One step forward and two steps back

I'm having one of those weeks. Yesterday I took Twinkle Toes (9) to her track meet along with American Boy (4) and Baby Lu (18 mos.). We were running late since I had been blogging while I should have been preparing dinner. When my husband came home to tuna sandwhiches I told him I was so sorry, but that I had been finishing up my Bible study questions and it had gotten me to thinking and then one thing led to another and I ended up spending 2 hrs of the kids' naptime searching the Bible and writing. At that point Monk said, "I think that's the best excuse for not making dinner I've ever heard." Big D agreed and everyone forgave me.

Anyway, since we were running late to the track meet we got there after all the good parking places were taken. And by "good" I mean within half a mile. So after dropping Twinkle Toes off as close to her team as I could get her, the little ones and I drove around the park until we found a parking place WAY across the grass from where she was running. I loaded up Baby Lu in the stroller, watched American Boy make her drop her apple into the muddy water at the curb, thought about picking it up and wiping it off, thought better of it, and broke into a trot across the grass. We made it and enjoyed watching her races while Baby Lu climbed in and out of her stroller for the next hour. I told her coach we needed to leave early so I could race back across town to greet my Bible study ladies at the door and let them in (I ended up leaving a note on the door and the door unlocked- just in case.) As we're running back across the grass to the car I keep thinking how out of shape I am (I really am), but as I park the stroller and reach down to get Baby Lu out I notice that the brake was on. I had run a half mile across the grass pushing a toddler in a stroller with the brake on. Have you ever done that? Do other people do stupid things like that? I have to admit I was a bit relieved to learn I'm not quite as out of shape as I had feared I was in the midst of that trek.

Then upon arriving home and I burst into hyperspeed trying to make coffee in time for Bible study (10 minutes from then.) In my haste I accidentally knocked the glass pot against the sink and it broke. Then I felt really stupid. American Boy was sitting in his place at the bar watching me and when he saw what happened he said, "That happened cuz you were messing around." I wonder where he's heard that before? Poor Big D, I broke his coffee pot. (Tuna sandwhiches for dinner and a broken coffee pot. Tough day for Big D, too.)

You'd think after a day like yesterday, today would be smooth as silk. Nope. Today was the first Wednesday that we didn't have CBS so I decided the kids and I should pay a lucky widow in our church a visit. I wanted us to be an encouragement to a lonely soul so the kids spent the morning making cards and drawings then we all went to visit our friend at her new retirement home. She just moved in like 2 weeks ago and everything was clean and orderly. Now my kids really do know how to behave. OK, so there was the one time we were invited to dinner at the home of a family I knew through the grapevine that had also adopted a son from Russia. They were so gracious to share their experiences with us and swap photos and stories since we had just recently returned from Kazakhstan with American Boy. Then the unthinkable happened. Measle, 3 at that time and fully potty trained for over a year, tinkled on the hardwood floor in their living room. That was embarassing. Talk about leaving an impression. So this wasn't the first time I've been embarassed by something one of my kids has done, but it doesn't happen very often. In fact, it's taken me the 3 years since that last incident to get over it. Or maybe I had just repressed it.

So we were all visiting in our friend's living room, her beautiful living room with recently steam cleaned carpet. When Twinkle Toes (9) gets the bright idea to explore the grassy courtyard area that could be seen through our friend's sliding glass doors. Measle, American Boy, and Baby Lu quickly follow their big sister's lead and only Monk and I remained inside. In a minute the kids decided they had tired of their little adventure, so in they all came and American Boy, I'm sorry to say, brought a little somethink extra in with him. On the bottom of his shoe. And it wasn't mud. And I didn't notice it until after he'd been inside about 30 seconds and in that time he had already run around our friend's living room depositing the fresh mess everywhere he stepped. That was embarassing. Well, our friend doesn't see very well, but I'm sure she smelled it. I reluctantly told her what had happened as I struggled to get each and every spot up with paper towels and hand soap (no cleaning supplies since she has a weekly cleaning service which had just been there yesterday).

Have you ever done that before? Set off to try to bless someone's day and then tracked dog poop all over their clean living room? Maybe these things only happen to me.

After I finished cleaning up the mess as best I could, we decided to move our little fellowship up to the common dining area where Twinkle Toes and Monk could play the piano for us. That was nice, but not enough to really salvage the mission if you know what I mean. When we parted, I promised my friend we'd pick her up next time and bring her to our house.

Sometimes I feel like we take one step forward and two steps back. I know there's a lesson in here somewhere. For one thing, if I call you and ask if we can drop by... Run!