Tag Archives: children

Quote of the week

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One day at Holiday Club we were talking about love, and I asked the girls in my group ‘How do you think people can show God’s love to other people?’

After a while of looking at me blankly someone spoke up. This someone is 7 years old.

‘Well…..when God makes mums give birth to children, that’s God’s way of giving them an opportunity to love them, because children are a blessing from God’.

8O

I was floored by that, because after several days of shrugging shoulders, and ‘I’m hopeful God will give me a pet hamster’ – that was NOT the answer I expected.

But how true that statement is.

Wow.

What you didn’t know about the nativity story…

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…is that the ‘Three kings’ didn’t bring the Baby Jesus Gold, frankincense & myrrh.

No, no, no, no.

They brought him cake.

This revelation is brought to you by my 2 year old godson (aka Elastatoddler). I babysat him and his little brother tonight, and he asked if we ‘could read the Baby Jesus story‘ at bedtime. Which we did. And to be entirely fair to my super intelligent godson, in the picture it totally looked like the second king was carrying a cake with a cherry on top of it.

And personally, I think I’d much prefer a cake to some myrrh as a birthday present anyway! :)

So just for fun, if it had been you going to meet the newborn baby Jesus, what would you have brought him?

The dichotomy of my life

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Where in the last two mornings I’ve been encouraging primary school kids to ‘crazy dance’ and do air guitar, and helping them learn about hope that Christians believe can be found in Jesus and what the Holy Spirit is…

…and in the last two evenings I have 1) learned the safest procedure to prepare & inject oneself with heroin and 2) learned many new slang words for sexual parts of our anatomy and various sexual activities people may partake in.

To say it is a little bit strange to go from one to the other is a teensy bit of an understatement.

But that is my life. And it doesn’t really fit in anyone’s box.

It’s also brought back a lot of memories from my teenage years and reminded me of what some of my childhood connections are now living…like my childhood friend, B. who recently almost lost his leg as a result of IV (intra-venous) drug use (in this case = heroin). Right now, we don’t know where he is, and the sad thing is it might be when we find out it is because he is no longer alive. Or finding lighters and spoons in lifts leading up to my friends flats. Or Monday mornings of S1 and S2 when the gossip from the weekend came back to haunt people (we were 12 and 13 – it didn’t shock me as much then as it does now).

Are there aspects of your life that may seem strange or unknown to those around you?

What to say?

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To be honest I feel a little snowed under this weekend. Trying to organise things for going down to work in the marketplace at Momentum – I’m camping this year and I don’t know the person working with me, so it’s making things more complicated.

By the way, if you happen to be going, do please come say hello! I’ll be on the green and pink stall that has stuff about pregnancy and stuff. :)

Things are better at the centre, we’ve been so encouraged by people really supporting us through fundraising and so on – and it’s made a HUGE difference. Now if we can just get a bunch of not easily embarrassed people willing to give up a few hours of their time next year to help with youth and schools work! I’ve also ordered (what I hope will be) a really cool resource. There may be pics and video when it arrives…

I also got reunited with one of my oldest friends – Fi and I have been friends since our first year at high school, and when we finally moved into North Leith, Fi and I walked together to school pretty much every day. Most mornings we’d arrive to find her trying to simultaneously get dressed, eat breakfast and brush her teeth. She bet me a wensleydale cheese sandwich I’d come back to school after S4 (which I did) but she lost the bet that I’d stay for S6 (I went to uni a year early instead). Apparently she was late to school pretty much every day of S6 as a result.

this is not the best photo of us...but there we go...

Fi now lives and works in Spain, and it’s so rare for us to see each other now. Booooo! But we always just seem to pick up our friendship exactly where we left off when we do. That’s what years of memories created such as inventing our own version of ‘Happy Birthday’ during a theatre workshop, jelly bean fights, sleepovers, rubber chickens, Dawson’s Creek, bacon rolls, chocolate, guide camps, Edinburgh festival fun, Choir, dance club, enduring school and studying French & Spanish together (ahhh….remember Veronica from the Standard Grade listening tapes?). She even got her Mum to keep the magazine clipping of the guy I had a MASSIVE crush on in high school. That’s a whole other story though ;) We also know that our Mums used to share ‘intel’ on the bus to work often.

Basically we both love to be silly and have fun, and the number one thing I associate with Fi is laughter. And lots of it. :D Oh, and Boyzone.

There’s also the fact that I need to get properly prepared for the fact that over the next week, I’ll be hanging out at our church holiday club – ‘Rocky’s Plaice‘ (for my American friends, this is our equivalent of VBS). I think it’s going to be great fun, but it’s certainly been a while since I helped at a holiday club. And it’s been even longer since I’ve done dance stuff with kids  - and I’m leading the dance workshop – teaching the kids actions to a Doug Horley song about God’s power.

Apparently we’re all getting ‘commissioned’ in church tomorrow morning (=totally out of my comfort zone) but please pray for the safety of the kids, that we all have fun and that I don’t corrupt any children. Though my aim is to  help them learn about Jesus, and also learn how to do some mean air guitar moves. Obviously Jesus is more important than the air guitar.

Top Ten Ways to get your baby weight to stay

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I don’t have much to say today. Except that we’ve reverted back from nice summer to our usual non-existent summer…

…and I’m not too happy about it. (For those of you who work in Fahrenheit…the above pic translates to…)

An American on twitter responded to my posting of the above screen shot by saying: Wow that’s cold what’s the normal temperature in the middle of the summer there?

Bless his American cotton socks… :) Because let’s face it…this IS the normal mid-summer weather in Scotland!

Anyway, I was MOST cheered up on an otherwise dreich day by the posts on my lovely American who lived in Scotland friend, Caroline (who is well aware of the sucky Scottish weather as she has experienced it firsthand) announcing some very special news today….she’s preggers with baby Collie number 2!!!!!! :D

It’s been a while since she did one of her ‘Top Ten’ posts, and this one about the top ten ways to make sure you never shift your baby weight made me giggle.

I’m worried by the lack of digestive biscuits, jam, cream & scones in South Africa….how is she going to cope through this pregnancy?! ;)

Love you muchly Caroline – Congratulations to the Collie Family!!

PS If you’d like to see the guest ‘Top Ten’ I did for Caroline a while ago, you can check it out here. Unless you are called Lynn and you work as a Children & Families Pastor. Then you really shouldn’t read it.

My heart is all over the place!

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What a day! It started with me, sitting in bed watching the results of the General Election come in until 2.30 a.m. when I realised I needed to sleep, and as I popped my mac away and so on, I thought ‘I bet Bringonthejoy is going to have her baby tonight’.

At 8.30 a.m. I get a phone call, and it is Mr Soul Surfer himself asking if I got his messages. I realise my inbox is full and flashing at me. ‘Have you got a new baby?‘ I ask…and yes! He and BOTJ do! Hip hip hooray!!! There is telling of stories, wondering about election results and much rejoicing at the knowledge that Bambino has finally arrived, and we realise that on the day he was born, we didn’t have a Prime Minister.

Oh, and quote of the year so far: Miss S to her Daddy on the discovery that her baby brother has been born: ‘Does he have a beard?‘ I love the mind and logic of kiddles – Of course Daddy has a beard, he’s a boy, so surely if Daddy has a beard, brother has a beard too?

I find out the election results, and worry deeply for my country, though glad that the local candidate I voted for is the one who has been voted in to represent us in Westminter. However, the election results map is concerning…and I wonder what this will mean when it comes to our own Scottish Parlimamentary elections – will people be more inspired to vote for a party that will push through independence knowing that a party that the majority of Scotland doesn’t want is pretty much in power now?

(from BBC website)

And there is the cupcake making for our local charity’s thanksgiving service tomorrow. Not to mention the last minutes texts and e-mails to the only other Scottish Partner in the ‘big charity’ as we have our Scottish conference tomorrow. We’ve got two lovely ladies flying up from London to speak, not to mention folks involved or looking to start up pregnancy crisis centres from all over Scotland.

It’s exciting.

But it’s also a lot of responsibility…

So now it’s almost Midnight…I’m remembering things I’ve forgotten to do. I’m praying all goes well, and thankful the volcano ash is moving in the other direction now so people have been able to get here.

I feel I’ve been very neglectful of my blogging duties, but hoping after this weekend I’ll be able to chill as things will hopefully be a lot less crazy and stressful.

Plus, I want time to visit my friends and steal some baby cuddles. :) Oh and, see how Elastatoddler’s rugby skills are coming along.

FOS Friday – 80s Children’s TV

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Yes, I’m a child of the 80s. And yes, I was allowed to watch TV.

In Scotland, we have 2 national languages – English & Gàidhlig. So when I was little, there would be a time in the day where after the English-speaking tv programmes, they would put on Gàidhlig ones straight after.

Some of my twitter friends wanted to get a flavour, and these are the only examples I could find of…

Padraig Post (Postman Pat) – (it’s in the background of this other Scottish 80s TV show…)

Donnie Murdo (Danger Mouse…basically they went with 2 common “Highland/Islands” names to keep with the DM logo!)

….and the best for last (apologies for poor quality) Dotàman. I had to introduce you to Donnie MacLeod & his guitar.

Ahhh…Dotàman…the Mackay clan originate from the Highlands, and our surname accounts for about 35% of the Isle of Lewis (at least). So I’m actually the first generation of Mackays not to speak Gaidhlig, but because my Dad, uncles, great aunts, granny & grandpa etc could, I convinced my peers at school that I could as well. So I used to ‘translate’ Dotàman for them.

A few years down the line, my little sister came along and she used to watch Pingu. It was always after (or before) the Gaidhlig version of Fireman Sam. So can you understand why it took me a few years to realise that we didn’t always just catch ‘Gaidhlig Pingu‘ but in fact, Pingu was just speaking…well…penguin, I guess. :)

South Africa Fortnight: Carl & Michelle Waldron

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South Africa fortnight continues at LFS Introducing... with another guest.

You might remember me mentioning Carl & Michelle when I asked you to pray for them last summer. I met them when I was on a team volunteering with Seed of Hope as part of Soul in the City Durban in July 2009. Today they are my guest bloggers, and share more about their journey from Canada to South Africa.

Please head over to the LFS Introducing… blog and say hello!!


BK’s Guide to Children’s Books – Part 1

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Yes of course this will be a completely biased series of posts because well, these are my favourite children’s books, and you might not agree. Though it has to be said that for the most part I’ve been pretty good at picking out children’s books that have been a hit. Unless their parents (and said children) are lying. :(

But here I go introducing some of the books I think are just fabulous, and I hope that if you read them you’ll love them too!

Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell

We must begin with a book I still remember discovering at nursery (preschool) when I was probably about 4 years old. I loved lifting the flaps to discover what animal had been sent.

To me this is a necessity for any child’s book collection. Especially as not only is it fun for the interaction of lifting flaps, you can also practice and learn about the different noises animals make. :)

Dinosaurs Love Underpants by Claire Freedman & Ben Cort

I discovered this book a couple of years ago when my friend asked me to help him shop for his nephew’s Christmas present. Monsters? Underpants? General silliness? This is the bread and butter of books for any 3-6 year old…particularly if he’s a boy!

The book is written in rhyme and explains how dinosaurs became extinct because they were fighting over a limited resource of underpants. Duh! Why did you think they became extinct?! ;)

The Large Family Collection by Jill Murphy

Or any preschool book by Jill Murphy really. My lil bro LOVED them when he was wee (and memorised them so you never got away with skipping bits at bedtime). He like the Large Family ones mainly I think because the wee girl elephant was called Laura. Just like his biggest sister! Awww.

Dear Greenpeace by Simon James

This book I found in a wee shop in Morningside while looking for a present for Elastababy. I ended up getting it for Miss S’s 4th birthday as I was sure that her Mummy & Daddy would approve of a book where a little girl called Emily writes to Greenpeace to tell them about the whale in her garden. They do write very polite letters back to her too. A great book for introducing your children to eco-warriorhood. :)

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle

If you have never seen this book, seriously, you had a very deprived and sheltered childhood. This one has been around for 40 years and the illustration is still well cool! Plus all the pages with holes from the hungry caterpillar eating his way through until…the grand finale ending.

What are your favourite children’s books?