Somewhere in Arlington National Cemetery is a stone for a man I never met, but for whom my father is named. His plane went down in the Bermuda triangle and all souls aboard were lost. No trace ever found. My grandfather, his brother, told me from that day on, he knew what he would name his first son and that his father, my great grandfather, until the day he died, never gave up hope that his son would walk through the door some day. In memory of George Allen Terrell, and others who gave their lives in service, we remember this day.
It is also the end of Matt's annual trip to BONESAW (you gotta say it that way), which is a weekend away with his brothers and other like minded men to play board games and eat a lot of meat. It is also the end of the longest five days of my life. Well, perhaps not of my life, but home alone with the three monkeys for 5 days was pretty rough. If something could go wrong, it went wrong. Here's the crazy list.
- I got severely sunburned at the pool, in spite of sunscreen. (not a disaster, but pretty painful)
- Kid #2 had a near drowning experience at that same pool. Thankfully he did not aspirate any water.
- Kid #2 finally figured he could unlock and open the front door, and Kid #3 (who is an infant) went on a walkabout without me. Thankfully I caught him halfway down the tall front porch steps and he didn't make it to the street, or crack his head open falling down the steps.
- AC went out. On a Friday night, just before a holiday weekend. Grateful that they came on Saturday to fix it!
- Kid #3 eschewed sleeping during the day in favor of staying up all day and freaking out and being a grump. I put the kibosh on that pretty quickly. Mama ain't got time for all that.
- AC guy and electrician arrived at just the same moment to fix different things. It felt pretty chaotic. Thankful that all the work got done. (It was in this chaos that the baby escaped.)
- New tenant moved in to our little cottage and promptly clogged the toilet. She called me at 7am on Sunday. I think she saw my kitchen light come on and figured I was awake. (The one down side of being so close to our rental. Most everything else is an up side.) Actually I am pretty sure this one was my fault for trying a trick I read about which is to leave a small piece of Magic Eraser in the toilet bowl to dissolve and it will take out stubborn stains. I guess it didn't dissolve (and was too big of a piece) and someone tried to flush it. A quick tutorial via youtube and I was off to the hardware store for a toilet auger with my three monkeys. They stayed buckled in the car right outside the cottage door while I snaked the toilet. My tenant, a cute, tiny little gal, called me "Quite the woman!!" I didn't argue. The weekend was feeling like a Herculean feat at that point.
- On Friday, I got an email reminder from our children's director that I was scheduled to work in the church nursery and since this was the last Sunday on the schedule, there really wasn't anyone to switch with. She kindly reminded us of the verse, "Do all things without grumbling or disputing. (Phil 2:14)" and so I emailed back to say me and all the kids would be in my nursery class together. Sunday night rolled around and we all made it there on time and had a pretty good evening with 6 other 18mo-2 yr olds. Kid #3 only escaped once and another mom grabbed him up for me and brought him back by the time I realized he was gone. That kid. We are gonna need a fence.
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