Going it alone

I did it.  I survived one week without my husband.  I'm not saying I want to repeat it anytime soon, but for somebody who relies on her husband a WHOLE lot, I'm pretty proud that the kids, the house, the car and I were all in one piece when Stephen walked through the door Saturday night. 

Lessons learned while flying solo:

1. Not cooking dinner makes all the difference.  Left-overs, frozen food, and eating out were this single mom's best friend.

2. Child #3 is an octupus that I never want to bathe again.  Stephen and I have long held the after-dinner tradition of my doing kitchen duty and his doing bath duty.  With the boys taking their own showers these days and only Millie to clean, I've been feeling like maybe our little arrangement is a little unfair.  "Here I am washing allll these dishes, while all he has to do is wash one kid."  Wrong, wrong, wrong was I.  I'll take dishes over Millie's bath any day.  That child nearly drowned herself and cracked her head open within the span of about thirty seconds.  She's excited to the point of insanity--flipping around like a fish, sticking her head in the water, flinging herself back in the tub! 

3. I like not waking up to an alarm at 6:00 every morning.

4. I do not like sleeping alone.

5. Scheduling fun stuff with friends is, well, a lot of fun, and shouldn't be reserved for only when Stephen's out of town.

6. Dealing with a sickie, and most especially a sickie who's thrown up on himself, without his daddy around to help and comfort him makes for one very sad boy.  Poor Eli.

7.  I need to be more thankful for a loyal husband who loves and dedicates himself to home and family the way Stephen does.  Sometimes I forget just how lucky I am.




Look at this gal, ready to go with her shoes, purse, baby hat (where did she find that thing?) and ball

  


Sunbeam Magic

Guess what I do for the second and third hour of church every Sunday?  Yup, you guessed it.  Teach the three-year-olds, who are as new to Primary as I am, also known as the Sunbeams.  The name is apt.  Those bright, shiny kids, so eager to do what's right and learn about Jesus and His gospel, have warmed, if not melted, my ridiculously-caught-up-in-my-own-worries, cold heart on more than one occasion.  Their sweet innocence reminds me why the Savior tells us to be like little children. 

Not that it's easy being a kid in Primary.  Asking an energetic, naturally-wiggly three-year-old to sit still for two hours is a tall order. And for those of you who don't know what goes on in Primary, which I didn't until I got this calling a few months ago, let me give you a brief run-down: 

1. We sit through Junior Primary with about fifty other six-and-unders, where we sing songs, listen to a lesson directed at all the kids, and of course practice sitting still. 
2. We move into our own classroom where the Sunbeams eat a snack, get a drink and go potty, get some wiggles out, do some coloring, and get to learn a lesson about a very simple gospel principle.  Today was "I am thankful for fish." 

Sounds so basic that you'd think you wouldn't have to prepare, right?  Don't be fooled.  Keeping twelve three-year-olds' attention, even with the help of a co-teacher, long enough to have them not only listen to what you're teaching but also hopefully feel the Spirit takes some premeditation.   You'd be amazed by these kids, though.  Amazed at what their little brains and hearts are capable of understanding and feeling.  Amazed at the power of one simple scipture story like Jonah and the Whale in keeping their undivided attention.  Amazed at how much you can feel the Spirit with such small pockets of quiet and such basic gospel concepts.  Amazed at how much they already know about fish! 

Anyway, my calling has surprised me is what I'm trying to say with this post.  Sure, it's a lot of crowd control.  Sure, it's exhausting (my apologies if I used to chat with you after church and now you only see the back of me as I b-line for the parking lot).  But there's no denying the warmth and happiness I feel from my loving little Sunbeams every week.

The latest with the leg

Bennett got his cast off a few weeks ago, right in the middle of ski week/mid-winter break, and let me tell you how excited I was for that thing to be removed.  Do you know just how stinky an active, six year old boy's leg/foot cast can get after five weeks?  I do.  Soooooooo stinky that you will avoid sitting next to your own child on the couch, because breathing in that fowl stench gets your gag reflex going like a puddle of vomit on the bathroom floor.  So stinky that everything that cast touches on a regular basis -- bedding, couch cushions, carpet, cast shoe, ottoman-- seems like it should be burned it reeks so bad.  So stinky that even though it's chillier than it's been all winter, you have to roll down the windows of your van as you drive just so you can breathe.  I'm feeling sick just thinking about it.

Bennett loved watching that thing get sawed off and seeing all the dirt crusted on his leg underneath.  Then he stood up.  Uh oh.  Not quite what he'd expected. "I want my crutches back" even though he hadn't used those things in weeks, which didn't turn out to be such a bad thing since I forgot to bring his other shoe.  Oops.  Poor kid.  I think he'd honestly expected to just run out of that cast room as soon as it came off, despite all our attempts at explaining muscle atrophy and how he might not be able to play soccer for a while.  He kept telling me, "My leg feels weird.  And squishy."  The x-ray brought good news, however: the bone build-up around the fracture was "superb" as the doc called it, and they wouldn't need to re-cast his leg (I didn't even realize that was an option).  The doctor said the squishy feeling would go away and he'd be back walking on it in a day or so.  He also gave a strict mandate to not play sports for THREE WEEKS, which in Bennett's world translates to three more long weeks of torture.

I expected Benito to nurse the leg a bit the first few days, but five days later I started to get concerned when the strange limp he'd developed persisted and didn't appear to be going anywhere.  Physical therapy started to loom large in my mind, harbinger of yet another something to devour my time and co-payments, so I took action.  Every day B came home from school, I'd make him do calf raises on the step in our living room, make him do high knees to practice putting full weight on his weak leg, and make him walk the length of the house keeping his foot straight.  Not to mention my incessant reminders to "Straighten your foot," "Walk normal," and "Put your weight on it," anything to get that leg stronger and in full use.  I'm happy to report that the gimp has lost the limp and seems to be back to normal.  He's just biding his time with the no sports dictum, which means two soccerless soccer practices and possibly one benched game.  Not bad for a kid whose leg cracked not even two full months ago.