My 7th Mother's Day

Days. Days. Days.

We all have them. Some are good. Some are bad. Some are just normal. You know, the not stand-out-forever-in-our-memory kind of days. Days that just evaporate into history without any indelible impression.

Pick up a calendar from last year and randomly pick a day in May. Pick a Tuesday. Or a Thursday. Don't pick a birthday. Or anniversary. Or anything special. Just pick a random day. What were you doing that day? Was it cloudy? Did your husband take the garbage out? Did the kids clean their rooms? Did you get all your housework done?

Yeah. You can't remember. Can you?

But maybe it was a random, normal day that you chose to make extraordinary. You took your kids and included them in a project around the house. And then typical you, who isn't organized or remembers to record things, forgot to write the fun day on the calendar. But your kids remembered. They still talk about it. Yeah, you could've gotten the job done so much faster by yourself but really, it wouldn't have been worth it. TIME with your kids was worth it.

TIME making memories is what makes doing chores important. It's not the act of the chore that's a success; it's the concept learned, the wisdom shared, the vision passed down and the sense of accomplishment celebrated that we aim for in training our kids. A clean room is NOT the goal. That's just a bonus.

In the moment, it feels daunting and tiresome. But so many of our entire DAYS will be forgotten in our memory. They'll just fall into the Mundane and Normal file where all everyday days go.

But today happens only ONCE. My baby is only 4 months, 1 week and 3 days old TODAY. Tomorrow she will be 4 months, 1 week and FOUR days old. Yeah it's only one day but pile those days up a little and pretty soon you have 30. Or 365. Or more.

Perspective is everything though. Like my laundry for instance. It's clean (score). It's all in the laundry room (score). In baskets (score). But it's unfolded. Fail.

But I decided that since we have a laundry room, what else should be in it but laundry. Right?

This weekend was fun. One of those "Ah, now I remember why I love being a mom" weekends. My husband doted on me. My kids were.... well, my kids. And my baby added a few more ounces of fatness to her luscious rolls. My house is pretty much a mess (but the garage is clean) and the laundry has maxed out the very last laundry basket I own.

But I don't care.

Because a year from now, I won't remember that I didn't have all our laundry folded and put away. But I will remember all the fun we had just being together.

Happy Mother's Day!

The Tale Of The Farm Fresh Egg

Today was one of those blog worthy days. And by that I mean it was such a full, fun funny and crazy day that I couldn't even take notes, let alone sit down and blog.

In a nut shell:

The bathroom door got locked with no one inside (not a pleasant thing when you have to go to the bathroom but can't since the door's locked...)

One of our house phones was found outside with a 2-year-old who was apparently calling his therapist enjoying free phone time before he got caught.

A large amount of tinted, scented lip gloss was used as a complete make up -- including cleverly shaped eye brows and eye liner.

2-yr-old would not sleep for his nap.

And I'm not even mentioning what happened yesterday because all I can remember is setting my phone down on a window sill but finding a thick layer of chopped up chap stick instead. And I vaguely have a memory of the mud tracked all over the house because 2 small children went out their bedroom window, walked around in the rain and then came back in. Nor am I remembering how the 2-yr-old unwrapped a package of frozen steaks and set them on the stove at supper time. And the stale, dried jalapeno sandwich I found sitting in the living room next to my antique books also fails my memory.

But today is fresh in my memory. A little too "fresh" actually.

I looked outside just after lunch and spied two young children smearing yellowish-snot-type "stuff" all over the swing set platform.

Resting in a bitter, murderous heap lay a broken egg shell.

Do you know how much TWO small children can do with the contents of ONE egg?

I had no idea the volume that's held in ONE egg. Until today. I will never underestimate the power of a raw egg. Again. Ever. Nor my children's abilities to manifest amazing handiwork with said raw egg.

They got it all over the 3'x4' play set platform.

They got it all over their hands.

They got it up and down the frame of the swing set.

They got it all over the dog's head.

They generously lathered it into their hands.

They got it all over the ground.

And they got it to evenly overflow their palms and fingers and then they raved about how soft their skin felt.

Meanwhile, the dog was ravenously licking the egg as fast as she could as it trailed slowly down from the 4' high platform. Egg snot was literally pouring all over the place out there as it pooled through the cracks in the play set platform.

And it was one egg. ONE.

There was so much of that stuff out there, I finally called out and said, "Hey kids, how many eggs do you have out there anyway?"

"Just one, Mom," they called back from their Omega-fatty-acids-complete-with-high-protein-packed-in-a-fresh-brown-shell play.

My greatest disappointment but yet redeeming factor was that it was a farm fresh egg. You see, I pay for farm fresh eggs because I love eating farm fresh eggs so was disappointed we lost one whole egg to complete experimentation destruction. Yet at the same time, I wasn't worried about salmonella poisoning or other type of bacteria developing on my children's fragile bodies because the egg was farm fresh.

As I was getting a jacket out of my closet a little later today, I noticed crushed, brown egg shells on the carpet by the closet. The closet that is far from the play set where the broken egg play took place. The closet surrounded by carpet. The closet you have to go out of your way just to get to. It too had egg remains by it.

And it reminded me once again to never underestimate the power of a farm fresh egg.

Why My Life and Blog Don't Seem To Conveniently Mix Anymore

It is precisely 6:20pm and instead of roasting the pan of taters-n-carrots on the grill like I normally would for our Steak and Spuds supper, I'm baking them in the oven so as to provide blogspot.com undivided attention.

You see, if I turn the grill on, stick the food in and then walk away, I'm liable to start the deck on fire. Again. So, I'll just utilize the oven (that had it's front busted out last May when a large, heavy canister fell from the ceiling, bounced on the floor and ricocheted off the front of the stove which resulted in a generous shower of tiny glass shards) and stay inside so as to give blogspot.com undivided attention.

A tidy line of weeds grows steadily around the landscape blocks in the front yard. The yard I just mowed for the first time this year. But I shall refrain from pulling them (and absorbing the fading VitD3/sunlight) so as to provide blogspot.com undivided attention.

A busy 3-year-old-wanna-be (he's convinced every day that it's his birthday) is entertaining the dog. But I shall neglect the urge to check on him so as to give blogspot.com undivided attention. (just kidding)

Earlier today, I was impressed with all the antics my kids pulled. They provided blogspot.com with a lot of impressive tales... tales that I shall hope I never forget but probably will since I can hardly take one little clever action in before the next little clever action starts. And pretty soon in all the craziness and hubbub that is my life, I just think that my kids will be little and crazy forever and I'll have the rest of my life to write this stuff down for blackmail material. But I know that's not true. (at least for the "little" part.... the crazy part will probably only get worse.)

As for today, they took both of my brooms apart and combined the broom handles with a paint roller. Then they went around the house committing nameless acts of unmentionable things to the house and surrounding countryside.

Then they pulled all their camp chairs out and did child-like things with them. Like clutter the house with their intrusive shapes. (I'm referring to the chairs' shapes; not the kids' shapes.)

They also committed unbelievable and terrorist acts to our tiny little garden that's growing peacefully and beautifully in the jiffy pots in our only south facing window. The acts consisted of peony scented linen spray. I couldn't figure out why the house smelled so good and why the tomato plants took on a heavenly fragrance. Ignorance really is bliss, you know.

As the day continued, so did my kids. I overheard Landon acting as a football coach to his sister and hollering at her to do all kinds of things with the football. Only, he didn't call her Janae; he called her Jason.

In the end, I found a baby snake in a 5 gallon bucket in the front yard (the snake I had so kindly caught for the kids to play with while I mowed the yard) and I also found brutally beaten tulips laying in a conspicuous area. (I hope the neighbors won't mind.)

Although today feels unique and original, it really is no match for yesterday. My 5-year-old-daughter (that shall remain nameless) informed me that if I didn't get her coffee at the coffee shop drive through, she would just find another mom who would give her coffee.

Said daughter also managed to return my missed calls on my cell phone, unbeknownst to me.

My 6-year-old has decided it's time for our family to move. He's avidly searching for a new home and commenced doing so yesterday while running errands with his parents.

The wanna-be-3-year-old was certain there were monsters involved with Curious George and informed the nice ladies at the check out of his latest discovery. At the same store, he also attempted to try on some snazzy lady's high heeled sandals and was disappointed when I wouldn't let him.

As each day closes with a blur, I like to think that it was an "overly special" day. But then when I look at the week in retrospect, I'm vividly reminded that when you have a 2-year-old kid who innocently manages to snatch police officers off the street in order to carry on a deep conversation with the uniformed officer, you really shouldn't be surprised by anything anymore.

Like when all the kids disappear because they decided to randomly visit the neighbors just to see what the inside of their house looks like. Or pluck hair out of the guinea pig for no other reason than to hear the creature whistle.

With kids like mine, I think you may understand why and how blogspot.com has not had my undivided attention very well lately. But without such creativeness blooming in my little world, I would never have anything to blog about. Ever.

And since the 3-year-old-wanna-be just disappeared, I should go investigate and see what I can record for next month's blog. (don't hold your breath...)

Polk-a-dot Painting Project

I love painting. I love polk-a-dots. And I love my kids. Not in that order (most days) but you know what I mean.

So one day I decided to combine all three.

And my kids were thrilled.

We laid newspaper on the floor to make it look like we were taking cautionary preventative measures and actually serious about only getting paint on the walls.

Then we put on paint clothes, selected some brushes and began to splash colorful and bright dots on our family room wall.

Amazingly, the paint only went from their little red cups, to their brushes, to the walls. I was very pleased with their "carefullness" and it made me realize that little projects like this, not only showed me what my kids were capable of being responsible for but also showed my kids what they could be trusted with when they can prove their responsibility.

Everyone had their designated circles. And I had the honors of cleaning up edges and reaching the high polk-a-dots.

The results were better than I expected, which was a good thing since I had my "I'm Blogging This" shirt on. It inspired me to make a blog post out of our project. And even more so since I love our polk-a-dot wall. But, my favorite part about it is that someday when my kids are old and they have kids of their own, they'll be able to say, "When I was a kid, my mom let me paint polk-a-dots on a wall in our house... what was she thinking?!"

It makes me smile every time I walk through our family room.

And not only does it look fun and happy, it was a fun and happy project to do. With my kids.

Yeah, I could've gotten it done twice as fast by myself without their "help." And maybe wouldn't have had to touch up so many spots.

But I wouldn't have the sweet memory of it had I crammed them off to their rooms and told them to not touch mommy's paint.

Polk-a-dots are supposed to be fun, right?! And these definitely were.

When I see the fun polk-a-dots dancing on our family room wall, I don't even think about the fact that I let my kindergartners get in close range to our new couch and brand new carpet with wet, live paint. Instead, the memories of our fun polk-a-dot project, are timeless. And sweet.

That's the way polk-a-dots are supposed to be. And raising kids is supposed to be that way too.

They're Only Kids Once

Sometimes I look at my kids and wonder.... how did you become mine? Who are you? What will you become someday? Is your childhood going to be one filled with good memories or will it be a passing phrase in time that you were glad to see go?

I wonder: am I cherishing each day? Living it to the fullest? Are my priorities righted? Do I have a vision of the future? Of hope? Of my children's lives?

Often I think about the fact that I wanted to grow up, get married and have kids. I did all that. And now that I'm in the "have kids" era, it's no longer about me. Now my kids have their own goals. Their own lives. Their own thoughts and desires. Their own "when-I-grow-up-I-want..." dreams and plans. This is IT for them. This is the real thing. It's not all about me living the life I always wanted anymore; it's about them being shaped for adulthood.

It's not possible to push a "record" button when we go to the zoo or park or have a birthday party and know that only what's played out during that time will be recorded as a keepsake childhood memory. The "record" button is not optional: it's down all the time. I can't "stop" the tape. The days I'm tired or distracted or preoccupied with my own things, are days their childhood memories are being made.

Each day is another chance for adventure. Another page in their life story. Another captured time in memory that they'll pull their childhood recollections from. What happens TODAY will hopefully cause nostalgia for them in twenty years.

I hope and pray their quickly-fleeting-childhoods will be but a bright spot in their lives, filled with direction, hope, bliss and love that shaped their perspective for the promising future.

Because nothing is quite as good as it was when you were a kid. And I'm making that count, today.

In Which She Learns Contentment

Yesterday was a blur. A day in which I can barely remember anything.

And what I do remember, is not good.

It started out smartly enough though. The kids had breakfast and more food went into their mouths than on the floor. That's a good start right there. I guess I was fooled into thinking that it was going to be a "good" day as indicated by breakfast's success. How wrong I was.

I was feeling nostalgic as I sipped my chai and had the I-want-to-have-another-baby-now syndrome. Feelings of "why can't I have one NOW?" crowded my thoughts and I felt discontent. Which is not good because from my experience, if a person can't be content with what they HAVE, they'll never be content when they get what they WANT because there's always something else to have. To want. To get. To be. To go after. And the pursuit of contentment is usually the last thing on the list of those kinds of people. Actually, I don't think it's even on their list at all, come to think of it.

So I purposed to work on this lacking attitude in my heart and went on with my day.

As I entertained a phone call from a dear friend who also has small children of her own, I observed out of the corner of my eye a young, wedding-dress-clad (her daily attire of choice) female child flitting quickly to the bathroom with blue hands. Very blue hands. Very blue as in dripping-with-blue hands.

Blue was quickly covering the entire bathroom sink, that's how blue her hands were.

I composed my dignity on the phone and flew on 2 quick-footed-feet to the place where the blue was sure to have come from: the basement.

The Blue Source was no where to be found. And at that point I began to panic and immediately got off the phone. Just then, I found an opened can of Blue Stuff sitting on the the Little Tykes table in Janae's cute little room. Basically, the Blue Stuff was only about twenty-four-inches off of the brand new carpet in Janae's cute room.

And through sovereign and spiritual intervention which I have yet to understand, there was no Blue Stuff dotting or trailing anywhere out of that can of paint; except on the hands of my wedding-dress-clad female child. Who was at that moment getting paint all over the bathroom sink. But the walls, carpet, doors, furniture, siblings, pets, food, shoes, hair, etc., were all Blue Stuff Free.

As I gathered the screwdrivers sitting next to the Blue Stuff that had been used by my clever daughter to pry the lid off the paint can, I quickly put the paint away and scampered back upstairs. In the process of that I spied a piece of glass on the floor that was apparently lonely and waiting for the trash can.

Thinking it to be a wise time to return the call to my dear mother-in-law who had called (as indicated by my caller ID) during the last catastrophe and phone call (it's funny how often catastrophes and phone calls are simultaneously played out), I picked up the phone and dialed the number.

By that point, the bathroom was vacant of the female child and in her place stood a swimming-trunk-clad-male child wearing inter tubes and other fancy swimming paraphernalia. He was just getting in the rapidly filling-with-water tub and looked at me as if I lost my mind when I asked him what he thought he was doing... "Swimming, Mom."

I made a mental note to black-magic-marker "No Swimming Allowed" on the side of the tub but decided it would be futile since the swimming inclined members of our household are yet a little uneducated in the reading department.

Comforting myself that the kid wasn't drowning, wasn't splashing water, wasn't eating soap, wasn't using soap, wasn't wasting soap and wasn't cutting himself with a razor, I ignored the impulse to remove him from the tub. I just did the Bug Eyes Out And Sigh And Say Okay thing.

As I nonchalantly chatted with the grandmother of my adventurous children and listened to her laugh at their antics as I dialogued them through the phone to her, it became too much to stay on the phone and have a swimming child in the bathtub when I observed that my computer had been sabotaged. So I got off the phone and reclaimed rightful ownership of my computer.

But I couldn't reclaim proper function of my computer. Everything was messed up. Caps Lock ON made the letters lowercase and every time I clicked something, a whole new page opened. Hoping my computer-sabotaging child hadn't done merciless and embarrassing things on my Facebook page that had been left open, I was relieved to find that my profile indicated no suspicious activity.

My senses slowly began to feel more sensitive at this point and I could no longer see the value of swimming in the bathtub so I ordered the swimming child out. As those events began to wrap up in the bathroom, I came upon my self-motivated, fully clothed two-year-old who was actively scrubbing the top, front portion of his hair. With shampoo and no water. Unable to rinse him right then, I sent him to the basement to do something like normal kids do. You know, play with toys. How novel would that be? I wondered out loud.

I followed him down later to check on him and found another piece of glass on the floor. I also found a thickly-carpeted-with-legos family room floor. And I also found my cell phone breaking the "Keep Out Of Reach Of Children" rule. I picked it up and checked the call log, making sure none of my children had contacted the police for anything again. Thankfully, the only call they placed was to a Calling Card. At least they hadn't continued on to an international call, I comforted myself with.

I scooped up the Shampooed Head Kid and brought him into the kitchen. I flipped on the water only to send the faucet handle flying. Another indication that our kitchen sink faucet needs to be replaced. NOT fixed: replaced. It's beyond repair; it's been fixed enough times. It needs a complete replacement. (Did you get that yet?)

So since the regular water was inaccessible due to maintenance deficiencies (I didn't marry a plumber), I used the next best option and stuck my child's head under the drinking water faucet which has only one temperature: Refreshingly Cool. He fussed and fumed but I comforted myself with the fact that the next option would've been snow. And the next option after that would've been to just leave the shampoo on his head until his next bath which would probably be who-knows-when. So I was actually being a kind mother and washing the soap out of his hair humanely. Even if the water was cold.

The day continued on in much of the same manner.

3 small children left the house in no coats while wearing their parents' shoes.

Mysterious messes appeared in random places.

My leather shoes were shuffled through mud puddles on trips to the trash can by feet much too small to fit a women's size 8 1/2 shoe.

Mud bricks appeared in neat stacks on the front step outside. (At least they were outside and not inside.)

Streaks of mud and dirt covered both sides of the front door, implying that a mud-covered-child had entered and exited the premises. And probably entered again and was likely roaming free inside the house with mud covered hands.

Legos were generously scattered all over the floor on a regular basis all. day. long.

By nap time, I was so exhausted but had already psyched myself up for a new laundry room so ignored the impulse to snooze while two-thirds of my children contentedly slept in well contained beds.

And by the time the day was done, I had ordered pizza for supper, cleaned the basement, arranged the laundry room and visited a close friend who had just had a baby earlier this week.

As I gazed at the perfect, adorable, sleeping face of the tiny baby girl who fit snugly in my arms, I was half tempted to sneak the baby home in my purse. I had come under the baby spell again and just really wanted another child - especially since my own baby will be THREE in a few months.

Need I remind myself that when my oldest child turned three, I was just weeks away from delivering my third child? Now Alex, my youngest, is that age and... well, it just feels weird.

But, after I got home and happened to spy a spot of Blue Stuff on the bathroom light switch, indicating that my wedding-dress-clad-female-child-with-blue-hands HAD touched something other than just the bathroom sink earlier that day, it triggered something deep inside.

And it reminded me again of my three healthy, adventurous, live-life-to-the-fullest kids. And it made me instinctively sigh with contentment that I have the kids I have and that I only have three of them.

The Day I Agreed With My Husband 100%

I love my husband. I really, really do. He's the man I always dreamed I'd marry so it's no wonder that when I finally met him, I married him just four months later. What was there to wait for any longer? He was everything I prayed for, dreamed of and wanted. And more.

"And More" is right. Yesterday was one of those "And More" days.

After being out of town for 8 days, our house was narrowed down to just a few items in the fridge. The milk was sour. The eggs were all gone except for one. A few pieces of dry bread sat shriveling up in their bag. And the kids were hungry.

My dear husband, who was in the middle of business catch-up after being out of the office for 8 days and came home to find his office work in as good-of-shape as my refrigerator was in, offered to let me run to the local grocery store while he "watched" the kids.

"Watched" is right. (Emphasis on the quotation marks.)

I was grateful to run by myself and thanked him for "watching" the kids. The errand was done in less than 20 minutes and I was soon home, happily re-stocking our Mother Hubbard kitchen.

As I scurried around rummaging up lunch and getting the kids ready to eat, they kept mentioning "putting food away" and "getting food out" and other words that related to the food topic. Confused by what they meant, I just chalked it up to some imaginary play that they had perhaps participated in while I was gone.

But then Landon handed me a half-chewed-up bag of brown sugar and informed me Alex was eating it but Daddy told him to stop.

"Oh, it's "just" a bag of sugar," I thought... trying not to expect the worst. I had accomplished so much in that 20 minutes and I didn't want to think that those darling kids really could've un-done THAT MUCH stuff, could've they??

And then I went downstairs and found that it was not imaginary play my kids had innocently participated in. This was the real thing.

An impressive pile of food sat on the sewing cabinet in the family room, indicating where the half-chewed bag of brown sugar had come from. Originally, the food had been stored on a shelf right behind Toby's desk so I was amused at how the kids must've pulled this off, considering their dad had been sitting there the whole time.

Of course he could've gone upstairs to the bathroom for a few minutes. Or ran out to the mailbox for a few minutes. Or dug in a desk drawer for a few minutes. Or stared at the wall for a few minutes. Or fallen asleep for a few minutes. Or had an out-of-body experience for a few minutes. Or had a bag pulled over his head for a few minutes. Or.... the possibilities were endless.

Keeping an aroma of calmness and meekness and sobriety Trying to be understanding, I questioned my husband about this dilemma between his business phone calls. The amazing man he is, he maintained a level of confusion and shock at the situation involving the whole kids-got-into-the-food ordeal and then mentioned to the kids that they shouldn't play with food. He then went back to his office work.

As I stood there, trying to mentally picture HOW three kids could haul food right past their daddy and pile it out in the family room which just happened to be a straight shot from where he sat, I couldn't come up with any reasonable reason as to how it happened.

I wandered back out to the family room still shaking my head. Just then, I happened to spy another food item off in Janae's room. It led me to a whole new stash of food that had been piled very generously under Janae's bed. I had no idea what she planned to do with 10# of beans or a 5# bag of flower or a can of spaghetti sauce or a container of dried parsley, just to name a few of the food items I found. And since I never send her to bed hungry, I really couldn't understand WHY the food had a reason to be in HER room and under the BED.

It took me several loads to get the food back to it's shelf in our basement pantry and I tried to visualize how THREE small kids could lug all this past their Daddy and go unsuspected. I mean seriously: how DOES a 50# kid carry 10# bag of beans without being noticed? That would be like me carrying... oh, never mind.

When I asked Toby about it again, he informed me that he does not look at the kids every time they walk past his desk. And I agreed with him. 100%.

A little later, I found another pile of food under Alex's crib. Wondering if I'd ever stop finding stashes of food, it dawned on me that the amount of all the food piled together was equivalent to what I had bought at the store earlier that day.

Our entire "Seasonings and Herbs" section had been re-stocked in the kids' rooms. Several bags of flour had been strewn about. Rice, beans, sugar and glass cans of spaghetti sauce sat in random places. Even a can of peas had been taken along with a tub of lard.

And all while the Man Of My Dreams who has given me three, adorable, sweet, children, calmly sat in the midst of it all like a big oak tree in the summer sun.

As I reorganized the shelves of food and put everything back in it's place, I was strangely impressed with my children's ability to sweep through the pantry like a tornado and spread food all over the basement all while their unsuspecting dad focused on his work and made phone calls and planned work-related schedules AND "watched" kids while all I did was run to the grocery store. It made me wonder what else the four of them could be capable of.

Later, I had to run over to a friend's house. It ended up being a little longer errand this time so with resolved trepidation, I gingerly crept back down stairs after I got home. I came down just in time to find Alex tight-rope-walking down the length of the floor lamp that was soundly laying on the floor... broken in two.

Toby's reason this time? "Even if I was sitting right next to them, they'd still do stuff like that."

And I had to agree with him. 100%.

On Unplanned Mornings, Unpredictable Kids and How They Go Together

It's one of those days where I actually got a really good night's sleep, woke up refreshed and ready to start my day AND I woke up early. While getting ready to shower, my perfect morning routine was interrupted by the sounds of healthy, energetic children.

"At THIS hour?!" I wailed. Here I thought I'd beat them to the day and actually have my Bible reading done, coffee made, shower over and be fully dressed with breakfast on the table before their smiling faces graced our morning.

But, nope.

As I showered and dressed and did my usual morning bathroom routine, I could hear shouts and wails and rude talking loud activity. All indicating that a nice, quiet time out in the living room was not what I should expect with my Bible reading for this morning.

The noise and chaos liveliness continued as I put on a pot of coffee. And it was then brought to my attention that not only had this rowdy bunch of hoodlums my darling children already eaten breakfast but they had eaten their cereal out of dirty bowls from the half-loaded dishwasher. I didn't even want to think about where those bowls had been before my kids used. You see, we've been hosting our dog during the sub-zero evenings in a tight confinement area in our house and in a desperate-last-minute-attempt to give her water, I was lazily using our cereal bowls. (Mental note: Children and dogs should not share the same dinnerware. Ever.)

Turns out, the whole breakfast mix-up was one of those dad-thought-mom-had-the-kids-and-mom-thought-dad-had-the-kids mornings. So we made up a new house rule on the spot:

"Don't Come Upstairs And Eat Breakfast Without Mom And Dad."

The arguing and bickering energetic talking continued so I sent one child down to get dressed. While that child went conveniently missing from the great upstairs, I happened to find a soggy bowl of half eating cereal in a cupboard door. Of course, the remaining child upstairs assured me that the person that did that was indeed his sister and not him.

Mentally crossing "Breakfast" off my list, I went on to the next thing. The aroma drifted off the pot of coffee brewing in the coffee maker and I thought it would probably be a good morning after all.

Suddenly, one of the already-had-eaten-breakfast-children decided they were tremendously hungry. They wondered why I never fed them supper and why they couldn't have breakfast. Kids have an amazing way of heaping guilt on even the best-intention-driven mother but I didn't entertain it for a second. Assuring them they HAD eaten supper last night and that they HAD already had breakfast for the day (as evident by the bowl of milk in the cupboard), I reminded them of another house rule:

"Once You Get Up From The Table, Your Meal Is Done."

Of course, she was starving and would probably die before lunch time and she never gets food and... etc. But, since she had decided to get her own breakfast and then she had decided to get up from the table, it really wasn't my fault she was "starving."

I poured myself a cup of coffee and found a quiet spot in the living room. Too distracted by children to make a profitable attempt at reading my Bible, I decided to just read the Proverb for the day. That seemed like a good place to sponge my mind off of. I always find the Proverbs to have meaningful yet short lessons to glean from. And then it sticks with me through the day... which is a good thing, of course.

A few verses jumped out at me in the middle of all my jumping up from the chair to rescue children, wipe noses, put CD's in for a ballerina-wanna-be-child, re-fill my coffee, put snow boots on a pajama clad boy who was wearing a leather vest and fireman helmet, settle disputes and end arguments about who should get the blue pieces to the "Trouble" game going on in the living room.

Proverbs 14:22:

"Do not those who plot evil go astray?

But those who plan what is good

find love and faithfulness."

It just seemed like a good verse to apply to my day. The morning was still young, the sun was brightly shining, my day was like a clean slate and there was a list of possibilities over what I could plan to fill my day.

"But those who plan what is good find LOVE and FAITHFULNESS."

It was just what I needed to know how to plan my day. And I was suddenly glad my kids had disrupted my pre-conceived idea over how I had previously wanted to start my day.

And so I march on finding love and faithfulness because I'm reminded of another verse that says something about "choosing that 'Good Part' because it will not be taken away from me."

The Day Mom Took a Nap

I stayed up until after midnight on New Years Eve just to make sure 2009 left. And then the next night, I stayed up again, to make sure 2010 continued on it's merry march away from 2009. Actually, I don't know why I stayed up too late. Looking back, it was a bad action on my part.

So the next day, I got this novel idea to take a nap. You know, that time in the day where you lay down and sleep for a short time.

After reading a manual on how to take a nap deciding to rest while the kids were resting, I tried the nap idea.

Just as I drifted off, a little person came to the side of my bed...

"Mom."

(I just pretended I was sleeping.)

"Mom."

(I realized then that I really was actually sleeping, so I wasn't actually pretending after all.)

"MOMMY..."

(For some reason she didn't care couldn't tell I was actually SLEEPING.)

"Hey, Mom...."

(I then made a mental note to have the "when-people-are-sleeping-you-don't-talk-to-them" talk with my daughter.)

"What do you want Janae?" I finally asked.

"I have to go to the bathroom," she said, as if that was a good enough reason to wake me up.

Wondering if her passport to the bathroom had suddenly expired, or if there was a sign on the bathroom that said, "Do Not Enter Without Written Permission," or maybe she couldn't remember where the one and only bathroom in our house was, I simply told her to "GO" and laid there confused as to why the. one. and. only. time. I. should. try. to. nap, she would have to interrupt my efforts with a request to use the bathroom.

She pranced to the bathroom, slammed the door shut and soundly locked the door. It was pretty much silent in the bathroom except for a few plops and quiet clamoring around.

"Janae," I called from my bed, "What are you doing?"

"Pooping," she assured me as I heard a metal object land on the floor.

"Uh, huh," I mused under my breath but too groggy to connect the dots between a locked bathroom door, the metal-sounding object on the floor, my 4-year-old daughter and the dragging-out-minutes of her time in the bathroom.

Just then, her wonderful father came upstairs. I groggily mumbled the situation to him when he poked his head in our door and was grateful when he took over. She was soundly sent to bed without any bread or butter and told to stay there.

And I went back to sleep.

TWO hours later (yes, you read that right) I woke up. It had been so long since I felt that rested that I had to re-calculate my whereabouts, name, marital status and date of birth. When I fully came to my senses, a pungent odor filled the air and I could hear some very quick footed children flitting swiftly across the house whispering unknown messages to each other while the walls echoed with their vibrant stampede from one end of the house to the other.

I slowly slipped out from under the down-filled weight of blankets and meandered sleepily out to the land of the living. I stopped in the bathroom and surveyed a stray pair of scissors on the bathroom sink. Scissors on the bathroom sink mean 2 things: Some child has freshly cut hair or some child has freshly cut hair.

The nauseating smell of pickled jalapeno peppers trailed around the house. It was evident the snack had been enjoyed in places other than the dining room table, mainly because I could taste the smell everywhere.

Concerned about the scissors and the peppers, I asked what was going on. My 4-year-old daughter excitedly comforted me with these words: "Oh, Landon is babysitting me Mom!"

For some reason, I didn't feel all that comforted.

I happened to pick up the computer just then and began to examine it. I soon found the computer's 'T' key would not work right and wondered why it was suddenly necessary to pound directly and firmly on that key every time I used it. If I didn't, I had to implement the "backspace" key and re-insert the missing "T" and it was getting annoying. "What did my computer ever do to my kids to deserve this?" I wondered inwardly.

As I pondered this new phenomenon and wondered about the scissors on the bathroom sink, my nose trailed down the offending jalapeno peppers. They were sitting in a bowl under the couch.

Of course. If I was a 5-year-old babysitter, I would totally put pickled jalapeno peppers under the couch too. It made perfect sense.

I then began to question about the scissors, making certain to make no mention of hair. Landon assured me he didn't cut Janae's hair. And Janae assured me she really did cut her own hair this time. She strategically pulled out the lock of hair that was missing the better end of it's length and explained why she needed to do that.

As I tried to wrap my head around WHY my daughter needed to cut her hair, I also tried to rationalize WHY I needed to take a nap. Neither seemed to be the lesser of two evils because the fact is, had I not taken a nap, the hair would not have been cut. Suddenly, my much-enjoyed-nap had become a bad experience.

The moral of this story is that, well... um, I guess there is no moral. Just that it's better to be awake and tired than to be sleeping and not tired.

Life with Landon

Our five-year-old, Landon, is a charming little guy. But when he's around, I become a walking encyclopedia-dictionary-google-search-engine-thesaraus-thing-a-ma-bob.

I love being a mom. The following questions and discussions we've had together are not only funny but exhausting because whenever there's a chance to ask a question, he'll ask it... no matter the situation.

As I watch the way he thinks and record the questions he asks (my brain is too tired to remember it all so I have to write it down), I sometimes wonder what he'll be when he grows up. But usually, I'm too tired from the latest brain excersize to even remember that he WILL grow up someday and that I WILL look back on the questions and laugh. And not sigh, like I do now.

-------------------
Landon: "Mom, is my nose straight?"
Me: "Yeah."
(a few seconds later) Landon: "Is it straight right here?"
Me: "Yeah."
(a few minutes later) Landon: "Is my nose like yours or is it like Daddy's'?"
Me: *confused*
Landon: "Is it like Alex's nose?"
Me: "Your nose is just like Landon's nose."
Landon: "Huh?"
---------------

Landon: Is Jingle Bells a Christmas song?

Landon: Is Jesus Loves me a Christmas song?

---------------
Landon: "Check and see if Grandma and Grandpa are coming today."
Me: "They're not yet Landon."
Landon: "Well Hannah said they were coming in 6 more days!"
Me: "I know but it's not 6 more days yet."
Landon: "You just think it's not 6 more days but it is."

---------------
Landon: "When they wrap the plastic around the Christmas tree, why doesn't it go in and come out all by itself?" (motioning how the tree springs out after you unwrap it.)
Me: "It does, after you take it off."
Landon: "Take what off?"
Me: "The plastic."
Landon: "It HAS plastic?"

---------------
Landon: "Could Daddy easy jump over Alex?"
Me: "Yep."
Landon: "How?"
(without giving me a chance to answer, he jumped into a whole parade of questions...
L: "Could he jump over you?"
L: "Could Daddy jump over a guy?"
L: "If someone was his age could he jump over him?"
Me: "Uh, um, I don't know... it would depend."
Landon: "When I grow up, am I going to be older than Dad?"

---------------
While getting ready to go out and bring in wood from the snowy, icy back yard, Landon only had jeans, tennis shoes and a coat on. Directing him to get snow boots and snow pants on, Landon wailed, "But that'll take a HUNDRED years!!!"

---------------
Landon: "Where's Daddy's face mask."
Me: "In the guestroom."
Landon: "Where in the guestroom?"
Me: "On the bed."
Landon: "Uh-uh!! Daddy said I could wear it!"
Me: "I know Landon, it's on the bed in the guestroom."
Landon: "Oh, it IS?"

---------------
Landon: "Janae needs a better brain."
Me: "Why?"
Landon: "She messes up the fish (Go Fish! game) and she doesn't get my cowboy boots when I tell her to... she needs a brain!"

--------------
While watching a Live Nativity scene, Landon couldn't stop the questions...
"Is that a real baby?"
"Where are the angels?"
"Why don't the angels have wings?"
"What is that guy doing?"
"Why is he dressed that way?"
"Where ARE the angels?"

---------------
(during lunch one day)
Landon: "Why don't we fly to Haiti?"
Me: "Because it costs a lot of money."
Landon: "Why don't we drive then?"
Me: "Because there's too much water."
Landon: "There's no roads past the water?"
Me: "Nope."
Landon: "Why aren't there roads?"
Me: "Because there's too much water -- you can only take a boat."
Landon: "So why don't we take a boat?"
Me: "Because we'll fly instead."
Landon: "How will our car get there?"
Me: "We won't bring our car."
Landon: "So will we walk then?"
(without giving me a chance to answer, he continued...)
Landon: "So what will you do in case you need to get across the river and you don't have your car... what happens?"
Me: "Somebody else picks you up."
Landon: *speechless* (finally)

Do I Really Look That Smart???

I sit down for a moment of silence to do something novel. Like blog. As I sit there trying to remember even HOW to blog or find my way through the mental process of burying myself in the thrill of a blog moment, I'm interrupted by a bombardment of questions.

Questions about life.

About stuff.

About things.

About everything.

And they're not "yes" and "no" every-day-type questions. It's questions like...

"What kind of car will I drive when I get older?"

"Did your belly just open up and I came out?"

"How old will Alex be when I'm big?"

"How old was Alex when he was born?"

"Is it Christmas 'time' or Christmas 'day'?"

"Do you know where my gun is, Mom?"

"I can't find my gun, where is it?"

"I put my gun right here; do you know where it is now?"

"Did all those people watch Mary push her baby out?" (while looking at a nativity scene and connecting the dots between Mary having a baby and our cat having kittens.)

"Is it Christmas 'day' or Christmas 'time'?"

"What will I name my baby when I have one?"

"When me and Alex and Landon grow up, what kind of car will we drive and where will it be?"

"If our house burns up, will it burn down?"

"When that building burns up, how many days will it take them to clean it up?"

"Who owns the mountains?"

"If water gets rid of fire then why doesn't fire get rid of water?"

"Can I call you Courtney when I get big?"

As I sit and try to answer these questions and other questions similar to it, I find my brain becoming exhausted by the exhilarating workout my 5 and 4-yr-old provide for me.

You'd think with all this intense exercise, I'd become sharper, not duller. Ha!

Quite the contrary. By the end of the day, I can't remember what I did that morning, what happened yesterday or if I had plans to be somewhere that night. From the moment my kids get up until they go to bed, I go through an interrogation become a living dictionary. A Thesaurus. A reference guide. And the funny thing is when they counter-question me just to make sure I have my facts straight.

Like when I put my 4 yr-old down for a quiet time at TWO o'clock and assure her she can be up by three o'clock. Instead, she insists on being up by ONE o'clock as she nestles comfortably in her cozy bed.

Or when my 5 yr-old asks what direction we're going. And I tell him north. He'll adamantly disagree and insist we're going east. I've learned never to argue with a 5 yr-old using a broken compass.

And then there's the 2-yr-old who is given the luxury of THREE books in his bed during nap time. Instead, he insists on only TWO books.

As I try to burrow into the passageways that are my kids' brains and ways of thinking, talking, questioning and comprehending, I come away more confused and befuddled than ever. Logic and reality are two things that don't seem to play in very often.

My kids are so trusting. So gullible. So innocent. Until it comes to some of their questioning. And then I wonder where the trust is...

"Mom, can you count to 'zero'?" I hear from across the room.

"ZERO!" I reply.

"NOOOO! Do it right!" the 4 yr-old instructs.

"ZERO, one, two, three...." I reply, with a little more emphasis.

First, silence. And then, "that is really HOW you count to zero?" a shocked voice speaks in an, innocent 5 yr-old way.

"Yes Landon; that is really HOW you count to zero..."

The look of satisfaction and comprehension of learning where 'zero' fits in the numerical order is written all over their faces. And it's always worth the extra brain energy it takes me to make an answer clear, no matter how pointless I may think the question is. Or how many times they may re-word their questions.

About the time I think they may even exhaust an advanced google search engine if they had the capability of typing in their questions, I'll hear a question like this...

"Will you guys still be our mom and dad when Landon and I have kids?"

Yes, we'll always be your mom and dad. And you'll always be our kids.

On Stoves, Perspectives and Kids

Today I want to focus on the "usual" and "predictable" things of mothering that we often try to overlook. We mistake them for "abnormal" and "shocking."

Take for instance when you get all the laundry done only to turn around 5 hours later to find the hamper stock full again. (You had to see that coming.)

Or you no longer finish preparing and cleaning up one meal only to turn around and make another. (Seriously, that is SO normal, why did you expect something else?)

How about when you no sooner get all the clean sheets on the bed and your entire quiver of children ends up needing clean sheets the next morning because of circumstances beyond your their control. (Just a little tip: getting all the bed's changed at once, will jinx your laundry life.)

If you think I'm complaining, you need to get your brain checked. I'm NOT complaining; I'm simply stating facts of motherhood that come and go with the changing of seasons (and seasons can be as long as 9 months to as short as 30 seconds.)

Like the day Alex swallowed 12 chewable acidophulus pills. Try googling "acidophulus overdose in child." Actually, never mind: don't waste your time because no known side effects have been documented because basically, this has NEVER happened before. (It'll make you feel like your child may have a strange and unheard of disease with no cure because no one has researched it because no one has ever over-exposed themselves to acidophulus.)

Or the day all three kids were found playing with a dead four-foot-long bull snake. While eating crackers. (Don't worry -- they all had rubber gloves on.)

Or the time I found the piano had been covered in chalk. (Yes, the piano: NOT the sidewalk.)

I love the entire world of mothering... don't get me wrong. It's just that some things in life (like blogging) tend to not only take the back burner, they often get pushed right off the stove.

Which reminds me of the day I cleaned out the fridge and set the old food on the stove (my only "counter space" next to the fridge and on that side of the kitchen, for that matter.) Lo and behold, one of the containers of old food got pushed off the stove where it popped open and spilled between the stove and fridge.

Now, this just happened to be THE day I was getting ready for THE company of the year to come and voila! I had the chance of a lifetime to scrub and clean and sterilize all the unknown and unseen space behind, between, underneath and around the stove and fridge.

It was spic and span when I was done and it inspired me to do something novel. Like make supper. After I happily pushed the stove back in place and admired the top of the fridge that was now dusted off and clean (if you clean UNDER the stove, it's only natural you'd clean the TOP of the fridge too), I turned the stove to "ON." It seemed like a logical action since I was intending on cooking supper WITH the stove.

Suddenly, I was thrust right back into the stone ages. Where electricity was unheard of. Where suppers (did they call them that?) were cooked over an open fire outside. Where people lived in caves.

The stove had NO power.

"Weird," I thought, "So much for a clean stove that works..."

I pulled the stove back out again, admired the clean and dust free floor and tenderly caressed the side of the stove that was free of grime for the first time since it was manufactured. None of that seemed to effect the amount of power that attempted to circuit it's way to the "ON" setting on my stove.

So, I wiggled the gigantic-if-you-handle-it-wrong-you-will-get-shocked-cord and checked to see if the stove turned on.

NOTHING.

I thought about unplugging the cord from the socket but considering the back of the stove was plastered with, "WARNING: DO NOT DISCONNECT UNTIL POWER SOURCE IS SHUT OFF," I assumed I probably shouldn't disconnect it. The risk was electric shock and/or death. The electric shock didn't scare me as much as the death part did but I didn't know how I could just experience the electric shock without exposing myself to possible death. "At least I'd die knowing the underneath of my stove wasn't left for someone else to clean," I thought to myself. But I pushed the stove back and wondered if it was true that my stove could only work as long as it sat on an inch-thick-carpet of dust.

When my husband came home, he pulled the stove out again. He wiggled some things. Read a few labels. Asked me to give every detail on what happened to the stove. Then he pushed it back and told me to order pizza for supper.

The next day, we observed the stove in humble silence. By supper time, it still hadn't fixed itself so I made plans to do supper on the grill. Our grill has always been a reliable cooking source. I was thankful for the grill that day.

As it neared the time for company to arrive, the prepared food waited breathlessly to experience the warm thrill of the grill. I turned the gas setting to "ON" and turned the nobs to "ON" and pushed the start button "ON."

The south burner would not ignite. (This is Nebraska: there's no left or right. Only North, South, East and West.)

I tried again. And again. I shut the gas off in an attempt to reboot the entire contraption. Nothing. I wiggled some wires. Checked the "ON" button to make sure it was adequately connected. NOTHING. I took the whole grill apart. Checked for clogged connections. Nothing started that south burner.

I called for my dear husband. He came outside and looked the situation over and then lit the burner with a match. It worked. To this day, both North and South burners on the grill still work. And you can ignite them with the "ON" button, as it's made to be done.

After supper, my husband's brother checked the stove. Being the handyman this brother is in the electric department, he immediately detected the correct diagnosis of the stove. He gave me a play by play of what had happened the day before when the stove quit working. When I had pulled the stove out to clean it, I had stretched the wire too far. It became disconnected inside the outlet. He informed me that had I pulled it a little farther, there would've been an entertaining hue of sparks. The "DANGER: ELECTRIC SHOCK OR DEATH" warnings flashed in my mind.

The guys pushed the stove back, checked the stove for power and deemed the job complete. The stove worked. The stove was clean. And even the underneath of the stove was clean.

And to this day, the stove still works.

What I'm getting at is the fact that when "normal" and "easy to handle" things happen in our day, mothers should learn to recognize those things as rare and almost unheard of. But when things break or children come running with blood dripping off their fingers or you find the entire contents of the cereal bag on the floor or you stumble upon well lotioned up kids that are supposed to be getting ready for naps, don't panic. Those "disliked" and "unnecessary" occurrences are THE normal.

Like I've said before, it's all a matter of perspective.

When Life Overtakes Blogging

I like writing. It's the untainted expression of what I think without distraction. And since this is my blog, I have no qualms about what I publish here.

At least that's how I feel.

But, so often I find the need to save lives to be of greater importance to blogging so... as you faithful readers (all three of you) know, my blog is neglected.

Then there's the times when I think about blogging but then I remember my list of stuff to do.

*Vacuum chocolate sprinkles that Two-Year-Old embedded in the carpet.

*Sweep up hot chocolate mix from the pantry floor.

*Locate missing Bosch part.

*Locate missing bread machine part.

*Peroxide up fresh stains on dining room floor (and try not to think about the dining room having carpet in the first place).

*Check clothes hamper for mold.

*Abolish the fragrant smell coming from bathroom.

*Pluck out popcorn kernels from carpet.

*Admire Observe the scene of Lego's peppering the boys room.

*Harvest worms Clean out guinea pigs' cages.

And the list goes on.

About the time I think I'm finally getting a handle on this whole "mothering" thing, I'll wind up shocking myself and saying things like...

"Stop doing that: you're putting holes in the wall."

"You should never put your hand on your plate when someone is putting food on it."

"Don't put that plate on your head: it's Fine China."

"Alex, do you want a time out?" (I'm not a 'time out' kind of mom.)

"If you don't stop crying right now, you WILL get out of the van and we WILL leave without you."

"No, Daddy does not know how to drive a train."

"Never put ink on your lips again. Especially red ink."

"Stop putting stuff in the melted candles."

"No, she is not your mother; I am your mother and she is your sister."

"Never cut your brother's hair again."

"Look at that kid! He's flinging food on the wall."

"If you guys don't stop fighting, we will not do school today."

"How did all that salt end up on the table anyway?"

And other such anomalies.

Such are the occurrences that occur with the passing of time within (and without) our four walls. I love blogging. I love documenting thoughts, happenings, life, etc. But some days, it's just not feasible. Then again, without my sometimes unpredictable and over-interesting life, I would have nothing to blog about.

It's all a matter of perspective.

Do's and Dont's This Mother Learned the Hard Way

(The following outlines, are summaries of true stories that happened to our family. At our house. In our home. Around us. To us. etc. These are facts not based on imagination or fiction; these are real-to-life tales of innocent children parents with adventurous children.)

Never buy sheet sets for your child's bed. Never. Simply purchase a plush mattress pad, a plastic bed liner and make sure your child has a bed-bug-less pillow with a half decent pillowcase. You're then good to go. IF there should ever be an "accident" on the bed during the night while your child is sleeping, the amount of laundry you have to do will be minimal. And you won't have to dread changing sheets on the top bunk anymore.

Never buy shoes for your child. They'll just lose them and insist on going barefoot anyway.

Never discourage your child from talking to strangers. That way when they see their own grandfather for the first time in 6 months, they won't be afraid to sit on his lap.

Never treat the stains on clothing with stain remover. Before you have a chance to wash laundry, that clothing item will grow mold. Unless you wash laundry more often than every 2 weeks.

Never change your vacuum-cleaner-bag in front of your child. The child will think he has free access to the vacuum-cleaner-bag whenever he wants. If the said vacuum ever malfunctions, check the said bag for complete connection. The said child may have disconnected the said bag.

Never use a glass jar of any kind for your daughter to put her fireflies in. You will lose all rights to your canning jars during your child's entire childhood because each jar will be used (and broken) all for the sake of insects.

Never plant seeds in your garden in front of your child. They may be tempted to go back to the garden later and try to find all your seeds that you buried.

Never buy sidewalk chalk and expect your kids to use the side-walk chalk ON the sidewalk. Instead, they will use it in buckets of water to make paste, as bullets in their "guns" and will throw it up in the air just to see it shatter in a million pieces when it hits the cement sidewalk.

Never teach your kids how to ride bike. They will expect you to take them on a bike ride every evening before supper for the rest of their child hood.

Never tell your child they must stay in bed until 4pm for their nap. They will lay awake staring at the clock until 4pm.

Never allow your child to play with straws in the bathtub. That way, in the event they should poop in the tub.... well, it's just better if they don't have straws.

Never allow your child to play a game on your cell phone. They will remove any phone protectant cover you have on the phone.

Never allow your child to play a game on your cell phone. They will delete your entire chat history with all your IM friends.

Never allow your child to play a game on your cell phone. They will call the police with the phone instead.

When God Hands You Lemons, Smile

I had plans today. Plans to get out and do something fun. Just the kids and I. Toby had another engagement he was committed to and I thought to myself, "It's rare on a weekend when it's just the kids and I." So I thought something fun and out-of-the-ordinary was in order.

But, then my plans changed. I was left with no vehicle. "Hmmmm," I wondered. "Now what?"

I was tempted to be a tad miffed and even grumble. The temptation came to fruition and I did express my irritation ever so slightly. It seems to be the trend of my life lately... get plans, crash plans, no plans.

Inwardly, I made desperate exasperations like, "Why can't I just have a normal life? Why can't things just be predictable?? Why can't we just have a fun day?" And as I selfishly mused and grumbled in my heart on these depressing thoughts, I was convicted to think in a more logical sense.

And I came to a million-dollar answer to that age old question: What is normal life??

Normal life, as I have come to realize for myself, is when no loved one close to me is dying or has recently died. All the other little hiccups and bumps and bruises in life are really pale in comparison to what the death of a loved one can do to you.

The heart ache. The pain. The constant reality of death. The uncertainty of life. The dooming despair of another sad funeral. The quickly-emptying Kleenex boxes. The "I-don't-want-to-go-through-another-day" feeling. The despair. Death of a loved one really is one of THE worst things a person can go through. Even if the departed one is in Heaven. Goodbyes are just cruel.

As I observed my little disappointment today and the trite way I felt slighted because I had plans change once again, I thought, "Really Court, no one died; quit acting like they did."

And so the kids and I did things like sweep the porch. (Toddlers are easily entertained.) And in the process of sweeping the floor, the littlest one found a spider in the milk can. He stayed happily occupied with that for quite some time. He went on to do things like look for other bugs. Next thing I knew, he had a leash fastened to a log and he was dragging the whole contraption down the side walk. The older two played "marching band." And happily played and helped me tidy the porch.

I was pleased to find that it doesn't take a "day away from home" to make life more fun. That you don't need a vehicle to get to a fun place. That kids don't need a trip into town to feel like the day was fun. I knew all this stuff before but never really agreed with it. My bad.

It's funny how easy it is to 'make lemonade' when you right your attitude after life God hands you lemons. It gives life a normalcy feeling that is otherwise lost in the fray of change and despair. And it makes you realize that life really isn't as bad as you'd like to think it is.

Life IS uncertain. But, a smile doesn't have to be.

Seasons Of Life

People talk about "seasons of life" and the way they talk, it almost seems like "seasons" only change once in awhile. But, I have come to realize that life with Alex and his two older siblings, provides many opportunities for the seasons in life to change repeatedly. Time after time. Over and over. In one day.

For instance, the day he impressed us all with his amazing abilities to survive the incredible day he seemed to have planned out well for himself, was only a fraction of the true intellect of his 23 month old brain.

Since that amazing day, he has continued to throw himself whole-heartily into the goodness that life is for a one-year-old graduating to become a two-year-old.

Forks, knives and running out the front door are three of the main things he indulges in frequently. But then, it didn't help when the front of our glass stove exploded into a million shards of glass and Alex discovered the wonderful fun that can be found by digging tiny pieces of glass out of hard to reach places. He retrieved enough of a handful that he was able to tinkle them into a large, glass jar. The sound it created was delicately delightful and he was impressed with his exploration.

This all happened in the course of time it took for Alex's mother to use the bathroom. Alex knows how to use his time wisely and the course of action he takes at a moment's notice puts even the most brave Navy SEAL to shame.

So much so that after the glass incident, I looked up from the creative musical mess my son had made with tinkling glass and I saw the hand writing on my dining room wall. It said, "People who survive the age of two, have a much better chance at living."

But I blinked, the writing disappeared and I was suddenly alerted to a new and exciting dilemma going on out in the driveway. It involved two adventurous children aiding and abetting two illegal piles of sharp tinkling glass. Glass identical to the fugitive glass Alex was attending.

Since this time, I have decided to avoid using the bathroom as that seems to only create easily-given-into-temptations and as a good mother, I have decided that my children need...

5-5-09 10:37 pm

---------------------------------

Just like that, the blog ends there. I have no idea how the author planned to finish it. Perhaps she needed to go save a life again that day. Or maybe those kids found more broken glass. Some things in life we'll never know, I guess.

I found this piece of drafted blog in my draft bin and decided to brush it off and attempt to polish it up. It's hard to polish up something that's been sitting in the bottom of a stale blog bin for over two months though.

Episodes described in the above story are common occurrences of my day. Each day is a life changing saving event. And we still end up with bumps and bruises and blood. It's a wonder anyone survives.

But yet, I have an inkling of a feeling that this season of life we're in now, will only last for a short time. Kids grow up and get old! The nerve of them... And instead of worrying about them playing with broken glass, parents worry about much bigger things like, um, you know, dangerous stuff like matches or... um, (that doesn't sound very scary)... Well, just fill in the blank with something really scary.

Or maybe parents grow old and worry about their kids who grew old and now play with small children that play with broken glass? Now that's something to worry about right there.

No wonder my parents have graying hair. Man! I hope my grand kids treat their parents better than my parents grand kids treat these parents.

On Hard Heads, Hard Cement and Hard Days

It's one of those days where it's four in the afternoon and caramel syrup is sloppily trailing down the side of my coffee cup. And I don't care. I lick my fingers and wipe them on my lap before tapping on the keyboard. I rarely have caramel syrup with my coffee and I rarely have coffee at four in the afternoon and caramel syrup rarely trails down the side of my cup after it explodes it's self all over the vicinity of my cup when I attempt to just take a little bit. But, some days just don't go the way of calmness and collectiveness. It's on those kinds of days you need caffeine and caramel. At least I do.

Today started out pretty sweet. I had the house to myself after my most amazing, dashing, handsome good husband (he hates when I gush like that) left for work with our charming little son. I actually drank a civilized cup of coffee for about an hour and read my Bible and was encouraged and enlightened in several Psalms and Proverbs. It's been years since I read the Proverb for the day so found it inspiring to pick it up again.

After that, I actually showered in a very civilized manner and of all things even fixed my hair. Our bed was made, the house was presentable and then the kids started waking up. Even then, things seemed calm and collected. I felt a twinge of illness though - like slight nausea - but chalked it up to my vitamins that I had been godly smart enough to take earlier.

Things went fine until I gave Alex watermelon for breakfast.

Watermelon is a nutritional way to start the day and I made no apologies for it at all. Except for the seeds that were in the "seeded" watermelon. I showed Al Baby where to put his seeds on his tray (in a nifty little cup holder) and then went on to do something else.

I made a few phone calls and while trying to carry on a civilized conversation, I motioned for Janae to turn the music down in the kitchen. A lively choir of children were making a joyful noise over on the CD player and I waved my hand indicating the volume needed to be lowered. She batted at something in the air with a smirk on her face and continued singing right along.

I got off the phone and I asked if she knows what I mean when I wave my hand at her like I did when I was on the phone. She admitted she did; that I meant turn it down but then she said, "But I told you Mom to just go to the other room."

Nausea continued to wave over me and I wondered about that little box you get in the pharmacy section at the store that basically tells you if your life is drastically changing or not. I quickly pushed the thought out when I came back to Alex and found that the only watermelon seeds in the cup holder were the ones I put there and the rest were in an even layer across the floor surrounding the high chair.

Way to go, Alex. He's got the spitting-seeds-talent down, that's for sure.

Next, I washed him up (which was no small feat) and sent him out the back door with Janae. By this time, I had full fledged nausea and began to see visions of another seed spitting adorable little Nelson child. After cleaning up the seeds that had been planted all over the dining room carpet (whoever started the carpet-in-dining-rooms phase should have a class action law suit against them), I looked out the window to check on my healthy and rambunctious kids. They were playing quite nicely until I really looked out the window and got a better look at what they were doing and realized the situation was not good.

See, just the other day, I had neatly re-arranged all the landscaping bricks to perfectly line the edge of the wood chip part of our yard. The bricks had all been trampled and over turned thanks to small people and animals. So, I trimmed the yard up and fixed the bricks and was glad to have the yard back in place again.

The same thing happened again this morning -- the bricks were all over-turned and messed up.

The culprits were pleased though; the effort to over-turn each brick had produced an impressive sized cricket and that very same cricket was cupped carefully in a little hand and brought into my the house and placed in a nice, clean jar.

I sent the little culprits back out to put the bricks back and assured them I would not hurt the cricket.

Knowing nausea can be caused by taking vitamins on an empty stomach (check), being exposed to the flu (check), and is also the sign of early pregnancy (?), I decided to do something about the predicament and test accordingly. I can't take a test to prove that the vitamins in my stomach are indeed the cause nor can I take an at-home test to show if my immune system is fighting off a bug. But, I CAN take a pregnancy test.

So I did.

While waiting for the test results to see if I passed or not, I looked outside to check on the progress of the re-landscaping-brick-project. It was quite impressive.

"Mommy, we're building a sand castle," Janae informed me as I looked on in shock to see all the bricks were in a neat stack about 10 feet from where the majority of them needed to go. A nice, tall wall was just being finished up with Alex being the chief builder and I watched in horror as he hoisted a brick a good foot-and-a-half off the ground and at the top of the teetering "sand castle." I cringed when I noticed his helpless bare feet were within a straight-gravity-influenced-bulls-eye-shot of the brick.

I redirected Janae and went back to the bathroom to check on the test results. Envisioning an overwhelming herd of small brick layers taking over our suburbia back yard, I was quite relieved to see a single, solitary line indicating that our family has only one brick layer/landscape-project-demolish-er. At least at this point.

Another trek out the back door lead me to find the bricks in a pile. An it-looks-like-a-tornado-just-went-through looking pile.

I again redirected Janae and learned it was quite impossible for her to finish the job she started. Even though she could over-turn each brick, she was quite incapable of putting each brick back in it's place. And even though she could carry the bricks several feet in order to build a meticulous sand castle, she was quite incapable of carrying them back again and putting them in a straight line on the ground.

You see, she was hot. And then she needed a drink. And then she needed her coat. And then her feet hurt. And then she couldn't pick the bricks up. And then she needed to go to the bathroom. And then she needed to eat lunch. And then she wanted to pick tomatoes. And then she thought Alex should help her. And then she decided to throw wood chips instead.

I consistently re-directed her motives and got her to realize that she absolutely had to pick each brick up and put it back. She resisted until I told her she'd have no lunch all day if she didn't get her bricks put back.

Within minutes, she had the job completed. I was impressed and coveting 2 lines on that pregnancy test I took earlier. Which would of course indicate the potential of another partner in crime life-long friend for Janae. With behaviour like this, she deserves a sister, I thought to myself.

After that, things didn't seem quite as monumental as the brick episode did. It's funny how big issues like an entire landscaping project uprooted by your four-year-old, helps put all of life into perspective.

Janae's cricket did attempt to bite half her hand off just before it got loose in the house. I had no idea crickets could bite. Until today. That was quite exciting because she wouldn't let go of it and screamed her head off while it was biting her. I had to use half a roll of toilet paper just to grab it because I. can't. stand. the. way. bugs. feel. when. you. touch. them.

Then, an un-named child succeeded in damaging the bathroom sink drain so bad when they washed their hands from the cricket goop, there is absolutely no way water will drain from the sink. Probably ever again. I'm hoping this means we need a whole new vanity, sink, faucet and medicine cabinet now.

While swinging on the porch swing a little while later, I watched Alex out of the corner of my eye while he flipped over the back of the swing. I turned to look just in time to see the top of his cute little head, land soundly on the cement floor just under the porch swing. It was a very slow motion-ish event and turned out to be a pretty emotional moment. No one has ever done this on our swing before so I'm wondering where he got the idea from.

After that, we came inside and while I gave cooking instructions over the phone to one of my stay-at-home-mom colleagues, a shattering crash shook the house. I inspected it immediately and upon investigation found that for reasons beyond what human reasoning can compute, a cord to a little lamp sitting in the corner of the dining room had amazingly wrapped itself around a chair leg. When the chair was moved, as is oft to happen to a chair at the dining room table, the lamp crashed to the floor. And voila! it broke the glass shade. Just like that.

A guilty child, who shall remain nameless for now, expressed audibly that they really did need that chair and they said it in a tone that basically confirmed they really didn't care about the lamp. The now shattered-with-glass-pieces-in-the-carpet lamp.

I happened to talk to my husband right around that time, you know, the father of all these healthy little children, and I informed him that if he came home to a telephone number on the dining room table tonight, it was the number to the daycare I took the kids too. He just said, "Okay, sounds good Honey! Gotta run!"

Shortly after that, Janae helped herself and Alex to the bottle of vitamins in the fridge. She seems to have taken hers and Alex's health in her own hands and I guess they'll be good and healthy for sure now.

As I was changing Alex's diaper before nap time awhile later, his clean diaper completely disappeared.

"I put it in my trash can," Janae said with a smirk on her face as she saw me frantically tear around the house looking for one of the THE very last diapers we have in the house right now.

With that, I plopped the two of them in their beds and went upstairs to take a break vacuum fleas. A lit candle, a cleaned up house and reclining on the couch all make me think that I just may still be part of the civilized breed of occupants in this house. Even if I do have sticky fingers from my out-of-ordinary cup of coffee on what I hope will always be an out-of-ordinary kind of day.

But, what really did me in was the fact that just as I'm completing this blog, Janae woke up from her nap a little too soon. Soon as in, only-an-hour-long-nap type of soon. After eating her snack of buttered raisin bread, she found my Blackberry, attempted to delete my call log and succeeded at putting buttered fingers between my phone glove and my phone.

"Janae, don't touch Mommy's phone!" I wailed as I wiped smeared butter off the little Blackberry keys, "It costs a lot of money!"

To which she replied, "No, phones don't cost lots of money; only houses do."

She went on to say, "Then, don't put your phone where I can touch it," in an attempt to excuse her disobedience. She then wandered off and scraped the paint off the built-in hutch in our dining room with her bare finger.

I sigh and and wonder where the paint can is so I can patch the white scrape on the hutch. Of course I was planning on painting today, right? And I muse to myself, while she stands here giving me all the reasons why she really needs a sucker, that the test I took earlier actually could've had two lines.

Sweet.

FLEXIBILITY 101

If I could, I would take a class that would give me an education on the #1 important ingredient to life, health and the pursuit of happiness. And that ingredient I would learn would be called:

FLEXIBILITY

My highly educated teacher would lecture on the following statement:

"We all realize that there are more than just ONE important ingredient to life just like there's more than one important ingredient in chocolate chip cookies. Take flour for example... flour is usually the first ingredient listed on the recipe requirements for cookies. We all know that. Another important addition is baking soda because it's vital to the leaven needed to produce a slight raise in the structure of the cookie itself. The chemistry the baking soda produces causes the cookie to manufacture fibers in which it raises at a certain temperature and then conforms and holds to the shape it grew to. We also need sugar. Sugar appeals to the taste buds and takes the cookie out of the "health food" category and puts the cookie in a "dessert food" category. This is important to the life and welfare of the cookie because how many meals in our country today automatically offer a "health menu" at the end of the entree? None. But you will find a "dessert menu" offered at most diners today. This is important to the production and consumption of each individual cookie destined to be created. But chocolate... chocolate is vital to the purpose, the value and the final completion of the chocolate chip cookie. What would the blend of flour and baking soda and sugar be without chocolate chips? It would be a lump of flour, baking soda and sugar. This is proof we need chocolate, students."

Of course, the point of the professor would be understood by all and it would so obviously apply to the topic in our class that day: Flexibility. It would also apply to any student studying how to become a professional chocolate chip cookie maker. And it would appeal to the general public that insists on funding the production and education of good chocolate. It would be a great class to take because so many people with so many different educational pursuits, could benefit from such a knowledgeable professor.

The tests I'd take after that class would reflect my understanding of the concept of Flexibility through the professor's thorough presentation and I would probably pass the test with flying colors... like a parrot passes by high in the sky.

My education of this would give me strong beliefs that being flexible should effect our everyday life like the h2O we drink effects our general health. Without flexibility, we will never learn how to bend over backwards. And we all know how handy it is to bend over backwards when we need to reach the floor behind us without turning around

Flexibility will influence the following:

How and when we look at freedom... "Do I need this shower or am I just looking for a break?"

How and why we look at fat... "Do I need to lose weight or do I just not like the way my stomach bulges and folds and hangs over my waistline."

How and where we look for fun... "Is there true purpose in an expensive vacation or do I just not like getting the mail everyday?"

How and what we call our favorite... "Am I eating this ice cream because I like it or is it truly my favorite?"

These and other attributes play into how we're flexible.

When we're flexible, we eat ice cream because we need a break and can't find the bathroom under the pile of toilet paper the two year old piled in the toilet.

When we're flexible, we walk to the mailbox every week or two so we can check the "in a weekly exercise program" box on the doctor's form.

When we're flexible, we enjoy noticing the way fat clings to our bodies like a school of jelly fish because it helps take our mind off the beach side vacation we'd really like to go on.

When we're flexible, we enjoy being cooped up for days in our house with sick kids because we embrace the slogan, "Freedom is never free."

Flexibility lends itself in many different ways to our perspectives, our entertainment views, our attitudes and our over all mental health.

Like when your daughter comes gasping and banging and pounding on the door, hardly able to catch her breath so she can scream hysterically tenderly call for her mother. And you get to the door and you find her wildly hopping on her feet like she's painfully jumping on hot coals. You notice she's gasping and huffing like something horrible is happening and you realize she's possibly getting her feet chopped off. And so you ask her what's going on in her young little life as she bounces energetically in a six foot circle on the cement porch floor. And you ask with concern in your voice because you care for her well being and you want her to know that you really do think she's a normal child. You articulate your question carefully as if an acting-out-of-her-mind-child would be able to answer your question sanely because you enunciated the 't' in "WHAT HAPPENED."

And she replies in a breathy way, like a jogger sounds when they're jogging, "H-h-h-h I h-h-h-h-h-h h-h-h-h-hurt h-h-h-h-h-h-h my-hhh-h-h-h fo-h-h-ooo-h-h-ttt h-h-h-h-h." (translated: I hurt my foot.)

You observe her with a keen eye and notice that the foot she's huffing about would have to include at least one of the two feet she's bouncing wildly on.

Because you forgot that stand up comedy usually has some form of sense and sanity to it, and you really don't want to go crazy from all the excitement your children cause in your life, you find yourself laughing hysterically that your child would choose to express her pain in such an energetic and healthy way. While using the banged up, chopped off foot to propel her into the air.
Flexibility gives you the ability to accept the comedy of the situation as you turn to go back inside the house while your banged-up-foot-child bounces off the porch and down the steps, nursing what she believes to be a badly hurt foot. While jumping on it.

Flexibility forces you to see the obvious when all you notice is everything that's not there. Like when your son drills you about the moon as if he thinks you're some scientist or something. He begins a breathless string of questions on if the moon could crush the house and what would happen if you shot the moon and does the moon roll and how does the moon just stay up in the sky and does it just 'stick' there and how big is the moon and can you shoot the moon, can you?

Flexibility helps you see that your child is not a mad scientist even if he has every indication of becoming one.

Flexibility helps you understand the deep and vast brain behind the erratic and usually irrelevant questions.

Flexibility helps you embrace the opportunity of gazing lovingly into the pool of dark brown eyes that look up to you and sincerely believe with all their heart that you, of all people, are the wealth of knowledge they've been searching for all of their 5 little years of life.

Flexibility is such a great tool to carry through life and something everyone should get a PHD on. An education in Flexibility would give great resume references because everyone would want to hire the Flexibility person.

But, I would learn that Flexibility forces you to understand that you will probably never be able to take a class on Flexibility because there is no class out there devoted primarily to the topic of Flexibility. Flexibility is just too hard to teach. Frankly, flexibility does not fit in a box or a text book. It's just too flexible to do so.

But by accepting this hard, cruel fact, I am proving my understanding of Flexibility.

And I'm flexible enough to accept that I will never get an education on the #1 important ingredient for life: Flexibility.

Dogs Really Don't Go To Heaven After All

Sometimes I have those days where nothing seems to go right. I wake up in the morning to the sound of the dog barking and kids frantically chattering. That's a bad sound combination to wake up to. I've learned 2 things from those kinds of days:

#1: Always wake up before the kids

#2: Never sleep later than the kids

As I looked out the window on that bright sunny morning that I just happened to commit both sins mistakes, I saw a limp, wet, thing hanging haphazardly out of the dogs mouth. Upon closer inspection, I learned it was one of our cat's kittens. Only it was missing it's head. And heartbeat. And a few other necessary things needed for life and the pursuit of happiness.

You try waking up and the first thing you see is a headless, dead kitten hanging out of your dog's mouth. Seriously, try it. See if your day turns out nice.

After bucketing the fragment of the once-cute-kitten, we went inside for breakfast. I pretty much had no appetite after seeing that disgusting kitten but the kids seemed undaunted. In their enthusiasm to eat, an entire bag of cereal spilled gracefully all over the badly stained carpeted dining room. Which, reminds me... don't get me started on carpeted dining rooms because I really don't have too many good things to say about them. Or the people who would even think to put carpet in a dining room.

From then on, the day went down hill. If it wasn't one catastrophe, something greater and more dangerous was happening. Of course it sulked me into a "why is this happening to me" mood which made me feel guilty because I frequently like to remind myself of all the true hardship in the world and the fact that I really have NO hardship at all compared to other mothers. Like my poor mother cat... her darling baby had just been killed by a ravaging dog. At least all my children's heads were accounted for.

Seriously though, there are mothers all over who have it far worse than I... either they live in a battle torn country or they have a terminal illness or their children have all died or they have no home to raise their children in or they have no loving father to share parenthood with or they have no understanding of how to raise children or they're lonely childless women, arms aching to hold a child. I knew I didn't have it bad so I scolded myself soundly for sulking.

It was also about 100 degrees that day with full sun. My brave husband was battling a high, hot roof a good distance away and being the good husband that he is, I wanted to reward him with a cool refreshing drink.

So, I packed up the kids, departed from our comfortable air conditioned house and we began our little journey. Now, in case you think this seems mild and peaceful and mothering and kind, I think you should understand that you have no idea what it's like to ride in our van when all the kids are in there. And they're not sleeping. Or eating.

First of all, they yell (in order to be heard, of course), "Cold air on please" over and over until you turn the cold air on. And "cold air on please" literally means, turn the thermostat to 60F and turn the fan on full blast. If you adjust the fan at all or make the air slightly stray from freezing cold, you will immediately hear a simultaneous, "coldaironplease" chorus from the back of the van.

And they do this of course, to survive because if for some reason there should be any trace of anything warm in the van, they will surely die of a complete heat stroke. So we "coldaironplease" all the way to our destination and we "coldaironplease" all the way back home again.

While their hair is standing on end from the force of air blowing on their little heads, they begin a series of lessons. They question about all the deer in the woods. And what would we do if there was a bear trying to get in our house. And how many lions are probably over in that field. And what kind of thing is that tractor pulling? And why do we have to take the semi road? (Interstate) And why are they building a field with all that dirt? And "Mom are you going speed limit?" And what kind of plants are in that field? And what would happen if we turned the head lights off and drove in the dark. And WHO put that moon up there. And do skunks bite?

You must understand that these questions are being bombarded to the front of the van over the roar of the A/C fans. If there's any music or radio on at the same time, they just yell their questions louder. If they can't hear your answer (which is typical), they will repeat the question as many times as they need to. Pretty soon everyone in the van is hollering and yelling in an attempt to achieve ultimate communication and we travel merely down the road like one, little, happy family.

Alex chimes in quoting a phrase from a little "Old McDonald tractor" that goes, "Uh-oh, I can't drive" when you put the cow or the duck or the pig in the driver's seat. Like a broken record, he repeats that over and over from his cracker crumbed carseat.

It usually goes like this until Janae has to puke, which happens on any ride over 5 minutes long. There's usually a mad scramble for a cup or a bag or a box or a something to toss back to her. She then hangs her mouth over the cup or the bag or the box or whatever it is and sits there mostly quietly for the rest of the trip, giving us a running dialogue on the puke situation.

Funny thing how she never has puked in the van, except for the one time she was sick with pneumonia. The puke-into-object is completely psychological and we only give it to her for her own peace of mind. And our sanity. Hearing, "I need to go puke" mile after mile gets a little disturbing. The situation is purely mental on her end but anything to squelch her mad puke panic gives us a better ride. And helps us not go mental with her.

Of course, on such days as we were having that day, Landon and Janae gained another 7 notches in their brain capacity and began to delve into the deep questions. Like "where's hell?" And "how do we go to heaven?" And "how do we sin?" And other such brain exercising questions. While mentally trying to lead my children through the Romans road... or some other such process of salvation, I was rather overwhelmed by their barrage of comments revealing their understanding of the whole situation.

Meanwhile, I was trying to stay on the road and find the job site with no directions. And little cell phone coverage. And no GPS.

I was deep in thought and trying to capture the moment to the best of my ability. I mean seriously, when someone asks you how to know God, don't you just tell them? Realizing that my children are quite young and have a very impressionable mind, I had to make this moment count. I thought I was answering them well enough until I heard Janae start tattling...

"Mom, Landon is going to send me to hell... Landon is going to send me to hell... Mom, Landon is going to send me to hell..."

I scolded Landon and assured Janae no such thing would happen.

He argued back, stating he COULD send her there and would because of what she had done to him. (Some minor offence... I'm sure. I don't remember the details now.)

I explained only God sent people there and actually, He doesn't really send them; they choose to go by not accepting God's love for them.

Landon had a reason why Janae fell into the same category and assured Janae again he was sending her to hell.

In case you are concerned about my son's ability to show love and forgiveness, you need to understand he had no concept of hell at that point. Hell was just a bad place for bad people. And in the process of understanding his mind on the subject and the fact he wanted to send his sister there, whom he really does love, I grew to understand a child's idea of God, hell and heaven.

My mind failed to reach into the innermost parts of my being and recollect a good way of explaining to my kids right then in the middle of our errand HOW bad hell was, WHY people go there and WHAT God has to do with it. So I copped out. I told them both that no one knows for sure where hell is.

The bright and brilliant boy in the back seat exclaimed, "Well, I can find it then and Janae's going there."

Keeping myself upright in my seat in order to keep from pounding my head on the dashboard, I concentrated on not driving off the road. My head pounded from the noise and din of the van and I was overwhelmed with the responsibility of cementing into my children the concept of a loving God, heaven and hell. It was a complex situation and as I explained in even greater detail how BAD hell is and how GOOD God is, I realized even more that in order to really understand the horribleness of hell, you must understand the loveliness of God. And when you understand how loving God is, you have a better understanding of how awful hell is. Both go hand in hand. I kept it simple and filed the whole topic away with plans to bring it up later.

I thought they understood it all better and felt content with the level of understanding in the conversation. I was equally pleased Landon was no longer sending Janae to hell and was relieved to have that discussion over with. As we left the job site, I heard an ongoing argument happening over the din of the fans in the back seat...

"Janae, listen to me: Elly (the dog) is NOT a Christian," Landon said, quite strongly.

She retorted with a smart remark and made Landon even more firm. He sighed heavily to reinforce his statement and said, "NO Janae: dogs CANNOT be Christians!"

Landon seemed to be handling his own but I backed him up. We began to discuss that dogs aren't Christians, therefore they're not going to heaven. Who would've thought on a mild little errand to bring water to their daddy, these 4 and 5 year olds would explode into such complex little beings?

As we "coldaironplease" all the way back home, deeper and more difficult questions circled our little van. After completing our errand and putting the littles down to bed (which was no small feat), Landon and I went out back to bury the kitten.

After listening to him eulogize the kitten all day about how she was his best friend and how nice of cat she was and how much we needed to shoot the dog's brains out since she wasn't thinking when she killed the kitten, I assumed the burial would be somewhat emotional.

It wasn't.

Landon recommended putting a sign up for everyone to read that said 'the kitten was buried here.' When I constructed a little cross, he thought that was a neat sign to put over the kitten's grave. That way no kids would dig a hole right there and end up digging up the kitten, or so he said. He was really concerned about stray neighbor kids digging a random hole that would end up right over that kitten. She stunk badly by this time so Landon wanted to be sure she stayed under the ground where no one could smell her.

As the day drew to a close, I ended up making another errand up to my hard working husband. He asked me to bring supper up to the crew working so I obliged and made the trek again in my "coldaironplease" van with my chattering children. On our way home, I listened to a story on the radio about a man who's wife and 4 children were swept away in a flash flood.

Just like that, his perfect, wonderful world was gone. Gone.

It was pounded into me again that as long as I have my dear children and adoring husband surrounding and overwhelming my life with all their goodness and personality, I am one blessed woman. Never mind the fact I feel like pounding my head on the dashboard. Or wake up to a dead kitten. Or grow tired after listening to a barrage of questions about the moon. Or hell. Or dogs being Christians. Life is good.

And you know what? Even if dogs really don't go to heaven, life still is good.