a moment of clarity in mommyland

my boy is a sweetie.

when we pulled out our christmas stuff this year, to my dismay, one of the stocking holders was broken.  it was a snowflake, and it finished the set ‘H-O-P-E’.  everyone was sad.

at his AWANA christmas store, my boy found a stocking holder that had a train and some snow stuff glued onto it.  he brought it home for me to replace the broken stocking holder.

it’s a precious gift of his heart.

i have a friend who teaches at pre-school and she sent me this email today for my daily chuckle…

I teach at a preschool and we are going on a trip tomorrow. So, the director sends a note and asks the parents for $9.00 in cash for the cost of the trip. Yesterday, one of the dads who never does anything the way he is supposed to (you know those types-the rules don’t apply to them, always want special treatment, etc.) says to director, “I have to give you a check for Friday’s trip,” and she says, remember, I need cash. So he says he doesn’t have any cash so please will you take a check. She says, “Okay, make it out to me, though, not the school, because I have to pay the place.” So, today she is going through all the trip paperwork and money and stuff and she says, “wtf is this check?” and we are looking at it, trying to figure out who it is made out to because it is not her name………

Yep, it said, Pay to the order of….”Methough”.

this morning, i got into the shower and noticed that the steam was really thick.  i mean REALLY thick.

after a minute or two, i began to get concerned because the steam wasn’t dissipating at all, but the water wasn’t that hot.

it wasn’t until a few minutes later that i realized i was wearing my glasses in the shower…

mornings.  ya gotta love ‘em!

from a friend of mine with a 6-year old daughter:

“when my daughter woke up this morning….”Hey Ma! Did Barack-o win last night??”

I then spent 10 minutes trying very hard to get her to say his name correctly.

So far, we have these for first names:

Barack-o
Baracko-bah
Racko-bah

And this for a first & last name:

Eric-O’Blah-mah”

i was supposed to wake up early today to get everything ready to rush out the door so i could vote.i was also supposed to file a story from my precinct in time for the 7 am newscast…and somehow manage to vote and drive a 45 minute commute and get boyo to school by 8 am and bfg to class by 8 am. had a scheduled interview to do at 8:15…

you can see this schedule all falls apart if ANYTHING goes wrong…and wrong it went.

starting with a minor power outage that found me oversleeping by 20 minutes…followed by the rush out the door, only to discover i barely had enough gas to make my commute–no time to stop–drive to polling station, and because we’re 20 minutes later than i wanted, (it was 7 am,not 6:40) the line was wrapped around the building…no time to vote–hafta do it tonight after dinner.

but i still have to file a story, so i throw something together, get out of the car to call it in, close the door on my pant leg…ripping out the hem in the process.

call in the story, get back in the car and sit on my peanut butter toast.

get everybody dropped off, realize i left boyo’s trumpet at home. can’t do anything about that.

get to work–realize i have dragged my pant leg hem through some unspeakable muck–decide to hot glue the hem in place for now.

plug in the hot glue gun, trip the breakers. (apparently, the system couldn’t take the coffee maker, microwave and hot glue gun going all at once)

get filthy getting everything turned back on. glue hem in place. burn hand.

finally lose my temper. fling glue stick, knock over coffee cup.

can i start today over? it’s only 8:23 am.

(oh. and there’s a peanut butter stain on my butt)

a senior moment, or a blonde moment…or a perimenopausal moment.

true to form, i am almost finished with my christmas shopping.  i may actually BE finished, but i’m not sure.  to verify this, i went to the present hidey hole and started pulling all the presents out to figure out what was for whom.

unfortunately, not only am i early in shopping, i decided to get a jump on things and WRAP them too.  herein lies my problem.

i didn’t tag any of the packages.  so, last night, i’m staring at all these wrapped presents, unable to remember what was for whom, without peeking.

the kicker?  i DID write the names on the presents…on the box that i covered when i wrapped them early.

so, friends and family, when you get your gifts this year, i peeked.  but that was only because i wanted to make sure i sent socks to dad and jewelry to mom, not the other way around. ( and no, i did not just tell the world what you got–i’m not THAT absent minded…..)

25 things to know if you have a boy…

1- A king size waterbed holds enough water to fill a 2000sqft house 4 inches deep.

2- If you spray hairspray on dust bunnies and the run over them with roller blades, they can ignite.

3-A 3 year old boys’ voice is louder than 200 adults in a crowded reataurant.

4- When you hear the toilet flush and the words “uh-oh” it is already to late.

5- Brake fluid mixed with clorox bleach makes smoke…and lots of it.

6- A 6yo boy can start a fire with a flint rock even though a 36yo man states that it only happens in the movies.

7-Certain Legos will pass through the digestive tract of a 4yo boy.

8- Play-do and microwave should not be used in the same sentence.

9- Super glue is forever.

10- No matter how much jello you put in the pool you can’t walk on water.

11- Pool filters do not like jello.

12- VCR’s do not eject PB&J even though the commercial show that they do.

13- Garbage bags don’t make good parachutes.

14-Marbles in gas tanks make a lot of noise when driving.

15- You really DO NOT want to know what that odor is.

16-Always look in the oven before turning it on.

17- Plastic toys do not like ovens.

18- What is the response time of your fire dept.

19- The spin cycle of the washer does not make earthworms dizzy.

20- It will, however, make cats dizzy.

21- Cats throw up twice their body weight when dizzy.

22- Boys will be dirty when any VIP (MIL, PRIEST, BOSS, ect) comes over to the house.

23- You should not throw up baseballs when the fan is on. When useing the ceiling fans as a bat you may have to throw it up a few times before you get a hit. A ceiling fan can hit a ball a very long way.

24- 80% of women will pass this on to friends.

25- 80% of MEN who read this will try mixing bleach with brake fluid… they are still boys after all.

well…and #26- the pink erasers at the pencil’s end are the exact same color as the sinus into which they are inserted.

and no, i’m not sayin’ how many of these our  household has personally experienced…:)

people scream themselves hoarse about infidelity in politics and call for the ouster of the guilty party. it happened with bill clinton, it happened with gary hart, with detroit’s ousted mayor…it happens alot and it’s embarassing, shameful and painful.

republican presidential candidate john mccain is apparently no exception.  in 1976, after having recovered from his injuries, he began multiple affairs.

in april 1979, he began conducting a long affair with a 25-year old woman, cindy lou hensley.  at the time, the then 42-year old McCain decided to divorce his wife, carol (feb 1980).  the divorce finalized in april 1980 and he married cindy in may, five weeks later.

he did not take responsibility for how the infidelity may have contributed to the failing of his first marriage, and his affair cost him his relationship with his kids for several years.

it is good to see relationships healed today…and his ex-wife has shown an amazing amount of grace…but i am amazed at how he’s playing to the evangelicals about his religion.  there is no remorse for what he did and not an iota of repentance.  sure…we all have sins–but there are many of us who work hard at showing remorse and repenting of those–working hard at reparation and restoration–owning the crap we brought to the table.

without that, it’s hard to take him seriously now as the ‘champion’ being touted by evangelicals.  fair is fair. infidelity is ugly no matter who commits it.

on this day, seven years ago, at 8:46 am, ironically, i was writing a story about the growing militancy of the extremist muslim movement.i got an i-m from our webmaster saying ‘what’s going on in new york?’

i said ‘i dunno. what’s going on?’

he said ‘turn up the volume of your tv.’ and i watched the live coverage of plane #2 hitting the other tower.

it was horrifying and i felt like time stopped. the rest of the day was a blur. we launched our news team into action like we’ve never done.

wall-to-wall coverage on anything and everything related.

when i got home that night, i was pooped, dazed and detached. i stayed that way for a couple more days while the coverage went on.

the reality set in for me about a month later.

at the same time, God was moving.  new ministries were born out of the tragedy, and many thousands responded to the hope of Christ.  churches were planted and out of their depth, new seeds sown.

when i look at all that has transpired in the name of Christ since 9/11 seven years ago, i find God’s fingerprints all over it.  He brought beauty from ashes.

never forget.

i’m  a little lost this morning.

i dropped boyo off at church for a week of camp at Lake Ann Baptist Camp–he’s going with our church group, and was bouncing-off-the-wall excited this morning.

it was a direct contrast to last year where he was BEGGING me not to send him.  much irony there.

this year, we were among the first to arrive at the church (as opposed to last year where i was the last one), and this year, boyo was extremely helpful to all the new arrivals.  without being asked, he hopped in the van with another kid and started loading the luggage.

they managed a pretty good packing job, too.  then he hopped out, came over and just held my hand.  ever since he was a toddler, we have shared this secret hand signal that says ‘i love you’.  he was telling me that as we stood waiting for the other arrivals.

i watched him with his friends from church. i watched him load luggage.  i watched him be respectful to our pastor.

i’m watching him grow up.