Someone Parked a Tree Behind Me.

So. I backed into a tree today. In my own yard. I’m sure it wasn’t there yesterday. It was a shock for all of us! My first thought was, “Who parked behind me?!! Dan’s at work, (Thank the Lord.) and we don’t have any company.” Then I looked. (I probably should have done that first….) Somebody parked a TREE behind me!! I mean, really, who does that kind of thing?

Next problem – to tell Dan, or not to tell him… hmmm. It would be a much easier decision if I didn’t four little tattle tales in the car with me. Three of them who thought we were just in a terrible wreck. “Mom!” Zackary says, “I bet there’s a BIG dent in the back of the van!” I very calmly said, “Zack, sometimes it’s better if you just keep your mouth SHUT. And, this is one of those times. Mommy doesn’t need to hear things like that right now.” I mean, if there is a huge dent in the van, how am I supposed to explain to my insurance that I can’t remember WHERE the trees are in my OWN yard? I’ve only lived here 8 years after all…..

I decided to get out and survey the damage. I couldn’t see any. Whew. Maybe I won’t have to tell Dan that I hit the huge tree he must have just planted in our yard last night while I was sleeping. Of course Dan sees things on cars that not even a person with a microscope can see. He’ll say to me, “Honey, how did that scratch get on the car?” “What scratch?” I innocently reply. “You haven’t seen it?” He says incredulously. We then go out and look. He points and I look. “What scratch?” I ask again. He just shakes his head.

I didn’t see any damage on the van, but that doesn’t mean he won’t. I better just fess up. If I don’t, the kids will do it for me. Or, just the mere fact that I’m writing this on the internet, chances are it will leak back to him. I did check to make sure the back end still opens and closes!

I regained my composure and finally, successfully got out of the yard. As we drove down the street Zackary pipes up, “Wow! I can’t believe the airbags didn’t go off!” I tried to keep my composure. Really I did. If you’ve ever ran into anything you know what it does to your nerves.  Everything in me wanted to turn around and scream, “JUST SHUT UP!!!” But, that wouldn’t have been very Christ like, and we’re not allowed to say “shut up” at our house….

Besides that fact, I was backing out of my yard, maybe going a top speed of 5mph. The jolt of smacking the tree was a shock, but nowhere near setting off the airbags. I counted to 10 and through gritted teeth said, “Zack that was another one of those things that should have been left unsaid….” “I can’t help it, Mom,” He said. He just doesn’t know when to quit.

I had lunch with Dan today, but I decided that wasn’t the right time to tell him about the non-dent in the back of the van, that I put there backing into a tree in my own yard. Maybe tonight after I fix his favorite meal and clean out the garage for him….. Yes, that might be a good time. 

May the Best Turtle Win

The annual turtle races. It sounded good when I first saw it advertised. We've watched them in the past, but never participated. I told my kids this year was the year. They could collect, keep, paint, and train turtles for the big annual turtle races.

What was I thinking???? 

We found turtles all right, but keeping them was a different story. We caught some pretty fast turtles, but they turned out to be regular Houdinis!!!! Escape artists they were. All of them. It's hard to race your really fast turtle if you can't keep it penned up until the race. We even tried to bribe them to stay with us by giving them fresh fruits and vegetables. No luck. 

We finally took ONE turtle to my sister who had a turtle proof cage. That seemed to do the trick. On the day of the race we took our ONE turtle and two borrowed ones to town in a box. The turtles really didn't like the small box and tried their Houdini moves to get out. This time we won. The turtles stayed in the box. Good thing because three turtles in a box stinks up a mini van pretty bad. I can't imagine what they would have done out of the box...

We got to the race sight to find that there were over 130 turtles to race. This was an event! I would have brought my lawn chair and my supper if I had known. Because there are so many turtles they do the race in heats. If your turtle comes in 1st, 2nd, or 3rd you move on to the next heat. Do you know how long it takes to race that MANY turtles in that MANY heats!!??? I do. We had one turtle that was exceptionally fast and kept WINNING!!! After almost an hour of watching turtles run in circles, I started hoping our turtle would SLOW DOWN and lose. (Don't tell my child I said that.) 

Then they brought it out. The cute little girl with the genormous (I made that word up.) water turtle. She was wearing gloves and desperately trying to hold the turtle as far away from her body as possible. Probably because the turtle was trying to desperately swim through the air with motions that looked like it might attack at any moment. The turtle was 4 times the size of any other turtle there and would barely fit in the starting box. As soon as they lifted the box, he was off to look for water. In a desperate," I don't like to be on land" fashion. The problem was there was no water to be found, so it went straight into the crowd. There were several hundred people there and I think they were almost all scared of the poor harmless (very large) water turtle swimming across land. People started backing up as he entered the crowd, and shrieking like maybe a bear was after them. Kinda reminded me of my bird days. I laughed. It was the most comical thing that happened at the whole SLOW race! 

The really large, scary water turtle ended up beating our turtle in the last heat. It was ok, except because I had been there so long, it would have been nice to have something to show for our time. 

The kids are already planning next year's race. I'm thinking it sounds like a great daddy/child date! 

Media Free Month

I gave my kids a few weeks notice. They shouldn't have been shocked. After all this is not the first time this has happened. But no, there were still tears of agony and pain. I looked at them as they were crying and said, "You act like we are taking away your birthday." "It feels like it!" was there agonized reply.

Media free month at the Van Patten's. That is what all the drama was about. June is our month we take off tv and video games to stretch our minds and spend most of our time outdoors. My kids find it terribly painful before we start. Funny thing is, they don't miss it a bit once we're into it. Their creativity suddenly blooms. They play hours together. They find toys they forgot they had.

It's so easy to default to electronics. When you're bored, it helps fill your time. Unfortunately that's the first thing my kids think of when they are bored. It's almost like they can't think to do anything else. Except during media free month.

Of course it's a challenge for me too! It's so nice to say, "Go watch tv." "Ahem, an educational show, I mean..." It gives me a much needed (or wanted)  break. But, I find I miss out on so much too. Instead of spending time on the computer, I'm reading books to my kids and playing games WITH my kids. I become part of their play. The other challenge is the mess. I've had multiple homemade tents in the family room, legos all over the floor, craft projects strewn everywhere, and books, Books, BOOKS!!! Oh the books! Everywhere. We must bring home 40 books everytime we go to the library. But, they're reading, and exploring, and learning, and NOT watching tv!

I love it.

They also get creative in not so good ways....

 Like the time I found my kids along with someone else's child in our pool fully clothed after I told them they couldn't swim. I'm sure they misunderstood my instructions. Surely they thought I meant no swimming only if they had their swimsuits on...... Of course I was in the middle of a piano lesson, so there wasn't a lot I could do except tell them to sit in their wet clothes on the porch until I was finished.

Or the day I found Kade and Elijah in the kitchen together. Kade had a straw in his hand and Elijah was crying. "What happened?" I asked. "Did you poke him?" "Yes, but it's ok mom," Kade said. "Look, he can already open his eye." "WHAT??!!" I freaked out. "You didn't poke him IN the eye did you?" "Uh huh," he nonchalantly said. (Maybe he should be watching tv!)

Or the time (actually two times, I'm embarrassed to admit) that I caught Elijah eating blueberries WITH the pet turtles. Is turtle slobber dangerous???? Because I'm pretty sure they shared.....

All in all, it's a great thing for our family. We do things we normally wouldn't. The kids play wonderfully together. I love to see them working on projects and figuring thing out.

In fact I'm enjoying it so much that maybe June will be extra long this year. My kids are still small enough I just might be able to pull that off........

A Wedding Dress, a Little Girl, and a Burp

My little sister is getting married! I'm so excited for her and her fiance. Pam has asked Rylie to be her flower girl, and I don't think anyone is happier than Rylie. It's like a dream come true for her.

Pam invited me to go wedding dress shopping with her yesterday. Rylie was very privileged to be invited to join the "big girls" for this epic event. She carefully picked out her cute bright pink sundress to wear the night before. She wanted me to let her just wear it to bed so she would be all ready to go the next morning. I thought she might look a bit more fresh if she put it on right before we were ready to leave. I talked her into wearing her pajamas.

We got to Springfield early and began our quest to find the perfect dress. Pam looked beautiful in all of them, so it was hard to choose. She finally found the perfect "one" though, and she looks STUNNING in it. It was not Rylie's choice as Rylie is into a bit more floof, lace, frills, and other such girly things than Pam is. But it is exactly Pam.

We decided to go eat lunch at Cheddars to continue our girl's day out. We had to split up our group as the restaurant was very busy. I let Rylie sit with my sisters at their table. After we had eaten, one of my sisters came up to me to tell me that Rylie thought she was going to throw up, and that she was in the bathroom with my other sister. Of course I jumped up to go and check on her. I was not terribly surprised as this is not the first time this has happened. Waffle House seems to have this effect on Rylie also.

 I arrived in the bathroom to find Rylie and Allison in the handicap stall with Rylie leaning over the toilet. She looked peaked and she said her legs were shaking. I thought, "I hope she's not sick." After a few minutes I got her calmed down and told her to come and sit with me. We started making our way through the very crowded restaurant to our seat. All of the sudden Rylie stopped. She began to gag. Right there by all the people eating their delicious lunches. The thought in the front of my mind was, "OH NO!!! SHE'S GOING TO THROW UP RIGHT HERE IN THE MIDDLE OF THIS FULL RESTAURANT AND RUIN EVERYBODY'S DINNER!!!!" The thought in the back of my mind was, "At least I won't have to clean it up!" (I know...... that was terrible....)

As I was quickly deciding whether the best course of action was to pick her up and rush her back to the bathroom, risking her throwing up all along the way, or just keep it contained as much as I could in one spot, she finished her gag with the loudest, biggest, BURP I have ever heard! I didn't know something that large could come out of a child so small.

There she was - my cute little girl in her bright pink sundress, with a flower in her hair, BURPING. Huge. And long. In public! "Are you ok?" I asked "Are you going to throw up too?" I was really hoping not to deal with two embarrassing situations at once. I'm sure the people next to us were hoping that as well. "No, that was it," was her quick reply. She smiled. "I feel great now."  Nice.

After my initial feeling of relief, came the feeling that I probably should apologize to all the people in a 50 foot radius for the unsightly noise that just came from my child, OR duck my head and leave Cheddars on the spot! I hadn't had my dessert yet so I decided to go with the apology. I turned to the table we were closest to, to start my speeches only to see them rolling with laughter. Obviously the dinner show we had just put on was more amusing to others than to me. I skipped the other apologies and went to my table.

Dessert was great. If you've never had the chocolate cake at Cheddars, you need to try it.....

The Joys of Being Married to ME!

"Scoot over!" was the first thing my husband said to me in the wee hours of the morning. "You're squishing me!" "I call it snuggling." I replied. "Besides I'm half your size, I can't possibly be squishing you! I can't scoot over either, I'm on the edge of the bed!" "I know," Dan said, "you're on MY edge." Ohhhh. "Well, don't you like to snuggle?" I mischievously asked him. "When I'm in the bed too....." he said. I scooted over.

Poor Dan. I've raised all 4 children to be snugglers. The guy can't get a break. Where he sits, we all sit. He speaks of getting a recliner. I keep vetoing it. "You can't possibly want to sit by yourself!!!" I say. (He doesn't dare say he might want some alone time.)  Me? I'm in the market for a sectional. The bigger the children get, the smaller our couch gets. But we MUST all sit together.

Sometimes I try to be funny when I wake up in the morning. Dan doesn't much appreciate these antics because he wakes up quite slowly and would rather be left alone. Yesterday morning I woke up, got up on my hands and knees, stuck my face over his and said excitedly, and a bit loudly, "Aren't you glad they invented hair gel???!" Dan opened his eyes and looked at me with a wide eyed look that might have had a bit of fear in it. I didn't get much of a response besides that (I think he might have been in shock) so I got out of bed and looked in the mirror. Then I understood the fear in his eyes. HOLY MOLY!!!! Curly headed people should NEVER and I repeat, NEVER go to bed with wet hair. If you have curly hair you understand what I'm talking about. I would never have let my husband of 10 years see me in that state if I had known what I looked like! Words cannot describe the state of my hair. I went into the kitchen to take care of the very hungry baby. Rylie was sitting in there and she began to laugh. "Mom, you could be a clown in the circus," she giggled. My children do have a way with words..... "That's it," I said. "I'm going to wash my hair." "WAIT," Rylie stopped me. "Show Zackary first!" "Ha, ha" I said.  I washed my hair.

Kids say the bluntest things

Some kids say the cutest things. Mine say the bluntest things. All of them. From the smallest to the biggest.

My 5 year old walked in on me today while I was fixing my hair. "I don't like your hair, Mom," he said. "It doesn't look like you. It looks icky." Thanks Kade. Way to start my day. What does a 5 year old know about hair anyway.

 This is the same 5 year old who just yesterday on his way through the family room said, "Mom, I just pooped my pants." There's no beating around the bush with this kid! Of course I was in the middle of cooking dinner. Cleaning up poopy underwear while cooking dinner is definitely on my list of favorites.... I took a break from cooking to clean my child, his underwear, the toilet, etc. and then went back to cooking. I had dinner about half finished when I walked through the family room to do something. I noticed little brown spots all across the floor......" Oh no," I thought, "break time again..... " After cleaning the little trail of poop drops all the way from the family room to the bathroom, it's a wonder I fed my family dinner!

Rylie is probably my bluntest child. Before we go to anyone's house I have to prep her. "Don't say anything that might remotely be considered rude."  "Mom, why would I?" is her innocent reply. Because maybe you do it all the time..... Take this morning, Dan bought me a nice white leather purse for summer. I finally had gotten around to exchanging all my stuff from my winter one. Rylie walked up to watch what I was doing. "Do you like my new purse?" I asked sweetly. "No," she said, not very sweetly. "It looks like an old lady purse." "What?!! Daddy picked this out just for me." I told her. "He thinks you're an old lady." she said. Daddy and I are DEFINITELY going to talk about this later.....

One of my favorite's was the day I came home from having Kade. The first thing Zack said to me was, "Mom, I thought you told us your belly would be skinnier!"

Someday, maybe these darling comments will be funny to me, or then again maybe someday these kids of mine will have a few children like themselves. =)

A Tax Collector, The Samaritan Woman, and a Few Lepers....

We were at an event the other day in a little town in Arkansas. You know, the kind of town that could give Arkansas a bad name - the ones where teeth are optional, but camo is not. It was that kind of place.

I was sitting with my children watching an event when Elijah started moving down the aisle. I wasn't paying too much attention to him because he was being quiet, until I noticed him going back to the same place over and over. He would run to me, and then run back down to the same chair. I started watching him. He was going to the same person, tapping them on the shoulder, smiling, laughing, and playing for a minute, and then running back. Always the same person though.

Then I saw her. The one he had chosen to be his friend. She didn't have many teeth, didn't look overly clean, was definitely not well dressed, and not really the kind of person I wanted touching my baby.She probably had some weird germs, you see.  You've seen the people I'm talking about. We're not sure where they've been, or when the last time was they bathed, and they might be on meth for goodness sake! Usually we do our best to avoid them.  It looks mean on paper, but it's true. We definitely don't go out of our way to seek them out, and be their friend. 

Then she saw me. Elijah had just run down to her for another round of whatever game they were playing. And she saw me watching. She was reaching out to tickle his belly and instantly pulled her hand back. The smile left her face. She knew. She knew that even though she was accepted by the baby, she wouldn't be approved by the parent. And she was right. EVERYTHING inside me screamed, "Don't touch my kid! You might give him.......something."

But, there's Something inside me greater than myself. Something that said, "Do you remember Zacchaeus the little ornery tax collector? The Samaritan woman who was an outcast? The adulterer that everyone wanted to stone because she was "dirty?" How about the lepers? Everyone had a really good reason for not letting them touch their babies!"

Those were the ones He picked. He went down the "aisle" of life and stopped at their chairs. And He kept coming back. To the same places. He didn't just give them a superficial smile, so others could see he accepted them, He went to their homes for dinner. Jesus made an effort to become their best friend.

They are the ones that are hurting, rejected, that need Jesus, that need to see we really are His hands and feet. And we avoid them. My heart cries even as I write this. I know my heart and it's not what I want it to be.

The Bible says we should have faith like children. I think sometimes we need to see others like children do also. Elijah didn't see any of the things about this woman that I saw. He wanted a new friend, and she did too. He didn't just accept her, he gave her friendship. He caused her heart to smile.

......I looked up at the woman, smiled, and nodded my head. I gave her the OK. I didn't want to, but I had to. She smiled back at me and reached out....and touched my baby.