hasn’t grasped the concept of sharing, because he can’t see that there are other children playing with various toys and that if he happens to stumble upon a toy, and if that toy happens to be in another child’s hands, he can’t just take it. When Murray dropped him at school the other day, he hung around and played a bit with Cam on the carpet. They were playing with a cow and making cow noises, etc. One of the little boys in Cam’s class came up and said, ‘Hello, Cam!’ He had a pig, which he proceeded to give to Cam. And then Cam gave him the cow. And then they all made piggy noises and laughed. Progress!

‘That is why we never give up. Though our bodies are dying, our spirits are being renewed every day. For our present troubles are small and won’t last very long. Yet they produce for us a glory that vastly outweighs them and will last forever! So we don’t look at the troubles we can see now; rather, we fix our gaze on things that cannot be seen. For the things we see now will soon be gone, but the things we cannot see will last forever.’ – 2 Corinthians 4:16-18