Sunday Meltdown

In church last Sunday, we arrived close to on time. This is huge. We attended Sunday School, minus one boy who was visiting his aunt and uncle, and I watched as church began when S4 leaned against S1 and they were all so cute I leaned over to Hubby and whispered. "I'm so glad you gave me four boys."

It was a beautiful moment but I jinxed myself in that moment.

After the singing and scripture reading, S3 took it upon himself to use his hands as a telescope to check out the guest speaker and the congregation. S1 was sitting right next to me, which never happens by the way and I just was soaking up, so I had to reach around him to flick S3 in the ribs and mouth "knock it off!"

The looks a moma knows how to give.

Usually we sit in the back of the church. For some reason, we didn't this Sunday. We were near the front. Very near.

S3 continued to pull his shirt up over his head, skooch around I don' t know how so he was in essence mooning the back of the church and every time I flicked him, gave him "the look", he hung his head, waited for me to pay attention to the service and started up at it again.

So I hauled him out of church.

And I am sure we were a sight because I was, at this point, angry. And he was, at this point, realizing he was in BIG trouble. And I was in a little black dress with black heels feeling all girly and grown up and he was dragging behind me in his light up blue shoes with tears and quivering lip.

And I was dragging him.

RC later asked how he was doing. She says she feared for him as she watched him...from the back of the church.

I hauled him into the women's bathroom where he spilled his guts "I don't want to be here! I want to go home! I want to go home! I want to sleep! I want to go home! I don't want to be here!"

He went hysterical on me.

And the timer on the lights in the bathroom was off and so it was dark and we were sure to be heard so I quickly hauled him outside where he continued his wailing of "I want to go home! I want to go to sleep! I don't want to be here! I want to go home!"

So I drug him to the suburban, told him to get in, shut the door, and let him wail. And he did for a full solid ten minutes.

While I sat on the back bumper and felt the sting of tears and wondered just how I was supposed to handle such a situation.

I mean, what would you do?

Me? I hung out on the bumper, watched ants crawl in the gravel, waited for church to get done where my husband knew I was barely hanging on (and also knew I was going to find a way to blog about this) and when we got home I fed him lunch and sent him to bed. Where he didn't sleep...but was angelic for the rest of the afternoon (that evening was a different story, where he was sent to bed early, and promptly fell sound asleep).

I, however, took a nap Sunday.

Too Busy with a Perfect Day to Blog

Sometimes I am just too busy to blog because it’s a perfect day.

Here, where we are, the H1N1 flu has hit our community hard. We have numerous school closings and we know three children who are down with the flu.

We are also experiencing the coldest, wettest fall we can recall. It is looking like we are in for a doozy of a winter. They are comparing it to a winter I do not recall, having not been born yet, but I have heard stories and as soon as I mention the winter to those older than me, they all have stories upon stories upon stories of how awful it was.

All of this was preceded by a cooler than normal summer. Truly disappointing, even our crops had a hard time growing not to mention the beach days we missed out on.

But back to H1N1. Many of the local schools have closed to help kids get over the flu. R.C.’s kids’ school was closed and she called to see if I could watch her two boys, CC and MC. Since CC and S2 are on the same soccer team, the same church class and so on and so forth, they are good buddies. MC is S4’s very very very very bestest friend, and he gets along great with S3. So, the boys were ecstatic they were coming over, until they realized they would be in school.

When we watched the weather, we seen that after days of spitting snow flakes, thirty and forty degree temps, we were going to have a day that was nearly seventy degrees. Seventy. That is darn near tropic.

Hubby has been working third shift all week long and that night as I called him to tell him goodnight I all but begged that the boys could have a skip day of school. “I’ll have RCs boys and it would be so much easier if I had our boy’s home too. Especially when I watch Jr later in the day. They all would play so well and, well, it’s going to be the very last nice day of the year!”

I nearly fell when he said “Yah, I guess they could.”

They have never ever had a skip day.

All the boys were in bed already so I never told them till they awoke me in the dark morning to find out if their school had been closed too…three of our closest schools in the area were closed from the flu already. “You get to have a day off today, and be sure to thank your Daddy.” I mumbled to them.

They shrieked in glee. They can shriek very high pitched and it’s even louder when you haven’t even been awake for a full 60 seconds yet!

As I stumbled to the kitchen I was surprised to see it was raining. Rain had only been a very slight possibility. And here it was all drizzly and dreary out. But there was no turning back now.

We made chocolate chip pancakes; CC and MC were very impressed. By the time it was all cleaned up the rain had about ended. Just when the boys were getting a bit rowdy, the sun was coming out. I sent all six boys out to play.

And play they did.

They played football, soccer and catch. They gathered wood to make a pretend campfire only to realize that they could make a fort….and that is when the fun really began. At the thought of making a fort, well, that was a lot of boy power!

The day reached nearly seventy. By the time Jr arrived at one in the afternoon, I had been outside most the morning clearing out all sorts of dead flowers from my front flower gardens. When had I let them get so bad? I can now use that front door, without letting grass in. It cost me getting poison ivy on my arm, but it was defiantly worth it!

When the bus arrived to drop off the renter’s (IM, fourth grade along with his sister, high school), the boys gleefully waved to their friends stuck on the bus on such a sunny day. IM got the low down on the new fort and it wasn’t long before all seven of them were out to build it up some more. When they were tired, they played soccer or football. Because, when you are tired that’s what you do, right, run around playing? When Jr was awake from his nap, we went out to check out the fort. I pushed him around in the stroller. It was as if even a five month old little boy could appreciate the gift of the day.

Dinner time came and I made sloppy joes, fried potatoes and left over mac and cheese from lunch. Never have I seen food disappear so quickly. I was finishing making Hubby’s lunch while they scooped out food. Five minutes late to the table and I was literally scrapping the bowl to make a sandwich, usually we have enough left over make lunch for two more days!

All throughout the day, one of the boys would comment on how beautiful it was, how nice it was out, how great it was to be home, how this was the greatest day ever.

And it was a great day. A treasure day. A day to not soon forget.

It was a truly perfect day.

But perhaps these photos will help you realize why there are days in a row why I just don’t have time to blog. But I assure you, it was worth it!

I Can See Clearly Now!

Today is S3’s first day at school with his new glasses. We had to go get them yesterday after school, he was thrilled. The glasses have been on back order and the office agreed with me it was better to wait for the glasses S3 picked out then get a new pair. His teacher has noticed that he is having a difficult time seeing in class so I have been anxious for them to arrive.

It turned out to be a good idea to wait for the glasses; he was so excited to put on his DARK BLUE GLASSES. Although, there at first, I wasn’t sure what impressed him the most, the dark blue glasses, the cloth to clean the lenses or the handy creaking to a slamming sound glasses case. Everything was ‘awesome’.

When he first walked in them, he had the perception that there was a big hill he had to walk over so everywhere he walked in the optometrist office was a huge step. Between his excitement, S4 thinking the tinted glass meant no one could see in but he could see out so he had to knock on all the windows and wave hello and S1 trying to figure out the best sunglasses for hunting or fishing and S2 secretly wishing he had glasses so he was trying on every pair he could in hopes he would suddenly see thru them so dramatically better we would have to get him a pair too, we were quite the hit at the office.

As they all climbed back in the suburban, I had S3 sit in the front seat, the most coveted seat of all in the suburban on any and all trips. It was so fun to see him drinking up all the sights around him, as if he were seeing things for the first time. I remember getting my glasses for the first time and thinking the same thing.

That night we had Word of Life club at church and when he walked in, everyone made a big deal of his glasses. R.C. introduced herself to him and showed the proper amount of shock that she knew him already and raved how handsome he looked. Then she said the best thing of all, “the sides of your glasses remind me of blue and red snake skin.”

Oh man, life could not have been better in that moment for S3. He was grinning before, but now his grin seemed to nearly crack his face.

Today at school I took photos like it was the first day of school for him all over again. I am hurriedly writing this because he will be home soon and I will get to hear all about how ‘new’ school will have seen to him today. I can’t wait!

But as I dropped him off at school after we had a morning of him taking his glasses off and putting them in the case, taking them out and wiping them off, putting them on and pushing them on top of his head, wiping them down, putting them in the case, putting the glasses back on his face….it’s amazing we made it to school at all this morning…I reminded him to be careful with his glasses today. I have checked the insurance policy on the glasses yesterday and while there is one, it is by no means a boy proof insurance. He needs to wear them all the time, but still I feel I must need to stress the importance of being careful with them – which will be hard as cool as these dark blue glasses are.

I think this is the beginning of a long, tiring journey.

Anyone with tips for us, I’d be happy to hear them!

In Honor of R.C.

This article today is in honor of my very dear friend, R.C. She is the coupon clipper of all coupon clippers. She finds deals I didn’t know were findable. Do you have a friend like this? R.C. could outdo them! She is quiet and sane and has a lovely personality but don’t mess with her coupons. Recently, she went shopping for her super great deals of the week and in the process of getting her goodies, her son, her purse (girls, you know how it goes when we go out) she left her coupon book behind.

She was lost and devastated.



To read the rest, check out http://praiseandcoffee.com/ !