Wednesday, December 30, 2009

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

Tuesday, December 8, 2009

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.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

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. :)