And the World Descends into Chaos!

This is what happens when you have a "sick day" with two children who turn out to not actually be sick. My whole house doesn't look like this, yet, but they're working on it.

I can't decide if my splitting headache is the result or the cause. Regardless, maybe it's time to relinquish the moratorium on video games for the afternoon.

Captured on Pixels...Part Deux

Here we have proof that I am actually at family events. This is a rare moment when I was in front instead of behind the camera. Whether or not that was a good thing, I'll leave to your discretion. The angle is funny on this one because Art is taking the picture himself.

The Immovable Rock

Any ideas for a way to dull the evil edge of this concrete step? It leads from our den into our kitchen. It used to be a little back porch before the addition was built onto this house. Art and I painted it brown and it looks cute with the rest of our den...however...

It has caused this:







And that bump is six days old, folks! Imagine what it looked like last Wednesday when my four year old was lying on the floor crying. In this picture I told her to "make a sad face" in an effort to get her to stop crossing her eyes. Yes, I have those other pictures too.

The step of doom has also caused me to peel a hefty chunk of skin back from the back of my foot. You know, the part that joins onto the toe? The part that bends every time you walk or move your foot in any way? That part.

The step must be changed somehow. But how? What can you put on the edge of concrete that wouldn't just look stupid? Taking it out is really not an option. There has to be something there to get up to the kitchen.

Captured on Film...er...Pixels!

Here we have photographic proof that Mim can be a real ham when she wants to. This is a very subdued representation of her silly dance.

Microbial Christmas

So, I realize that quite a while ago I promised to have some pictures etc. from the various Christmases. Better late than never, right? Right?

Here, then are the first of a series that we'll call, "Photos of Christmas Past."

This year was a super-geeky Christmas, and part of the geekiness was a set of plush microbes that we got for Zaya from ThinkGeek.

He received: Influenza A, Rhinovirus (the common cold), E-Coli, Streptococcus, a white blood cell and a red blood cell. (Then C'auntie S gave them some she had from a few years ago, including a louse, Gingivitis, Shigella and a few repeats.)

The kids love them, and they've already been snuggled with at night, flown around the house and invited to tea parties. E-Coli has been especially popular, because of all those great flagella. Here he is, enjoying his first flight and his first sip of tea.






I hope that I'm not the only mother with a picture of her daughter having a tea party with E-coli, but...probably...

Pensamientos

This morning I had the radio on in the car as I drove the children to school, as usual. The sound was going to both sets of speakers though, which is unusual, so the little tykes heard the reports of the earthquake in Haiti. I didn't realize they were listening at all until they started asking me questions.

At first it was the expected: What are they talking about, Mom? Where is Haiti? What happened? Were people hurt? When was the earthquake? Then Mim asked a question that stopped me in my proverbial tracks and made my heart hurt a little.

"Mommy? Where was God during that earthquake?"

"Father! I thought I had more time to work on my grown-up answers before I had to face these questions. I still haven't found my _How to be a Perfect Parent_ handbook, let alone studied the chapter on "Existential Quandaries and the Meaning of Life"!

How on earth do I answer questions for my children when I'm still asking them myself sometimes, Lord?"

But He's been talking to me about this one lately, and I stumbled through my response, trying to make it as Pre-School friendly as possible.

"Mim, God loves us very much, and He is there right now in Haiti with all those people. He was there last night when that earthquake came too. The problem is that we live in a very bad world because of sin. God doesn't make bad things happen, but he doesn't stop all the bad things from happening either. That's part of what it means to be a human on our Earth.

But we know that someday Jesus will come back, and it will all be changed. Then God will stop all the bad things, and we'll finally get to live in a world the way God wanted it to be before people messed it up."

I think the kids understood, at least I hope they did, and we moved on to other topics.

It left me a little spiritually shaky, though, I have to admit.

Then I remembered something else that has come to my attention a lot lately. Human tragedy only happens to one person at a time. When we think about the horrors of war and catastrophe, poverty and hunger, we think on a mass scale. We think of genocide and famine and earthquakes as the death of thousands. But it's the death of one. Each person caught in the middle of the terror can only lose one life, one time.

The tragedy, then, is how many people are left hurting.

And God hurts with us. At least we know He did when Jesus was on this earth. Jesus wept for the pain of his dear friends, even when he knew that Lazarus was about to be raised from the dead. He wept again for the city of Jerusalem, and what would happen to it, even though he knew that those same people would be screaming for his death and enjoying his pain in a week.

If God does not choose to deliver our world from all terror and pain, yet, then so be it. Men will continue to die, one at a time, and it will be no less a tragedy when one man dies than when thousands do, because they each lost only one life.

Those of us who are left, then, will wrestle through our fears and doubts and anger, and when we're out of breath and crying to God, "Where were you!" we'll find out that He was never gone. He is still there with all the strength we need to get through our one life, our one vapor, our one time.

Report - Cards and Other

Someday soon my camera and computer will be in the same room together. Until then, I'll just give a quick update.

School has started up again, and the kids are slowly getting back in the groove. They're more resilient. I think it'll take Art and I longer to readjust to the hectic schedule.

We've moved Mim back to half-days all week, because none of us could take the thought of all the drama we would experience every Tuesday and Thursday. Of course, this means Mim and I have to just hang out in W'ville for 3 1/2 hours on those days, but it's preferable to her crying so much she throws up. I felt so bad for her teacher!

We got their second 9 weeks report cards today, and they both did well. Of course, it's Pre-K and Kindergarten, so I wasn't exactly expecting them to be ineligible or anything. They had Satisfactory and Outstanding on everything except "Controls Feelings" for Mim. (See previous paragraph for proof) and "Listen's Well" and "Responsible" for Zaya. He had outstanding in Obeys and all those other things, so it's just a matter of him being lost in La-La land. (Or character land, more like)

I can handle that. I would infinitely rather have my children be overly sensitive, or overly imaginative than be rebellious or cruel in any way.

Now if I just had someone to give me a report card. I know I would get an A in "worries about children" and "tries to please everyone," but I'm failing miserably in "keeps a clean house" and "cooks wholesome meals." I'm also not doing to well in the "reads edifying non-fiction books instead of more Jane Austen." I've worked my way through the three big ones recently, (P & P, S & S, and Emma) and started Mansfield Park this afternoon. Bad girl. F.