Six Waters Please!

I can just hear my dad now, "6 waters please!" That is what he said EVERY time we went out to eat. I grew up in a family of six where both of my parents worked at a Christian school. (That equals no money.) We didn't eat out very often. We occasionally went to the local Arby's after Sunday service. If you brought in your church bulletin you got your food half-off. My dad still ordered everyone waters. He was an expert at feeding us all for about five bucks. For whatever reason, in my mind as a kid, drinking water was not cool, especially at restaurants. I thought it made us look heaven forbid, poor - I specifically remember when we were in a fast food line I would try to purposely stand next to another family that looked so much cooler than ours and actually ordered pop. (My parent self is telling my childhood self "girl...you should be thankful you even get to go out to eat. There are starving children in Africa!" someone just should have smacked me.) I like blame this whole childhood experience for my current addiction to diet coke. (Verses I am a weenie in enduring headaches when I do not have my caffeine.) My addiction is no secret. It was actually a matter of prayer when I went to Thailand because I was seriously worried about what I would do going cold turkey off of it for 3 weeks! Isn't that awful? I KNOW!!! If only my dad would have ordered me a pop at McDonald's when I was 11...

Now it seems like it is more popular to order water at a restaurant since that's the healthy way to go, and not to mention drinks are up to about 2.50 now at any given sit-down eating place. My sweet husband knows not to limit my pop consumption but I try to use discretion (sometimes) when we eat out. Anyway, while we were in Missouri a couple weeks ago we decided to go to Olive Garden with everyone including my old roommate and her daughter. Yes, a moment of insanity thinking we would enjoy a nice time of visiting with Elisabeth in tow.

We get to Olive Garden. We have a hour wait. We are not there 2 seconds and Elisabeth spots a table of food that she practically lunges out of our arms to grab. So we go over to the mall and hang out for a little bit. We get back before our time was up, but they had called our name and we weren't there. Lost our table. Wait again and get 2 tables side by side. That's fine. It's time to order. My kids know by now when we've hit the "we're strapped for cash limit and we better order water." We are waiter's favorite kind of customer. (ummm, no. not really.) We all order the cheapest thing on the menu - endless soup and salad, or endless pasta bowls. And everyone orders a water....except one person. (not me this time ;)) Well, as soon as the one soda was set down, the kids thought it would be funny if everyone shared it and stuck their straws in it and sucked it down and asked for another one. They had four glasses of empty pop lined up. Mind you, they were sitting at a table across from us and we didn't know this was happening until we looked over and saw them drinking like this.

Well...that could have possibly ticked the waiter off. Or it was Elisabeth dumping her goldfish all over the floor, or Elisabeth dumping a cup of ice water all over Chris within the first 5 minutes, or Elisabeth banging silverware on the table while screaming and providing entertainment and pleasant noises for our dining partners. Long story short it took well over an hour to get even our first bowl of soup. Even the best behaved toddler, teenager, or adult cannot be good waiting for food that long when we are starving. I was ready to get rude and snippy. My sweet roommate who has had a gentle spirit the entire 24 years I have known her said in her sweet soft spoken voice, "I'm sure ya'll just ran out of soup tonight because it is the first night of cold weather. Maybe they are just making a fresh batch.." (That is just sooo Kaari.) I am ready to stand up on the table and shout "I am about to let my one year old loose in your kitchen if our soup isn't out here in the next minute!!!" My husband gets up and politely seeks out the manager and explains our dilemma. We quickly get our food and the manager gave us our ENTIRE MEAL FREE!! My kids blurt out "we could have ordered pop!!"

Grace. Its what we should extend to others. I know the Lord blessed us with a free meal because of the graceful way Chris and Kaari handled it. (With my comments and attitude I probably had flies in my soup.) Kindess . It's what we should extend even when we have every right to be otherwise. Grace and Kindess - it's who Jesus is.

"Let your speech be always with grace, seasoned with salt...so you know how to answer every man.." Colossians 4:6

Things have changed about my dad. Now when he hosts a family dinner, he will easily spend more on meat than what we spend on a weeks worth of groceries. When he knows I'm coming, they always have a case of diet coke in the garage fridge for me. When we are with him at a restaurant, we order anything we want - including pop.

flying fruit and spilled flour

The more that I make a conscious effort to try and practice the fruits of the spirit in my life - love, joy, peace, patience, goodness, kindness, gentleness, self control - the more it seems like someone is hitting me with that fruit in the back of the head just to see how I respond!! And lately, when that flying fruit comes in the form of red-head destructor baby, disasters in the kitchen, or rude crazy people chasing me down in the C.V.'s parking lot yelling extremely naughty profanities in my window (that happened last week on my lunch break, good material for another blog) all the ooey, gooey, lovey dovey, Holy Spirit fruity juices are NOT flowing out of me!

Last Thursday, I was going to put a chicken in the crock pot for chicken and dumplings.   But I forgot to put the chicken in the crock pot that morning, left it on the counter for an unsaid period of time, came racing home and did a sniff test to see if I have rotten chicken wasting away.  It smelled fine, looked fine, so I thought I would cut it up and just make fried chicken.  But I cannot cut up a whole chicken.  There were bones sticking out of places that I'm sure were not supposed to be there. (Sideways out of the fat part of the chicken leg.)  My husband walks in and just shakes his head.  He used to be a manager of Kentucky Fried Chicken back in the day. I try to cover the chicken with my body and yell "don't look!"

I make my coating mixture using practically a whole bag of flour in our favorite big ole' plastic popcorn bowl.  I drip the chicken in egg and milk, have my oil ready, and place my big plastic bowl on the stove.  A few seconds later I smell plastic burning.  It does not register with me that it could be the bowl sitting on the burner.  The dishwasher was going so I'm grumbling at the boys in my head SURE that they loaded it wrong and my expensive Dr. Brown bottles were sitting in the bottom of the dishwasher melting.  A minute passed and I pick up the bowl to dip my chicken in.  This is what happened!

My knee-jerk reaction is to throw the bowl in the sink which was dumb since the bottom of the blue bowl was melted to the top of my stove.  Flour then goes all over the kitchen floor!

I cannot even begin to tell you the mess, the lack of patience I had in cleaning the mess, and the grouchies that came on me and settled in for the rest of the evening.  I still fried the chicken.  Later on that night Jonathan starts throwing up.  Crud.  I'm thinking "gosh, I really really hope that chicken wasn't rotten."  I start getting sick to my stomach. I down a half of bottle of tums.  It's gonna be awhile before I fry up some chicken again.

So many Christian people joke about not praying for patience because "you know what will happen when you do!!"  I don't necessarily need to pray for patience.  I have resolved that my life is going to be one big humongous mess for awhile. Just like my house. I just muddle through and do what I got to do. What I need to pray for is love, joy, and kindness. I am a grouch "patiently" cleaning up those messes. Its easy to take everyday stress, tiredness etc..out on those you love.  1 Corinthians 13:1 "If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal..."  Last night as Chris and I were acting like old people and having our frequent discussion of how tired we are (its what happens when you pop a baby out in your 40's) I asked him once again (in my best whiny voice) "will we ever feel rested again?" He said, "when we get to heaven" I was feeling lovey dovey so I told him "that's okay as long as I get to rest next to you" He said, "wait! I thought you said this was heaven!" and then he adds "Just Kidding! Just Kidding!" with a laugh...  He's probably right.  Lord knows I've been that clanging cymbal lately.  So yes, its good that I wake up and pray for the fruits of the spirit to show in my life that day.  But most of all I need to pray that I show love today - where it matters most...in the home.

To potty in peace - it's not gonna happen!

Last week I saw a link that kept popping up on facebook with a picture attached to it.  It was called "the teacher's bathroom"  and for a split second I almost clicked on it before I realized it was a hack.  The teacher's bathroom is the one place in the school where you can lock yourself in a tiny room, and have a few blissful moments of peace and quiet while your kids are literally climbing the walls and toilets and sinks in their bathroom. And the newest one today is someone tried to see how far their hand could go down the toilet. (Yes, I promise you the kids LITERALLY do that, and parents - some things are just best if you just don't know...) 

My days of peace and quiet in the bathroom are over. done. finished.  And not just at home - but AT SCHOOL!!!  Last week I went to the private, teacher's bathroom.  The one that you need a key to get in.  I walk there, put my key in the door, open it, and turn around and all 23 of my students followed me there!!! They were practically stepping on my heels! "GO AWAY! GO CLIMB WALLS AND TOILETS! THIS IS MY TIME!"   A few days ago we were all taking a bathroom break and I told them, You go do your thing, and I'm going to the restroom and I'll be right back.  One of my little girls grabs my hand and said, "can I go in with you?!?  ME: "no"  Her: "But your the best teacher ever!!!"  ME: "I don't care if I just won a trip to the moon for being the best teacher (Geez, I probably couldn't even win a trip to sonic) there is no way on this planet you are going into that bathroom with me!"

Maybe its because my peaceful bathroom days at home are now over that I long for those few stolen moments of peace and quiet in the teacher's bathroom.  Elisabeth and bathrooms lead to nothing but trouble.  First, we tried to keep all the bathroom doors shut at all times.  Because if we didn't, this would happen.

                                                                            

Then she moved on to discovering drawers and cabinets and toilet water that is oh so much fun to splash around in.  And throw things in - like her waffle, or her bottle, or brand new rolls of toilet paper.  The other day I thought Chris was in the bathroom.  The door was shut, and I heard stuff going on so I was talking away at him.  No answer.  I kept talking and since I wasn't getting a response I told him to quit ignoring me and I opened the door and there was little miss, both hands in the toilet while she just gives me that smile with her scrunched up nose that pretty much gets her out of everything.  If we keep her in the bathroom with us while we are in there she tries to push us off the toilet or climbs in the cabinet and starts tossing everything out, she rips all the towels off, and takes off with the toilet paper and leaves us stranded.  If we leave her out of the bathroom while we are in there we even have a bigger mess to contend with.  Like this past Thursday, Chris was at home with her. He is in the bathroom and while he is doing his thing-  she finds an accidental doggie doo-doo mess that Matty left behind in one of the bedrooms and well, you can pretty much guess the rest of the story. So see, we are in a no-win situation when it comes to privacy in bathroom.

No matter how much lack of privacy we have now concerning the restroom, at least we can do our business in comfort.  Unlike my experience in Thailand with the "squatty potty."  Their bathroom consisted of a hole in the ground that you squatted when you went, then rinsed yourself off with a hose like thing instead of using toilet paper.

                                                                                     
One day when we were working at one of the Thai schools, I had to go! I usually tried to wait till I got back to the hotel because  there was no way I would be able to squat and hose myself off without my clothes getting soaked. There was a line of Thai kids waiting for the bathroom and I just stood in line with them. It was my turn.  I walked into the ONE bathroom of the entire school and figured the easiest way to get this done was just to take all my clothes off and proceed from there.  Well, the whole thing took forever, and by the time I got done there were probably a hundred Thai kids lined up at the door an I'm sure making fun of me in a language I couldn't understand and  wondering if the "American lady" fell down the toilet hole or what. (Ahhh...mission  trip memories...)

I really do long for some peace, quiet, rest, alone moments.  All moms do.  Some days I feel like its not gonna happen this side of Heaven.  And then I think of Heaven.  Ahhhhh....just saying that word lets me breathe a sigh of relief. Because I know that all the hard stuff in life will someday soon end. I love that verse "Better is one day in your courts, better is one day in your house, than a thousand elsewhere." (Psalm 84:10)  Oh to truly rest in the presence of Jesus.  It is sweet refreshment for my soul when I find those quiet moments to read  my Bible, or in the pew when I can picture my Savior as I sing a worship song.  That will carry me through until I can truly rest at the feet of Jesus. "Find rest, O my soul in God alone; my hope comes from him." (Psalm 62:5)  Until then...I am just resigned to the fact that I will probably never potty in peace again.