Leanna Kay

We’re getting ready to leave on a week long trip. As I’ve been preparing for this vacation, it occurred to me that there’s a reason why I’m so tired at the start of the trip.

My Jobs: do all the laundry, shop for sunscreen (go to five stores to find the right type so no one complains.)

Kids’ Job: Point out things that need to be done. I.E. “Mom, the car needs cleaned out.”

Bob’s Job: Program the GPS unit.

My Jobs: Find the address for Bob to input into the GPS unit, map out the area and plan fun stuff to do, clean out the fridge, vacuum the car.

Kids’ Job: Remind me of essentials. “Mom, did you buy Little Debbie cosmic brownies?”

Bob’s Job: Still programming the GPS. “Honey, can you look up the zip code for South Carolina again?”

My Jobs: Pack the clothes, load the suitcases into the car, search the internet for fun car games, find someone to feed the pets, make sure the pet food is well supplied, get snacks for the car, find movies for the DVD player, make sure the player is charged.

Kids’ Job: “Mom is it about time to go yet? We’ve been waiting FOREVER. We need a vacation!”

Yeah, me too.

See you in about ten days!

At the church where Bob and I attend, we have a time during the service when parishioners are asked if they have prayer needs. People are then given the microphone to go on at length about their ailments. Most people only speak if recently diagnosed with cancer or if they have upcoming brain surgery.

But there’s one particular woman at church who brings up an embarrassing minor ailment every week. I’ll just call her “colonscope-ovarian cyst -wart” woman. This is the type of person who when asked how she’s doing, will actually tell you - illustrating with photographic evidence from her last surgical procedure. You suddenly find yourself face to face with her the gallstone she has in a small vial in her purse, when all you were expecting from your simple question was “fine. I’m doing fine.”

In my most unchristian-like way, I cringe every week as the microphone gets passed to her because I know we’re going to get a descriptive prose about the newest thing that has gone wrong with this lady. Will it be lice this week? Or maybe vaginal warts? Perhaps she’s needing to go through a surgical procedure to cure the uterine fibroids that are causing her excess bleeding. It’s not that I’m unsympathetic. I’d rather not be inflicted with some pus filled bite from a flea infested rodent or a fibroid the size of Mars. But if I am, I’d probably be too embarrassed to admit it.

I realize if God is worried about the sparrows in the tree, he probably does get concerned over Colonscope-Ovarian cyst-Wart woman’s toe fungus. Me? I’d rather not see the photographic evidence, thank you very much.

At church this week, the minister focused on teaching the fathers to parent as intended by God. He told a story of a man who was driving through the countryside as his daughter asked a litany of questions.

“What’s growing in that field?” … “How high is that mountain?” … “How deep is that river?”

For each of these questions, the father honestly answered that he didn’t know. Honesty. A valuable trait of God, but not a practical tool for parenting. Bob and I agreed we would have answered the questions as follows: “Peas… 300 feet…. 300 feet.”

We adhere to the parenting strategy of make up what you don’t know. The kids are really never going to realize it’s green beans out in that field and not peas. And who’s going to measure the height of the mountain or the depth of a river? It’s better for the kids to think we the parents are all knowing than to realize how little we actually do know. (They’ll realize that as soon as they hit the teen years.)

Bob and I were thinking about how much we’ve lied to our kids. “Santa brought the sled…. If you eat those carrots, you might get good enough eyes to see aliens on Mars….Mommy and Daddy were just wrestling and we took our clothes off because we got hot.”

I guess we have a long way to go before we can be parents like God. But in our defense, I don’t think God’s ever been stuck in a car with three kids asking twenty questions a minute for ten straight hours. He’s never been caught with his pants down “wrestling” with his wife. And I know a child has never walked in on him while he’s in the crapper to ask “Whatcha doing?”

All in all, I don’t think we’re doing too badly. Our kids seem well adjusted and reasonably happy. They’re even somewhat knowledgeable. They can spot a field of peas from a mile away. Or was that green beans?

We lost our electricity for seven hours and six minutes last week. I’m only keeping track of that so precisely because I am not a pioneer woman. I do not hang laundry out to dry. I do not cook over open flames. And I do not wile away my evenings darning socks by the light of a fire.

The electricity gave out while both the dryer and dishwasher were running and I was emailing three people simultaneously. Then all of a sudden nothing.

“What do we do now, Mommy?’ Lauren asked as Hannah Montana cut out in the middle of the show.

Panic? No wait. I think the child was referring to what we should do to entertain ourselves.

“I don’t know.” I was still wondering if my emails had gone through.

“Webkins?”

“No computer.”

We were both at a loss. What could we do without power? Bob does have a few holey socks, but no matter how bored I get, I am not darning them.

“We could draw a hopscotch board on the driveway,” I finally said.

“Is that the game they used to play on Little House on the Prairie?”

“I guess so. Only I don’t really know the rules,” I had to admit.

“We could look them up on the computer.” Then her face fell. “No we can’t.”

Then that’s when we both realized that we were not the type of people who can live without electricity. Suppertime would come and go and we’d starve to death. Or die trying to gnaw through a frozen pizza.

Luckily the power came back on before we had to resort to such dire tactics. And now I’m off to research the fine art of hopscotch playing so I can be prepared for next time.

As I was blogging about earlier in the week, I’ve just completed a basic first aid course. During the eight-hour program, we repeatedly had to practice what we’d learned on CPR dummies. In case you’ve never seen a CPR dummy, this is a mannequin with just a face and chest. The poor thing looks like it lost all limbs in a horrible first aid training event gone dreadfully awry.

We were trained to approach the victim cautiously to make sure the scene was safe. I’m not sure how “safe” a scene can be if a limbless person is laying unconscious on the ground. I’ve seen this movie and it doesn’t end well for the would-be rescuer. A limbless body at a scene tells me -Run away! Jason the maniacal axe murderer is lurking nearby! But hey, that’s probably just me being paranoid.

Halloween and Psycho movies aside, we were supposed to find the scene to be safe. We were then supposed to lightly tap the victim on the shoulders and loudly ask, “Are you okay?”

Hello! Limbless, unconscious person here. Clearly all is not well in his world. If you asked this victim a stupid question like that, he’d be well within his rights to slap you soundly. If he had arms that is.

We then pretended that our CPR victim was unable to respond (had the dummy actually spoken, we’d have all been out of there.). We started CPR while yelling for someone to call 9-1-1. “And tell rescue workers to bring some extra arms and legs,” I was tempted to add. But I didn’t. Because that would have just been silly.

I spent all day Friday at the hospital learning first aid for children. This was my last requirement to become a fully trained Brownie Scout leader. I now know how to save a child who chokes on a marshmallow, gets stung by a bee or is drowning in a pool.

More importantly, I’ve learned about all the risks inherent in being responsible for twelve young girls. So now I’m moving our twice monthly meetings to the hospital. And no one is eating so much as a Tic Tac unless a trained paramedic is standing watch nearby. You can never be too safe.

My girls were looking forward to hiking in the woods this summer. But did you know how lethal a seemingly innocent foray into nature can be? Right now there are ticks carrying Lyme disease swarming in the tall grass just waiting for an innocent Brownie Scout to wander by. And let’s not even talk about these girls’ vulnerability to bear attacks, snake bites and landslides. And if one of these girls gets stung by a deadly bee, her face can swell to the size of a basketball and her windpipes close shut before I can find the proper page in my First Aid refresher manual.

Sure we’ll hike. During the two hours of time I’ve deemed “safe.” It should fall about the first week of January each year when the ticks and bees are gone and the bears are hibernating. It’s the only time the woods aren’t filled with fatalities waiting to happen. Though if it’s snows, all bets are off. There could be an avalanche or the weight of the snow could cause a limb to fall on our heads.

Probably it’s just best that we hang out at the hospital. Right outside the first aid training room. That’s just as much fun as hiking and roasting marshmallows, right?