Artist at work.

Perhaps "washable" and "indelible" are actually synonyms?

My proud minimalist next to his "pièce de résistance" entitled "Red."

Black and White and Brass.  Doesn't she sound great?

I woke this morning with the energy of several women. Too rainy for yard work, so I decided to tackle some deep house cleaning.

I have a million reasons for why I don't vacuum under the sofa with great frequency. For starters the sofa weighs approximately 777 pounds and only has 2 inches of clearance. It's not like much can get under it, right?

Cleaning under the sofa was sort of like a twisted Christmas. First there was surprise, and laughter, and the call to, "Come take a Photo!" Then there were the comments like, "Oh, look, it's a whisk, I love this kind." Or squeals of, "A knight toy, I want to play with that!"

I'm pretty sure that if I pull the stove and fridge out, Halloween would be the holiday that would come to mind.

In recent attempts to spend quality time in an age appropriate manner we've split the children into groups for occasional special outings; the Big Kids, the Middles, and the Littles. Rebekah, the 10 year old, resents being a "Middles" - but excepting doing away with someone - she's pretty much stuck.

Sunday, Greg and I spent the afternoon taking the Middles out to lunch.  The trip was made longer by way of getting lost trying to find the entrance to the Natchez Trace Parkway.  While messing with the map and talking to Greg,  the mom part of my brain, in it's ever-monitoring glory, overheard a conversation between the Middles that was rather alarming; "Ben, don't stick your head out the car window or it might get stuck again." 

Say what?  Where was I when that happened?  Never mind, I don't need to know everything.

Gray days, for days on end, get me down, make me cranky.  Time to look at silly, sunlit, Summer photos.  Tennessee Teen Takes Toddler from Tuba would be a great headline.

My 15 yo daughter (who, minus the toddler, plays above-pictured Tuba) was given a writing assignment to compose a poem using similes, but instructed to strictly avoid cliches. She too gets cranky and contrary on gray days.  She just couldn't resist.  If you make your teacher smile does that off-set doing an assignment exactly wrong?

  Last Good Friday Jack and I found ourselves in the E.R., not with an emergency, but because Jack had gotten ill and his on-call pediatrician wanted him seen immediately to rule out pneumonia.  Off to the E.R. we had to go.

Waiting in the E.R. is boring.  Most of the time when I take Jack we don't have to wait.  A small sort of blessing; Jack's metabolic condition gives him a through pass when he is in crisis.  This particular visit the waiting room was empty save us and two boys, one who looked to be 17 and what appeared to be his 12  year old brother.  They caught my attention not only because they were there without any parents but because the 17 year old looked so incredibly sick to his stomach.  I sat Jack as far away as possible.

Boredom may have made me nosey, or maybe I am just nosey to start with, but I kept an eye on the boys since their parents weren't there.  I half expected the older boy to pass out.  He looked so much like my oldest son that I found it especially painful to watch him looking so miserable.  The younger brother radiated nervous energy and though vibrating, he kept to his seat. 

After about 20 minutes a large man, an older version of the two boys I was watching, entered.  He was that kind of man I'm used to seeing in TX.  The clean-cut, quiet version of country.  The kind that could run a ranch in his spare time while also being the principal at the local high school.  He looked muscular and tough and grim.  The waiting room was small,  there was no way I could avoid hearing what passed next.

The man went and sat in front of the older boy, their knees touching.  The older boy became even more still and didn't look up. 

 

"Son, first I want you to know that it is serious, but your brother is going to be fine."  Here the man paused then said gently, "Look at me." The boy looked up at his father.  

"I want you to know that it wasn't your fault,"  at this the boy seemed to start breathing for the first time in the long evening.  

The man continued, "I'm sorry if I appeared angry, I was really worried about getting here fast enough but I was not angry with you.  These kind of things just happen."  

 

At this point I remember them hugging. I know the older boys face was transformed with relief- but in retrospect,  if they were like the men I knew in TX, the hugging is just an embellishment of my imagination.  They probably just slapped each other on the arms. 

The three of them left to go see the injured brother and Jack and I left to have Jack's chest x-rayed.  That was the last time I saw them. It reminded me of listening to Paul Harvey as a child with my mother, and having to get out of the car before the end of his radio show.  What was the Rest Of The Story?  

I thought about how my face often looks grim when I'm worried and how my own children sometimes misinterpret that.  I mostly thought what a great dad this man appeared to be; he showed his love through eye contact, physical contact, and loving words.  That's what everyone waiting in any E.R. needs.

Wednesday night we took the whole family to services.  I lagged behind the kids on the way to classes and had to do a last minute check to make sure we hadn't lost anyone.  Jack was not in his classroom.  Concerned, I peeked into other class rooms until I spotted Jack sitting in a class down the hall with older children. 

"Jack," I whispered from the hall.  "Jack, this isn't your class."

He answered, "I want to be in this class."

"No Honey, come out and let's go to your class,  Gabriel and Mary are there."  

Jack looked thoughtful for a moment. "No," he answered, "This class is going to give out chocolate."

Faith and intelligence may not intersect but evidently intelligence and chocolate do, if you pick the right class room.

We have a family friend who is a sword maker.  Yes, I said swords.  Noble Armory has a faithful following of Tipton children who are always willing to try out the new models.  The normality of it for our children has led to some unusual angst.  Ben, when he was 4, announced that when he grew up he was going to stay at home and "make" his wife go to work.  When I asked why, with tears of anxiety sparkling in his eyes he said, "Because I don't know how to go on airplanes (his own Dad travels a lot for work), and I don't know how to make swords."

Home again, Home again, 

Jiggety Jog.

The littles are laying a train track that goes around my desk and chair legs.  Actually, Jack is constructing and Samuel is deconstructing.  At some point fisticuffs might ensue.  The littles and I are at home not because we are sick but because we are trying not to get sick. 

 Greg and I decided to try to keep Samuel and Jack home from church services until at least the beginning-of-the-school-year illnesses start to wane, and maybe even until the end of the flu season.  There have already been several school closings in the area for the flu and strep.  It's enough to make a parent of a child with metabolic issues crazy.  

How much precaution is too much precaution?  Where do faith and intelligence intersect?  Anyone have a chart?

He's a very busy person.  Lately we've had issues with folded dirty laundry being discovered in dressers drawers.  Big family mystery.  Yesterday Samuel was in the mood to clean so I quietly observed while he collected some laundry from the bathroom hamper, took it to the laundry room and set it on the floor.  He then collected different dirty laundry into a basket, took it to the living room where there was clean laundry set out for folding.  He dumped the dirty laundry on top of the unfolded clean laundry and returned the empty basket to the laundry room.  Seconds later an older child came to the living room and began to fold the pile without noticing that the laundry pile had grown in their absence.  In fact without noticing that the pile had grown with smelly, damp, and dirty laundry.  Mystery solved.

It made me think of how I can be a busy person without any net positive effect.  Proverbial wheel spinning, running in circles, carrying coals to Newcastle...  I don't doubt that some of my "hard work" is equally as ridiculous as Samuel's in God's sight.  It makes me doubly thankful that my God is the Creator,  the Poppa and Momma of us all.  Overwhelmed and thankful that my God loves me enough to say, "As a mother comforts her child, so I will comfort you..."  Isaiah 66:13