Last week I knew what I needed to do when I woke up.  Wake up, get seminary kids out the door, make breakfasts and lunches for the day, pick kids up from seminary, drop kids off at school, pickup food pantry donations from the grocery store, take the food to the food pantry, and meet a lady at 9:30am at another food pantry to drop off donations packaged by my congregation the week before and meet with her to discuss future collaborations. It was going to be tight, but I could do it if everything went off right.

The first problem was we had no bread in the house for lunches so I had to leave the house at 6am to buy bread.  I decided to make sandwiches at the church while I waited for kids to come out and I trusted that Gideon would wake up at 6am like he usually does and he’d get Zeke and Florence up and ready for the bus.  Next, when I woke up Hannah, she told me she had thrown up in the night.  I told her to go back to sleep and went on with the morning thinking her staying home from school for a day would be fine.  When I got back from doing the seminary to school drop-offs, the boys were just barely out of bed and Florence wasn’t awake yet with 5 minutes to go until the bus came for pick ups. I told Florence I’d take her her and Zeke to school and Gideon could take the bus to do his safety duties.  But Zeke didn’t hear this and ran out the door in the knick of time to get the bus with Gideon.  

All was still okay.  I could drop off Florence on my way to the grocery store pick-up.  I told Gracie to be sure to catch the bus at 8:40 and left with Florence.  I got Florence to school in enough time for her to run in without needing a late pass.  As I drove to the store I calculated that I had just enough time to get the donations, drive up to the pantry, do the drop-off and head to the second pantry on time.  Then my phone rang.  The elementary school secretary said, “Mrs. Patterson it’s the third grade field trip today and you didn’t send Zeke with a lunch.”  She never hides her disdain, loving as it is.  “Oh…gosh…I’m far from the school right now,” I said in nervous consternation.  “Well, what do you want me to do?” she replied feeling like I was trying to throw the problem back in her lap.  I quickly decided I’d take one or two of the donated muffins from the store and put it in a bag for Zeke for lunch.  I felt like if I did this, it would make me too late to drop off my donation at the church I usually did and I’d have to take the food to another, further away pantry when time magically appeared in my schedule in the evening or another day.  I asked Mrs. Brown, “What time does the bus leave?”  “9:00.”  “Okay, I’ll be there.”

I got the food at the grocery store - two carts worth - and bought a banana so I could feel like I wasn’t giving Zeke straight sugar for lunch and so I’d have a plastic bag to put the muffin in.  I drove to the school, ran in with a few cartons of muffins and cinnamon rolls for the teachers lounge to appease Mrs. Brown, gave her Zeke’s lunch and dashed to the car.  It was 8:40.  I thought maybe I could make it to the regular church food pantry by 9 and sped off.  I made it just a little after things had gotten going and was met with gratitude and lots of helping hands to unload food. I was feeling good.  If I just gunned it, I’d be back to the other church with my other donations just in time.  As I was grooving down the interstate toward Bowie I got a call from Hannah, “Mom, when are you going to be home?” a polite but obviously concerned girl asked.  “Ummm, probably 10:30 because I have this food..and this meeting..and uh,” I felt the wheels coming off my plan and weakly asked, “Are you planning on going to school?”  “Yeah, I accidentally slept longer than I meant to.”  “What class will you be missing?”  “Chemistry.”  “Oh, not chemistry,” I thought.  She really can’t miss chemistry.  There was nothing for it.  I’d have to go get her.  There was no way I was making my meeting time.  I texted the lady I was meeting with and sheepishly let her know I’d be pretty late.  I went and got Hannah and took her to the high school.  From there I finally turned my car toward Bowie.  I arrived at the church at 9:35.  There was no way with all that I had done that I should have been at the church before 10am.  It was a miracle.

I’m going to keep trying for God.  He’s always making up for my lack.

Today Florence and I went for a run in the neighborhood. She went along like the queen of a poor nation sitting on a moose-head decorated fleece blanket that blocked her bottom from the rain water and leaf parts on the seat of our eroding jogging stroller. As every Patterson before her has done, she was watching The Letter Factory on my phone as we rolled along. Those cartoon frogs are the best teaching tool I've ever found for learning letter sounds. As my slow, heavy, stiff legs took Florence and I up and down the hills of our autumn-ripened tree-drenched neighborhood I felt kind of not-as-young-as-I-used-to-be. Then I passed a leaf-raking neighbor for the second time and he said with a smile, "You going ten miles today?" With that I felt all spry-legged and undefeatable. It cost him just five words to make my day pretty doggone good.

It snowed last night...not enough to use the Red Flyer that Grandpa fixed up for us and painted red, but there was snow. And this morning we watched a couple of renditions of the Nativity. One had the inn keepers rejecting Joseph being real jerks, the other one showed a regretful inn keeper who kindly pointed the way to his barn. I'm sure the truth is somewhere in the middle. Then it was time to open presents. My favorites were the ones that surprised me in their thoughtfulness. Isaac gave Dan some of his football cards, one of which was a Dan Marino, Dan's childhood favorite. Hannah found a stuffed dog for Zeke when she helped Grandma clean out the church nursery and he loved it.  Zeke had the best responses to his gifts - it was grateful elation, bright blue eyes, unprompted thank yous and lots of jumping around. Three has lots of funness to it - you just gotta patiently remember that when the three-year old is yelling at their aunt for taking one of their Cheetos later in the day. After presents were opened it was time for some serious Lego building. The girls did it on their own. Gracie was intense and observant and ridiculously more capable then her mother would have been. Hannah was excited, scattered, but persistent and came out with a rad yellow dragon. The little boys hovered over their Dad at the table while he put in a solid hour and a half of construction.  And Briant efficiently turned out his product completely composed and with exactness. In the mean-time Ike got his football cards all arranged in the depths of his large closet sanctuary after which he settled in to catch up on Sunday night football. And that took up much of our day, this 25th of December that always goes by too fast. The day where you can't get out of your pajamas before the time that the kids usually get home from school. In the evening some aunts and uncles and cousins came by and we played Shanghai with some of us. Cards, family, and Christmas is good enough for Dan and I. There were chips and salsa, peanut butter M&Ms, and Cheetos to keep things greased and going. Grandma came in at the end of our card game. She sat at the head of the table crumbling tin foil and wrapping wool yard around it to make felt balls to use in the dryer in place of dryer sheets. It was cozy and nice and merry.

And my gratitude to Christ goes through it all - my gratitude that he made it possible for me to be forgiven for my imperfection when I lose it with my loud, Cheetos-defending child, my gratitude that he created a beautiful wintry, white world for me to live in, my gratitude that he made it possible for me to be with my noisy, lovely, chaotic family for eternity, and my gratitude for the peace that comes in knowing him.

#1 - I can't wait until he gets home from school.  Our final shipment of goods came today and his football was in there.  It's really hard for a boy who is planning on being an NFL football player to be satisfied with hitting a volleyball back and forth with his Mom (although he's been a good sport about doing it just the same).

#2 - I went to an event that required me putting my hair in something other than a ponytail and #2 was so excited she couldn't get out from underneath my feet.  She brought me everything I needed for my hair and then some.  Her final touch was to put a fake-pearl bracelet around the bun in my hair.  I really think she's a fun girl and she just might motivate me to look a little more done-up a little more often.

#3 - Yesterday we played Settlers of Cataan Jr. together.  He totally beat me the first round so I, of course, had to ask him for another round.  He said, "Sure."  And then he said, "I'll play with you again Mom because you don't get to play games very often because you work a lot and I want you to be able to have fun."  That's #3 right there, logically sweet and sweetly logical.

#4 - This girl has been going around writing "I love you" notes all over the place.  The other day she got a bunch of paper out and then came and asked me for some tape.  Using black electrical tape, the only tape I could find in this place, we taped together a piece of paper wrapped around another piece of paper that she very adamantly didn't want me to look at because it was a surprise.  She carried her electrical-tape package around the house for the next hour telling everybody, with her big brown eyes wide with excitement, that she had a surprise for the family.  At dinner time she stood up and announced she was ready to give us her gift and undid the tape to pull out a sign that said, "I love you" and then listed all the family members' names.  She nodded her head at us, grinned, took for granted that all of us were as thrilled as she was (which I love about her!), and fully enjoyed her big surprise.  I love her heart full of love.

#5 - The boy stumbles out of bed wanting to know if I want to play Star Wars with him.  He is Luke Skywalker.  He's not Han, or Yoda, or Chewy, or O-Ben, he is Luke Skywalker with a period.  We color together every day in a Star Wars coloring book and he can tell me what color each Jedi's light saber is supposed to be.  What is it with boys being able to so easily absorb Star Wars facts?  The kid has seen the movies maybe once.  I've seen them way more than once.  And all I can say is I think Darth Vader's light saber is red.

#6 - So I've been working on helping the littlest boys learn to sit quietly.  Every day I have #5 and #6 sit on small blankets and look at books quietly so they can earn candy.  We started with 1 minute and have worked our way up to 7 minutes of quiet stillness...well lets be honest, #5 has been the only one to acheive either quietness or stillness.  After repeated efforts at stealing one of #5's books, #6 ended up in my lap today and we considered his work a success when he whispered half of the time.  We'd go along whispering "There's a ball.  Red umbrella.  That's a monkey."  Then he'd turn a page and shout, "What's this Mom?  What's this?"  And I'd whisper back, "I can't tell you until you whisper to me."  To which he would reply loudly, "Bumbrella!  Bumbrella!"  And I'd persist in a whisper, "That's right.  Now can you whisper it to me?"  And then he'd touch my face and say, "Sorry Mom," in a whisper.  Then he'd continue on quietly, "Bumbrella," until five words later when he was yelling, "Monkey!" again.  I think it will be a minute before the boy sits through an entire sacrament meeting.

I once went to a place called Machu Picchu in my very own home-state, except they called it Mesa Verde.  But I didn't realize I had been there.  I went for the first time when I was...hmmm, what was it Mom?  Was I eight or so?  And I went again when my two oldest were young enough that I wanted to cross myself before we went up and down the ladders on the cliffs and when we skirted around the edges of the kiva pits.  But I loved it.  It was like a child's dream to put all those playhouses in red-rock cliffs next to blue skies.

We live in Brazil.  In Brazil I have not yet found chili powder, or jalapenos, or tortilla chips...or celery - sometimes it's the small things you miss.  In Brazil I can't go into a store and ask them where I could find celery if there is any celery to be found in the city we live in because I can barely say good morning and count to twenty.  But in Brazil I discovered the pressure cooker for the first time.  Oh how I love to cook beans in thirty minutes without even trying.  And I figure that language-wise  my sign language and body language skills are really shooting through the roof.

In Brazil I drive a stick shift.  I haven't driven a stick shift since I was in my early twenties.  It's not that one has to drive a stick shift in Brazil, but I am.  In the part of the city where I live there are frequent entrances and exits on the road that require shifting with decision and confidence.  I find myself jolting my kids and I around like we're in an overloaded washing machine.  But the beautiful thing about all these exits and entrances is that when one takes a wrong turn (which I like to do regularly), it's usually just a half-mile or so before there is an opportunity to turn around and get yourself on the right track.

In Brazil we have a house with maids quarters and a room for the gardener.  They are lonely rooms, empty of everything but maybe the vacuum cleaner and discarded boxes.  We have so many rooms that even with the eight of us, two or three of the rooms will only be occupied when Gracie comes in with a paper, or a book, or a toy that she wants to hide in one of the unused desk drawers.  But in Brazil we have a swimming pool - a swimming pool!  Brazil might find that it needs to go to no greater effort to justify itself beyond us having a swimming pool.

Also in Brazil I've got these six noisy kids and a very tall husband.  Two of the kids bump around Brazil and look at cashiers in confusion with me, play on the playground with me, and read Star Wars and Superhero books with me.  The other four pour into the kitchen in the morning to eat oatmeal or pancakes, or, on lucky days, cereal, with me.  Then they hop in a school bus that actually is the same type of Sprinter Van that is parked in front of our own house and they don't come back until almost dinner time.  When they get off the bus I hear whether or not their day was good, if they had someone to sit next to at lunch, if recess went okay.  And then I listen to them playing in our big house together, sometimes fighting, sometimes giggling loudly, sometimes reading a book in the hammock, sometimes jumping off of furniture.

And the tall guy comes in and out looking handsome and trying hard at everything he does and he tells me I'm doing okay and that I'm going to learn Portugese and that the kids are okay and that Brazil is pretty good too.  And I get the idea that this could be home.

The husband had a pretty doggone busy year of it.  It started out with getting himself all adjusted to doing his schoolwork in Spanish (he once upon a time spoke Portuguese), to getting deep into his thesis, to doing crazy busy projects for school, back to panicking to get the thesis done.  The diligent kid was up at 5:30am and working until 10:30 or 11pm every night with breaks for FHE, kids' games, and church callings being about it.  So basically I'm pointing out that I was really busy this year doing everything else - or at least thinking that I was doing everything else (I can't even figure out what that means at this point) - I really do have a patient, good husband which shows that we don't always get what we deserve.

But that's beside the point.  What I want to say is that for the last week and a half he hasn't had anything to do (well except for one day of grammar checks on his thesis which happened to coincide with a doctors appointment that I'd set for myself so I had one more me, the doctor, a bag of raisins and the baby memory to make).  And with him being home all the time I suddenly can't remember what it was that I felt so busy about this last year.  I love the amnesic effect of contentment - the way it sweeps all discomfort into one of those drain grates that goes down forever underneath the road and then, once it reaches the bottom of forever, it starts it's journey through endless pipes to an unfathomable ocean far, far, far away from me.

Life is glowing right now - sunny skies, little boys doing woodwork with their Dad in the garage, neighborhood kids riding their bikes clogging our road like D.C. traffic but in a good way, the end of school around the corner, and swimming pools opening soon.  I think these are called halcyon days (oh man, yep, I checked dictionary.com and halcyon means calm and that's what I mean too).

I'm not unaware that far, far, far away bits of the ocean of discomfort are getting sucked up into the clouds only to be blown my way and misted, or drizzled, or poured, or hailed onto me later down the line.  But for now I'm going to really enjoy having the husband free and about us.