Last Monday Brad had to leave for
training with work for a couple of days.
It was only Monday-Wednesday, but he still felt bad about leaving
us. I really wasn’t too stressed about
it—I knew we would be fine. But poor
Brad put a shout-out on Facebook, asking our friends to check on me and the
kids while he was gone. I told him to
stop worrying, and he said “I don’t worry!”
He didn’t USED to worry, so now when he does it’s such a foreign emotion
he doesn’t even know he’s doing it.
Ha!
We tried our best to explain
everything to the kids. Korban asked if
he could go to work with daddy, and we had to tell him no. When he found out that Brad was going to be
in Jackson, he kept asking if Daddy was going to get a “poke.” (Because at his last dr appointment in
Jackson, he and Selah both had blood drawn.)
He continued to worry about this the entire time Brad was gone!
Brad tried to make it easy on
them before he left. He got watermelon
and cantaloupe at the grocery store and we had a little picnic (as Selah called
it) Monday morning before he left. He
also gave each of the kids a small toy.
Korban asked him if he would bring a balloon when he got back, and he
said he would.
Korban had a pretty big meltdown
mid-Monday—my mom showed up for a visit and he wanted her to leave right then
and take him back to her house with her but NOT Selah. I got some interesting bruises from that
meltdown, but he finally calmed down.
Later, she did take both kids back over her house with her for a little
while. I was worried Korban would try to
hurt Selah, so I told my mom to call me immediately if he did. She just lives right around the corner. I planned to go get him and leave Selah there
to play, so it wouldn’t be like she was the one missing out on the trip to Nannie’s
but fortunately they were fine.
Korban REALLY didn’t want to go
to sleep that night, and both kids kept asking for Daddy. Selah was worried that he wouldn’t have a bed
to sleep in. I let them talk to Brad on them
phone, so they knew he was okay and he got to tell them good night. I don’t know what Korban’s deal is with
fighting sleep here lately. He had been
doing so well. I strongly suspect this
is what I get for telling the geneticist that Korban didn’t have sleep problems
so much anymore. Never say that
aloud. Don’t even think it!
But they finally went to
sleep. Selah got so tired of watching me
struggle with Korban she just passed out, and Korban finally gave it up. Korban was supposed to have play therapy
Tuesday morning, but it got cancelled.
Me and my mom took the kids to the kiddie movie at Malco. It was Ice Age 2: Dawn of the Dinosaurs, which is one of our
favorites. After that, we met a friend
for lunch at Don Julio’s. (It was my
super-generous friend who gave us the Wii, and we were so thankful to get to
see him again before he went back home.
Brad’s still sad that he missed it.)
Korban loves to eat at Mexican restaurants, because he absolutely loves
chips and salsa. I always order
something for him, but he never eats it in the restaurant because he won’t stop
eating the chips and salsa! I ordered
macaroni and cheese and French fries for Selah, which she promptly refused
because the mac and cheese was “too white.”
“I want carrots!” she wailed.
“She has a plate of macaroni and cheese and fries and she’s crying for
CARROTS?!? What have you done to your
kids?” my friend said, which made me laugh.
There was a glass-looking parrot
hanging from a swing on the ceiling in this restaurant and we had to move
Korban to the other side of the table so he wouldn’t have to keep twisting his
head around to look at it. Something
about that bird really caught his eye. I
asked him later what his favorite part was, expecting him to say the chips and
salsa, and he said “The birdie!” Ha!
My friend entertained my very
squirmy kids with some magic tricks.
They absolutely loved the card trick he had showed them when he brought
us the Wii, and they had been talking about it for days. He did another trick in which is looked like
he was pulling his finger apart. Very
funny, but it TOTALLY freaked Selah out.
I mean, she was whining and saying “Mom, don’t let him take my fingers
off. I like my fingers!” She wouldn’t even let go of it when he showed
her his fingers were all alive and well and in their appropriate place. We tried to tell her it was just a trick, but
she wasn’t having it. She asked me to
take her to the bathroom, so I did. She
told me her booty was going to do a magic trick, and then she pooped. I had to ask my friend if he knew that
trick. Selah is so silly!
After we had loaded the kids in
the van, I was telling my friend good-bye.
Selah asked my mom how he did the magic trick with the finger, and my
mom said she didn’t know. She asked
Selah if she wanted to ask him, and she said yes. So he went over to Selah and showed her how
it worked. She was pretty impressed, but
apparently he didn’t completely absolve himself in her eyes. When he reached for her hand to show her how
to do it, she snatched her hand away and said “Never mind!” Obviously she still didn’t trust him with her
precious fingers. Because she likes
them, you know.
I thought Tuesday night was going
to be better with getting the kids to sleep.
I let them both lay down in the bed with me. Korban was actually really calm, and I was
breathing a sigh of relief. And then he
got a nosebleed. He gets them from time
to time, and it’s not fun. There’s a
blood vessel in his nose that opens up and we’ve had to get it cauterized
before to help with it. So thankfully,
it had been awhile since he had a nosebleed, but the timing for this one wasn’t
great. He got upset and started crying,
which made it worse, or course. He was
wailing “I want my daddy!” I ran to wet
a washcloth, but he didn’t want me to wipe his face. Then he got sick from the blood running down
the back of his throat and threw up, in the bed. I was finally able to get the nosebleed
stopped, although Korban was literally fighting at me the whole time. I cleaned him up, changed his clothes,
cleaned the bed, put more sheets on it, and put the old sheets in the
washer. I figured sleep wasn’t going to
happen any time soon, so I sat up in the living room and rocked both kids for a
while. When I finally thought they were
settled down enough I put them both back to bed. Then Selah started crying because she was
afraid of monsters. Sigh. Poor kid was wailing “I need my daddy! My daddy is big! He will protect me from monsters! I NEED MY BIG DADDY!” At that point, I didn’t know whether to laugh
or cry with her. I needed her big daddy
too!
Finally they went to sleep and
Wednesday morning rolled around all too quickly. Korban had school, so we got up and got
ready. I had already warned them that
Brad was gone on a trip with work, and that Korban might ask about him a lot or
be out of sorts, but he did fine. I took
Selah to play at the park while he was in school, and then we went to the
library. They have a summer reading
program, and I had already asked about signing Selah up for it, and was told
she was too young. But when we were
checking out our books, I noticed there were some children younger than Selah
in the room. Their moms were with them,
but I would naturally be willing to stay with Selah too. So I asked again, and they said I could sign
her up for it, but it’s from 10-12 every Wednesday. Korban gets out of school at 11:00 or before,
so I’m not sure how we would work that, but I thanked the lady. She said “She would really enjoy it. There’s a guy in there with snakes today!” Of course, Selah perked right up, since she
just loves snakes. *insert full body
shudder here* When the lady handed me
the books, Selah said “Where is my snake?”
I guess she thinks they’re just giving them out at the library now! So I held her and we poked our heads in to
check out the man and his snakes. He had
something called a hawk-nose snake out showing to the kids. He was telling them how those kinds of snakes
never bite humans. He even stuck his
finger in its mouth to demonstrate this fact.
Eek! He explained that the only
thing this snake ever bites is a toad (not a frog, a TOAD!) because that is
their favorite meal. So he went to put
this snake back in its cage and it pooped on him. Which made Selah’s whole day. She told everybody we came into contact with
that day that we saw a man with a snake and the snake “pooped on him because it
had to GO!!!” I think it may have pooped
on him to get the man back for poking his finger in its mouth, but that’s just
me.
So we got Korban from school, and
he had done really well. A sweet friend
from college had invited me to lunch, so I dropped the kids off at my mom’s and
headed to Chik-Fil-A to meet my friend.
It was so good to see her! I
hadn’t seen her in ages and it was great to just sit and talk and laugh.
Then I got my kids from Mom, and
we played outside for a long time. Then
we got ready to go again. Jason and Dez
had invited us over their house to eat supper.
(Seriously, you guys all did an awesome job responding to Brad’s
Facebook plea to watch over us. Next
time he has to go somewhere he’s going to say “Ya’ll ignore her so maybe she’ll
clean house or something. ;) We had a wonderful supper and Brad got back
from Jackson during this time and drove right on over to surprise the kids. They were so glad to see him! Selah even took a break from playing with her
future husbands long enough to greet him.
When we left there, Brad took Korban to Dollar General to pick out a
balloon. He can’t read yet, but he
insisted on getting a balloon that said “World’s Greatest Dad,” which I thought
was most appropriate. What am I saying?
He might be able to read and just hasn’t told us yet. That’d be a very Korban thing to do. At any rate, I think he has a sixth sense
about some things. When we found out I
was pregnant with Selah, he insisted on getting balloons that said “It’s a
Girl!” Which was totally bizarre but I
think he knew he was getting a sister before we did. Then the night before I went into labor he
picked out a balloon that said “Congratulations.” Too funny.
Anyway, we sure are glad to have
our #1 Daddy home with us, to protect us from monsters, and help stop
nosebleeds and do all the other things he does so well. He certainly has “job security.” Happy Father’s Day to all the fathers out
there. I sure do miss my sweet daddy,
but I was so blessed to have had such a wonderful father. I’m so thankful my sweet babies also have a
sweet, godly daddy who is actively involved in their lives. They are thankful too! Brad, I imagine you didn’t know what a job
this whole fatherhood thing would turn out to be, but you’re doing it
well. There’s not anybody else I’d want
to be on this adventure with!
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