I am pleased to say I am on my way…Home! Well, almost. Roger is working in Texas for the week. The girls and I will stay with him and then next weekend as he flies back to Africa I will fly to Canada.



This is our travel itinerary for the next thirty hours or so…

Take two-three hour bus ride from compound to airport.

Wait five hours till plane leaves.

Six hour flight to Germany.

Five hour layover in Germany.

Ten and a half hour flight to Houston, Texas.



Any one want to join in the fun?

Today I am going over my annual shipment lists. Once a year when I am back in Canada I put together a years worth of supplies and ship it to Nigeria. We will bring in almost everything we will use this year. Food, clothing, household items, birthday and Christmas gifts, gifts for any party we will attend, school books, play things and any other thing we might possibly need. It is a lot to think of and plan for. Davina will be changing from nursery furniture to toddler furniture. It is a big task thinking of all the things the girls might need for growth this coming year. Last year I brought what I thought would be enough books to last me two years has barely last me this year... I hope to bring around sixty to a hundred books back to Nigeria... This is our only chance to get anything and everything we would need for this up and coming year. Sounds like fun and overwhelming seeing as I want to get it all bought and shipped in two weeks!

My Mom gave me the great idea of putting all my lists in a binder with dividers of each store I will need shop at. Then divide the lists for each store into sections such as food, paper and crafts, clothing ext.ext. Then when I arrive at the store I can be certain of what needs to be purchased. This has been a big help even with planning. To sit down and think of everything you would need to buy from a department store can be intimidating...but to sit and think in categories, is much easier.
The girls are napping, I have made some tea, I am going to sit down with my pretty green binder full of lists and go over each item...hopefully not forgetting anything of importance!

I would like to think I am nice enough to have given you a week to recover from my onslaught of pictures last week… but really our internet has been down all week and could not even check email. It was happy-dancing mood yesterday morning when we were finally able to reach the outside world!

This week has been a preparation for leaving week…making meals for my hunny…so he will keep eating while I am away.
Doing inventory, planning my annual shopping lists, booking Dr. appointments, planning, planning, and planning.

We did break away to go to the beach. We all had cabin fever from sticking close to home for Davina’s sake. Roger and I both felt that to get out of the city would keep us from going crazy. It worked. We are feeling refreshed and energised.

Fresh coconuts for lunch.






Buying table cloths to bring home to family.


Marion, talking the ear off our driver.


She was telling the story of adventure, heartache, fear and relief. All from her personal experience earlier this week. I was making the beds on the far side of the house one morning. Marion came into my room and said she could not find Davina anywhere and that the front door was open! I rushed to the front door then I did a quick search of the house...Davina was gone! I started searching for Davina on our floor. When I did not see her I said to Marion you go to the next floor up and I will go down. Marion picked up on my urgency and fear in my voice. She obeyed me and went up while I went down. Davina was not on any of the lower floors, luckily my gardener had come to water, saw our door ajar, heard me calling for Davina, he shouted he was going to the top floors to look. He found her on the sixth floor. In her purple nightie, polk-a-dot boots, and back-pack! Marion gathered Davina passionately in her arms kissing her and saying "Davina you made me think you were in danger, oh Davina I love you!" Because I could not separate Marion from her baby sister I passionately gathered them both in my arms kissing them and saying "oh Davina I thought you were in danger...never...ever...do that to Mommy again!"

Davina looked at us with a puzzled expression on her face, a look that said, she was not in danger, she knew exactly where she was!

We are enjoying the long weekend with parties and egg hunts. The weather has been beautiful…chocolate melting weather. I have taken two hundred and forty pictures I the last two days. Because I love to share with y’all here is my plethora of pics.

Here is some of the compound Easter party.


Daddy and Davina moments.






Davina and her loot.


Marion and her loot.




Cookie decorating.






The girls wore their Easter dresses I made for them.


And they hunted for the treats we hid for them.


















Then we had an Easter service as a family where we made these crafts.








And now my girls are full of sugar energy…

Marion puts everything in her mouth! We have been trying in every way possible to get her to stop this habit. Last night I told her (for the bazilianth time) about what could happen if she swallowed something big enough to choke her. Of course I did not tell her my added fear knowing here in Lagos there is not very good emergency care. Well this morning while we were doing school Marion swallowed one of the buttons we were using for counting…there were a few seconds of absolute fear…but she was still able to breath…she drank some water and the button went down smooth! She cried a lot…she thought she was as good as gone…I kissed her tons… hopefully this will cure her habit!

There was once (pre-Davina) I believed in Parent Direct Parenting! I once believed that I would choose what my babes would eat, read, watch, when they would sleep and what they would WEAR! Well as I have matured in parenting over the last five years - well really since Davina has been born - I have resorted to a much more timid, I mean graceful type of parenting called ‘choosing your battles’! I learnt this type of life skill from my mother whom while mothering eleven children simply did not have time to be challenged with every little detail of all our lives. One area that my parents would never battle us on was our choice of attire; there were two rules in our home, modesty and cleanliness. Other then that it was up to us...which leads to my experience that leads me to vow never ever let my children choose their own outfits.

I was around the age where style starts to matter. Vanity had kicked in and I was wanting to look somewhat normal (a challenge for me...home-schooled, farm kid, oldest of seven+ kids). One afternoon my Dad said he had to pick some things up in town near a mall! I leaped at the chance to spend an afternoon wasting time gathering information on what ‘style’ was. It was arranged that my Dad would drop me off alone, a rare and delightful experience for a child coming form a large family. We all crammed into my Dad’s orange and white-striped OLD Ford pick up truck with a stuffed Garfield toy glued onto the back. I prayed the whole way into town that my Dad would drop me off on the outskirts of the parking lot so I would not to be identified with ‘The Garfield’. As I was about to jump, I mean flea from the vehicle, a sweet and tiny voice came from the back seat “Vose, tan I tum wif u?” I was afraid to look in the back and see which one of my siblings had asked to be the tag along...not Kistopher I hoped, I knew what he was wearing when we left the farm. His favourite outfit! A teal green jogging suite my Mom made for him with material purchased at Wal-Mart for thirty cents a meter. A giraffe had been sewed along the top for effect. The truth was this outfit was not so bad when it was made to fit him at the age of two. Now that he was three and a half the two inches too short pants and shirt along with the teal and giraffe effect made him look like, well...off the mark! But that was not the end to his favourite attire, he wore red cowboy boots, a straw cowboy hat with attached whistle hanging down his back so as to make room for his toy elephant ears he wore upon his head. He was a sight! I was caught in the conundrum of my adolescent life to take my dear little brother who adored me - and I adored him - or to leave him behind for the sake of my future and vanity! I opted to take him. Though I was humiliated I ended up having a wonderful time with the little bugger. I bought an Orange Julius to share with my dumbo nerd date. As I watched his excitement over having a treat and feeling so darn good about himself, I learned my lesson on vanity...until we had to meet my Dad at the arranged place near the entrance of the mall. I was informed when I reached the Garfield that two doors had broken and we needed to climb through the window! I never went back to the mall...it was to big of a risk...if you know what I mean!

I did vow to myself that in the area of clothing I would battle each one of my children in true Michael Pearl style (until they left my home) but then there was Davina, and oh yes, I choose my battles. Clothing is just not that important to fight over! She hates shoes and loves her nighty, but most of all she likes being naked!

And that’s my story of losing my vanity and my 'Parent Direct Parenting' attempts!



Kristopher now...come along way hot stuff!

Good Morning

I have a faint moment this early morning to write the joys of last evening...

It starts with Davina; where most epic stories in this family start...
Swimming lessons took a bit longer last night so Roger took Davina home to have some quality one on one time playing trains (her favorite). Roger took off Davina's wet swim suite and let her play alfresco (which is her favorite) the problem started when the phone rang and Roger went to get it. With his manly abilities to focus on only one thing at once he forgot our two year old was naked and free from the watchful eye of a parent!
When I returned home A very white and some what queasy Roger meet me with news of a gigantic poo on Marion's bedroom floor! I made it clear that I covered the pee in Westminster Abby and he gets the poo in the bedroom...I did check it out and it was nearly the size of Texas! Roger spent the next while cleaning but could not figure out why the smell would not leave the room. When we did a bit of extra investigation in the kitchen sink of Marion's toy kitchen rested a toy broom and dust pan covered in poo! Davina had made her own attempts to clean up her mess...what a thoughtful baby!