Due North

Suddenly I realized how wild and barren Canada really is.

I live in an area surrounded by forests and thousands of inland islands on 7 acres but most Canadians, even those who live in big cities, live less than an hour or two drive from open country.

I was listening to an interview on the car radio as we drove through farmland and uncultivated stretches into town the other day. Apparently, an enthusiastic British woman devotes an entire blog to her experiences in the wilderness that makes up much of Canada. To her friends in England, Canada is an exotic foreign land.

I laughed, of course, at the idea that I live anywhere that could be possibly called exotic but then I stopped abruptly.

Suddenly I realized how wild and barren Canada actually is. Canada is one of the First World Countries but it remains largely undeveloped. There is a reason that the entire focus of the 2010 Winter Olympics  opening ceremonies in Vancouver was the stark beauty of millions of square kilometres of vast tundra, sweeping prairie grasslands, mountain ranges, and forests.

A couple of years ago, I was on a plane, coming into land at the great Ottawa International Airport with its arrival area's two baggage carousels, when an excited little American boy questioned his mum,

"We are real close now to Ottawa, right mom?"

"This is the capital, right mom?"

"But where are all the buildings?"

"I just see trees."

"Huh mom, huh?"

"Where are the buildings?"

"I thought you said we were coming to the capital of Canada?"

I had to smile because as we coasted up to the terminal, it looked more like a small, airport for a little town. Of course, Toronto, Montreal and Vancouver are bigger and support bustling airports but there are hundreds of kilometres separating our large urban centres.

In fact navigation across Canada is relatively simple. Take the directions I gave my parents who drove from the West Coast to Eastern Ontario, some 4,000 kilometres.

"Take the Trans Canadian Highway through the Rocky Mountains, across the foothills of Alberta, through the Prairie Provinces, drive 18 hours from Northern Ontario to South-Eastern Ontario, turn left at the hamlet of Antrim and we are 3.1 kilometres on the left."

My dad drove right up to our door without needing further instructions
!

Who Needs a Teddy Bear When You’ve Got a Teddy Baby?

A newborn can see clearly for about 8″, just far enough to focus intently on his mother’s face. It is almost as if the initiative to bond comes from the baby first, especially when I consider the fierce hand grip that they are born with. To ensure an infant is fed, he is born with an incredibly powerful rooting reflex. These traits help to draw out strong protective love from both parents. For me it was almost a magical transformation from an exhausted woman in labour to a glowing mother adoring her newborn.

Even when all the kids were still little, I decided to share this magic with them. It was one of the best decisions I have ever made to enable mutual respect and love to grow in our family. However, at the time, I was forced to literally watch the clock to make sure everyone would get a chance to hold their new sibling . It seems to me that the children bonded to each other because even our toddlers were given the privilege of holding the baby. With excitement twinkling in their eyes, barely containing their joy long enough to sit still while I propped up one of their little arms with a pillow, they looked extremely proud and pleased as they too held the baby.

Bedtime became something to look forward to for about three months after the birth of our newest addition. I would wrap the newborn tightly in a warm blanket and let each child cuddle up to a living and breathing teddy baby. This quiet time, to be alone with their sibling allowed warm, nurturing, love to flow between both children and it eliminated jealousy The focus was no longer just on the baby but attention focused on an older child and the baby.

As I nursed, it was easy to give the older children my mental and emotional attention by listening, talking, reading books to them, helping with homework and even playing with play dough with one hand. I can honestly say that no one resented all the time each newborn demanded because we were all part of caring for the baby. Little ones were proud to run for diapers, clothes or blankets and older kids would choose rocking or pushing a colicky baby in the buggy over washing dishes any day.

One of our family jokes concerns the day I managed to relate to five people at once! I was laying down on our bed, back to back with my husband as he read and I nursed a newborn. A toddler lay curled around my head, playing with my hair, I was fixing a knitting mistake for a seven-year old and talking to a ten year-old.

I am pretty proud of that statistic.

Children...

Children have so much to teach us if we but stop and listen and learn.

Extra! Extra! Read All about it!

An easy way to find me on the web paper.li http://paper.li/mjmjuneau/1373913996

Life and Death: A Four-Year Old Chooses

The following is a true story of a four-year old child, in a coma, following a serious car accident.

Chandra was still not conscious when she began to speak to her parents in the ICU unit. She spoke as if in a dream, describing a big room with two doors where she sat waiting with several other people. She explained that she had to decide which door she wanted to walk through. A really nice man, dressed in white smiled at her and told her that she was completely free to walk through either door. One door would bring her back to her life on earth. If she liked, she could across the room, take the nice man’s hand and walk through the other door.

In the beginning, Chandra spoke weakly, in a disjointed manner insisting that the nice man loved her so much that she wanted to be with him. As the days passed, she spoke in a stronger voice and began asking her parents,
“Do you love me?” they assured Chandra that they loved her she answered,
“Wellll…I don’t know. I really want to be with him. Buttt…maybe I will come back”
The next couple of days were spent in an almost comical dialogue as Chandra asked if her siblings, grand parents and extended family all loved her. After each confirmation , she emerged slowly from her coma, answering in an ever more confidant voice,
“Maybe I will come back!”
Throughout the discussion, Chandra described the other people in the room, casually mentioning two people who stood up and walked across the waiting room, walking through the second door with the nice man.
One was a young guy, who looked just like her young uncle and another an old woman who was like her grandmother. Within minutes of Chandra’s announcements, an elderly woman and a day later a young man died in the ICU.

For her parents, the most startling fact of this entire experience was that the week before, tiny Chandra could perhaps choose between an apple or an orange for a snack. On earth, she would not make any major life decisions until she was 18 years old. Yet she was deciding whether to live or die.

3 Truths for my Children

Read on ReadWave.com

Bonding Before Birth

An unborn child hears and reacts emotionally ,

not only to his parents but also to all the other people and activity whirling around him.

Prenatal babies have personalities before they are born. As any mother can tell you, some babies move around energetically both in and out of the womb, while other infants are physically passive. Some infants are night owls both in and out of the womb and others actually sleep well at night.
Nurses will point out to new parents that their newborn quickly turns towards the voices of their mother, father, siblings and even grandparents. So that means that an unborn child hears what is happening and remembers what he has heard while he was still in the womb. These memories are conscious for the first couple of years of a young child’s life but later they lay deep within their subconscious. For example, some musicians, when first introduced to a piece of music, already know how to play it without even rehearsing. Later they discover that their mother had practiced that very same piece of music while she was pregnant with them.
Understanding the implications of these tidbits of trivia, I convinced my son to try this experiment with his pregnant wife a couple of months before the birth of their first child. Actually, this is something I did during all my pregnancies. Often my kids laugh and dismiss some of my beliefs but this time David took my suggestion and put it into action.
David gently placed his hand on one side of his wife's stomach and then spoke aloud to his unborn child, welcoming her into their family. He told unborn Eva that both of her parents loved her already and that they would protect her and supply all her needs, physically, emotionally and spiritually. He concentrated on pouring love into his unborn baby’s spirit. As David loved his baby by talking and placing his hand on Erica’s right side, unborn Eva kicked and pushed on that side of the womb! When David placed his hand on the other side of Erica’s stomach and repeated the ‘prayers’, their unborn daughter placed a few good kicks on that side instead! Obviously, pre-natal Eva heard everything and she was happy and excited by what she heard.
As a result of Eva’s parents consciously soaking her with nurturing love while she was still in the womb, she is a peaceful, content baby who is a joy and a delight to everyone she meets. None of their friends can quite understand how Eva can be such a good baby. Basically the answer to their question is that my son and his wife connected with Eva’s heart, mind and spirit before she was born. After birth they knew how to respond to Eva’s none verbal communication. David and Erica were in fact Baby Whisperers.
In the hospital, while holding his newborn daughter, David turned to his dad and said,
“I think this is the best thing that I have ever done!”

Defying Reality

Think about the last time you broke a rule (a big one, 

not just ripping the tags off your pillows). 

Were you burned, or did things turn out for the best?

 I did not simply break a rule here and there;  no, like every other human being, I continually break the most fundamental law of the universe without any conscious effort by refusing to accept reality. Instead of realizing my place in the universe, as one of God's creations, I put on masks and false personalities in a vain attempt to deny my very nature. In pride, I acted like a queen at the centre my own little world.

According to Thomas Merton (Seeds of Contemplation), a frog or tree are holy simply because they are who they were created to be. On the other hand, I broke all laws of nature out of pride. Steeped in delusion, I clung to a false persona and refused to relax and accept the reality that I am not the centre of the universe.
The result? I was not simply burned. Oh no, I created an utterly miserable, guilt filled prison sentence spent suffering like a pitiful victim. Yep living like the world revolved around me was not fun and carrying the burdens of the world on my emotional shoulders.
This illegal activity is best illustrated by watching toddlers, those young tyrants of every family. There are countless examples of a two-year old, refusing any help, only to get into all sorts of trouble. I can laugh indulgently at my kids amusing escapades but guess what? God also laughs lovingly at me, waiting for me to exhaust my arrogance and embrace reality.

I am part of the Community of Saints, surrounding God who is at the centre of the universe. Everything does not depend on me when I let go of arrogance and give God His job back.

Trading Places: You Must Be Joking!

Read on ReadWave.com

From Around the Web: joy of nine9 on paper.li

joy of nine9

           often quirky slices-of-life short stories that are heartwarming

and humourous /thoughtful and thought provoking

articles form BrooWaha, ReadWave, Soring Scholar, Association of Catholic Bloggers, mother of nine9, joy of nine9

• 
  

• joy of nine9 on paper.li read more

SOCKS: A Subversive Plot

Socks Need To Be Paired! Or Do They?This was the brilliant question I asked myself

The only thing that will kill you as a mother of a large family is pairing socks.

There are solutions. Some are outrageous. For example, I remember a crazy kids, campfire song, that we usually sang in rounds.

♪♪

The “Black socks, they never get dirty;

The longer you wear them, the blacker they get.

Some times, I think I should wash them

But something keeps telling me
Oh, not yet, not yet, not yet” ♪♪

                                                     

I did not seriously consider this option, though. After ONE day stuck inside an active child’s running shoe, socks reek. I had 154 stinky socks to wash every week, at the bare minimum. Oh well, sometimes I did four loads of laundry a day and socks really didn’t take up that much room.

Still socks disappeared into mountains of laundry and I could never find them all.

Do you have any idea where 154 socks can hide every week? I had to look between sheets, under Chesterfield and chairs, behind closet doors, inside wet boots, in school bags, under toy baskets, inside of pant legs and even, if I was lucky, in one of eleven dirty clothes baskets and still I could not find them all.

I had to pair all the socks!

Or Did I?

That was the brilliant, out of the box sort of question I asked myself one day.

New solution:

Buy lots of black socks in every size. Surely some semblance of a pair of socks would be easier to find.

That was the new plan.

I simply tossed the black socks into a wicker basket with a three-foot circumference and a height of two and a half feet and hoped for the best.

However, I had managed to overlook one important fact. I had six daughters. Little girls don’t like black socks. They like pink socks. To make matters worse my mother bought cute socks with frills and bows and patterns that the girls really needed and loved.
None of them were the same! So although I used the toss and throw method of pairing, some mornings found us frantically searching for some appearance of a pair.  

At times I had to literally toss the newly discovered pair over the upstairs railing. One of my kids, who already had their coat and school bag on their back, would catch them in mid-air. They quickly pulled on their socks, stuffed their feet into boots or shoes and flew out the door, barely making the school bus.

People joke about washing machines eating socks. Rationally, I know that this is a silly answer to my dilemma but the more I think about it, the better I like the whimsical answer. I could kill myself trying to control eve

I'm BACK

People are still reading this blog and it still has a better page rank than my other two newer blogs so, I will keep this site updated. If readers remain loyal to me, I will remain loyal to readers.As for my paranoia with the thought that read views seem too high due to spam, it does not seem to bother any other person using blog spot, so I will ignore it too. Maybe people simply read the archives!

Come Join My followers on Wordpress and Visit on BrooWaha, Pinterest, ReadWave, Twylah…..

Once again I have tried to get those in power to elminate the hundreds of spam I get everyday but to no avail. I have neglected this site mainly because there are only 40 or so faithful readers per post. So come join us on Wordpress where I maintain two blogs.

                                  http://themotherofnine9.wordpress.com/                                            

                                         MOTHER OF NINE9

http://melaniejeanjuneau.wordpress.com/

JOY OF NINE9

299 articles, 89,564 reads since Sept./2012 

http://www.broowaha.com/search-author/motherofnine9

• 
• 50 Board
• 975 Pins

http://pinterest.com/motherofnine9/

LinkedIn

http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=174930878&trk=nav_responsive_tab_profile 

paper.li

http://paper.li/mjmjuneau/1373913996

33 short stories, one Staff Pick, 8 Trending in three days

http://www.readwave.com/melanie.jean.juneau/

twylah

http://www.twylah.com/mjmjuneau

 Facebook page 

https://www.facebook.com/pages/Melanie-Jean-Juneau-published-author-journalist/123515187778014?ref=hl 

Duck, Deek and Dive.

Everyday I deal with dim-witted but strangely adorable hens. Some days are like an idyllic scene described by Wordsworth but other days are simply frustrating as the reality of country living slaps me in the face.The day we force them outside for the first time is one of those awful days.

In the early summer our chicks lose their down and their feathers slowly grow in. Once their skin is well protected, it is time to introduce the adorable little birds to the great outdoors. Needless to say chickens are well, chicken; we are forced to literally pick up every single little chicken and throw them out the small door into their fenced-in run. Chickens definitely lack courage.

However, as soon as the young birds are off the slanted plank walkway outside, they desperately try scramble back inside. Many manage to dart back in while the mob crowding the doorway stops me from pitching anymore outside. Since we raise free range chickens it is of paramount importance that they spend their days outside. In fact after about ten minutes we cannot convince the little darlings to go back into the large chicken coop till dusk because they relish scratching the dirt for tiny seeds and grain which we scattered around everyday as well as weeds, grass and bugs.Yet the problem is getting them outside for the first time.

It took a few years to perfect our plan of attack on the cowering mass of chickens. Nothing is more frustrating than catching a bird, while trying to herd out a couple more, only to lose all three. You must understand that we are talking about 175 meat birds, bred to eat voraciously.These white rock meat birds can move quickly. Duck, Deek and Dive.

Our final method involved stationing at least one or two children outside, preventing a mass retreat back into the chicken coop as well as scattering the clustering chickens around the door. Basically it is a crowd control issue. I call this Operation DDD because it is planned much like an army mission.

Inside four kids stretch out huge sheets of plastic, moving them slowly so that the plastic barrier resembles two slow-moving walls. This herds the birds in the direction of the small doorway. It is my job to grab the fowl one by one and push or throw them out the door. You cannot possibly imagine how many birds Duck, Deek and Dive out of our hands. Often in sheer frustration we all troop out of the chicken barn once in a while to take a break and grab a glass of water or a snack to fortify our resolve to finish this operation.

Thank the Lord that this particular task is only one day a year.