A Smattering of Duehrings

Evan says “Look Mommy, I am the army!”

Like how he holds his mouse while working on his computer?

Damon built the kids a soccer goal over the weekend. They have been really interested in playing soccer lately. Maggie is starting on a soccer team in August so she has been wanting to practice too. They woke me up early this morning asking if they could go out and play soccer. Maggie and Micah had to get dressed in their “soccer clothes” before they could go out and play. There has to be a soccer ball pictured on the front of the shirt for it to be soccer clothes. At least thats what Micah tells me.

It took Eli about 30 seconds from the time he walked out the door to get tangled up in the net.

Well, no pics (and, subsequently, no barfing), but here’s how I did at yesterday’s duathlon: 65th out of 135. I pretty much just shuffled intead of ran, and during the transitions I kind of spaced out and really took my time. I’m not very competitive anymore, so that doesn’t help much. I figure somebody needs to come in last place, so it might as well be me. Well, I came in the top 50%, so not quite last. What was really cool is I did the race with my friend Dan, my riding partner (the guy I went camping with in my previous post) and I beat him by 2 minutes during the bike portion. Ha! My average speed was 20.1 mph. Now if I could just run! It was a fun race, though it was already in the 90s at the start. A strong wind came up out of the south, too, so the last 3rd of the bike portion was pushing against a headwind. So, well, maybe it wasn’t so fun now that I think about it. I can finally walk normal now, though, so that’s cool.

Today we had our annual church picnic. The place where we had the church picnic is out in the country. There are about 35 acres and there is a lake and several fishing ponds behind their home. It is beautiful out there.

People without kids probably take it for granted that they actually get to go and sit and talk with their friends at church picnics. Let me tell you what it can be like to go to a church picnic with kids.

First of all it was 100 degrees out today and very humid. It was just plain HOT! The first half hour there I had all the kids glued to my side. I was holding Molly and Evan and Eli were climbing all over me. I was so hot and I was getting grouchy really fast. I sat Molly down in her car seat for a few minutes while I went to do something. Big Mistake! The girl hasn’t had a bowel movement since Tuesday. Guess what, she had it at the picnic and she made up for the last 4 days. I didn’t realize it till I picked her up and had put her up against my shirt and had yellow poo covering my shirt. Just what you want in 100 degree weather. It was running down Molly’s legs, arms and was up to her neck and all over my shirt. Everyone at the picnic was either laughing or running to try to find me wipes or something. No one quite knew what to do. My van was like a half a mile away which is where my wipes were.

So a half hour later and I had her all cleaned up. About then I see Eli walking around with his legs spread apart. Obviously he just did the same thing. Yep, it was all over his shorts too. Good thing I keep plastic bags in my diaper bags cause I used them tonight. Luckily I had extra clothes packed for Molly and for Eli too. I have learned to be prepared for anything. The thing I hadn’t learned before today was to bring an extra outfit for mommy in the diaper bag too. Ok, so another half hour and I have baby #2 all cleaned up.

I get done with him just in time to hear Evan hollering from the outhouse where he had just gone too. After trying to explain to him how to unlock the door for a few minutes since he had locked himself inside, he gets it open. There he was stripped down to nothing sitting there just like he does it at home, waiting for me to wipe him. He had his clothes and shoes laying all over the outhouse floor. Bending over an outhouse toilet wiping you little boy is a lovely thing let me tell ya.

So other than cleaning up poo and nursing Molly in a corner, that was about it for the picnic for me. I managed to stuff some food in my mouth and chat with a few people.

Now that I think about it there were almost no kids at the picnic but ours. There are bunches of kids at our church so I guess other parents aren’t as brave as us to take their kids out in the excessive heat with only an outhouse.

Last year at the church picnic Evan was climbing on something and fell and hit the concrete head first and was a bloody mess. He had blood coming from everywhere and freaked everyone out. That is when he got the big blood clot on his cheek which still hasn’t gone away completely. The Duehring family always seems to bring some excitement to the church picnics. After this year we will be remembered for something different.

They turned a sprinkler on to help the kids cool off since it was so hot. The kids had fun playing and getting soaked in that. See how Eli is trying to break the sprinkler with a stick?

Jeremy (Damon’s brother) is going to school to be a massage therapist. He came over last night to practice on Damon and gave him an hour massage. I told Damon to pay close attention so he can learn how to give them to me!

Damon had his duathlon this morning so he was nice and relaxed for it. I will let him tell about his fun race. Sorry, no pictures of it though. I didn’t end up going. I wanted to go so bad to cheer him on, but just couldn’t get myself to wake all the kids to drag them out there at 7am. Also, I was afraid it would be too hard standing there waiting for him with Eli and Molly. Oh well, maybe next year.