SPORTS CAMP IN N. PORTLAND

Last night Crystal and my Bridge Senior Girls Bible study along with Dave Newborne's senior guys group and my twin boys, age 10, drove to N. Portland to take Jima's 6 siblings to the park for a good old fashioned sports camp. While walking to the park, we saw other kids and invited them along. The weather held up and we ended up playing one amazing kick ball game, perfect for the wide age of kids who were there. It was a great time, just interacting, laughing, hanging out with these kids from a totally different world. The mom was at work. I want to do more of this, perhaps this summer, like a Vacation
Bible School. It reminded me of the Sports Camps in Mississippi last year with the youth group, with Rex Dodge and Pastor Jerry - we would pick up kids in the projects and they would come hang out at the church. Swimming, playing games, eating, FusBall.
What was amazing about last night is how God held out in the weather department. It had been an iffy day, but it cleared up for us, and at the time we needed to leave to get kids back to church, it started raining. Perfect timing.
I was worried about Dave's group thinking it wasn't planned out enough but he told me afterwards his group loved it.
Cornelia Seigneur

OUT OF THE COMFORT ZONE. . .

On Saturday a few girls from my senior high church Bible Study that I co-lead with Crystal Fricker met in Canby Oregon to assist at Saturday School which Claudine started for her struggling 3rd graders. After helping the students with school work and feeding them breakfast and lunch as they had not eaten that morning, we dropped them off at their apartments at about 1:30. Okay, we have so much in our comfortable lives, and sometimes we do not realize it until you see how others live.
One of the boys named Angel, what a sweetheart of a 9-year-old, so polite, lives in a small apartment with his mother who has health issues and cannot pick up the apartment. When you walk in the apartment, the blinds are all closed and it is dark in there and you have to straddle over clothes and shoes and food and toys and crackers all over the floor in every room, and Angel’s room had no sheets on the bed, which was two mattresses on the floor; his young mom has two other children who are younger and one is in diapers and she had run out of diapers.
Every room needs help, bless their heart, and we are going back tonight as a Bible study to assist in some small way. We only have about an hour plus, but with several of us we can get a lot done and bring her some hope. The mom said she is embarrassed to have us see her apartment but she is so overwhelmed. May we bring some light into her home and life.
Cornelia Seigneur
www.writermom.net

On Juno the movie

RacheL and I watched the movie Juno last night. Some students of mine at George Fox have talked about it a lot this semester, but I was still skeptical. Another teenage pregnancy movie. No thanks. So, when I watched it last night I was surprised. It was fresh. It was funny. It was thought provoking. As Rachel said, it did not glorify anything. It did not preach anything. It just made you think. It did not have a perfect ending, though tears came to my eyes when Juno gave brith. There is something beautiful about birth, no matter how messy it is. I loved how Juno chose Life – after going to an abortion clinic which was creepy. The prolife person outside of the abortion clinic was human. A girl from Juno’s school. Again, they did not try to make her out to be a weirdo, like most of Hollywood does with anyone who is pro-life. A refreshing movie about a girl that did not fit into the norm and was fine with being different.
-Cornelia Seigneur
www.writermom.net

MOM PULLLED FOUR WAYS HAS A SINGLE ANSWER -REAL LIFE MOM COLUMN IN TODAY'S OREGONIAN NEWSPAPER

REAL-LIFE MOM
Mom pulled four ways has a single solution
Thursday, April 10, 2008 SW WEEKLY OREGONIAN

Home from our traditional spring break trip to the beach, we decided to watch a movie after unpacking, and I once again found myself in a dilemma -- how to meet the desires of five kids at four ages.

Without being told I favor one over another.

Our 5-year-old, Augustin, was clamoring to watch "Cars," for, like, the 100th time, saying, "Because I'm sick and I get to choose." The twins, 10, wanted to watch "I Am Legend" with Will Smith. Ryan, our 16-year-old, who had seen "I Am Legend," asked for the Oscar-winning-but-violent "No Country for Old Men." And Rachel, my outdoorsy 18-year-old, was placing her vote for Sean Penn's "Into the Wild."


Whose movie do I pick? We have one good TV, and no one likes to watch movies downstairs; plus, I like to do things as a family. I do not want to look like I am playing favorites. It's always such a conundrum.

I struggle with making everyone happy all the time. I do not want to disappoint any of my children, and when I hear one of them announce I play favorites -- ouch!

It sounds like this: "Augustin is spoiled," and "You always give in to Ryan," and "The twins always get their way" and "Rachel never has to do chores."

While growing up, I also accused my parents of favoring my brother and sister. And I have proof -- I kept meticulous notes of my growing-up years.

One journal entry from seventh grade declared: "Mama always favors Martin. Can you believe she gives him the same amount of allowance she gives me and I do so much more work? He never does any work."

If my brother and sister had kept diaries, they'd have their own versions of our growing-up years. Good thing I was the writer.

My mom always wanted to be fair with us. Though she was an only child, she saw how favoritism in my dad's family affected my dad, one of five children.

Looking back, I do think she and my father were -- and still are -- fair. Ultimately, though, as my husband's parents would say, parenting is not about being fair. It's about meeting needs as they arise. And making each child feel loved.

Back on family movie night at the Seigneur house, there were just not enough TVs, or hours, to watch each of the movies my kids wanted to see at the same time. So, we watched Cars with Augustin first then Into the Wild, and the next day, Ryan's movie.

Without the little ones, who said it wasn't fair.

Cornelia Seigneur is a West Linn writer and mom of five children. Her column appears the second Thursday of each month. Visit her at www.writermom.net

Cheerleaders beat up fellow teen- One mom needs to rethink response

I woke up to the news about the Orlando Florida cheerleaders who beat up another cheerleader for 30 minutes and posted the beatings on YouTube.

When questioned about it later they said, Oh, I guess we might miss cheerleading practice and, Oh, I guess we will not be going to the beach this weekend.

The girl they beat up has sustained hearing loss among other injuries. At the hospital where the victim was taken, her parents could hardly recognize her.

One of the girls’ moms, who was interviewed on the Today Show about the incident, said her daughter did not do the beating, but also did nothing to stop it, though the mom said her daughter warned the victim before hand. The mom’s initial response was that the incident was blown out of proportion, a comment which Matt Lauer of the Today Show did not let pass lightly.

Good thing. This mom should have been so sad that her daughter was involved in this horrific crime. Sure, she did not do the hitting, but to do nothing and watch, well what good is that. The mom finally did say her daughter should have called police.

This was very serious and no joke. And, that these girls posted it on YouTube tells you how they viewed it. They wanted to be famous. What comes next? A book deal?

The mother who was interviewed should not have downplayed the incident. That was almost as troubling as the incident itself. She should have been so ashamed of her daughter and her daughter’s friends and said so right from the beginning -- not only later when questioned more in depth by the interviewer.

There was note that the girl who was beat up had said some mean things previously to the other girls, and somehow that was reason enough for the beating, which the police called “animalistic behavior,"

No one deserves this kind of beating up. And, no parent should be defending their child who had any involvement in this whatsoever.

Cornelia Seigneur
www.writermom.net