You may, if you wish, make some kind of link between the Haiku Challenge prompt of (CHILD and Grow). and this Décima Challenge of CONTRAST in the A rhyme line. This means you could write a haiku post using the prompt words. Then do a Décima post using this week’s prompt uniting the two with a common message.
2 CHALLENGES are SEPARATE but CAN BE combined if YOU CHOOSE to do so.
Image from Pixabay
You, now to then such contrast You’ve become more than I guessed. So grown up I am impressed. I nurtured you in the past We cope whatever shadows cast. So whatever you may do I will always defend you You’re my child, I’ll watch you grow. Blood of my blood I love you so. No more to say the dye’s cast.
It’s Thursday, and we’re back to our regular daily prompts, this one for the 23rd day of Just Jot it January 2020. Janet gave us our prompt word for today. Thanks so much, Janet! Please be sure to visit her blog to read her post and say hello. And follow her while you’re there!.
Your prompt for JusJoJan January 23rd, 2020, is “drive.” Use the word “drive” any way you’d like. Have fun!
Today is the sixteenth day of Advent, leading up to Christmas. I would like to re-run my take on the Nativity story. I first wrote this in 2011, in the style of prosetry
“I have an idea” said Balthazar “I think we should wear our national robes to show honour to a new king I have mine with me do you two need to go shopping”. The other two men smiled and produced the robes they’d brought, they had all had but one thought.
The shepherds on the way down from the pastures to the town discussed whether the sheep would be a good idea for the parent’s of the new king to keep. We must take them though our intentions we need to show. Sitting quietly in the back was Josh a nephew who was out with the shepherds the night the angels came. He will never forget the light, the voices or the beauty, he will never be the same again. Scouring his mind Josh wanted to find a gift but he had none, then in his pocket something slipped into his hand he did not know at first but his search was done. A friendship bracelet his friend had given him, as he had left to go and fight a war. This bracelet had protected him and now it would carry the protection over to the new king
Sitting back and feeling good he was happy to pass his good luck on to the new child who was to be the One. Easier now in his head he relaxed and closed his eyes and relived last night. The angel and how was lit the countryside. He felt angel wings touch his face and felt his soul fill with grace.
All morning in the heat of the car “how much longer, are we there yet” Finally there. The heat had the beach rammed packed. They piled out the car, windbreak,bucket,spades, packed lunches, kids. Caught like sardines on overcrowded beach. “How long do we have to stay” she thought.
This part of LindaGHill’s Stream of Consciousness Saturday Linda said : ” Your Friday prompt for Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: “novel.” Use it any way you’d like. Enjoy!”
Sitting in the kitchen she finally decided to try something novel and new. A different approach maybe it would work. Walking to the bottom of the stairs she cleared her throat and called out in a calm and pleasant voice.” It is seven o’clock I shall be leaving here at seven thirty. Breakfast is ready.”
She returned to the kitchen finished her crumpet and coffee…. it tasted really good maybe because she was not getting up every five minutes to to shout to her children.
Stacking the dishwasher she looked at the clock, ten minutes until she needed to leave. This was a novel feeling , no stress no stomachache. At seven thirty precisely she picked up her car keys and handbag and left the house.
On the drive to work she relished the novel feeling of silence and peace. She arrived at work on time and relaxed. At nine thirty her mobile rang she turned it on to silent and ignored it. That was novel too but it would only be the children wanting this or that!
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As soon as she had closed the front door after a five minute stunned silence all hell broke loose . There were four dazed teenagers fighting for the bathroom, frantically searching for clothes. Mum had only called them once and she had left on time.
Quiet a novel feeling for them too. They all had to fend for themselves and they were all shocked and stunned!
Well Mum did this five days on the trot, she looked better and felt better.
A Novel side effect the children got up on time everyday , tidied their rooms and sorted their laundry!
Meanwhile in the REAL WORLD nothing changed…I said real world , not a novel!
The talented Helen Espinosa of This life one word at a time said : I’ve decided that the theme for this week is all about love. You know that whole saying, “They’re playing our song…”? Well this week, we are posting songs that make us think of those we love. It doesn’t have to be a lover, husband or boyfriend. It can be a best friend, or a sibling or a child. Just post a song that makes you think of someone you love.
I am posting one of my older blogs today because Linda G Hill’s post The MMR Vaccination Debate – a Parental Perspective. really made me think and think hard . My two older children both in their forties did not have the MMR . I was advised against it because they both had chronic Asthma . They both had Measles , Mumps and Whooping Cough. I decided the third son would have all vacinations . Somehow he developed Whooping Cough before his second week of life. He is in his thirties now with a wife and baby.
Please have the vaccinations if they illnesses return they are killers! Here are links to imformation but do investigate for yourselves.
He was always being sick, I was not imagining it nor was I imagining that noise he was making . It sounded like whooping cough, but he was only two weeks old?
I was at my whits end, he had started being sick before I had even left the hospital, yet no one would listen to me. I had had enough and so here I was in the Drs surgery siting in the hallway, because my beautiful baby was coughing so much he was being sick and I could not stand the reproving looks from the other waiting, patients.
I was sweating and stressed I knew this baby was ill, I had been through some very scary things with my other two boys . P spending the first fortnight of his life in an incubator because he had ‘post natal distress’ . Both boys had had collapsed lungs due to asthma, M had had his tonsils out then hemorrhaged when I got him home! he and P had both had Measles and Mumps and chickenpox to name a few , need I go on I did know a sick child when I saw one!
Finally the Dr called us in. I had known him now for the last nine years and he insisted we use first names which did make things feel easier. He was not happy with J, he was not sure if he had a blockage in his throat or stomach but also felt that as I knew my baby best, I could be right in my diagnosis ! I can tell you now I did not want to be right!
All the Dr could do was pat me on the shoulder and pack us off to the nearest hospital. He had rung ahead and alerted the pediatric ward of our plight. I do no remember how I got to the hospital , there were no mobile phones, I did not drive in those days and I doubt I took the bus. I should think I had either phoned my husband from the surgery,and as all of my friends who drove would also of had children and I could not in all conscience expose any of them to whatever it was that J had.
I remember being in the hospital though, I was with J in a single room. A glass wall separating us from the nursing station. I did not realize immediately that J was on the danger list and we were in a Barrier Nursing Ward. I was wearing a gown and watching my baby, my little boy sleeping fitfully and coughing , coughing, coughing!
I spent whole days there and often late into the evenings, my husband joining me as often as he could. My neighbour helped by picking the boys up from school and feeding them for me. I had often looked after her daughter, even taken her on holiday……. but I still felt bad. I would drop them off at school in the morning then go straight up to the hospital. I don’t remember how but I managed to shop and do the washing look after the boys and one weekend we even had visitors.
One weekend my husband brought P and M and the little girl next door to see J, they were not allowed on the ward so my husband walked them right round the building and they waved and made faces through the window….. good job we were on the ground floor. It hurt me to see them touching the glass, looking so sad, they really loved and missed J.
For some reason it took the medical staff nearly a fortnight to finally tell us for certain that J had Whooping Cough! How did he get that straight out of hospital, I just don’t know. He was so ill it was awful, I had to watch him suffering that awful cough. Every time he was sick I had to feed him a bottle of milk then he would sleep then the cough would start. Then one weekend I had gone home for a rest, ( we had visitors ). I had just had a bath and got ready to face the world when the hospital rang to say it was touch and go. They asked us not to come in as there was nothing we could do and we would only get upset.
Get up set ?……… I was upset. I stood in the hall looking at the phone, when our guests came out to ask when we were going out for our meal. ……. I don’t remember what or if I ate all I remember is worrying…………….
However he made it through the night, he took months to recover infact it was over a year before he really improved. I could not take him out until the summer, he was born in the January and was not able to be taken out until late May early June.
