Sigh

What to do when my child believes humor to be the most highly prized quality in a person?

Our little Helen is our resident humorist, and she knows it. I have even heard her nearly deadpanning into Owen's Leapfrog recorder. "Helen is a funny girl," she said with a only a very small hint of hilarity. She regularly cracks us up with her actions, faces and words, and we mostly love her sense of humor, because we love to laugh.

But there's the really annoying side of her that cannot be serious. We look into her deep brown eyes and try to impart some wisdom to that sweet little face without busting a gut. She leads the game by a split second, and plays it well, a twitch in the corner of her mouth, as soon as she senses it might be forgiveable to laugh. She has learned very early in life that quick smiles and jests might possibly get her off the hook, should she ever find as much as her pinky toe in trouble.

Tonight before supper, Jack who has just learned to walk, had a tremendous splat of a fall, and nearly bit through his lip. In fact, Jason fished a chunk of his cheek wall out of his mouth, so we knew it was a bad bite. We got the bleeding stopped, made some phone calls to nurses in the family, and figured out he was going to be all right. And yes, yours truly had to sit down in the recliner and close my eyes while I waited for my nausea to subside, my tunnel vision to go away and my hearing to return. As I was sending Helen to bed later, I told her give Jack a kiss on the head, not the mouth, not thinking that she might leverage herself against him to lean in for the kiss. Sure enough, his lip got another sharp bump on an end table, which set his mouth to bleeding again and his pitiful soul to ear-numbing wailing. Helen's response was to sing the alphabet song at a louder decibel level to comfort and/or tease him out of his sadness. I sent her to bed, and while we were discussing Jack's ouchy, her effect on it, and praying for him, a half smirk settled onto her face.

*Sigh*

Blog catch up!

This poor blog has taken the back seat in the wild schedule of our lives recently! Following Jack's birthday, we took a really nice vacation to northern Indiana to see my family. While we were there, we celebrated Jason's birthday and the Fourth. Jay and I also took a vacation from the vacation, left the kids with my parents and went to Chicago for a night! We took in the Art Institute, and while being in awe over the many famous paintings from centuries past, we are still banging our heads against the wall trying to figure out some of the modern art(?) Not that I mean to begin a discussion on art here, but if you have explain in two or three paragraphs the meaning of your piece, is it really art? I guess he and I just appreciate pretty art, not shock art.

On our way home, we got the kind of call that you never forget. A friend of the family, our doctor's wife, had been struck by lightning as she was taking out her trash, and her life was in definite question. The rest of our trip was agonizingly long as we dealt with fussy kids and long highways, but we realized that our troubles were nothing compared to what the Yoder family was facing. Several days later, her struggle was over. Needless to say, her death was a huge shock to all of Atmore and beyond. It was completely unexpected. She was in good health. She loved God, served her family and the community, and lived an exemplary life. It's really made me think about my life and what I want it to be about. Yes, I have peace with God; there is no question in my mind about where I will go when I die. But really, what am I here for? Does God really have my whole heart? And what does God want me to be doing with my time and money? Heavy stuff. At the same time, it's good to wrestle with the questions.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch....here are some pictures from Jack's birthday party! We celebrate life when we have the chance, there is no doubt, and this little man is certainly bursting with life. You only turn one once!

I had hung streamers and the birthday banner the night before. Owen and Helen's energy levels cranked up three notches when they saw them in the morning. Jack could have cared less, but he may have smiled a bit. I decorated the cupcakes during their naptime, and got everything else finished up then too. I had just finished laying out the plastic spoons, when Owen woke up with a fever. In spite of feeling bad, he and Helen were still in awe of the cupcakes, and were picking out which ones were theirs.Apparently we are experts at getting sick just in time for parties; poor Owen had to miss his own last year! We put out the warning to the cousins. Owen burst into tears at the thought of missing the party, until he understood he could still have a cupcake. He quickly regained his former cheerfulness. What the promise of sugar won't do....! Uncle Brent and Aunt Jan came anyway, and we kept Owen with the adults. (I don't think he minded a bit.)

Jack cried because Mean Mommy wouldn't let him touch the burning candle.
He got over it once I shoved some cake in his mouth. Then instinct took over.
He got a pair of pajamas, some fun toys, and one seriously evil toy from his Aunt Jan.
By the way, you can gauge the evilness of a toy by how many big kids flock around it. From mom and dad he got a barely used Dora "ridey thing" that I found at a yard sale for $2. Hey, for a kid who plays with boxes, what does the price of the toy matter?!
Aunt Jan herself got the best gift of the evening--
a finished quilt by her mother! The best thing about that is we're next!