Quality Mother-Daughter Time

My mom is here visiting us this week. At her request, we have kept our schedule light. We have only dragged her to 3 football games, 1 volleyball tournament, an Emmaus event, a couple of trips (or three or four) to the store, and to church so far. We have even fed her occasionally.

She told me while she was here she wanted to take me out to get a pedicure and manicure, so yesterday we were running some errands when she saw a nail salon and seized upon the moment of opportunity. I still had my camera with me since the kids participated in the See You At The Pole event, so I took a few shots.

It wasn't easy getting us both into the viewfinder when we were a couple of feet apart in massage chairs, but we finally got it done. (I am going to insert a PSA here. If your mom takes you to get a pedicure, don't wear a dress and open-toed wedge sandals. One can ruin your freshly painted toes and the other can make things uncomfortable for you and the nail technician. Thank goodness they keep towels in salons.)

Then the technicians got to work. I have never had a pedicure before, so I wasn't really sure what to expect. I knew the hot water would feel good on my extremely swollen feet. I didn't think of how ticklish my feet are, though, until Jaydon started buffing them. I tried to hold still, I really did, but occasionally he would hit a spot that made me jump and then he would look at me the way the anesthesiologist who was poking my ticklish spine did when I was having Kyle. (Which made me laugh more as I heard, "Mrs. Wellborn, if you really want this epidural you HAVE to sit still!" running through my head.)

Mom is a better customer than I am, given that she isn't ticklish at all.  She also didn't jump when they pulled our feet out of the warm water and suddenly dumped a very cold liquid on them.  I am sorry, Jaydon, I truly didn't mean to splash water all over your face when that happened!

In the end, I had ten very swollen piggies that were cut down and painted pink, and then adorned with flowers that Jaydon painted to match my tattoo. (Please excuse the picture of my ugly feet. I do try to keep it family-friendly around here and refrain from posting gruesome photos, but this one slipped in somehow.)

Thank you, Mom... it was a fun afternoon!

Tonight I have been thinking about what I can do the next time Mom comes to create another quality bonding experience, and I have found the answer. If we are going to let strangers color our body parts, we may as well make it a lasting memory, so I am taking Mom in to get a tattoo. I even designed one for her tonight that we can have wrapped around her ankle.  (Don't tell her, it is a surprise!)

After seeing it all typed out, though, it does look a little long.

I better shorten the "Jennifer" to "Jenn."

Sledding

When Mom and Zack arrived here a couple of weeks ago, they were greeted with warm hearts and cold weather. It didn't warm back up again until the day after they left. There was snow and ice everywhere, which is perfect sledding weather.

Daniel came over to sled. "My fellow countrymen, lend me your ear!" he said, "or at least notice that there is "no" on my glove!" But his fellow countrymen were too busy sledding to hear him.

They were sledding solo.

They were being pulled in a sled,

which invariably lead to scenes like this,

followed by much laughter.


They were shoe sledding,

which often lead to fall-on-your-butt sledding.


They were even 4-wheel sledding when Crystal-married-to Nathan and Nathan-married-to-Crystal brought their 4-wheeler over.


And then Jack left to take Mom, Chet, and Tyler to Harrison in the green car and went down a backroad out of habit. Just as he realized he needed to turn back and go down the main road, the car began sliding and all Jack could do was try to steer it to a safer area as it skidded down a mountainous road. According to Mom, they went sledding in the car until a tree stopped them. Fortunately, none of them were hurt seriously, although the car was totalled.

After all that sledding, it was time to pack Mom back up in the van we borrowed and take her back to the airport to reluctantly send her home. Funny thing is, she says that from now on she only wants to come out between spring and early fall.

Considering the weather during those seasons, I think that maybe means she wants us to take her sky-diving in a tornado.

Christmas Pageantry

I always hoped that one day the years I spent in drama classes would pay off in some way. Heaven knows I wasn't cut out to be a movie star, or a TV star, or even a voiceover for a commercial, but there are valuable skills that can be learned in a drama class. Unlike a couple of my friends who have since launched themselves from our little junior high school drama classes to the real world of dramatized productions, I buried the things I learned in some back corner of my brain and have spent the last month trying to dig little nuggets of important information out of there to use with the Christmas play the kids of the Children's Ministry were preparing for the church.

I don't think the drama classes covered everything I would need to know, though. I learned how to lipsync to Bon Jovi as I pretended to be Richie Sambora, but I was never taught how to wrangle 20 active young children into a semblance of calm chaos for all the watching eyes of the church. Maybe it is a good thing that I didn't know what to expect, because these kids blew all my expectations away. They were so good... so eager to perform, so happy to be there, and so sweet to watch. I wish you all could have been there. (I have all of my pictures from the play on my Facebook account. If you can't see them there and want a copy of your kid's picture, just holler at me and I will send it your way!)
Faith was Mary. A little over eleven years ago I was wearing this costume as she performed in her first production as a newborn Baby Jesus. I didn't hold her the way she held her Baby Jesus, though. Aren't you glad you aren't her Baby Jesus?? She sang "Breath of Heaven" in the play. I have found the remote control, and will have AAA batteries for it tomorrow. Then I will add that video here.
Bethy was one of the sheep (she didn't want to be an angel.... hahahahaha... go figure). Those sheep were simply adorable. Adorable. I wish you could hear them baaaa-ing on the tape. They had more fun than any other sheep ever had.

Todd was King Herod.
And Kyle was his priest who told him when the wisemen said Jesus had been born. This is Todd sentencing all the two year old boys and younger to death. I have to show you that part too. He said "I the great Herod" three of four times, and it was funny. He even laughed at it. I love that silly kid. I love that priest too. And that sheep. And that baby-hanging Mary. Meghan, Nathan and Crystal's little girl, was the Young Jesus who was supposed to flee to Egypt. Instead she stood in the front and told her nana she could see her. It was wonderful!
Sad times came after the play. Mom had to kiss us all good-bye, and then Jack and a couple of the kids took her to the airport to return home. My composure cracked, and even I got teary and sad as she said good-bye, so I can't blame the Great Herod and his sorrowful priest for being heart-broken too.
Bye, Mom. We love you.


But we forgot to take your picture with the kids. Could you get on the first plane back so we can take care of that?

A mishmash note

My mom needed me to take her picture with the flowers her friend sent her. I think he thinks we are never sending her back to Vegas. He is right. I have made arrangements for the doctor to ban her from flying at all, and limiting any time spent driving to a twenty mile radius. She certainly can't walk that far. So she is stuck here. (There are advantages to living in small towns!)

Her leg is finally almost healed, but there is still some infection there so she still has to keep it propped. We didn't get to do anything we wantedto do while she was here, but she has had an opportunity to delve into my bookshelves with gusto. Too bad there isn't some kind of laid-up Gramma winter reading program where she can earn points for books read. Sadly, she really is going home on Sunday. I will see her again in February when I fly out there to love on my niece when she is born.
I had to take Chet in for counts and tests today when he woke up in pain. He is okay. The test for clots came back negative, and his platelets have gone up a little bit. It was an unnerving way to start the day, but I ended it with a two plus hour church meeting so I guess there was a strange sort of balance there somewhere.

This Sunday the kids will be performing in the Christmas play at church. Service is at 10:30, and everybody is invited. If adorable kids don't make ya want to go, you might want to come so you can eat at the dinner afterwards. It is all going to be fun! In lieu of an engraved dinner invitation (my mom always said that when I was growing up..."Come to the table, I am not passing out engraved dinner invitations!") I thought I would share Todd's Nativity drawing with you instead. I love his triangular Heavenly Hosts and triangular shephards. Mary appears to have been a very short person. Todd must have modeled her after Crystal (not married to Nathan.)


Good night!

Change of Plans

I have been looking forward to this week. My mom was coming out to visit for the week, and I had plans to take her places and introduce her to my friends here. On Sunday I drove up to Springfield to get her, and that was the last thing to go as planned.
On Monday she came to work with me, but was not feeling well. I brought her home, and she tried to shake it off.

On Tuesday, we were supposed to get the Tuesday Night Dinners put together and then take the boys for their Scout banquet. Instead, just as I was getting ready to head to the church, I got a phone call from the school nurse. Matt attempted to catch a fly ball with his nose, and it was broken. I rushed down to the school to get him, making arrangements with my friend Debbie to get dinner taken care of, while Jack got the other kids and brought them home.

I took Matt to the ER, where we spent a couple of hours making sure he was only as insane as he was before the baseball attacked him. With his wild mane and the newly crooked nose, as well as the hilariously (now) entertaining method he used to get it broken, the doctor couldn't help but laugh when he was taking care of him. We were all three laughing actually. Fortunately, he isn't in much pain at all, and although the nose is broken, all of the surrounding facial bones are still intact. I don't think Kyle is ever going to let Matt live this down. "Dude... why did you try to catch it that way????"
They did perform a CT on him, but wouldn't let me take pictures of the screen this time. If you have never seen scans of your child's body parts, let me tell you... it is weird. It is like seeing a digital dissection taking place.
Then we waited, and waited, and waited a bit longer for the results. Matt was bored so he started taking pictures of me. I was chewing on a cough drop in this one, thus the weird expression. I have had a really nasty bronchial infection I have been fighting this last week, which is throwing another monkey wrench in my plans.
Then he wanted some of both of us. The other night I dyed my hair dark red again to cover up the grey, but my family seems intent on finding ways to grey it even faster.
When I got home from the ER with Matt, my mom showed me her leg, which has become quite red and swollen alarmingly quickly. I would like to say she is just trying to get attention, but unfortunately it is getting fairly serious. So today I called and made her an appointment at the only doctor who was available right before Thanksgiving.
He drew lines on her leg (they go all the way up her leg) to see where the red is. He wanted to hospitalize her today to get an intravaneous antibiotic going, but she convinced them to give her a shot and start some oral ABs until Friday. I will take her back in on Friday, and hopefully the infection will be clearing up. If not, we will be spending the day I took off to spend with her in the hospital together. Not what we had planned at all! But Iwant her well, so if that is what we must do, then that is what we will do.
Now, if you think that red skin on her leg was scary, you should have seen this dog as we were coming home. I have never seen a naked pink dog before. And while it looks quite sad, it is incredibly ugly as well. I did try to call him over, but he was tucked his tail (I think it has a tail) between his naked legs and ran. I kid you not, I got parked at Walmart and the guy who was driving behind me pulled up to ask me what that ugly thing was. I couldn't tell him. All I knew was it was a dog, but is he supposed to be so naked and pink??
You know, I am tired. I have spent too much time in the truck and medical facilities in the last 24 hours. I am going to do something tomorrow I never get to do anymore. I am sleeping until at least 7:30. 7:45 if I am feeling really rebellious. Then I am going to make sure Matt is propped in his chair, and Mom has her leg propped on her couch, and I am going to the church to cook a really big community Thanksgiving dinner. But I am not setting that into stone too much since we all know now what happens if I really try to make plans. God laughs. A lot.

PS... Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!