The Harrowing/Heartwarming Parent Moment of the Week

It was the last day of March and the snow was just starting to melt (no really, see how the creek is running instead of frozen) and so the boys and I journeyed to Grandma Judy’s house to celebrate her birthday. We had many wonderful and fabulous times, but lest you mistake us for some other calm and perfect three-boy-family, I will list our trials here at the beginning before I regal you with our innate awesomeness.

• I go to pick the boys up for our adventure from the bus stop and only two of them are on the bus.
• I drive back to the school where the bus driver assured me that my missing child would be waiting in the office. He was not.
• I frantically call different schools, wondering if he got off the bus at his big brother’s school. He didn’t.
• A school worker asks: “Is that your son outside on the swings?” It is. Yay! He has not been kidnapped.
• We stop by the mechanics to pick up our car that has just been fixed. It is ready to drive, but the studded snow tires are still on and the car will become illegal the next day. There is a chance that the west-side police might notice this … so I take the van after all.
• One of the boys scares me or bumps me or something and knocks the glasses off my face.
• I step on my glasses, breaking them.
• He kindly tapes them together with masking tape.
• I wear them all weekend garnering strange stares.
• The boys get a frisbee stuck in a tree, and on a neighbor’s roof, and on Grandma Judy’s roof.
• I go up and am about to crawl out onto the roof to retrieve the frisbee when my sons scream out in unison: “No Momma no! You’ll fall and die!” Since they have no confidence in my roof walking ability and are so distraught, I allow Sweet Boy#1 to be the hero and he successfully zips across the roof and grabs the frisbee.
• Sweet Boy#2 somehow smashes his ear on the pot of his new cactus, causing a whole lot of hurt and some bloodshed.
• The boys are supposed to be sleeping so that Grandma Judy and I can watch “Murder She Baked” but someone accidentally hits someone else and gives him a bloody nose and I hear the fateful words: “Is it alright that we got just a little bit of blood on this quilt?”
• The boys are loud during prayer and my 93-year-old Grandpa corrects them.
• Mortified, I flee to the bathroom where I plan to take deep breaths and recover.
• Instead, I hear crashing sounds and my mother saying: “If you throw those trucks down the stairs, I’ll have to take them away.” More crashing.
• I rush out and despite not being any calmer we continue our meal, wherein a huge glass of milk is spilled all over two of the boys and the floor. Much cleaning ensues.
• We must zoom off right after church to a birthday party that is four hours away and I forget to buy a present.
• The book store is closed.
• Antique stores pretty much only have stuff for girls.
• Finally, I find something.
• My van starts to overheat.
• But I add water and we get on our way, successfully making the party and leaving Grandma Judy and Great Grandpa both alive and well and thoroughly entertained.

Now, here for your reading pleasure are the many fun and fabulous successes that our wonderful visit held. All mixed in with the wildness and bloodshed, made all the more wonderful because our fun survived the chaos.

We’d missed making gingerbread houses at Christmas and so the solution was obvious. Easter houses!

Sweet Boy#1 made a precisely rendered and evenly balanced structure that was both yummy and aesthetically pleasing.

Sweet Boy#2 made a delightfully delicious construction full of creative flare and lots and lots of candy.

Sweet Boy#3 made certain that if Hansel and Gretel ever came to his cabin, they would not starve. Creativity and sugar abounded in his Easter house.

Plus we took the long-awaited pilgrimage to the large plant nursery near Grandma Judy’s because Sweet Boy#2 had been working to earn money to buy his very own cactus garden. He managed to spend every cent (there were lots of cacti available) and was thrilled with his new acquisitions. Although, he did stab himself in the chin with the largest cactus and he informed me that he was pretty sure the spines were poisonous as his face was going a little numb. Still, the side affects subsided and it was a marvelous time.

His brothers even managed to come home with new plant life of their own.

So there you have it. A fun and fabulous weekend with Grandma Judy, messes, mayhem, cacti, gingerbread houses, and wonder of all kinds.