An update on the “Scooter” saga

A few posts ago, I told about Abigail’s recent drama regarding the book about Scooter that she saw at the Lifeway store.  She had finally gone several days with no mention of Scooter.  Saturday night, though, we were driving back to Salem from Somerset when we passed a dead skunk.  She was moaning and groaning about the smell and her daddy told her it was a skunk.  She said, “I don’t see a skunk, Daddy.”  He told her that we had already passed it.  She asked what happened to it, and he said it got hit by a car.  (You see where this is going!)  She immediately cried, “Oh, that’s just like Scooter!  That reminds me of that book!  Daddy, you reminded me about Scooter!  WHAT DID YOU DO THAT FOR?!?!”  Then she hung her head and just cried silently for a few minutes.

Author of that blasted Scooter book, if you are reading this, SHAME ON YOU!!  You have completely traumatized my kid!!!

Any reason to celebrate

Abigail has developed this interesting system of determining who is “right” on each day of the week. This has been going on for some time, and I think I mentioned it in an earlier post. Anyway, for some reason, apparently she now has decided that the appropriate thing to say to someone on their day to be right is “Happy Holidays.”
So, we’re walking through the mall the other day when Abigail said suddenly, “Happy Holidays, Catherine.” Keep in mind that it had been several, several days since anyone has talked about who was right that day. Still though, when Abigail said that, Catherine just said, “Oh, is it Tuesday today?”

Mama said there’d be days like this

Clay is in Lafayette painting our house to get it ready to list, so the kiddos and I are alone for 2 1/2 days.  Here’s a taste of how our day today went.

6:30 am:  I am awakened by my phone beeping out a text message alert–Clay  forgot the time difference and wanted to say good morning.

6:55:  I am awakened again by Elisabeth yelling–the day has begun.

The rest of the day until 1:00 consisted of moments like these:

“Elisabeth, get down off the table!”  “Mom, she’s got your toothbrush again!”  “No, no, Elisabeth!  That’s baby’s seat!”  “Elisabeth pulled my hair!”  “She scratched Samuel’s eye!”  “No, Elisabeth, you can’t have more cereal because you dumped all yours in the floor again.”  “Girls, you have to remember to close the bathroom door because she’ll get in there and _____ (squirt the shampoo out, get the water bottle, tear up the toilet paper, fill in the blank)”  “She’s eating Elliot’s food!”  “Elisabeth!!  Get down off the table!!!”

1:00-3:00:  Blessed relief in the form of Elisabeth’s naptime

2:30:  Proof that there is grace in the form of a phone call inviting us to supper

4:00-6:00:  Chaos in the form of clean-up time and getting ready to go

6:30-8:00:  Blessed relief in the form of socialization

8:30-9:30:  Chaos in the form of bedtime hassles, Elisabeth dumping round one of baby’s cereal in the diaper bag, hungry baby, dog needing out, girls who can’t settle down, dog eating round two of baby’s cereal while mommy threatens girls with loss of life or limb, baby getting extremely upset while mommy fixes round three of baby’s cereal, finally giving up on cereal because now baby is too enraged with hunger to eat it, nursing baby who immediately falls asleep.

9:30:  Blessed relief in the form of all children plus dog being asleep.

May tomorrow be a better day.  By the way, to those of you who are dying to  proclaim that curse-disguised-as-encouragement of  “Enjoy these days while they last because you’ll miss them when they’re gone” or better yet, “Enjoy them now because they get worse  when they’re older,” let me warn you that if you tell me that right now, you’ll be moved to the bottom of my favorite people list, and I might even sic Elisabeth on you.

More small town snippets

*  The week after we moved, a man from church was at our house doing some carpentry work.  Someone knocked on the door and I opened it to a man I’d never seen before.  He asked if John waas there and if he could talk to him.  I got John, and then heard the man, a friend of John’s, say, “I was driving by and saw your truck and just thought I’d stop and see what you were doing here.”

*  Last Sunday night our Connect Group (aka Sunday school class) was meeting in the home of one of the couples.  During our meeting, their phone rang.  It was one of her friends, who was calling to see what was wrong; she had driven by and seen all the cars, therefore figured something was going on!

Oh, the drama

I know I’ve written a lot about Abigail, but here’s another one anyway.  They were taking a bath tonight and she decided to show me a cool trick by putting her face in the water.  Apparently she forgot to close her mouth and got strangled pretty bad, resulting in her spitting up a little in the bath water.  We had to haul all three girls out of the tub, drain it, and start all over.  While they were standing dripping and freezing on the rug and she was still crying, I decided to try to divert her attention by returning the conversation to her birthday party plans that we had been discussing earlier.  I asked her something about what she’d like to do at her party, and she replied by wailing, “I can’t go to my party now!”  Baffled, I asked why.  Her answer:  “Because I spit up in the tub!”  To clarify, I said, “You still won’t be able to go to your party even though it’s a month away?”  No, she said, she can’t go.  So sorry, all you little Salem kids.  I guess there will be no party on Feb. 8 because Abigail got strangled on Jan. 10.  Makes perfect sense, doesn’t it?