Turning Gray on Black Friday

On the morning of Black Friday, we decided to visit Shopko to pick up a couple of items on sale. We took the entire family with us, which turned out to be a mistake. Inside the store, Max found a tyrannosaurus rex figurine that he just had to have. It was made of hard plastic, but the mouth was hinged so that it could open and close. It was $25. There was no way we were going to spend that much money on a plastic dinosaur. We told Max to put it back on the shelf.

Instead, he ran.

My man left to search for him while I took the other boys to the register to check out. I had to wait in line for quite a while as the cashier slowly scanned a pile of clothing and removed the hangars before putting them in bags for the customer in front of me. While I waited, I continually looked around, hoping to spot Max so that I could grab him. I became more and more stressed when I didn't see him. I began to wonder if someone had taken him or if he was getting into trouble without my supervision.

Finally, while the cashier was scanning my items, I saw my man leading Max by the hand towards the customer service counter. We exchanged a look.

"He stole it," my man mouthed to me. Yep, Max had run completely out of the store with the dinosaur toy.

I watched as my man made Max return the dinosaur to the customer service representative and apologize. Then he took him and the other two boys out to the car. When I caught up, Max was looking teary-eyed in his carseat.

"I'm very disappointed in you, Max," I said. "Stealing is very wrong. You are grounded for the rest of the day. That means no video games, no movies, no iPad." Max wailed appropriately.

We thought that would be the end of our Max fiascoes for the day.

Later, we took Max and JayJay to the doctor for an illness they both had that was lingering too long. After examining them both, the doctor sent us over to the hospital to have a test done on Max. I told my man to wait in the car with JayJay and Third while I accompanied Max. Bad idea. We always need both parents when it comes to supervising that crazy kid.

I walked into the hospital and sat down at the admitting counter to get Max registered. He sat with me for a time, interested by the masks that sick people have to wear. The lady helping us asked him how old he was and was surprised that he is only four. She thought he was six. Gradually, Max lost interest and began to wander away, exploring the waiting area and the long, wide corridor where admitting was located. He slowly got farther and farther away.

I kept thinking that I should get up and bring him back to me, but I figured he was fine as long as I could see him. The registration process was taking quite a while between paperwork and confirming our information. During that process, Max kept going until he eventually disappeared around a bend in the corridor.

By this time, the receptionist had left her desk to get some papers from a back office. I sat frozen, unsure what to do. If I left to get Max, what would happen if she returned to find me gone? Surely, Max wouldn't wander much farther. Ugh. I'm such a dumb parent. After being his mom for four years, I should know better.

Feeling flustered, I called my man. "Can you come in here? I'm stuck doing paperwork and Max has disappeared. I need you to get him."

My man agreed, but I still felt stressed and torn about my decision to wait at the admitting desk. Then the respiratory therapist who was to conduct the test on Max came to fetch him. Embarrassed that he wasn't with me, I explained, "He went that way. Could you go find him?"

"Sure," she said and headed in the direction I pointed.

"He's wearing a black shirt and khaki pants."

"Are you looking for that little boy?" someone asked who was approaching down the hall and had overheard our conversation.

"Yes," said the therapist.

"He's down there, all alone."

Another approaching person said, "Yes, I saw him going up the stairs."

The therapist followed their directions.

The registration process took another five minutes, during which I did not see my man or my missing son. Finally released, I jumped up and charged down the hall to look for Max. The corridor turned out to be much longer than I thought it would be. He was nowhere in sight. I hurried through an atrium with benches and statues and to the very far end where some glass doors led into the parking garage. There I finally saw my man coming in with Third and JayJay in tow. But no Max and no therapist. Surely he wouldn't have gone outside, and if he had, he should have run into my man. I turned and hurried back the way I had come, looking for Max, hoping the therapist had found him and would be waiting for me near the admitting desk. No one was there. Perhaps she had found him and taken him somewhere to do the test, assuming we knew where to go and would follow. I spun again and went to my man.

"I can't find him anywhere!" I wailed.

A nurse approached and said to my man, "Are you the guy missing a little boy?"

"Yes," said my man.

"He's wearing a black shirt?"

"Yes," he said.

"Ok," she said, but she didn't know where he was.

Then I saw a door with a sign next to it indicating it gave access to a stairway. Perhaps they were the stairs that person had seen him climbing. I charged through and ran up four flights of stairs, shouting for Max and trying every door on every level, which were all locked. Max was not in the stairwell. I ran back down the stairs and out into the corridor. My man was gone now. I headed down to search the other end of the hospital even though I had seen Max go in the opposite direction. I met my man coming back. No Max.

I was beginning to be really scared. The hospital was a huge building to search and someone could have easily taken off with him.

As we were heading back towards admitting, we finally saw the respiratory therapist approaching down the hall.

"Did you find him?" I asked, but she was alone.

However, she said, "Yes," and paused and turned slightly and then Max appeared, trailing along behind her down the hallway.

Relief flooded through me. "Where did you find him?"

"On the roof, watching the helicopter take off."

WHAT????

My baby was on the ROOF of the hospital?! How the heck did he get up there?!

"How did you know where to look?" I asked, completely flabbergasted.

"I just figured he went up the stairs," she said.

Sheesh! Was there even a wall of any sort around the edge of the hospital roof? "MAX!" I shrieked. "I'm going to beat you black and blue!!!" Then he reached me and I hugged him tightly. "You scared Mommy!"

We went and got the test done and on our way out, I asked Max to show me exactly where he had gone.

He pointed at the floor of the hospital, which was paved with shiny white tiles. However, a ribbon of dark gray tiles curved back and forth across the hall.

"I saw this trail," Max explained, "and I wanted to follow it." He began again to follow the path of dark tiles. He led us to the atrium with the benches and statues. "Then I saw these statues and I was like 'Woah!' and I tried to be a statue like them." He stiffened as if trying to become a statue again. "Then I kept going." He continued past the statues and we reached the doors where my man had come in. To the left of them was a staircase I had not noticed in my frantic search. Max continued, "Then I saw these stairs and went up them to the roof. The helicopter was taking off. It was awesome!"

So I got a few more gray hairs on Black Friday, courtesy of Max and his shenanigans. Luckily, the therapist found him when she did. Otherwise, he might have ended up on the helicopter.

Max and Third Are Heavy!

This post will have a slightly different tone than the rest of my posts on this blog. However, the incident I'm telling you about definitely contributed a grin to the awesomeness of my life. So I'm going to include it.

This summer my family did a lot of hiking. We love escaping the city and getting out into nature and we tried to do at least one hike per week. One of the hikes we did was a trail that followed a creek up to some hot springs. It was 2.5 miles in and we started a bit late so that we ended up hiking during our boys' nap time. JayJay is six and can handle missing a nap. Max is four and he thinks he can handle missing a nap, but when he does, the world better watch out.

My sister #4 and her boyfriend came with us. The hike in was very enjoyable. The terrain was mostly level and the scenery absolutely stunning. Parts of the trail were a bit nerve-racking because of sharp drop-offs where the creek was eroding bits of the trail away. I had to steer my Max around those bits when he was inclined to climb the piddly fences separating hikers from a fall or throw rocks off the edges. By the last quarter of the hike in, Max needed a lot of coaxing and some carrying to make it all the way to the hot springs.

When we arrived, we ate a picnic lunch, waded in the pools, and explored the trails and waterfalls surrounding the main spring. Remarkably, the algae that grew on the rocks in the water was naturally color-coded depending on the temperature of the water: gray for warm, black for hot, and red for scalding. Nature is so cool! And again, the area was gorgeous!

After exploring and wading for several hours, we decided we better head back down the trail so that we could get home and eat dinner at a decent hour. We persuaded the boys to put shoes and socks back on and start the hike. My man started off with JayJay and Max while I waited for Sis4 and her boyfriend who were delayed with getting their shoes and socks on and gathering their belongings.

Before they finished getting their things together, Max returned alone. Something had upset him and he didn't want to hike with daddy and JayJay. I knew we had a problem. He sat in the middle of the trail with his arms folded in a huff and a scowl on his face. When Sis4 and her boyfriend were ready to go, we had a difficult time convincing Max to come with us. We finally managed to get him on his feet and began to walk at a snail's pace. After going a few yards, Max would sit down and refuse to budge. Sometimes we could lure him to walk again. Sometimes I would carry him for a short distance, but it was difficult and exhausting because I already had Third on my back. He wanted me to carry him constantly, but I had to refuse. Sis4 and her boyfriend both offered to carry Max instead, but he spurned their help. Sometimes when he sat down in the middle of the trail, we just had to keep going until we rounded a bend and he couldn't see us anymore. Then, after a few minutes, he would decide that he didn't want to be alone and would follow along. Slowly. This went on until we just couldn't get him to move anymore. We hadn't made it very far on the trail. At all.

I decided that the best solution would be to take Third out of the backpack and have Sis4 carry him. Then I would put Max in the backpack and we would be able to hike at a decent pace. So we proceeded with this plan.

Unfortunately, neither boy agreed that this was the best idea. Max was adamant that he did not want to be carried in the backpack like a baby. Third was adamant that he did not want Sis4 to carry him. And they both objected loudly, bawling at the top of their lungs as if we were torturing them by cutting their sandwiches in the wrong shapes. But I didn't have any other way so I ignored their protests.

They bawled FOREVER! And the trail suddenly wasn't only 2.5 miles. It was 30 miles and we would never reach the end. We trudged along with two boys bawling and bawling and bawling. Every person that we passed looked at us sideways, trying to figure out what such horrible people had done to those poor, dear, sweet little children to make them so upset. We tried to distract them by pointing out flowers and plants and insects. We offered them sticks and rocks to carry or throw. Nothing worked. They cried and cried, not even the whimpering, quiet crying. They roared. FOREVER!!!

And Max was so heavy!

Eventually, Max cried himself to sleep, draped over my shoulder in a position that made me have to tilt my head at an awkward angle. Third, on the other hand, was determined to keep going. He wouldn't let Sis4 cradle him or lay him on her shoulder. He was stiff as a board and sobbing. Finally, I couldn't stand to have to the poor kid cry another minute, so I took him from Sis4 and carried him myself. But since Max was sleeping, we couldn't transfer him to someone else's back. I had to carry both kids. Third promptly fell asleep in my arms. (We discovered later that Third had a poopy diaper and bad diaper rash, but we couldn't smell it because of the sulfur smell from the hot springs, so I didn't know he needed changed.) So there I was, carrying two sleeping, heavy kids (an additional 65 pounds!), hiking a 2.5 mile trail. For a hardcore outdoor enthusiast, this would be no problem. But while I am fit, I am definitely not used to carrying that much weight. My man was far ahead with JayJay, unaware that I needed help, and I was scared to transfer Third back to Sis4 because I didn't want to wake him up and traumatize him even more.

I tried to endure. I don't know how far I walked that way. It felt like 30 miles. They were so heavy! I had no idea how much farther we had to go. My legs and arms burned. My shoulders and neck ached and I couldn't adjust the straps of the backpack to relieve the pressure. My once wonderful afternoon hike had become quite miserable.

Finally, I didn't feel like I could endure another minute. So I prayed.

"Heavenly Father, please bless me with the strength to bear this burden. Help me endure to the end...."

I didn't even get to finish my prayer.

Sis4 turned around and said, "Do you want me to take Third now?"

For a nanosecond, my pride demanded that I refuse. I wanted to be strong. I wanted to prove my awesomeness by carrying both kids the rest of the way. I wanted to be blessed with the strength to continue.

But then I realized that her offer to take Third was the answer to my prayer. I had asked for help and Heavenly Father immediately provided it! I could not refuse such an obvious blessing.

So I said, "Yes."

She came and we carefully transferred Third. Miraculously, he stayed asleep. But the answer to my prayer continued. Without even communicating with either of us, Sis4's boyfriend came and walked beside me so that he could hold onto the backpack and lift some of Max's weight off my shoulders.

I marveled at how cool Heavenly Father is and how cool it was that both Sis4 and her boyfriend were able to feel the promptings of the Spirit to help me when I desperately needed help, even though they didn't realize they were receiving promptings.

We finished the rest of the hike that way. It wasn't very much farther.  I probably could have made it without help, miserably. But Heavenly Father didn't want me to be miserable. He wanted me to be happy, so he provided the help I needed immediately when I asked for it. When we saw the end, I took Third from Sis4 so that my man would think I carried both kids the whole way and be impressed with my superpowers (That didn't work. "So? I do that all the time.").

Answers to prayers are so amazing and special. Sometimes, Heavenly Father will give us the strength to endure our trials to the end. Sometimes, he will remove the burden entirely. Sometimes, he will send people to help us bear the burden. No matter how the answer comes, Heavenly Father will always give us help when we ask for it!

Dream

I think raising three rambunctious boys is beginning to stress me out. Last night I dreamed that they got out of control and launched a rocket that hit the sun and changed the color of sunlight to a salmon pink. So I yelled at them, "You didn't just mess up a room! You ruined our ecosystem! You destroyed our whole freaking planet!!!"

Veterans Day and the Play-Doh Wars

JayJay came home on Veterans Day and announced that he had learned about the Play-Doh Wars in school.

Huh?

I attended first grade and I had no memory of learning about the Play-Doh Wars.  So it must be a more contemporary war that had occurred after my first grade year so long ago.  But I keep up on current events and still the name didn't ring a bell.

So I speculated on what he could possibly be talking about.  Perhaps they had modeled historic battles with Play-Doh.  Perhaps they had actually had a Play-Doh war at school that day, lobbing gobs of brightly colored clay at each other across protective desk barriers.

In the words of C. S. Lewis, "Bless me, what do they teach them at these schools?"

I gave up trying to figure it out.  "What are the Play-Doh Wars?" I asked.

"They are in China," he said.  "My teacher showed us pictures of them."

Oooohhhh.  It clicked.  He was trying to say clay warriors.  He had learned about the Terracotta Army of the Chinese emperor Qin Shi Huang.