my real actual life

For a tiny breath this morning I felt like a normal adult.

Coffee + Brennan Manning + a house closing at our bank with Daniel before he went into MFD.

{makeup & skinny jeans & black top & cute scarf. . . you almost feel human.  People don't shout at you.  Life doesn't seem to be an emergency.  Well modulated voices.  Good morning. Just a moment. Would you like a pen to sign with?  No rush, we're just waiting on copies. }

After that meeting the real, actual part of my life commenced.  This pretending I can swim in the business world is really quite an illusion.  What I really do is stuff like this:

Eli throwing the jar holding the frog across the cement porch floor.  It breaks, oh yes, it breaks everywhere. Frog, shell shocked, realizes he's still alive, and finally free, hops off through the glass.

Cambria brings me Time magazine:  "Mom, wouldn't this be awesome?" I look down at Flo, the Progressive girl, surrounded by probably 389 white bunnies.  Yes.  Yes.  Just awesome. 

Jacob and I, desperate, dig his fave athletic shorts out of the laundry hamper.  He reasons: "You know, no one ever gets close to you and actually smells your shorts."  This reasoning is . . .flawed. . . but it will work today. 

JD and I work on painting and cleaning out a storage shed.  I forget that there are calendars up on the inside of the shed from the previous occupants. Fortunately the calendar subjects are (sort of) clothed, but he pops out of the shed, scandalized:  "Mom,  there are awful pictures in here!"  I remove them with him.  Well, here's the deal, it's not respectful to women to put up pictures like this.  Keepin' it simple. He thinks those women shouldn't be dressing like that.  True.  That too.  There are so many things wrong with this, I begin and he interrupts Yes, like girls don't even ride motorcycles! Seriously! Sure.  We'll stop there for now. 

I vacuum new carpet at our current rehab with Eli.  I turn my back to take a picture to email a prospective tenant and suddenly my day spins into a panic of how did you get that cleaner in your mouth?!!!  **gagging **coughing  ** spitting 

what if some awful chemical is eating away at his airway??  how did he even get this??

I definitely heart poison control.  I called Daniel, but it is a rule of thumb for firefighter wives everywhere that if you have a panicky question for your husband, he will definitely be tied up with some other panic. 

Anyway, Cheryl from Poison Control sounded just like a grandma and was just the perfect calm to my lil storm. 

forced bath time for Eli David

Daniel calls me back finally and I find that he was on a fire.  So yeah, definitely legitimate reason he couldn't answer my phone call. . . I process this through the lens of oh, yeah, I forgot I have him to worry about too!! Oh my. . . are YOU okay???

WORRY

I gotta kill it.

JD gets invited swimming with friends. I drop him off and chat a bit. I go home and discover my zipper was down. Yes. That's awesome too. 

Awesome like the way I was in the shower last night with Eli eating his supper on a paper plate next to the tub with all the doors locked and our small group meeting in twenty minutes in our living room.  I've got this.  WE CAN DO.  Except. . . I forgot. . . my sweet friends bringing food. . . early. . . bless their patient hearts.   

The two little kids and I finish vacuuming and painting and I get out the camera to dutifully finish my photo-emailing job.  Battery exhausted.  I scroll back with the bit of juice left.  Apparently while I was painting, Cambria was using the camera to video journal Eli's nap.  Well that explains a lot. 

YOU, my prospective tenant, are going to have to be happy with three pictures tonight because it is Friday and I am clocking out  and ordering pizza. 

Oh, weekend, I love you. . . .


and just for the fun of it I'm popping up some before and afters: 

before                                                                                             after

before                                                                                 after

How unfortunate that the real, acutal  part of life and motherhood doesn't show before and after results.  Sometimes only God sees the seeds we sow.  That's okay.  I love 'em anyway. 


Especially on Friday nights when they're all tucked in bed. 


Happy weekend to you!