A Smattering of Duehrings

Maggie was asking me today about getting married. I am not sure what made her start thinking about it, but she had some questions for me. Here is a very short version of our long conversation…

Maggie: So when we go to college do we go on dates with boys till we find one we want to marry?

Mommy: Yes, when you go to college some boys will ask you on dates so they can get to know you. You might find one that becomes your best friend and that you want to live with for the rest of your life. If he asks you to marry him you can say, yes. (that is the shortened version of what I said) I am going to keep her thinking that dating doesn’t start till college.

Maggie: That is going to be really hard for me if I have to say no to them because it will probably hurt their feelings. I don’t like to hurt people’s feelings.

Maggie: I sometimes think I just want to marry my daddy someday. I don’t think I will be able to find a boy that is better than my daddy to marry.

Isn’t that sweet?

I had just gotten off the freeway yesterday morning and had pulled into a parking lot. I hit the brakes as I turned, but nothing happened. I kept going. Fast. Slamming the pedal to the floor locked up my anti-lock brakes, and I finally slowed down. That was pretty cool. It turns out I had a frozen caliper and a brake hose blew. I hate to imagine what would have happened if I had been pulling up to a stop-light, or coming up on heavy traffic on the freeway. Thank you, God! You ARE a good God! Now if only the O’Reilly’s auto parts store could be good–they sold me the wrong caliper. That meant I got to wallow in grease, brake dust, and brake fluid for an extra hour. That’s cool, I guess.

Molly is still sleeping at 9:00am. That is not anyway near normal for her. She is usually up between 6:00-7:00 and sometimes earlier. I just went in and took some pictures of her since I rarely get to see her sleep.

In 5 short months she has gone from this…

to this…

I get up at 5:00 AM during the week, so I try to sneak around while I get ready so as not to wake anybody. Sometimes, like this morning, I see some movement in Molly’s bassinett, so I try to be extra quiet. I tip-toe over and peek inside to see if she’s awake. If she’s awake, when she recognizes me she always smiles real big, then I kiss her and tell her to have a great day and to be good for Mommy. This morning as I bent over her she reached up to touch my face, grinning from ear to ear. I gave her a couple of kisses, then left for work. Her smiling face has stayed with me all day long.

Last night it was beautiful outside so we went to a park over on the other side of town. We got there and as the kids started playing we noticed that Evan had his little treasure tin that he loves in his pocket. It is an altoid gum tin that he keeps all of his treasures in. He has all his money in there, his chapstick, and all kinds of little gadgets. Damon did notice that there were some of his little keys to locks that Damon needs in there. So, Damon made sure it was shut tight and stuffed it way down in the front pocket of Evan’s jeans so he wouldn’t lose it.

When we got in the van to head home Evan realized that he didn’t have it anymore. Damon quickly dropped me off at home and went back to look for it. The kids had been over playing in some trees and tall grass so there were lots places to look. He looked until it was too dark to see and they never found it.

This morning at the crack of dawn I took the kids back over there to look again. After all, we were the only people there until dark so surely no one could have found it yet. I wanted to make sure I got there before the school kids walked through the park on the way to school this morning. We looked for over an hour and still never found it. How frustrating!

It is all replaceable, well except for Damon’s keys. It would have been worse if he had put my wedding ring in his little treasure tin. It just makes me sad because I know how I would have felt at that age to lose my little treasure box. He kept asking me to look just a little bit longer. He is sad that he doesn’t have his money saved for his trip anymore. We are going on a little vacation in October and he was saving up his money for it. I think he had around 41 cents saved so far.

I just wanted to find it for him.