Sometimes Youngsters are Surprising

Wednesday, December 6, 2006

Sometime around two in the morning, Collette woke up to absolute stillness. She couldn’t get back to sleep, and baby started dancing, so she switched on the television and watched former vice-president Al Gore talk about global warming (a presentation that could have been far more eccentric), then fell asleep on the couch.

The morning came with an orange sunrise. The sidewalks still looked as though they had been tossed up thickly with brown sugar, the snow having been slightly adjusted from its former illustrious white.

Back at the house, Joe was at work already. Carrie was leaving in the afternoon for work, dropping Frances off at the Hobcoggins beforehand.

Linnea also had a concert that afternoon at a nursing home in O’Fallon – it was her very first concert with the home school choir. Collette had to admit that she looked pretty cute heading off in her white blouse, black skirt, black tights, and little black shoes. She looked like a doll. And she returned with news of a successful performance.

And on the way back, Rose purchased a shirt with little giraffes all over it.

The sun was set in a rose cathedral that evening.

And there was junior high youth led by OLeif. Collette and Rose also attended. A new boy had come to visit with his newly adopted fourteen year-old brother from Russia. The Russian brother couldn’t speak English, and did not feel like joining the circle, so eventually after the Bible lesson, OLeif discovered that the boy was interested in his cell phone and let him play bubble breaker on it until the battery nearly ran dead.

Meanwhile, the rest of the junior high had little trouble making up for the Russian brother’s lack of noise – and after the snacks had been passed around, there were soon candy wrappers strewn from stem to stern.

The pillows still flew and there were several items that needed to be confiscated – balloons, a full water gun, etc. And another kid had to be called off from standing on the couch.

But after an initial few games of four-on-the-couch, Rose commanded a session of cleaning, and all of the boys, including the Russian brother, enjoyed vacuuming the carpet. Marcus Bee even cleaned up his own soda spill without being asked, which Collette imagined must be a first. Junior highers were very unaware of the trail of disaster they usually left in their path.

And they didn’t do too much damage to the Christmas tree which Sunrise had set up the Saturday before, with red twinkly lights. They only hung on it a coat, several gum wrappers, a squirt bottle of cleaning solution, and a toy cell phone before they were removed at the end of the evening.

The Russian brother even said ‘bye’ to OLeif as he and his brother left, his American brother thanking OLeif before they walked out the door.

All in all, Collette was surprised that it had not been a more chaotic evening. They were mostly all completely quiet during the Bible lesson, they all cleaned up their snack messes with no urging, and they didn’t complain about not being able to play outside or in the further-outlawed barn. For a group of sixteen or so kids – it could have been much worse of a madhouse.