NOT One of Our Most Shining Moments

I had a couple of errands this morning--quick errands, the get-in-and-get-out kind.  They wouldn't be hard to do, even with four boys tagging along.

But before I headed out the door, the phone rang.  It was Grace from the post office four houses up the road.  "Davene?" she began.  "I have some letters here for your dad, and they don't have return addresses.  I couldn't find his number in the phonebook.  Can you tell him to come up and get them sometime?"  Ever since my parents moved into my Dad's former office that they turned back into a house, they've had some mail mix-ups since their address changed and they no longer receive mail at the post office.  They announced their address change in the Christmas letter they sent out to friends and family last year, but apparently quite a few people didn't update their address lists, so a number of Christmas cards have been coming to the post office for my parents.  Grace collects them, then hands them over to my dad when he pops into the post office (usually to mail a package for me).  Apparently he hadn't been up there for a while, so she called me to track him down and let him know to come pick up the letters waiting for him.  That's life in a small town--and I LOVE it.  :)

After I passed the message along to Dad, the boys and I set off for town; and a police car followed me nearly all the way.  That's one way to be vigilant about driving!  I was so conscious of my speed and whether I was crossing any lines on the road and whether I came to a complete stop at the light.  Boy, was I glad to make the turn I needed and let the police car continue down the other road.  :)

Our first stop went fairly smoothly, although the Salvation Army bell ringer was a little too chatty, and I didn't appreciate him telling the boys that "oh man, you're in trouble now with a sister on the way!"  But I was glad to see an old friend there and chat with her for a minute or two.  Eventually we extricated ourselves from the bell ringer and went on our way.

Tobin has been interested in rhymes recently, and I'm happy to see how his knowledge of the English language is progressing.  To help him along, we were coming up with silly rhymes as we drove along.  Here was our "best" one:
Do you dare
to wear
underwear
with a tear
to the fair?
But do not bare
your bottom as you go along without a care
in the world, or you may scare
the people and they will stare.
You can tell we have boys (although my friends with girls tell me that the female race also does its fair share of such word plays).  My sons laughed heartily in full appreciation of the silliness inherent in this rhyme.  All for the sake of learning, I suppose!  :)

So, we got to our final stop, which happened to be Family Christian Stores.  All I needed was to get a gift certificate for someone--a simple in-and-out, do-not-pass-go, do-not-collect-two-hundred-dollars, kind of a stop.  On the way to the register, the boys did stop, however, at least a dozen or so times to look at and exclaim over various items ("Oh, Mom, I've always WANTED this!").  But we made it to the register and mercifully did not have a long line.  Josiah and David selected a gift card hanging on a rack, and I handed it over to the cashier with a $20 bill.  Piece of cake.  We'd been done in no time.  Except...it took the cashier FOREVER to get the amount on the gift card and ring it up.  I have no idea what the problem was, but the poor girl obviously didn't know how to do what needed doing, because she punched buttons and looked puzzled and apparently had to redo some things.  Not that I had much time to be looking at her.

Meanwhile, Tobin and Shav were discovering the rack of shiny (glass) ornaments close to the counter, and I was repeating the old adage, "Look with your eyes and not with your hands."  Tobin then started adapting it and saying, "Look with your eyes and not with your arms."  That was OK, but then he said (in a voice loud enough for nearby shoppers to clearly hear), "Look with your eyes and not with your butt."  Lovely.  You can tell we were on a roll with the potty humor today.  (Which reminds me...as we were walking out of Walmart which was our first stop, Tobin saw a big roll of white industrial-strength paper towels hanging against a pole just past the cash register area.  It was one of those spill stations, where they keep supplies handy to deal with...well...spills.  "Look, Mom," he said, "A big roll of toilet paper!")

So, in Family Christian Stores, I was trying to keep a straight face while I explained to Tobin that he didn't need to talk about butts in public.  Of course, David wanted to know what Tobin had said because he didn't hear him the first time; and he only reluctantly accepted my explanation that I would tell him later, when we got to the car.

The cashier was still fiddling around with the gift card.  "How much longer??" I thought.

And then it happened.  Shav was trying to jump (he can't).  Tobin was jumping (he can).  And David somehow crouched down--over the top of Tobin's head--to perhaps prepare for a jump of his own.  But before he could get off the ground, there was a sharp crack.  Sure enough, Tobin's head had connected with David's mouth; and they were both in pain.  Loud pain.  Tears and wailing ensued from both of them, and I tried to comfort them with an arm around each.  But wait, it gets worse.  Shav, who takes literally the command to "weep with those who weep," joined in the crying.  Groan.  How in the world was I supposed to console all three of them?  Meanwhile, Josiah was urging David to stop crying, which wasn't working.  I was trying to show proper sympathy and concern and was telling David that yes, I understood, and yes, I know it really hurt, all the while trying to kiss Tobin's head like he asked me to AND urge Shav to stop crying because he wasn't even hurt!  At the same time, the hilarity of the situation gripped me; and I could hardly control my laughter.  Sometimes you just give up on dignity and accept the fact that everyone in the store saw us (and heard, since I'm sure the megaphones that my boys seem to naturally have in their vocal cords amplified the sound for all in the store to hear) for what we are:  fallen, sometimes miserable human beings.  In that moment, I wasn't Supermom, and we clearly weren't Superfamily.  We were the kind of Mother with Kids bunch that others see and think, "Thank You, God, that it's not me!"

Oh well.  Just another (humbling, but also humorous if I can keep the right perspective) day in the life of this Fisher family...  ;-)