The child is ill. Still picking at his food, although whatever goes down stays down, which is improvement. He has moments of normal temp and then moments of a bit of fever.
However.
Had he not been at home with an adult to supervise him, we would not have discovered a big discovery:
Today the air conditioner decided to drip onto the kitchen floor, through the kitchen ceiling.
It was timely.
Yes.
I’ve told him he saved the day, just by being sick.
He is feeling better about missing out on all the excitement.
And it all works together when Someone big enough has the reins.
An antique tractor – A very early, hand-built gasoline powered tractor. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
I had some fun yesterday! My tutoring job was canceled because my student had testing, instead, so I made use of the time by making a run to town.
Or trying to make a run to town.
I got as far as the discount store and my Ford truck wouldn’t go. If I tried to let it idle, it sounded like a Ford tractor, instead. Are tractors only 2-cylinder? Let’s just say it was missing a bit. And it would die, not idle.
This truck is really new — still under warranty.
I’m no race car driver, but somehow I managed to manipulate the gas, gears, and brakes enough to get the thing across the street to our favorite tire guy. We don’t have any engine-repair places, and this guy knows all anyone needs to know, anyway.
Of course, being in the tire business, he has no diagnostic computers for engines, but never mind. Even his young assistant knew what the procedure should be. As our tire friend sat in the cab of my truck and manipulated the keys in the ignition, the young assistant ducked, unbidden, under the truck to listen.
Then our friend asked, “Do you hear it humming?”
The young assistant nodded “yes.”
Whatever that was about, it was not about tires. I felt myself in good hands.
However, this first responder triage diagnosis was: water in the gas. As I tried to remember aloud where we had recently bought gas, he kept saying, “I buy gas there all the time. That shouldn’t be a problem place to get it.” He said ‘sorry’ and he couldn’t really help me, that I should take it to the dealership, but I was welcome to park in his lot.
I’m so thankful for small-town friendliness!
I called hubs and he said to bring it on home after I got groceries.
I was scared.
But I did it.
I don’t know how.
It kept wanting to die when it coasted down hill. If I did not keep it revved, it chugged and jerked a lot, as if I were just learning to drive a manual shift. It kept trying to die whenever it idled, and succeeded a couple of times, so I prayed a lot for clear intersections so I would not have to come to a full stop. I hardly had any brakes, anyway, as they were power brakes and there was not much power, or something.
I slipped through several stop signs with a promise to stop twice next time.
Although the speed limit going home is 55 mph, I kept it to 40 or so, except for downhill, since I had to give it gas at all times to keep it from dying.
It was a very blessed feeling finally to arrive home and coast the last 50 yards, since it had died but we have a parking spot that is downhill from the road.
Once Baby was all bathed and dressed for bed, a secret and almost sacred ritual would begin.
First he would shyly ease his way into the dim-lit nursery and stand a bit away from the rocker where Baby rested in my arms. Then he would ask if Baby had bathed and if Baby’s feet were all clean.
Once assured, he then would ask if he might kiss Baby’s feet.
It always awed me, the tenderness this one had for Baby and for Baby’s feet.
And those were the nights that I learned all the baby expert books in the world that predict jealousy in the displaced sibling meant nothing to me.
Absolutely nothing.
And I never consulted them again.
Last week I opened my email to find a death threat. Whether this was spam or the real deal is yet to be determined.
The officer asked if I owned a gun and suggested I might want to keep it handy and be aware of my surroundings. These words sent me scurrying to the closet to pull out my Smith & Wesson. I loaded the pistol with bullets my husband had stored all these years.
Realizing we were low on ammunition, I let my fingers-do-the-walking in an attempt to find replacement ammo. A number of calls later I located a store and told the clerk I’d see them first thing next morning.
I tucked the weapon into a safe hideout and crawled in bed for what I hoped would be a good night’s sleep. Before closing my eyes, I asked God to keep me safe through the night. My gun was loaded. I knew how to use it. I was prepared.
This is a wonderfully-written, true tale of fear and foibles by DiAne Gates. Read more, here!
Don’t abandon baby girls: the characters in red on the roadside sign in Danshan Township, Sichuan Party Committee and government reads “It is forbidden to discriminate against, mistreat or abandon baby girls.” Photographed September 2005. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
1. Chinese family planning officials ran over a 13-month old baby with a small bus after they feuded with a Chinese resident over fines related to the birth of the child, born outside China’s one-child policy.
The 13-month-old boy, the third child of a couple in Mayu Town, Rui’an City, was run over on Monday by a minibus owned by the Mayu government and died in hospital, a Rui’an municipal government official said. Read here.
2. Our presumed President sent a videotaped speech to NARAL, in which he claims to celebrate the death of 55,000,000 babies.
3. The NAACP has threatened to sue LifeNews.com and black pro-life leader Ryan Bomberger, a LifeNews blogger, for a recent columnthat took the civil rights organization to task over its abortion position.
If poverty is a help to right living, then this girl was a saint.
I’ll call her “Sharon”. She lived out in the country near us, in a rental cabin meant for hunters. Termite-infested, cold in winter, hot in summer, wet during rains, it provided only privacy for Sharon’s family: her jobless parents and her little sister.
When, after my second son arrived, the carry-in meals were too much food for us, we passed some of it on to this poor family. They returned every single one of those empty Cool-Whip cartons, spotlessly clean. The only time they ever asked us for money, it was for food, and when Sharon’s mother had finished shopping, she brought me the change she had not needed.
Sharon was trying hard not to become a dropout and to keep away from the problems inherent to youth those days. It was easy for me to like her quiet and confident ways. Although there was about ten years difference in our ages, she showed me the kindnesses of friendship and sometimes would visit with me over the phone. She always ended each call by mentioning some difficulty she or her family had encountered and I counseled her briefly. Only after I converted her plight into a prayer request, would she say good-bye. How that impressed me!
Sharron married right after high school and soon was expecting her first child. She still called me occasionally and eventually asked me to visit at the new house her teen husband had built her. What a building! Constructed totally of 3/8” plywood, top to bottom, in and out, and walls painted in the latest style – with a feather duster. It was too hot in there for me, but the small wood-burner was kept at a low roar for the baby’s warmth.
One day I answered my door to find Sharon standing there with something to give me. She said they had to move and wanted to tell me good-bye. On the porch floor beside her stood a diminutive table her husband had made of scrap lumber, mostly 1×1’s. It was as simple as a plywood house, but well-made and painted with a feather duster.
How incredible that Sharon, so poverty-stricken, could even consider gifts for others! It almost brought me to tears.
I have loved the story and the person behind that small gift for a long time. It served well as a fern stand, outdoors when the weather was mild, and indoors when it was too hot or cold for ferns. It soon needed repainting and always bore the colors of the exterior of our houses, wherever we lived. I kept it proudly on display right by the front door and often told the story of this gift.
If you are thinking you’ve already read this story here, before, you’re correct. Oh, BUT – there is a new twist in the ending. Before, I had said what I thought was true, that it had finally sort of decomposed in the ensuing 30 years, but I was wrong. The little table still lives! While visiting my oldest son, not long ago, I spied it on the deck behind his house, still holding up, still holding potted plants, and I (TADA!) photographed it for you all to see: The lovely little table from “Sharon”.
The wedding wowed us all, and my son, no doubt, rejoices, now. We’ll talk about that later, I’m sure.
But what I realize suddenly, is that for the last 42 years, I have been co-existing with my kids. That thought barely fits inside my head. Just barely. For 42 years, I’ve had kids in my corner — whether pre-borns, school-aged, or 20-somethings, they were my kids and they were here.
Gradually, almost imperceptibly they have sought their niches and moved on to life as they envisioned it.
I wonder if they envisioned it accurately, any better than I did. I mean, I always wanted six children, but I never, even once, thought I would live with kids for 42 years. It makes me laugh because it sounds like I ran an orphanage. Often I jokingly said of my profession, that I helped my husband manage a home for children who would otherwise be homeless. I believed that, even while I laughed about it. I joke about someone else doing their laundry for a change, and I believe that, too, as I laugh.
The time arrives when all that work is over and I enjoy reaping grandkids and such. I re-arrange furniture in empty bedrooms, glad for the space, glad for a chance to access the under-bed areas with a broom and mop, daring not to allow the mixed emotions a venue, terrified of second thoughts, unable to admit missed chances, refusing to ponder the distance to check on these kids, allowing only the happy-thoughts.
I did it. They are raised and gone. Their rooms are again mine. I can have a sewing room and an office.
Such are the dreams of the everyday housewife
You see everywhere any time of the day
An everyday housewife
Who gave up the good life
For me.
However the writer of this song assumes the wife longs for the good ol’ pre-marriage days, it fails to realize what it juxtaposes:
Wrinkles vs. young men’s ridicule — give me wrinkles, any day.
Apron vs. dancing men waiting in line for her — really; that’s the good life.
Closet vs. photos, and dried flower crumbling — actually, I have many, many photos and flowers, none crumbling, and I could use another closet.
Housedress vs. mind-blowing gowns — the way I dress in the house is far more sensible and comfortable and desirable and if gowns are the “good life”, I’d give them up in a heartbeat for what I’d really like.
I’d really like to ride that “housewife” ride all over again.
Home's Cool! 