Have you ever had one of those Mondays? I think God sends them to test endurance. I mean a day when the baby (the same baby you bragged about to your friends last night) whines and cries all afternoon while you are up to your elbows in apple peelings that belong to a bushel of over-ripe scabby apples that your sister-in-law decided to bless you with.
Is it good stewardship to throw the little ones away? Is it poor stewardship to spend seven hours peeling what amounts to enough applesauce to keep a family of six supplied for four weeks...grocery store value $8.00? Oh well, there is nothing quite like homemade applesauce. Never mind the apple stains on my fingers guaranteed to remind me of this day for the next three weeks.
While the applesauce debate is running through my head, my three-year-old has a private brown-sugar feast. How much sugar can a three-year-old boy eat in ten minutes without a spoon?
As the day slides by, I have more questions. Is it a sin to let the Mary Kay lady on the phone think I am writing down her number? I mean I might have written it down if I didn't have applesauce all over my fingers and on the phone and if I had a pen.
Or, I might have let her know I was totally uninterested except that she sounded so hurt when I told her I'd thrown out her letter which came with the Baby Welcome Wagon months ago. Can I help it that I'm married to a man who likes a tidy place? It's difficult to be rudely truthful to someone who happens to like the name Michelle which just happens to be our baby's name.
Which recalls another question: was I being rude when I told the lady from the Kinsmen Club, who wanted a small favor (she didn’t say what), that she was interrupting lunch and to call back later? She did ask if she was interrupting anything. She hasn't called back yet.
The big question of the day arrives with the school bus. How many times may a grade-two Christian-school student correct her mother's pronunciation of “Ahithophel” without causing her to lose her temper? I found it hard enough to ask Bible review questions loud enough to be heard over the noise of a food processor, a preschooler and a baby, without concentrating on my pronunciation.
Was it a blessing in disguise when I gained 20 minutes in supper preparation time because my husband was busy picking up the 500 books that toppled with the new book shelf when he walked into the sunroom shortly after coming home from work? Books I had spent Sunday afternoon arranging according to the Dewey Decimal System (sort of). Or, come to think of it, does it mean I shouldn't work on Sunday? Last time I tried to do a load of laundry on Sunday, I ended up flooding the basement.
Why on a day such as this does my three-year-old finally for the first time in his entire life decide to tell me he wants to do his big job on the toilet and then actually do it? My brother would call it a bit of luck. My sister-in-law would say it was a blessing. I say it's proof that God does care. It definitely saved the day from being a total write-off.
Knowing that I may not be sending the kid to school in diapers after all, I can even smile when I brush my teeth with Marty's toothbrush before I lie me down to sleep. I wonder where my toothbrush went?
A Christian follows Christ. Christ never did anything wrong. I call myself a Christian, but I can’t figure out the difference between right and wrong.
Go to Pruned Story #3
2 comments:
Oh, Marian, you had me rolling in laughter! Too funny. Thanks for sharing.
Kimberley
Thanks Kimberley. "Rolling in laughter" is music to my ears.
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