Guns and Army Play

Trust me, I was a mother who always said my son would never play with guns. I was a new mum and was listening to those around me who were older and wiser and had been there before me. Thou shalt not play with guns became a rule in our house.

That was until the toast became a hand gun, the duplo became a machine gun, the soap a bomb. You know how it goes. Therefore, I decided they could have air rifles, so they could play cowboys and Indians and shoot snakes and bears. That was great and lasted well. Then I bought G.I. Joe type toys and lego and they became so caught up in it and had so much fun that I couldn’t very well take it away, as I could see the hours of fun and imaginative play they were having. And they weren’t being ‘violent’ per say.

Then they joined cadets. Out went any hope of stopping the military fun they were now having in the backyard! Any chance at owning camouflage gear they took it. I had a choice of stopping everything or letting it play itself out. It was hard to say no. Boys will always be boys and since the beginning of time, boys have played or used guns, swords, bows and arrows or spears to fight, defend, or play.

Therefore, I let the play continue. However, always, a part of me struggled with it. I knew I couldn’t stop them from being boys, and I *could* take away the guns, camo, cadets, and games, but did I really want to? Was I stopping them from being boys if I did?

Years ago, while in Tennessee, (or maybe before) our boys were introduced to Air Soft. This is a brand of gun play. The guns are plastic and have a regulation orange tip and they shoot plastic beads. They travel very far and very fast: up to 325 feet per second is what one of the boys guns is capable of. To buy one of these guns you need to be 16 or have a parent with you. You can shoot one if you are under 16, but you need parental approval.

For years I held out. Finally, about two years ago, when our oldest was 16 and the next 14, I allowed them to get the Air Soft guns. My big concern was that we had smaller children on the property, so as far as I was concerned there was nowhere to play with them. So, they didn’t use them. They owned them, but had nowhere to go and it was rather pointless.

But in the last year we have discovered that *all* the boys that our boys are friends with own these guns. And we are talking about nice, wholesome, Christian boys. The guns come in different powers, so they can be rather harmless, to very powerful. After having a few playdate invites and borrowing guns at their friends’ houses, I decided it was time to get with the times and allow the boys to get the guns.

One day, Cassidy and Dane decided to have a big excursion and rode their bikes to town (about 10 km) and made the big purchase. They deposited their pay cheques in the bank and then went to a couple stores to price check the guns. After they were sure which ones they wanted to purchase, they went back to the bank to get their money.

It was at the store that they discovered that they needed to have a parent with them or be 16 to buy a gun. Dane was old enough, but Cassidy wasn’t, and Dane didn’t have his ID with him. So, Ray kindly drove into town and helped them with their purchase. While there, on the sly, we bought Austin a less powerful gun. Earlier, when the boys were leaving for town he was heartbroken because he had enough money and he knew friends his age had guns and he wanted to have one too. I had told him that he would have to wait til he was twelve. Ray bought Austin’s gun and we put it away for ‘the right time’.

All three boys proceeded to collect their gear: masks, face guards, camou gear, boots. One day, Austin and Cassidy were invited to a thirteen year old friend’s house to play Air Soft for his birthday. That was Austin’s introduction to Air Soft. Considering the friends that were over were all ten to thirteen it didn’t seem right to hold Austin back. But we still didn’t rush into it.

With the boys having gun there would be rules. They are not allowed to play with the guns on the property. They have scoped out a great area near to our house where there are no houses and it has earned the nickname Snipers Point by the neighbourhood boys.

One day, the boys took their new guns to the Point to play with some friends, and Austin as allowed to go along. He was just thrilled to be allowed to go. It is off the property and my kids don’t usually traipse the neighbourhood, so this was a thrill for him. No gun or anything! But while he was there he was invited to use a friend’s gun, and so he had a ball.

He came home that night and there were no mishaps or sour stories from his older brothers, so I took note. The next time his older brothers went to play with friends, Austin was again invited to use a spare gun. Again, all went well. That night when he came home he was so happy. He told me that he would be the medic the next day because the spare gun would not be available. His contented attitude about not having a gun and being willing to be medic gave me the nudge.

I stepped into the entry hall closet and pulled out the plastic bag complete with gun and ammo and handed it to him and said, “Maybe you can use this.”

You should have seen his face. Glee. Unstoppable joy. He hugged me. He kissed me. He rubbed my arm. “Oh Mum! You said I had to be twelve!! Thank you! Thank you!!” His delight was something to see!

He has since proven himself responsible. The guns are handed to me when they come home, and I put them in my hiding place until their next exercise, at which time they gear up and go. It is quite the big deal for them!

As I was saying to my sister the other day: I remember being a kid and playing cops, robbers, and loving it. I can only imagine what fun it would have been if our guns were the type that we could shoot something out of them that didn’t kill someone, but simply made the guns seem more real!

And typical boys, one day they decided to dress up their littlest brother. He thought it was great fun.

Now my disclaimer: I know that not everyone will like or agree with boys playing with guns. Each to their own. And I don’t take gun play or violence lightly. My second oldest son has World War II army games for Playstation. He gets to use them *sparingly*. The children in line behind him will *not* ever get to use them. They might come across games like that at some time in their life and they may use them, but I will not be buying any such games, and my son’s games will not be shared by younger brothers. I will not stop the Air Soft, and I will allow the Cadets, but I will not encourage another one of my sons to go into the military by allowing them to spend too much time on that pastime. And also, the games the son has are not blood showing games. Those will never be okay in my house.

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Daniel Boone and the Bear

A few weeks ago, I was sitting in the livingroom doing some work, when I heard the back door slam, and Dane ask Briton what was wrong.

Apparently, Dane had heard Briton running up to the backdoor. He had been literally panting as he flew through the backdoor, turned and slammed the deadbolt shut.

"Bar, Bar." (bear)

He came running into the livingroom, with Dane close behind, with a look of utter panic on his face. I got up and figuring he must mean there was a big dog in our yard, picked him up and went to the backdoor, and asked him to show me where he saw the bear. We stepped out the door with Dane following, and headed around the side of the house.

I walked up the side of the house carrying Briton and there before me (about 14 feet from me) was a black bear.


I stopped dead in my tracks and simply turned and walked quickly back to the house, all the while telling Dane to "Get in the house!!!!"

I didn't clue in til later that there are two ways to handle bears:

1) if it is not showing signs of aggression then you *do not* turn your back, but walk slowly and calmly away from the bear. Do not move quickly!

Or 2) If it is aggressive then you make lots of noise and raise up your arms, while backing away slowly. Do not move quickly!

Okay, so I did the wrong thing. We moved quickly and we turned our backs! As I slipped into the house I noticed that Dane was not coming in with me. Warrior that he is, he had picked up a large stick and was about to go back into the yard to chase the bear away!!! Uhhh, NO!! I got him into the house and once I had the doors locked I got the kids to grab the phone, while I grabbed my camera! How many times do you get a bear in your yard?

(Actually, we have been the 'lucky' recipients of bear visits ten times! *laugh* Once a male bear knocked over our 5 foot chest freezer and stole our baskets of berries! He was huge!! The conservation officer came and trapped him and got rid of him. Another one reared up her head and stood at my window, while I sat a mere three feet away at a desk! That was freaky!!! That was while I lived in a trailer with four tiny children, while building one of our houses. She subsequently visited three more times with her babies before she and her cubs were caught, but not before they smashed in a windshield to get the lunchbox that was in the front seat of a car. And I was newly moved from the city!)

I called the police and told them I had a bear in my yard. They gave me the number to the conservation officer and I called him. He told me there was probably no worries about it, as there were often bear sightings. I could tell he was a pencil pusher!! *laugh* We are residential and this bear showed no fear of humans!

Shortly after, another local conservation officer that actually gets out in the field called me and asked for my location. I told him the bear had now left our yard and was heading north. About an hour later, he called me to tell me that he had found the bear and had to shoot it. It was actually a male bear of 3-4 years, not fearful of humans, in the least (he had approached it and it did not startle at all), was showing signs of aggression, and was eating out of garbage cans. Those are the worst kind, apparently.

The irony of this situation is that Briton has this fear of bears. Every night when I put him to bed he always makes sure the closet light is on because of 'bears'. He has never even seen a bear, until this bear incident, but for some reason he has a fear of them. So it is totally ironic that he should be the one to meet up with a bear.

We talked about how he had handled the situation and then he went out and showed me what he had done. He had been out at the log cabin playing when he had seen the bear. The bear was between him and the house. Briton was a smart little boy!! He ran down the fence line all the way past the garage and then cut around the back of the garage and up to the house to the back door. When I was having him show me, I asked him if he cut between the house and the garage and he said no. He had continued on down the fence line to stay as far from the bear as possible. I was very impressed to see how wisely he thought! Fear might have made him simply run past the bear to the house, but he didn't. And I am sure because of this he is safe today. So we are very thankful.

Briton tells me he is Daniel Boone cause he is not scared of bears. The funny thing is that after this incident, for a couple weeks, Briton thought bears were wonderful. No more fear of bears. Actually, I think to him, they were just big teddy bears. But then the childish fear came back and the closet light had to stay on, again.

You Are Only As Old As You Feel

I am about to talk about a subject that most of the parents of the Ethiopian children that I have met have encountered. This is a topic that seems to be either discussed very openly or is totally taboo. It depends on each person. For us it is an open topic that has come up repeatedly over the last year. It will continue to surface as time passes by and the girls bring it up or life throws it at us.

What is it?

The real ages of our children.

Often times I have been to a person’s adoption blog and they say that their child is such and such and age, and it is clear to any observer’s eye that the child is years older than they are claiming. It doesn’t affect any of us that are reading the blog, but it does seem curious that a person would hang onto something that is clearly different than they state.

Why would a person do that?

Perhaps for the same reason that we did. *smile* I am sure there are many reasons. One of my reasons was because I didn’t want my daughters to be older than they were supposed to be. They were referred as three and four year old girls, and for that you assume you will be mothering and nurturing tiny little girls.

Our referral was for girls 0-4 and 0-7, and when I heard the first was four years old, I assumed the second must be one or two years old. Yet, she was three years old. When friends and strangers saw the referral pictures they immediately told me they thought the girls were older. Except for with a close friend, who had experience in this regard, I denied the possibility. I said they just looked older because they had no hair. But I figured they were probably right, and they were at least a year older than their referral stated.

To be brutally honest, as much as I came to love my children, a tiny piece of my heart was saddened because I did not have a tiny one to bring up. The ironic thing is that when we began our referral process the request was for one child 18-30 months. In the end, we ended up with two very unbabylike, but wonderful not-so-little girls.

Therefore, that is why I kept denying that my girls were older than they were ‘supposed to be’. Even with this going on it never left my mind – this question as to how old they really were?

Some might say it doesn’t matter. For them they might be right. For me, I wanted to know. At least I wanted to try to get an idea. I have kept my interest in knowing more about how old they are under my hat, as far as the girls are concerned, but I *have* asked Raine a few times how old she thinks she is. This has come up because she has divulged information that contradicts how old we were told she is. Each time she has been given the gentle opportunity to ‘spill it’, if she knows she is older, she has stuck to ‘six’. No other answer.

For the last year, I have come to know our girls quite well. I would dare to say that I know them very well, but there are still areas that noone can know for some time yet. Areas that they keep hidden. Little vulnerabilities.

One such vulnerability came to light not so long ago. A friend was visiting and she had adopted Raine’s best friend, Fikru. Upon meeting Fikru’s mum for the first time she proceeded to ask, “How old is Fikru?”

When his mum told her how old he was and then asked her how old she was, Raine replied, “Seven.”

This was the first time she had shared this thought with anyone.

When my friend asked her why she told her mum she was five she stated, “My mum wants me to be five, so I am five.”

Later, when Raine and I discussed her admission, she broke down into tears. In her innocence, it had not crossed her mind that my friend would share her conversation with me! The long and short of it was that Raine had never told me that she suspected she was older because she 'didn’t want to get put back in Ethiopia.’ She figured we wanted a younger child because we had told her when we met her that she was four. After all, we were told she was four, so we presumed this information to be correct!

As it stands, many children in Ethiopia have any idea how old they are! If they are born at home, as our girls were, or in an area where they don’t take them to church to baptize them, or if they have no calendar, or if their parents are illiterate, then there is little way to ensure a birthdate. And each of these were scenarios that our girls experienced.

Raine had no clue how old she was, until upon entering the orphanage, she was told that she was four and her sister three years of age. A teacher at the second orphanage told them they were five and seven years, and that is what Raine held on to. And then our referral came with the original admission from her mother of three and four years of age. When I met the girls in Ethiopia that first day I asked them how old they were.

Her answer? ‘Five and seven.’

How very confusing for a child! No wonder she didn’t want to share what she thought!

The wonderful thing was that now this was shared with me I was able to tell her that no matter if she was a very short fourteen year old, she wasn’t going back! She was our daughter and we didn’t care how old she was!

We discussed her confusion and she told me that she really wanted to know. Was she five, six, seven, eight, or nine? Seriously, at times I have joked that talking to her is like talking to a ten year old!

I told her there were ways we could get an ‘idea’, but nothing concrete. She told me she was interested in finding out the best guess on her age.

So many of her stories didn't line up with her age, and we know she has a picture of her sister and herself when Savannah was a crawling baby and Raine a walking child (not toddler) that make us suspect that there is more than one year between them.

We have observed Raine’s development, wisdom, maturity, and behaviour for the last year. Close friends and family have spent ample time with her, and we have visited with other Ethiopian children that are supposed to be her age, and it is clear to us that Raine is not five years old turning six.

Savannah was the hardest one to figure out because developmentally she struggles. Her English is far behind Raine, and we have discussed at great lengths if it is English as a second language that is her problem, or if she has a receptive or expressive language delay. We can’t be sure. So further testing is going to happen at some point in the near future.

But in the last two months I have had opportunities to see other four and five year old Ethiopian children, plus spent time camping with a six year old little girl, and then had my six year old niece visiting us this summer. Since the girls have come to us, Savannah has grown in leaps and bounds when it comes to her abilities, as well as her size. It wasn’t until the last two months that I have been certain that she is not four turning five. Even in Edmonton this summer, there were three other mums with little girls from Ethiopia that are in the same age range as Savannah is supposed to be, and all of us pondered and discussed and went back and forth based on her size and her abilities. No one could be certain as to what they thought.

While we were camping this summer, I had the wonderful blessing of meeting another family that live near my friend S, in Edmonton! They also have an adorable little six-year-old girl who was adopted. It was so wonderful for Raine to meet her first adopted friend, and to make it better, this little girl was also a different colour than her family. She is a part Native child. We spent about five days visiting and camping beside each other and her mom had plenty of opportunity to observe Savannah. This was significant because her mom is a Special Needs teacher in a public school and is used to observing children. Her assessment at the end of the week? The girls are six and eight years old.

Hmmm.

We went home and I was ready to take my head out of the sand and admit they were one and two years older than I thought.

I made an appointment at the dentist to have a panoramic x-ray done of the girls’ mouths. This is the first of two x-rays that will help us get closer to determining their ages. I understand that the x-rays are quite accurate with their lower age, but they might be short on the top ages.

The results of the x-ray said that Savannah is between five years old (not four as she is supposed to be) and six years old. She has a birthday coming up in November and she should be turning five. As I said, it is quite possible based on the x-ray that she is even six already. She is a little more complicated because she honestly struggles with comprehension of the language and her cognitive skills continue to stay behind Briton, who is turning 5 in January. So to turn her six might be to her disadvantage because of her delays. For that reason, for the time being, we will just leave her as turning five.

Right now, she is not talking about how old she is; she is simply being a little girl and playing. This will buy us time to see how she does over the next year. Her disadvantage is that she is so much taller than other four turning five year olds, and so really, she can't be in their age classes at gymnastics and age segregated groups. Thankfully she is homeschooled so that takes some of the pressure off of her.

Raine’s x-ray was harder to tell. The dentist pinpointed her as being between seven and eight years old. She is supposed to be five turning six. The reason it was hard to tell was that she was malnourished for longer and much more so, than her sister ever was. Malnourishment can make a big difference in the teeth and the bones. Her history of growing height and weight wise so slowly is evidence of this.

So when Raine has her birthday in September she will turn seven and not six. We have discussed this with her and she is *so* savvy that at times we think we are dealing with a ten year old. People have even suggested she could easily be nine years old. Therefore, this is her decision. She will turn seven, and we will watch her over the next year, and if we feel it will benefit her then she will turn nine next year and not eight. The dentist has already written down that his assumption is that she will be turning eight this month. So he is ahead of us by a year.

The unfortunate thing is that this will not help her when she needs to prove legally that she is older than her paperwork states. Most places in our lives I do not have to show a birth certificate, but there will be times. Such as drinking and driving. *smile* And honestly, how many parents would love an extra year or two before their child has the right to take the wheel!?

If we get to Ethiopia we will do our best to see if we can track down some official documents that show her age, but if they are not birth certificates it will not help us any! We have a friend whose dentist proved his age and they later found his baptismal record (which lined up with the dentist’s age) but it was not accepted as proof, as it was not the birth certificate.

So what is the point of doing it then? Well, if a child clearly looks twelve and is being called ten, or clearly eight and is being called five, it is in their best interest to be grouped with children or in classes where their abilities are challenged! Raine is a quick learner easily fits in with my eight year old niece and my friend’s nine year old niece. Both girls had no clue Raine was younger than them when they were asked her age!!

So there you be. *smile*

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First Days of School

Well, school is back in session. Part of the reason I have been absent. I have not only been busy with that, but I have been taking my blog down off the internet and publishing it into our own table top coloured book. We are all thrilled with the turnout. It is a fantastic company called www.blurb.com - the prices are reasonable and the quality is excellent. So that took me about three weeks to do. I had three blogs to bring down!

And here are a few pictures of our back to school sessions:

Menus and Schedules

Initiated into Running Laps
Right now he thinks it is great fun! *grin*

Cassidy Cooking Dinners

Kindergarten Begins

Now THAT is a Dictionary! Websters 1828

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Happy Birthday to Our Girls

Happy Birthday to Our Girls! We are so happy they are with us. Every day we get to know them more and more and we are so blessed to have these girls as our daughters.
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Neat Night Shots

Extensions

(Click on the photos to get a closer look if you want to see how the braids are done).

When I was in Edmonton, I met a little girl who had extensions in her hair. I would never have known it was not all her hair. Her mum told me that a kind lady at her church did her hair for her.

As soon as I got home I got to thinking that I would love to do extensions in Raine’s hair. So when I headed to the ‘bigger city’ one day I began looking for extensions. It turned out that the salon’s all had only real hair and it was $75 an hour minimum to put extensions in. The drugstores didn’t even carry extensions and Walmart and those kind of stores only had colourful stuff that I was not looking for.

Finally, one lady suggested I go to the dollar store. And so I did. $3 later I was equipped with enough hair to do both girls!

I came home and cut it off the combs that were attached. This was so that you could simply hook it into your own hair. I then lay the ‘$1 a hairpiece’ hair out on the table.

Next, I took those tiny little black elastics that you get at the dollar store. They cost $1 for about 300 – 1000 of them. I ran the comb from ear to ear and made a division of Raine’s head. I then continued doing divisions parallel to this about 3/4” apart towards the back and then again towards the front. This way I ended up with many little rows.

I then took each row and using the end of the comb I divided those rows into sections. So now each section was a square, or as near as I could get to one. As I did each section I would put it in a little elastic to secure it at the base. When I was done the whole head I had tons of tiny pony tails all over her head. This kept it neat for when I was going to attach the extensions.

The other way to do this is to divide into rows starting at the front of the head – the bangs. Run the row from side to side. Then divide the opposite way, so that you have little squares. Then put elastics on. And then put on the extensions. This way you are only working with a small amount of the head at a time.

Now to put the extension in is a hard thing to explain, but I will try. One day I might get a video up. One day...

First: you have a tiny little sectioned pony tail.

2nd: Decide how long you want the extension to be. If you want it shorter, then you have to fold the extension in half. If you want it longer then you make a fold about two or so inches down from one end.

3rd: Lay the extension on the tiny pony tail. Have the long part running *down* towards the bottom of the ponytail, and the shorter part lying up to the top, up laying on the head.

4th: Take an elastic band and join the extension and the pony tail. You will have to do this *behind* the elastic that is holding the pony tail on the head. This way it will hold the elastic more securely against the head. Now you will have a funny looking connection. You will see that an extension is running *up* (or down, however you look at it) and doesn't look like it can turn into anything pretty. But it will.

5th: Now you will take the upper part of the extension (the part *above* the elastic band) and fold it down to connect / join with the lower part of the extension and the tiny pony tail. You will now have a group of three parts of hair: two pieces of extension (one may be longer than the other, depending on how you chose to make your extension length) and one pony tail.

6th: You now will gently blend the three groups of hair to make it look more natural. At this point, you will now begin to braid the three parts.

If your extension upper and lower are the same length, then the blend will be quite even. If you have the lower longer than the upper, then you will find that after you braid the hair you will see that the upper part of the completed braid is a bit thicker than the lower. But overall, in time, you will see that the braids blend.

Raine's extensions were done longer and you could see a change from the upper braid to where it was purely the extension. With Savannah's hair the extensions were equal in length on both sides of the joining elastic, and therefore the braid stayed pretty equal all the way to the end. Either way, they honestly looked really nice and people always thought they were real! People that new them knew they were fake but commented how authentic they looked. As time went by and they got a big messier (on Raine because she has more hair) they actually looked more like locks and she constantly got compliments from strangers, as well as friends.

All I can say is, Raine’s hair was not long, and Savannah’s even shorter. I was told that a tad shorter than my girls’ hair would have stayed in for a couple weeks. Perhaps they would have fallen out? Well, Savannah had hers removed by choice about a week ago. Raine still has hers in, by choice, and will leave them in until the bitter end. She loves having long hair and does not want it short again. She has now had them in for 8 weeks! And only one extension fell out. There is no sign of them falling out. Period! I will have to remove them when they are too messy.

And speaking of messy. When they were first done the braids were tight and the little sections were clear and I thought they looked ‘right’. Well, the funny thing is that as time has gone by and Raine’s hair has grown at the roots (about 1 inch now) and the hair that is braided around the extension has unraveled slightly, it has grown ‘together’ more and actually looks more authentic!

You can no longer see the distinct sections and when it is pulled back into a ponytail it looks totally neat and real. Now, my Mum saw Raine about a week ago, and she forgot about the extensions, as she had not seen her for a few weeks. She was about to say, “Raine, your hair has sure grown,” when she remembered that it was fake hair! Her opinion, even though Raine’s hair was down out of a ponytail and somewhat straggly that day, was that it looked very real and just like braids should. And that is coming from someone that is very observant and I would think would be the first to see it was fake looking. So I am impressed!

So now, there is no excuse to not give your own daughter’s extensions, if they want them! They are cheap and if you do it my way, they last forever! Plus, apparently, with extensions you are not supposed to wash or condition them? That is what I heard. Well, I condition my girls scalps and leave the conditioner in there for 5 minutes at a time and no complaints. Plus, I also heard that extensions are itchy. My girls never complain of itchy scalps. And finally, Raine used to struggle with her hair because it is so thick. It was either worked through daily, or the days in between conditioning, when we were home, were left and not dealt with – giving her a messy look. Now, she is always looking tidy. So I must have found a great way to do it! Happy girls: Happy Mum!

UPDATE: I wrote this post in the summer. It is now October. Raine had her braids in for just over two months. I had no reason to take them out, but felt it was time for a fresh look. As the hair gets a little messier what I would do is wet it down, condition it, rinse it and then pull it into a pony tail. For care of the extensions: I would simply do what I did when it was loose: wet, condition and rinse. People tell me you aren't supposed to wash or do things with extensions. Well, this is not true of my extensions. My girls had their heads/real hair conditioned regularly. They also swam all summer with the extensions.


When I eventually took out the extensions, Raine had a *tiny* amount of build up from the not wonderful rinsings, but seriously, barely enough to see. So I think this was quite successful.
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