Sleepy Saturday

Ian is usually the first child up. He typically comes in my bedroom (carrying his Batman clock) between 6:50-7:15 am. Then usually at 7:15 I go and open up Oliver's bedroom door. He's almost always awake in his bed. This morning when I opened his door at 7:15, he was still asleep. I left his door open. Ian and Oliver both woke up at 7:45, and the noise they made woke Nadia up as well. I have said the past eight years that the clocks "falling back" an hour doesn't actually result in any extra sleep because the kids get up at the same time (an hour earlier according to the new time). However, if they happen to wake up at the same time tomorrow as they did today, we might actually get an extra hour of sleep since the boys got almost an extra hour of sleep. Oliver went to bed at 8:00 last night, which meant he slept almost 12 hours.

I made sure to give Oliver a bagel for breakfast because he takes a long time to eat a bowl of oatmeal or cereal, and I wanted to leave around 8:30. Yesterday I went to a three day consignment sale in our town that started on Thursday. I bought a variety of things yesterday, but there was one size 4T four piece suit that caught my eye for Oliver that I didn't buy because the consignor had priced it at $12. I knew they were marking everything off 50% this morning, so I decided to wait and see if that would still be available today. My conundrum was that the sale started at 9:00, which was also the time the workshop started at Home Depot in Bloomsburg (about 30 minutes away). I decided to show up a few minutes early at the sale (hoping they'd open a little early) and a few minutes late at Home Depot (hoping they had not run out of kits). When I got to  the sale, I saw that suit was still there. At first they told me the sale wasn't open yet, but when I asked if I could just buy one thing that I had already picked out yesterday, they let me (so thankful). I can't wait to see Oliver in it. The shirt is aqua. Because 99% of what he wears are hand-me downs from Ian, I don't feel guilty about buying him something every now and then even though he usually doesn't really *need* it.

Our next stop was Home Depot where we built and painted three helicopters in honor of Veteran's Day. I was a bit forgetful this morning as I forgot two things - their Home Depot aprons and our lunch. I always pack our lunch when we head to the museum. Thankfully I don't think they got any paint on their clothes. Prior to May Paul was the one who always took them to these
workshops. My skills at hammering are definitely improving as I help them with these projects. And since it was almost 1:00 as we were driving home, I spent $5 at Wendy's for lunch for the four of us.

Then we went to the Children's Museum. The kids explored for about 30 minutes before Nadia and Ian did a rat dissection lab with 2 Biology professors from Bloomsburg University along with 12 students from their Biology Club. There were only five kids who showed up for the lab so they had an excellent student: teacher ratio (5:14). Ian was the only boy, and he was the youngest participant. He took the longest to write the words on the worksheets (such as "dorsal" and "cranial"), but he was also the most vocal with giving (correct) answers to many of the professor's questions. I was pleased! They gave the kids 3 rats. Nadia was paired with another girl, and Ian had his own rat. They unwound the intestines and measured them. Ian's rat's small intestine was 22 inches long. The university student was surprised that he knew how to multiply (they were using 6 inch rulers and she said it was almost 4 rules long and he said that is 24 inches). Nadia's rat's intestines
were almost 3 feet long. I don't remember doing any dissections until I was in high school. I am grateful they were able to see and touch many different organs. I think that is far better than just reading about them in a book.

Taking my kids on field trips is sometimes tiring but almost always very enjoyable. Not all parts of parenting are enjoyable to be certain. It's hard to watch them suffer physically (like when Oliver's lung collapsed), and it's also hard to watch them work through emotional grief. It makes me long for Heaven - a place of physical, spiritual, and emotional wholeness - without any suffering, tears, or pain. This year they have had to process their grief in losing their grandmother whom they dearly loved and also grieve the loss of seeing their father far less each week than they did previously. Out of the blue on Monday night Ian made a comment about how we miss Daddy now that he's not working at Bucknell. When I was reading a book to the kids during a meal yesterday one of them said,
Daddy would have loved this book, and they talked about how they missed him at meals. Thankfully he will be joining us for dinner tonight. The last time we had a meal with him was lunch last Saturday (it has been seven days since the five of us had a meal together). Oliver is the one who has talked about it the least. I actually am not sure that he really understands that Grandma is in Heaven because every once in a blue moon he still prays for "Grandma Harton to feel better." Recently when I was in Nadia's room I saw an open notebook on her dresser and it had a picture she had drawn of

Grandma in the hospital, and on the page she had written something to the effect of "Grandma had cancer and a few months later she died." So even though she doesn't talk about it as much as Ian, it is still on her mind as well. Ian talks about it the most. Earlier today he was talking about how much Grandma loved Jesus and that if he wanted to tell someone who wasn't a Christian about Jesus he could tell them about Grandma's faith. The two great grandmothers I had met died when I was a child, but my 3 grandparents that I had met didn't die until I was in my 20's. I would have liked for my children to have had more years here on earth with my mom, but that wasn't God's will. I am thankful they still have three grandparents (and one great grandma) to spend time with here on earth, and I am very, very grateful to know we will see Grandma again in Heaven some day. This separation is just temporary.