“When I die…”

This was a conversation that went on at my house, while the kids were rubbing my feet earning a movie (yes, I unabashedly perpetrate child labor).

Ella: [while rubbing my foot and thoughtfully looking at my rather chunky calf] “If you died Mom, I think I’d eat you.”

Me: [nervously]“Oh.”

Frank: “I wouldn’t eat you. I’d take you to the hospital and tell them to bury you!” [Dear boy]

Ella: “How would you know what number to call? You don’t have their phone number.”

Frank: [not to be deterred and eyes beginning to sparkle] “I’d put her in the car and drive her to the hospital!”

Ella: “Oh! I could help you drive! We’d get there and I’d say, ‘We have a dead people in the car.’”

So yes, if you see my tots driving about in my car, don’t forget to look in the trunk. You just might find a dead people there. These kids are planning ahead, which I’m glad to see. Although I must admit, I am watching my back around Ella, especially since she’s always hungry and I’m, well, um… you know. Not skinny!

The kids were getting a bit worried about me dying (“Who’d feed us?”) and what would happen to them in that event. I told them that I wouldn’t die until they were both grown and could cook for themselves and I was a really old lady. That assured them somewhat but yeah, they continued making plans on what they’ll do after my death. And as far as I can tell it’s NOT grieving….

Ella: “I’m going to go to Canada for a visit and see Spronk when you die! And I’m going to buy Spronk a hedgehog.”

Frank: “I’d buy Spronk a hedgehog too.”

Ella: “That’s good, then Spronk would have two hedgehogs. She’d love them. Then I’d buy another hedgehog, kill it and bury it, so that it would go to heaven and Mom would have a hedgehog with her in heaven too!”

Nice to know that my children are thinking of the afterlife… I guess. Cannibalism and animal sacrifice!

Crazy bag bunny

We’ve got ourselves a crazy rabbit for sure. Not sure why this surprises me. I mean crazy mom + crazy kids + crazy dogs should = crazy rabbit I guess. But somehow I guess I was hoping that Ms Dave would turn out normal. Silly me!

These two are the best roommates! We actually have a book about a rabbit and a hedgehog who are best friends and it always reminds me of these two. What’s hilarious
is when they take turns inhabiting the little hedgehog house. I can’t believe that Ms Dave can fit herself in it!

“Now what do we have in the dog food bag? I feel something...!”

“Well I’ll be darned – it’s my bunny!”

“Why come here you little long eared devil!”

A kiss for Ms Dave’s little boy. So cute! She is so friendly, climbs all over us and gives us whiskery kisses.

When poor little Franks mom is in need of a laugh, she does crazy things like tuck in his shirt and hike up his pants, then laughs at him while he prances around. Note his faithful bunny parked in front of the refrigerator door. She’s no dummy! She knows where the vegetables are kept! She also knows that a certain little two year old boy (who wears his shorts funny) is a sucker for feeding them to her : )

Yup, L’s a perfectly normal child : ) No worries there. She appears to be developing normally...

Best Buds

Watching a movie together

These two are the best of friends. A large reason of why I adopted again (besides the fact that babies homes here are chalk full of motherless babies and toddlers) is that I felt that Ella needed a sibling. To be honest, I never realized just how much she needed one!

These two are inseparable!

Kids who do not develop healthy attachments with their parents are usually unable to develop healthy attachments with anyone – their siblings or friends included. We have seen this in one family that we know who adopted a three year old. The child has had attachment difficulties with their parents and consequently has no loyalties to their siblings, nor is a very faithful friend. This kid is constantly looking for “someone better” and has no real loyalties to anyone and is rather insecure.

Which is why I am DELIGHTED to see my children and the relationship that they have with each other. For any parent this would be nice to see but with mine it’s even extra special given their history. These two are TIGHT. Ella is starting to prefer Frankie’s company even over the neighbor girls who we all LOVE and who are more her age! Frankie of course loves his sister and shadows her everywhere (much like I did when I was little with my sister who was 2.5 years older).

Saturday was the first hot morning we’ve had since getting our table, so the youngsters had to get their sunglasses on in order to eat their breakfast. Pretty intimidating, aren’t they?

Bodyguards or thugs?

There sits my pancake and cup of coffee, waiting for me in the sun of my front porch ;) What a life!

The Fam. This is the way we live. On our porch. With our toys. And our dogs!

Sanyu Baby LOVES her kids! I have never felt that Sanyu was “my” dog (like Bridger is), which is odd since I got Sanyu before the kids came along and I’m the one who feeds her. She most definitely prefers the kids the best! Woe be to the hapless person who tries to do them harm while Sanyu is on duty! Both of these silly mutts are quite protective of their kids.

Ella had a stomach bug last week so she spent quite a bit of her time on the couch watching movies. Mainly one movie, The Gods Must Be Crazy. This is both kids new favorite! Frankie likes to run around now with a pretend gun (or “gum” as he often pronounces it) shooting things, saying “I bad guy!” Ella prefers to think that he’s spraying bug spray (????). Once L gets something into her head it’s hard to get out so we don’t argue : -)

Frankie's chubby little baby hand

Spronkie even made an appearance for the camera!! I think she likes her new roommate, Ms Dave. Oddly enough, Ms Dave likes to help her eat her fish. Weird, eh?

Party Preparations

First off, several “firsts” in the last couple of days. Spokey figured out how to use the exercise ball last night and was rolling around the kitchen and bedroom, and Ella figured out on Tuesday that she didn’t have freckles like Mom, and that Mom was white, not brown like her. I’ve said it before but I’ll say it again – I LOVE watching Ella growing, changing and discovering more and more! What a fun age she is.

Yesterday we went shopping and got the last of the purchases for Ella’s birthday party on Saturday. Her birthday is the 9^th but we are having the party a few days early to catch the weekend. Trust me, she doesn’t mind! This child has waited 11 long months for her birthday and is totally psyched. She shows Sarah almost every day when her birthday is on the calendar and holds up her four little fingers while exclaiming, “I’m gonna hold my hands like THIS tonight while I sleep. Then I’ll wake up and be FOUR!” Gotta love it : -) And I’ve decided that greed just comes naturally to a child around their birthday, it doesn’t need to be taught to them. While explaining that we were going to go buy things for the party she piped up with, “And something for ME?!!” Hee hee. That’s my girl…

This is going to be a fairly simple party – nothing fancy. We invited a “few” of our closest friends and um, well, it turned out to be about 40 people – half kids and over half adults. The majority of these people we really feel a special bond to – they’ve been a big part of Ella’s life either before she came home or after. And her old lady is very sentimental with a long memory and never forgets an act of kindness that has been shown to her daughter… ;)

We were able to get little brown bags yesterday and had a decorating party with our neighbor girls. Oh how Ella loved fussing about with stickers, markers and crayons, decorating the bags with her friends telling everyone how we were doing “homeschool.” When we were done we filled them with candy, stickers and some odds and ends left over from all the stuff that Mom brought last summer – little cowboy notepads, scissors, playing cards and stickers. It was a great opportunity to clear out some of that stuff! So a great time was had by all although I found that a six year old filling a bag with items is a lot more helpful than a new four year old!

So I’m going to try making a chocolate cake and cupcakes on Friday. It will be decorated with little plastic dogs which I think is very appropriate for this child. Sarah is having samosa’s made on Friday and then her and Prossy are coming over Saturday morning to make chapattis and fry up some sausages. Sausages are considered snack food here J. I will be blowing up balloons (over 70 of them!) and hanging a birthday banner, as well as mixing up the juice. I’m sure Ella will be helping us all. She’s already picked out the bottle of Coke that she’s going to have at her party : -).

I’m praying that it doesn’t rain on Saturday. It’s okay if it rains at night but not all morning or into the afternoon.

Tis the Season to be Jolly...

...only some of us aren't!!!

Can you blame him??

What Cody lacks in enthusiasm, Ella totally makes up for ;)

Ella, Prossy and I are leaving for Arua tomorrow to spend Christmas with our neighbors, Gift and Kathryn. Gift is from that area (extreme north west Uganda, on the DRC and Southern Sudan boarders) and they have a house up there. They left on Saturday.

I have been driving around on an empty gas tank and the fuel in Entebbe had run out, so I was beginning to wonder if we were indeed going to be able to leave tomorrow. But thankfully I found out this morning that Shell had gotten fuel in, so off I charged to fill up my car. $84 later my car is filled. Gack!! The price of traveling in luxury, I guess...

Last Friday was our offices annual Christmas party. It was pretty sweet to have young L there, in all her glory. We picked up her two little boy buddies, Blessed and Benja, and took them since their dad wasn't back from Kampala yet. They were all very well behaved and had fun, although little Benja about fell asleep in his food! Such a good boy for being a tired two year old.

The weekend was filled with some rather bizarre hog escapades. Little Spronkie lost her ears! Spokey is the one and only suspect so far as she's the only one that Spronkie is ever in contact with. Spokeys ears are just fine so I know that it's not some weird disease. Also, Spronkies ears were fine one evening and gone the next morning, so... poor little hog. I put some peroxide on them so hopefully they'll be fine. At least it's not hard to tell them apart anymore!

There was also one false alarm that both baby hogs had disappeared from their cage (they were actually both buried under all the grass in their cage sleeping soundly, which I only found out after I'd torn the entire house apart and gotten snarky with the poor enthusiastic hedgehog hunter, Ella), then Spokey really and truly did climb out of the cage yesterday. I found her under the book shelf in my room at 10pm in the pitch dark because we had no power. Trying to get a hedgehog out of a tight space is pretty difficult because they ball up and really get wedged. I ended up just moving the (fully loaded) book shelf and grabbing the little ball of prickles, all in the dark with Ella blissfully sleeping in the bed nearby :).

Ella and I skipped church Sunday and instead went to the beach and had pizza. Ella got to have her own bottle of Coke (I have never given her her own pop before, but I guess I was feeling kind and indulgent :) and play in her underwear in the Lake. It was a really nice little "date" with just the two of us. Wait a minute. It is always just the two of us!! But it was pretty nice anyway although I did miss my mom and sister :(

We came home and since Ella was on a caffeine high and being a good girl (no crying or whining or asking to take a nap), we skipped a nap and instead went over to the neighbors where Ella played and I got a hair cut!! My hair was getting LONG and SHAGGY and I really wanted one before we left for Arua. So now I have my own hair dresser literally right outside my front door! Poor Melinda. I kind of strong armed her into doing it ;). She was worried about "messing it up" but seriously, with my hair and some of the cuts I've gotten in the past, she could be blind and I wouldn't mind! Ella kept checking in and saying, "your hair looks nice, Mom!" so that kind of boosted both of our moral :).

So, this will be my last post for a while and definitly before Christmas. Merry Christmas everyone!

Young Hedgehog Handler

Ella and her skills with animals amaze me. While many mothers are proud of their child's academic or sports performances and potential, I am bursting with pride over the skills my daughter has with animals!

It is simply amazing to believe that 10 months ago this kid had no contact with animals, at all, whatsoever. Now the 3.5 year old tyke is handling baby hedgehogs like a pro, something that many adults can't even do!! You are an amazing kid, my little Ellster :)

Baby hog is slightly out of focus, but it's a good shot of the Dalmatian poster and Ella!

Again, baby hog slightly blurred but Ella's furrowed eye brows and nose are captured clearly :)

Our little hog twins, Spokey and Spronkie, taking a ride in Ella's stroller

Ella is at the point now where she doesn't just have the hogs sit in her lap. She picks them up in her hands and inspects their little legs, tummies and tails. When I comment on what a great little hog handler is she smiles proudly as says, "Like Mom". Before long I'll having her sexing the darned things (which is actually pretty easy when they're full grown)!

Ella also handles the cat really well and is quite good with dogs (pups are usually pretty skitterish around here and she's learned how to take it slow and be non threatening to them). It makes me wonder if love for animals (or anything really) is learned or genetic or maybe both. Funny the values different families try to instill (sometimes unknowingly!) into their children. Ella has told me several times, "We don't hurt animals" - something I must have told her before (more than once maybe?). In the part of the country, and farming and ranching culture, where I'm from, the way you treat and care for your animals is a reflection of the kind of person you are. When Christians mistreat or don't care for their animals well it is a really bad witness. So it's not too surprising that this is something that I've already started instilling into my daughter.

I hope that I'm unconsciously also instilling in Ella a love for the Lord and the knowledge of His great love for us. Not just "correct" answers, like who is God's Son, etc, which I am pointedly also trying to teach her.

It truly is amazing at what a "little Halland" she has become in only 9 short months!! "Little Junior" would be an apt name for her now...

FYI: Ella has also learned how to use scissors, too! She is quite the cutting fiend now :) Her coloring is also pretty good, and I think her motor skills are now that of your average three year old. I'd say her motor skills are average but it's amazing considering that she's only been working on these things for the last 9 months!! Have I said before that I think she's pretty smart? The kid works hard and picks up on things quickly. I just love the fun and funny little person that she is becoming :)

Piglet Fun!

At last! Ella and I got to attend a "pig play date" at our friend Summers house on Friday. It had been postponed a couple times before, due to illness of various family members (not the piglet!).

I must say, my maternal instincts are really roused when it comes baby pigs. I think it must be from when I was a child (about 9 or 10 years old?) and some friends kept their two sows and a total of 15 piglets in our barn. My sisters and I never played with dolls much because we didn't need to. We had 15 piglets to mother, for heaven's sake!

Ella and our friends piglet

Eliza and Ella, holding Eliza's little pig

Ella, proudly holding her own baby hedgehog, Spokey

You can see just how small the baby hogs are. Just a tad bit bigger than my phone!

Ella has had quite a streak of independence lately. Last week she told me she was going to go get on an airplane and fly to Montana to visit Granny for a week, leaving me behind to take care of the dogs. Then Sunday she told me to stay home because she was going to drive herself to church. She hoped I wouldn’t cry J. Sweet kid, eh? Fortunately she didn’t want to fly the plane!

Announcing the arrival of our NEW BABIES!!!

I welcomed TWO NEW BABY HEDGEHOGS into our home yesterday morning!! Imagine my delight when I got a text from Tanya in Juba saying that a lil’ hog was on its way with our buddy Richard! Sure enough, yesterday morning as I was preparing to come to work I got a call from the man himself saying that he and TWO hogs had arrived in town the night before. So Ella and I were off like a shot to pick up the little darlings! They are SO CUTE. I had forgotten just how sweet little hogs can be after living with that huge, grumpy Spike. Precious! Ella can even hold and touch them because they aren’t so gosh darned pokey and grumpy. So, I am just “over the moon” as the Australians would say.

Ella and I got them home and into the bottom half of the dog crate, in Ella’s room. They are WAY too young to be Spike’s wives yet and I am totally against child brides so we’re just not going there! As Sarah pointed out, he would just squash them flat anyway. So they will be growing and maturing into big, beautiful girl hogs before I introduce them to Spike. He’s a bit grumped because I gave them his house so now all he has in his cage is a little tube. Not a happy hog but he’ll get over it and I’ll get him another house.

Tanya and Richard had quite an adventure capturing little hogs to bring, which you can read all about here. Yep, they are two very good friends! And I really like the idea of a Pixar film on escaping hedgehogs… ;)

As you can see, Spike is about three times their size! Right after Spike met them he promptly peed. Yes, lovely Spike ;)

Being little girl hogs they aren’t as pokey and don’t curl up into a prickly, huffy ball so Ella is DELIGHTED that she can hold and touch them!! I’m really excited that she’ll actually have a decent pet now. She was working so hard with Spike but honestly, he is a loser in the cuddly pet department. I have great hopes for these two new little hogs!! Hopefully with careful handling they’ll turn out like little Pokies :).

Yes, holding your hedgehog while in the nude is the sign of a very resolute hedgehog enthusiast! Ouch!

* She had just woken up from a nap soaked from a “little” accident and couldn’t wait to hold a baby hog. I did make her take off her sopping wet clothes first but she simply had to hold a hedgehog ASAP.

Little Spronkie – her looks reminds me a bit of Pokey

Funny story of Richard getting them over the boarder. He told the Ugandan officials that he was taking them for a traditional Sudanese (Dinka I’m sure) ritual. On Christmas they bless the hogs, then release them and this is an ancient custom. The Ugandans totally bought it!!! They said, “Oh!” When they told him that they needed the proper paper work for them, Richard patiently explained that since he wasn’t going to eat the hedgehogs that they didn’t need the paperwork. Oh, okay then. Paugh!!!! Richard is the BEST bull shitter I know! And I guess Ugandans are pretty gullible ;)

Wee little hog, Spronkie

Still trying to nail down a good name for this little hoglet. Ella suggested “Jesus” but somehow I just can’t see that… Plus, it’s a little girl hog ;)

One little, two little hedgehogs… (the handler has her clothes on now, thank goodness!)

Taking a nap on the couch.

I plucked three ticks and two mites off Spronkie but the other hog didn’t have a thing. They are starting to bring back fond memories of Pokey, and Spike too when he was a baby (he really was a cute baby!). Ahh!! I’m just a sucker for little baby hedgehogs. So cute! I’ve a feeling these are going to grow into fine hogs, too. Very fine hogs. And what fun it will be to have another little hedgehog enthusiast in the house to enthuse with!