Sweet rewards

If this is not your first time around this blog, you know that my daughter can be...well...a challenge.  But she has been really good the last few days.  For example...today I was getting a haircut, and she was waiting patiently.  She asked me if she could have one of the suckers that were out on the counter.  I said no.  She accepted it without argument.  That alone is great, in my book, but it got better.  After my haircut, the cashier (who didn't know about our previous conversation) asked Sarah if she would like a sucker.  Sarah said very sweetly, "No, thank you."  That is over-the-top great!  Good attitude combined with good manners!  Maybe she's going to turn out OK after all.  Maybe even better than OK. 

p.s.--We went to Kroger after the haircut, and there was an abundance of food samples, which I let Sarah eat. I told her it was probably God's reward for her since she had been so good.  I'm not a horrible, mean ogre ALL the time. 

The secret code

The phone rang, and Mike answered it.  He told me that we were invited to a cookout tomorrow.
Me: Did you ask if we could bring something?
Mike: She said we didn't need to.
Me: I'm going to call her back and ask.
Mike: Why?  She already told me we didn't need to bring anything.
Me:  Yes, but you're a man.  You don't know the secret code of  women.
Mike:  What?
Me: It's kind of like when Abraham bought the field from the Hittite in Genesis 23.  He asked how much he would sell his cave for, so he could bury his wife in it.  The Hittite told him he could have the cave and the field it was in too. Abraham asked how much it was worth, and the Hittite told him it was probably worth 400 shekels of silver, but that Abraham could just have it for free.  Then Abraham paid him 400 shekels of silver and buried his wife in it.
Mike:  What does that have to do with the secret code of women?
Me:  Well, when I call her I'll say, "Are you sure I can't bring any food?" and she'll say that I don't need to bring anything, but then she'll start telling me the menu, and then I'll have to discern what's missing and offer to bring it.  Then she'll say yes, bring it.
Mike:  Really?
Me:  Probably.  I'll call the Hittite now.

So I call her, and I say, "Can I bring some food tomorrow?" and she says, "Oh, you don't have to.  We're just going to have hot dogs and hamburgers, and cole slaw, and chips."  I noticed she didn't mention any fruit, so I offered to bring watermelon, and she said that would be great.  We hung up, and Mike was looking at me.

Mike: What did she say?
Me:  She wants me to bring 400 shekels of silver.
Mike:  Women!

Country eagles

We were watching Jason stalk a cardinal in the yard.  Mike told him not to kill it or he'd get arrested.  Noah wanted to know why.  Mike told him that the cardinal is the state bird of Illinois.  Noah said, "I thought the eagle was the state bird."  I piped up with, "No, the eagle is the...(trying to think of the word 'national').....country bird."  Noah assumed his best redneck twang and started belting out a country song about eagles that went something like this:

Well I'm a country bird,
flying around looking for roadkill
to feed my hungry babies.
I drop a carcass in the nest,
and they get guts all over their beaks.
Cuz we're country birds....ooooh...country birds....

More than enough

When I was a little girl, I wanted a baby.  I would pounce at the chance to hold a baby and appreciated those brave mothers would trust me to do so.  When I was 11, I started babysitting.  I loved all kids, but especially the tiniest babies.  Even when I was in high school, I still had a doll that I would pretend was my baby.  I wanted more than anything to have my own baby.  Finally I got married and had my chance.  Six years later, still no babies.  We adopted babies, and they are truly my own in every sense of the word.  I just regret that I didn't get to hold them when they were at my favorite age: newborn.  So still, there's always been this longing. 

Fast forward to this morning.  I'm in church singing this song about how God's love is more than enough for me.  When I reallly started thinking about what I was singing ("More than all I want, more than all I need, you are more than enough for me."), it hit me.  God loves me, and that is more than enough.  What else do I really need? 

The box of $61.63 lasagna noodles

I'm making dinner for a family from church who just had a baby.  I'm supposed to deliver it tomorrow, but I have no lasagna noodles, so I have to make a Kroger trip.  $1.63 later, I'm on the way home.  I see a police car has pulled someone over.  I think to myself, "Poor fool.  Glad it's not me."  I go another block, and I see another police car has pulled someone else over.  The police in this town are extremely vigilant; I've noticed that before.  Then I come to a stoplight and glance in my rearview mirror.  Police car right behind me.  I decide to fire up my turn signal, even though I'm in the turn lane and obviously going to turn.  I make sure I don't cross the line when I turn, and I keep my eye on the spedometer to make sure I'm nowhere near speeding.  I'm doing everything right.  I'm pretty proud of myself. 

Suddenly those horrible lights are flashing behind me.  I pull over to let the police car go by me, because of course it
must be on the way to some emergency that has nothing to do with me.  But no; the cop car is now stopped right behind me, shining its ridiculously bright spotlight right on me.  I'm thinking there must be some mistake, but I'm getting a little nervous.  I casually slip my seatbelt on as I'm rolling down the window. 

The cop shines her blinding flashlight right in my face and says, "I pulled you over because you weren't wearing your seatbelt."  Are you kidding me?  How could she have seen that in the dark??  Now she wants my license and insurance.  Thankfully, I have them.  I think she'll probably just going to give me a warning, because I'm such an upstanding citizen.  She tells me to wait, and she goes back to her car, which is still lit up like the 4th of July.  Ten minutes later, I'm still there, as hundreds of passersby are gawking at me, because naturally I'm at the busiest intersection in the whole town.  What on earth do cops do in their cars that whole time?  How do they decide whether to give a ticket or a warning?  Even if she's writing a ticket, my seven-year-old could have completed a whole handwriting lesson by now.  Finally, she comes back with a ticket in her hand that's going to cost me $60. 

From the nature files...

Sleepy boy needs to go for a walk, so....

I gathered up pretty girl...

and her wonderful brother, and off we went.

Our destination was our favorite robin's nest a few blocks away.  We go one at a time to check out the nest, while the other two stay with Jason so he doesn't find the nest.

He LOVES going for walks with us.  See his big smile?  

Ok, so he wasn't really smiling.  He was panting because he was hot and thirsty.  Noah made him a nice bowl of ice water when we got back home.  

After his drink, he stretched out for a rest under a shady tree.

A bird in the hand

Jason caught this baby sparrow and was in the process of murdering it when I grabbed it and brought it inside.  It wasn't bleeding, but it just sat in my hand, breathing really fast and looking terrified.  I held it close and talked to it while I was trying to figure out what to do with it.  I didn't think it was old enough to fly, so I built it a nest and decided to go out and look for a worm to feed it.  It was perfectly content in my hand, but when I went to transfer it to the nest, it freaked out and started flying around the room and chirping wildly.  It took me awhile to catch it, and then I took it outside.  I was standing there holding it, looking for a nest or a distraught mother sparrow, when it suddenly stood up in my hand, started flapping its wings, and took off flying across the yard.

Free massage

I was watching Noah zoom his monster trucks all over the bed, and I was struck with an idea about how I could get myself a free massage.  I took an old tshirt and drew a track on the back, put it on, and asked Noah if he would like to drive his trucks around on the track. 

The non-toad

Just got back from a nice walk around the neighborhood with my husband.  It was dark, and the kids were in bed.  We saw a robin sitting on a nest, and several rabbits, and we could hear frogs croaking.  On the way home, I saw something on the sidewalk that looked just like a toad, so I stopped to look more closely.  My dear husband said, "Is that a frog or a toad?"  I picked it up.  It didn't move.  In fact, it was neither a frog nor a toad.  It was a turd.