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All who live with an absent minded professor understand the utter shock you feel when they display a complete lack of common sense.

This morning, I had no water bottle or juice box for Josiah’s lunch. I had thrown out the refillable bottles in a fit of “plastics are killing us.” Years ago I had gone through a “teflon is killing us” fit and threw out all my pans. Dale never knows what I may toss out when overcome by a sudden fear of toxicity.

Not wanting Josiah to die of thirst, I rashly decided to give him a can of soda. I gave him the following instructions:

1. Do not swing your lunchpail around.

2. Tap the top of the can before you open it.

3. Open the can away from yourself.

In a lack of foresight, I forgot the following instruction:

4. Do not place half finished can of soda back in lunch bag, in locker, on top of borrowed book.

It was raining this morning when I got up. But the temperature dropped, and the rain has now turned to snow. The forecast calls for 2-4 inches today. Mugs bought me a new snow shovel yesterday and sleds for the kids. We’re ready!

First Snow of the Season

On Saturday morning I received a call from a friend who had three extra tickets to the Toby Mac Winter Wonder Slam concert. Abby had been trying to win tickets to the concert for months by attempting to be the 7th caller to the radio station, but was unsuccessful. After the call from my friend, I looked at her and remarked, “You’ve been praying.”

Amazingly, that night, Abby, Josiah, and I were in seats that had a straight ahead view of the stage although a bit high up. I will say this…Toby Mac can put on quite a show. I will also say this…It was very loud. I was feeling quite young, however, when I noticed the guy in front of me wearing earplugs. “At least I’m not that old,” I told the kids.

One guy looking for his seat, called down to the people at the end, “Is there a one down there?” I was very tempted to say, “No. The seats start at two.” However, not wanting to do too many things to embarrass my teenagers, I stayed quiet and texted the situation to Dale instead. Dale received various texts throughout the evening to make him wish he was as cool as me.

I had planned to stop for something to eat on the way, but the GPS did not bring me past a fast food place. I really wish that GPS could plan better for me. I’m always arguing with it about it’s route choice and ignore it when it objects to mine.

So, in the arena, I paid $5 for Josiah’s one slice of Little Caesars pizza. I often pay $5 to Little Caesars, and in return they give me a whole pizza. One slice for $5. You got to be kidding me. I can’t bear to admit how much I paid for Abby and my Chik-fil-a.

The opening act was a guy with an incredibly lovely singing voice who wants to be a rapper. I really wanted to tell him, “Dude, just sing. If you sing a cappella, you’ll bring down the house.” But, I suppose he already has a mother telling him that.

The next act I didn’t like at all except for the drummer. He was standing up smashing those cymbals like mad. Playing drums by sheer force…gotta love that. This act made me ask again one of those questions I have no answer to: Why do rock singer chicks wear tutu like skirts? Just wondering.

After that, Reliant K performed. The lead singer has some hair. It’s what Josiah’s hair would look like if I let him grow it out 12 more inches. It was all over the place. They were good and kept their roadies busy. The lead singer would sometimes play piano, sometimes play guitar, sometimes play both piano and guitar. The roadies would run on and off the stage delivering different guitars for different songs.

They played some funky Christmas pieces during their set and during one, the roadies dragged out this inflatable snowman scene and accidentally (I think) placed it upside down. The lead singer had to stop and turn the thing right side up so we could see what it was supposed to be. If it was a planned part of their act, they were very convincing in making me think their roadies were hopelessly inept. (Oh how they danced…the little people of stonehenge…)

The lead singer of Reliant K is a very talented musician, and the guitar players are quite good. However, they love to bend down and play their guitars on their knee caps. I wanted to tell them to stand up straight, but I suppose they already have a mother telling them that.

Next was the intermission, at which point everyone decided to show up. The place was packed and Toby Mac put on quite a show. It is terrific to see someone as gifted as him using his gifts for the Lord. He presented a clear gospel message before singing “I don’t want to gain the whole world and lose my soul.”

His songs are fun catchy tunes filled with truth and challenge for the Christian walk. Abby was clapping, dancing, swaying, jumping, waving her hands, yelling, singing, holding up the cell phone light with a great big smile on her face. Remarkably, Josiah was standing, clapping, and jumping as well. I clapped and sang also, although I kept the jumping up and down to a minimum.

The technology light, sound, and screen spectacular was very impressive. They danced in front of these bars of light that made them look like cardboard cutouts when they held still. It was really cool. The video streaming on the giant screen was impressive. The show was full on.

The back up rappers and the background singer were excellent as well as the two keyboard players, the drummer, the scratcher, and the guitar/trumpet guy. One guy had a mike down his throat to make him sound like a robot. They sure looked like they were having a lot of fun up there dancing, break dancing,  jumping at each other, and jumping off a trampoline into the audience.

I would have never guessed that Toby Mac was my age until he took off his hat at the end of the first set. His hair was a bit lacking and his dancing started to slow. After the break, he came back on with another hat. I highly recommend he keep the hat on to prevent himself from looking like one of us old foggies with ear plugs, but I suppose he already has a mother telling him that.

He performed all his big hits including his new one, “City on our Knees “and got the biggest response, of course, when he ended with “Jesus Freak.” All the other bands then came on stage to perform “Walking in a Winter Wonder Slam.” It was a tad bit different then the version I was used to.

Abby hasn’t stopped smiling since the concert and I must admit, neither have I.

The children had a four day weekend last weekend while their teachers attended training. Three of them love sleeping in and enjoyed the lazy mornings. Gabe, however, likes waking up at the same time every day.

Before bedtime, I had informed them all that they could sleep in until 10. However, once they got out of bed, they had to take care of their chores and responsibilities before watching TV or playing Wii/DS.

I was surprised when I woke up that Gabe had not gotten out of bed at his usual early hour. I remarked about his sleeping in. He responded, “I woke up at the regular time, but you said if we got out of bed, we had to do our chores. So, I didn’t get out of bed.”

His logic and ability to find loopholes is quite astounding to me.

Zeke, my true night owl, has tired of his relentless early morning Kindergarten routine. He will not wake up fully when I call him, so I carry him downstairs to the table while he is half awake. He rests his head on the table and complains that it “hurts my eyes” in a whiny voice.

The other day as I picked him up to carry him down the stairs, he asked, with his eyes still closed, “Why do we have to do this every morning?”

Periodically I reenact a scene from earlier in my life. The main difference in the scene is that I am now cast in another part.

This morning Abby picked up her school sweater (jumper) that had been hanging on the back of a chair to dry. She touched the sleeves and realized they were still damp. She informed me, “The sweater’s not dry.” Being a mom, I replied, “It’s not that wet, just put it on.”

So, she put on the sweater and stood with her arms held disgustingly away from her body and gave me the look that all thirteen year old girls give their mothers when they obey their mothers full well knowing to the very core of their being that their mother is wrong.

I replied to this look with the standard Mom phrase, “It’ll dry.” I had already said this to myself earlier that morning as I was hurriedly stuffing a running shirt into Josiah’s gear bag.The shirt was damp, “It’ll dry,” I told myself.

Because I am a mom, I  was thinking of her spending an entire rainy, foggy day at school without a sweater to keep her warm. She had just recovered from two days of illness after getting soaking wet and cold at a party. In my mind, she needed her sweater…be it wet or dry.

There are always moments in a scene when you can step back from the edge of mom thinking madness, but it is so very hard. So instead of saying “Don’t wear the sweater,” I gave her a ridiculous mom solution. “Go upstairs, get the hair dryer, set it to high and dry the sleeves.”