The Perfect Cure

Today I was out of sorts. I'm not sure why... it might've had something to do with being completely exhausted and having to wake up about 72 hours before I was ready, maybe.

I don't like feeling that way and I'm not sure what caused it. I mean "technically", I slept a decent number of hours and I had a sort of good breakfast, so it wasn't hunger. I woke up to a fresh blanket of snow all over the farm. Soooo pretty! It certainly wasn't landscape fatigue or anything like that.

During church, it was all I could do to sit still. Everything was irritating me! It was our Christmas service today and, face it, what's not to love about a Christmas service? Especially one that is mostly comprised of singing… fool proof, right.

Wrong.

Being grumpy and wanting to flee the program to hide out in the nursery was my first clue that I was out of sorts. I forced myself to sit still. Then I leaned forward and massaged my temples, leaned further forward to check the clock, several times… massage the temples again… will self to sit, sort of, still. Finally, I rested my head on my husband's shoulder and took a nap. That would have helped... except for the fact that I can barely sleep at home, in my bed, and church was far too noisy to even consider it.

Sometimes I get really jealous of Kirk. He can sleep anywhere, anytime. If that weren’t bad enough, it’s somehow even sanctioned in church as being appropriate (minus the snoring) while those of us who can’t sleep have to torture ourselves by trying to sit still. I will never understand that. It’s horribly unfair to those of us who happen to be super light sleepers.

On the bright side, the baby in the pew in front of us, the one with those giant blue eyes and rosebud lips, was smiling at me and being utterly adorable. Bella, one of our nursery girls, was there two rows up and looking stunningly beautiful, like always. Tristan, one of our nursery boys, was coyly peeking over the back of the bench 2 pews ahead of that and smiling at me with very large eyes… as if shocked to notice that I was in the same world as he. Those were the highlights of the meeting.

FINALLY, church ended. I dashed out of the chapel (slightly before that point) to get ready. 10 out of our 12 children were there today and I needed to wash up before starting the snacks.

It was a good class. There were only 2 explosive snot bombs during the whole time!

I’m not sure why those only happen right in front of me, or on me. I don’t think Kirk has ever had to wipe up a snot bomb. Sometimes, I think he positions himself on the other side of the room from them on purpose. Other times, I’m just convinced that God loves him more than me.

Anyway, back to the glandular goo... little kids are so funny about this. They’ll sneeze out half a cup of snot all over the front of them and, depending if it’s a girl or a boy, will either freeze into statue mode, waiting for you to clean them up, or else just go merrily on their way, apparently not even noticing the slime sliding down their face and onto their clothes. Sleeves come in very handy for such children.

… which gives a whole new perspective to the old English song “Greensleeves”.

Ew.

Anyway, at this time of year, 2 snot bombs is a conservative amount, so I considered that part of the day a jubilant success.

Our lesson went pretty smoothly too. The children actually stopped running amok and sat still (relatively speaking) for close to FIVE minutes (WOW!). This was a miracle of colossal proportions. As soon as I pulled the first puppet from the bag (See 12/5/10 "I am not funny...") and gave it to its matching owner, they all became spellbound, waiting to see what would happen. That part was great… the look on their faces... wondering... as if to say: "Could it be possible that I might get a puppet too?" was priceless! It all went very smoothly... until they figured it out and all started grabbing the puppets, looking for their own. Even then, it was still okay. They were happy and that was the goal.

We also made “braclets” out of pipe cleaners and beads, so they could give their moms a Christmas present of their own making. Some of the kids were especially excited about that prospect… others of them just kept trying to eat the beads… “No babe, spit them out… don’t eat the beads, they’re not food… spit them out… spit them out… come on, spit-them-out-now…”.

It was only one child, clearly old enough to know better, but he likes putting everything into his mouth: Chalk, toys, balloons, clothing, other children, etc… He’s also the one who likes to take his cup of snacks and arrange them all over the table, push them around into different piles and put them back into his cup… then dump them all out and start the whole process over again. He usually gets some of them down the right orifice, but not before he’s duly played with them first. If he wasn’t so adorable, it might bother my OCD self some, but I pretty much just look the other way and let him play on.

Most of our children in nursery are of the utterly adorable type. It’s the perfect age and it’s impossible to be grumpy around so many cute kids. It really is the perfect job to have at church. So, I was happy during nursery today… extremely tired and occasionally a bit zombie-ish, but happy.

Then nursery ended.

Suddenly, almost everything was irritating me again! There was too large of a crowd in the hallways, someone decided to congregate right in front of the door, blocking our way, the drive home was too long… the snow was melting, the sun was too bright… the people around me were BREATHING! I couldn’t hear them, but I knew it was happening. The nerve!

There is only one known cure for such an attitude… NAP TIME.

After a little shut eye, and then forcing myself to wake up, the world was such a different place. The birds were singing, my lovely family was awake and around me. I looked around at our beautiful home, read a lovely magazine while eating a delicious supper. I admired the Christmas tree, beautifully decorated by my adorable children. I gazed thankfully on the presents under the tree, so grateful for my husband’s job, the land of peace where we live and the bounteous plenty we enjoy.

I knew, in that moment, that life was grand. There was just no other way to look at it!

It was the perfect cure.