Noise cancellation, no recouperation, almost devestation

Good Morning!  It is early.  I wouldn’t easily give into Kael this morning and literally made him drag me out of bed.  If he wanted to be up he was going to have to work for it.  He was very sweet and kept saying to me “diggid didgidy, djoo djoo, ta-meece?”  Djoo Djoo is choo choo, and ta-meece is Thomas.  So while I am typing this at 5am, Kael is enjoying a little Thomas the Train while playing with his trains at the kitchen table.  He has been doing really well at communicating and social interaction this last week. Saturday the little boys ran me ragged with their social interactions.  They socially interacted themselves right into their respective corners.  Because of Kael’s sensory processing issues he doesn’t feel pain or pressure the same way we do all the time.  This has almost completely turned around since we made the change in our diet, but some days I can tell that he can’t feel as well, so a swat is not normally the best correction for him.  But the corner, the corner for some reason holds their little noses like glue and works like a charm to reset their brains from whatever naughty thing they were up to.  This weekend it was hitting and kicking.  They fought over everything and would get into fights that resembled two girls in junior high with a lot of slapping and crying.  If one of them had a toy, the other one wanted that toy, no other toy would do.  I was also trying to clean and prepare for Colby, one of Sam’s closest friends who was moving here from Seattle and was going to be rolling into town with his girlfriend Ash sometime on Saturday.  Since he is going to be living with us for an indefinite amount of time I needed to make room for all his stuff (and stuff he has…stuff, stuff, and more stuff).  Every time I tried to clean though, the little boys found immense joy in making more messes.  My house was turned upside down.  And the little treasures wouldn’t nap!  They needed one, but they wouldn’t have it, too much destruction in their near future to sleep I guess.  At one point I took a break to avoid a break (in my sanity) and called my parents and they encouraged me, “Ronda, you are a wonderful little mommy.” Picture me picturing a cardboard box inscribed “FREE to a good home” and two little jelly slicked faces peering out.  Like a cartoon this picture sitting above my head in a puffy cloud popped and I looked at my little stinkers and decided if you can’t beat ‘em (literally and figuratively) join ‘em.  So we played and I waited until they went to bed that night to clean. 

Time flies when you are having fun and before I knew it it was time for Colby to be rolling in.  I had heard very little from Sam that day since Saturday’s are busy at a car dealership and so I didn’t know what the plan was.  I like plans.  I finally got the call I was waiting for, but not the news I was expecting.  Colby was still about 5-7 hours away and would be getting to Joplin at around 10pm.  Ash, his girlfriend, however, was about 2 hours away because they had to split up so that she could make it to the airport in time to drop Colby’s younger brother for his flight back to Seattle.  They made it by the skin of their teeth…such a weird saying.  Ash called me to get directions and right away I knew I liked her.  She pulled in and we got to sit at the kitchen table and visit with her.  We had never met her before and had to make good use of our short time together so we broke out our interrogation light, dimmed the back lights, and got to work.  We learned that despite being exhausted from 3 days of intense travel she was quick and witty.  I felt like I was reading a blog just listening to her talk.  She uses metaphors and cleverly placed words and all of a sudden you find yourself stuffing your face with a bag of popcorn, eyes dry from not blinking, wondering what happened next in their journey.  Colby finally arrived a little after 10pm and he was the most exhausted I have ever seen him.  Poor guy.  Colby bought an old bread truck and filled it with all his belongings and left Seattle for Joplin on Wednesday night.  Problem, bread truck gets 2.5 miles to the gallon and so the trip was long, long, LONG.  Not only is the truck a gas guzzler and have no AC, but it is loud and so he had to wear ear buds for music, and then noise cancelling head phones over the top of these.  So we rarely heard from him and he rarely heard his phone.  Colby and Ash sat at our table, grateful to have survived, glad to be alive, never again wanting to drive and dreading the next day when they would have to get back into the car to drive Ash up to Kansas City (3 hours away) to fly back to Seattle.

Colby and Ash

 I don’t exaggerate when I say they were grateful to have survived and arrived alive.  Ash almost cried when she related one story from their trip and in her story I saw a metaphor.  At one point of their trip Colby feel asleep at the wheel, for about 12 miles to be more precise.  The monotonous driving, the lack of sleep, the extreme heat (no AC), the music playing in his ears, stacked the cards against him and he dozed off.  Ash and Connor watched in horror as the bread truck weaved from one side of the road to the other going 80 mph.  They tried calling, but he couldn’t hear.  They honked, still he couldn’t hear.  They tried to get in front of him and get his attention, but he almost drove them off the road.  They tried throwing things at him.  But while going 80 on the interstate with a bread truck swerving at you this is trickier then it sounds.  While Ash was telling us this story you see she was still shaken by it.  Eventually Colby woke up enough and pulled over with no clue what he just put them through.  They let him know…with loud words, they let him know.

I was laying in bed and I thought about this story and I thought what it must be like for God.  When our lives are careening out of control going 100 mph with tragedy imminent and we don’t have ears to hear, and we don’t have eyes to see, what can He do to get our attention?  Sometimes He throws stuff at us, sometimes He tries to call us, sometimes He will put himself right in front of us…Maybe this will be your wake up call.  If your life is careening and you are going too fast, slow down and let Him drive.  Then your outcome is guaranteed and you will arrive alive.

Deep stuff aside the other morning I made something delicious and delightful and wanted to share it with you.  I was thinking about how life gets busy multiplied exponentially and I came up with this super quick, delicious, nutritious, energy supplying concoction.  I shall call it “Yo-mmy”, because it is yogurt and it is yummy.  So grab these ingredients, keep them on hand and then you can energize your day with some Yommy.

Yommy!



Ingredients

1 cup yogurt (I use Stonyfield Organic Vanilla)
1 clementine
1 strawberry sliced
1 tablespoon preserves (I used blueberry)
1 handful mixed nuts

Here is a variation I made for the little boys which has yogurt, bluberry preserves, granola, and a drizzle of honey.

More Yommy!

Here is Caleb enjoying his Yommy!  That half blue eye cracks me up.

"Wow Mom! This Yommy is yummy in my tummy!"

You and your family will really enjoy this easy treat.

xoxo,

Ronda