Quirky Happenings in the Hare Home

By Stacey

The other day someone asked Dave how the kids were adjusting to a new country and he responded that our kids are their own country.  They have their own language, their own culture, and their own form of government.  They all have the same friends, the same interests, and the same issues. They seem to double every nursery or party they attend and have a great time in doing so. And most of them (aside from Makyra who is quite normal) are pretty quirky. We thought we would share some of the things that we chuckle about…

Afraid of…a loofa?
I hear that irrational fears are somewhat typical in young children, but recently Zoey has developed a fear of my loofa (you know the round fluffy things that serve as a type of wash-cloth). She did not want to go into the bathroom to wash her hands out of fear of…the loofa. Dave gave her a hug, explained to her that a loofa is not scary, and then told her to go wash her hands. She came out of the bathroom crying, “Why mommy use that?” 

Afraid of bugs…again?

Makyra used to be afraid of flying insects and now Elias is.  Often times they are too small to notice (or maybe they are not really there?) but he will start swatting at his ears and head while crying out that there is a bug. This situation is only a little bit funny in the moment but we assume we will all laugh about it someday.

Afraid of imaginary pain
Zoey found a scar on her arm from the immunizations she was given in Ethiopia. Once she noticed the scar, she went through a phase of not being able to use that arm and she was also constantly in pain from the shot she had three years ago.

Afraid of…everything?

We might as well round out the list and say that certain of our children are afraid of dogs (even little French poodles), baths, other people putting their shoes on, etc, etc. 

Elias’ commitment to kill himself

We are convinced that Elias wakes up each morning with a new plan of how to kill himself. Now that we have adopted this presupposition we are not as perplexed by his behavior. For instance, when we are all sitting at the dinner table and he out-of-no-where falls face-first out of his chair and hits his head on the ground without even using his hands to stop the fall, we are just grateful that when he gets up screaming, his plan to kill himself was unsuccessful. We have saved this boy’s life thousands upon thousands of times. It is what we do. 

Elias’ sleep habits
Elias consistently sleeps with his blanket over his face (and not over his body) and if you try to remove it, he instinctively grabs the blanket and puts it right back on his face.

Kaden is a mama’s boy

It is true. Kaden has my exact personality and he loves me. All throughout the day I hear, “Oh, I love your fingernail polish!”  “Did you do something different with your hair?”  “You smell good!”  “You’re the best mom in the whole world!” “Nice dress!” And so on. 

Not only is he a mama’s boy, but he probably talks more then our other three children combined.  He tells me every single detail about his day including how many times he went to the bathroom at the preschool. And if anything is out of routine, he looks at me and says “This is SUCH a crazy day!” Kaden also loves to follow rules. For instance we explained to him the importance of walking within a sidewalk and since then he will not allow one toe to cross over the sidewalk lines.  He will walk sideways to prevent himself from stepping outside the lines.

Is Zoey the mom around here?

Zoey is adorable.  She calls everything and everyone “honey.”  When she is unable to hear what you are saying she will often say “Can you please repeat that honey?” in her high squeaky-toy voice.   You will hear her by herself in her room talking to her dolls saying “Oh no, honey we don’t do that” and so on. 

She also is obsessed with cupcakes.  If she is wearing cupcake underwear, we quickly have to put pants on her to cover them because she is incapable of doing anything but point to her underwear squealing “cupcake, cupcake, cupcake!” (really, for hours if we had let her).  And when we ask her what she wants to thank God for, it is always always always cupcakes. 

Um..I don’t see a turtle
The other day I was talking to Elias when Kaden walked into the room and patted the foot of Elias’ bed and said “Hi turtle.” He continued to have a mini-conversation with the “turtle” and then walked out of the room. It was not until a few days later that I discovered a turtle sticker on Elias’ bed (I was glad to see some concrete reason for this conversation).

Train!

We live right by train tracks and the kids live minute-by-minute anticipating the passing of the next train. No matter what we are doing, whether it be family devotions, eating pizza, dealing with a discipline situation, taking baths, whatever, when the train goes by the kids drop everything and run to the windows in uncontrollable excitement yelling “Train!” “Train!” (If anyone has seen the movie “Up” they are just like the dog who can talk and yells “squirrel!” anytime a squirrel goes by).

Polar Opposite Study Habits

This does not compare to the quirkiness of our children, but Dave and I have polar opposite study-habits. For me, there is nothing I love more than an organized desk, white boards, charts and maybe a hike up a mountain while I memorize some vocab cards. Dave, on the other hand, has never studied in a vertical position.

Oh, and we are a circus…why not?
People in France have small families and thus a family of four seems quite large, maybe even a bit overwhelming to some.  Not only are we an extraordinarily large family, but our children are all the same age. Not only are they all the same age, but they are a different race than us.  Not only are they a different race than us, but they are also…English speakers. And to top that off, we do not have a car so we really are a circus that goes up and down the streets of our small French city. There is nothing about us that blends in here (or maybe anywhere)?

Well that sums up a few of the day-to-day adventures in our lives. 
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Author: David M. Hare

Dave is a husband, father of four Africans, and is currently helping the Kwakum people do Oral Bible Storying and Bible translation in Cameroon, Africa.