Something needs to be put away

He's home. and things are back to crazy normal again...except for the few remnants of his 
2 weeks away still on the hallway floor. This is a new helmet and he is so excited about it! So, it made me wonder, why now?? Was the old helmet not good enough? Were bullets able to penetrate the old helmet? Was your head in danger all these years and now it's not??? um.....I don't think I want to know.

Also, my 5 year old drew his Daddy saying "I love Luke" and I don't really think this new helmet will fit over this particular hairstyle....
and why are his legs so short????
...he cracks me up!

Something Wonderful

The wonderful something is that my husband comes home tonight after 2 weeks in Army school in Wisconsin. Funny how I didn't realize how totally exhausted I am until just now.
My dream was to have the house perfect for him when he came home. Lawn mowed (we've done it twice already) and the laundry done & away, and the dishes done, and the house read up ("read up" is Pittsburghese for "picked up"). It will be far from that. Instead, he'll be coming home to 2 kids with sore throats, an art project all over the dining room table, a load of dirty laundry on the floor by the washer, 3 of his dress socks with no mates (where do those things really go??) and a sticky kitchen floor from where my oldest spilled a can of mandarin oranges. He might even step on a piece of cereal too, because my 5 year old knocked his bowl over yesterday morning. I only found out about the cereal mishap because as I was shuffling out of bed to the bathroom, the oldest came upstairs and said,
 "Picking up a million pieces of cereal was NOT on my agenda this morning" followed by her HUGE sigh of frustration. (She has an agenda??????) Then as I made my way downstairs to eagerly get my first cup of coffee, the little culprit walked up to me with his gorgeous blue eyes, looked up and said "Did you here about the GREAT SPILL?"  Kinda like "Did you hear about the Earthquake in Japan?" but thankfully not nearly as serious!
 I guess maybe to him it was though.
 Anyway, the fact that it won't be perfect when he comes in the door is actually the way God wants it. If it were perfect, he wouldn't feel needed, right? When he sees the tall grass, he'll be slightly disappointed, but underneath that, he'll be very happy we can't seem to get along without him! He loves to feel indispensable and I love to need him.
  How easily I forget that we managed all of 2002 & 2004 without him during his Army deployments. Not sure I could do THAT again! Well, I actually AM sure we could, because I would pray for strength & HE would give it to me, just as He had before.
  So, we wait, until about 8:30 tonight. I'll try to get the floor mopped & the last load of clothes in the washer, and the art project finished. No promises though.

Something True

So.........I decided to blog to see how it is & how I like it, and whether or not it is helpful and a good use of my time. Do I have anything to say that will benefit others?? I had to really think hard about what the blog would be about. I mean, who really cares, besides my immediate family (and I wonder even about that) what goes on in my little corner of the world? Then it became clear to me that it might help others to see that their corner of the world might look a lot like mine. There might be the same stumbling blocks in teaching a child to hold his pencil right, or keeping the house clean, or handling a temper tantrum or struggling to be the perfect wife to our hard working husbands and most of all doing God's will in our lives. In reality, that great look of relief on another Mom's face when I tell them I am 2 weeks behind in my laundry is why I've decided to write. 

So welcome to my reality of imperfection and hopefully my little stories either make you laugh or learn or just think for a moment "You too? I thought I was the only one!"