The Puddles

Ben rode the bus today for the first time.  He was so worried all day yesterday about riding the bus.  Today he bounded off the bus!  He was so proud of what he did.  He even has an assigned seat!  I think that this will be the beginning of many more rides for Ben.

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Only gone for one night and we have a pharmacy to take with us. Let's hope nobody gets sick because I didn't send any medicine for illnesses!

We are going to Grandma and Papa's house (Grace)!!!!!!

I think we backed enough to stay for a week!

These are three very excited children who are on their way to Grandma’s house.  Madie woke up before we did and had her suitcase packed. While Ainsley and Ben couldn’t finish packing because they were so excited.

When Chris and I met them at the door of Grandma’s house, there were floods of tears and upset children because nobody wanted to go home with Mom and Dad.  Go figure!!

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It feels like that word is every where.  At home. At church. At school. With the children. Without the children. And these days it seems to be all encompassing. Add the “d” word to the fact that I am a worry-wart and that makes for more trouble.  So now I have drama with a double dose of worry!  Yuck!

I thought the worse part of our yearly story would be Ben’s surgery.  But the side effects (and I am not talking about medical) of that drama are still plaguing us.  He is still struggling with adjustments at home and at school. Nothing terrible but enough for us to be concerned.   Madie has been our brave big sister for so long that it too is having some affects on her.  She needs our special love and attention right now.  Her emotional cup is running on empty and we need to work overtime to try to fill it back up again.  And Ainsley . . . Well Ainsley has always been that special child.  She is the kid that will tell you (and sometimes loudly) when she needs extra love and attention.  We think that she is crawling into bed with us every night in part because she needs some extra mom and dad snuggle time and this is one way to get it.  But she is showing her stress and worry with her tummy.  We have been to the doctor. We have her several medicines to try to help her.  She is on a special diet.  This has been going on for over two months already.  I told the doctor that we could handle the added medical structure to our already medically structured life with no worries.  I was wrong. It has not been so easy.  It is hard to keep all of the medicines straight in the morning between all three kids.  I dole out eleven different medicines every morning.  I know that there are families that have it worse than me, but it is hard to think outside of your box when all of this is going on.

And the church. Well, our church is so full of hope and promise but right now it is hurting and showing all of those hurts and pains right now.  It is hard to remember that people do not leave their sinful selves at the door.  They bring it in the door with them to church.  This is a church trying to heal but with someone picking at the scab constantly which only delays the healing process.  And with all of that said . . . we just add the church to our list our worries for the day, week, and year.

Ok I have wallowed long enough.  Time to face the day with all of its beauty and its warts!!!

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Mommy vs. Ben  We battled for about 3 hours last night over green beans.  Green beans!!!  Me telling him that it is ok that you don’t eat your green beans but you still don’t get ice cream and him telling me that he needed more time to eat his green beans.  At 9:25pm, I finally had to tell him that he has had long enough and that he just needed to go to bed.

What lead up to the battle of the beans?  I don’t know.  We started with, “why do I have so many sisters?”

“Because that is what God gave us.”

“God made a mistake.”

“I’m the only boy. I always get in trouble. The girls never get in trouble. I get grounded. They never get grounded. My life is hard.  There aren’t enough boys here.  When are going to have a baby brother for me? . . . ”  And on and on.  Don’t forget to add a whiny voice when you read the conversation.  I told Ben that I couldn’t understand his woes.  Would he like to talk to Daddy?  Yes. He did.

At least I had a good night’s sleep the night before.  I had enough patience to not raise my voice and yell.  Most of the time I wanted to just giggle.  If this entire scenerio had happened yesterday, it would not have been so pretty.  I had reached my limit of patience early that day.  My poor boy.  Maybe Daddy will relent to Ben’s wishes and let us have another little baby in the house (Madie told the dinner table last night that we haven’t had a baby in the house for awhile and a baby would make everyone happy. she is obviously having memory lapses.).  Or maybe I can convince Ben to be happy borrowing Gordon for the weekend.  Let’s hope it is the later.

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“Mom.  There are three things that I am scared of . . . 1.  monsters  2.  green beans  3.  anything that looks like a green bean.”

Ben Lake, age 6

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Madie was selected by her teachers to present Mrs. Wilkinson (the school’s namesake) the second grade class present.  She did so well.  We are so proud of her for all of her hard work!!  She deserved the honor.

Ben put a holy (as in holes) shirt on today. I told him he couldn't wear that ratty shirt and to wear something nicer. He came downstairs wearing a shirt and tie.

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Ben, as an old man

The Entire Kindergarten Class

Ben celebrated the 100th Day of school today.  It was so much fun.  I let Ben lead the way on his outfit.  He dug through the dress up box and found this old suit jacket.  And he found the rest from his closet.  Minus the cane of course.  That came from our friends down the street.  It added the perfect touch to the outfit.

The hair.  Let’s talk about the hair.  I put some baby powder in his hair early that morning.  He decides that I didn’t put enough in and so he completed the job for me.  Powder everywhere.  In the sink.  On the floor.  On him.  It was hilarious!!  Dad pulled the vacuum out and vacuumed Ben and the bathroom.  But for the rest of the day Ben was shedding powder.  I told him that he had “old man dandruff” for the rest of the day.  It was a mess.  He washed his hair that night and he still had it in his hair.  At least he smelled good!!

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