God's provision

Well, today is day 21 of our 20 day wait... and yes, we're still waiting!

On a side note, today was a very long day. It began when the baby I watch was brought to me with a mild case of hives. Not a really big deal because they started yesterday and we just went through this with her a few weeks ago and this looked EXACTLY like it had then... it was an allergic reaction. About an hour after she was dropped off we all pile into the van to go to the church where I (usually) drop off the kids for a few hours to get a little Mommy break :) But, this morning it was going to start a half hour later so I planned to drop by the post office to get Kim's monkeys in the mail.

When we were finally all ready to leave I realized that the little one's face had about 10x as many hives as she got to me with, and her feet were really patchy and swollen as well. So I called her dad and instead of hitting the post office (sorry Kim!) I dropped her off to her Daddy. Then off to the church for what could-have-been a morning off. Except today was Kristopher's age group's special mommy-day and they were making ornaments, singing Christmas carols, and icing cookies for 2 hrs instead of having regular class. Parents must attend (not that I wouldn't... :) ).

So I brought Brianna to her class just in time for her PT to come and have a WONDERFUL session with her (Bria stood unsupported for 3-4 seconds two different times! YAY!) And Kristopher and I headed over to the gym for a little running. Then we listened to the Christmas story, made ornaments, iced cookies and sang carols. Eleven o'clock rolled around and Kristopher and I snuck off to the post office (see, I really did get the monkeys out!) then headed back to the church to pick up Brianna and to have lunch with Mike. About this time I called the baby I watch's dad and arranged to pick her up from their house after lunch. An uneventful day at the doctor- they pronounced her free from STREP and decided it must be another allergic reaction-- no idea what!

We swallowed down lunch, picked up the baby, got home, unpacked the van (including children!) and got everyone to lay down for a little rest. Somehow this time went by and I'm not sure WHERE it went... but it did. And then everyone was up and bustling around and playing HARD. Four o'clock came around, the baby got picked up, my tutoring student showed up, and I somehow breathed twice in the midst of it. That's about when the fun began.

Kristopher decided that it was a good idea to 1) scream loudly from his little snack table and see if he could talk Bria into getting in trouble with him by screaming back 2) throw little balls at Brianna's head and continue to do so after he's been told not to just to see what would happen 3) talk back and generally "mouth off" to his mother when he was told to go to time-out for hurting his sister 4) throw things at the walls in his room when he was finally sent there for a time...

Needless to say I felt really bad for my student and apologized when his mom was back an hour or so later. He did great in the midst of the chaotic house and Mike did get home sometime in there and rescued me from the little monster-boy (Kristopher, not my student ;) ).

Whew. I'm tired just writing that... but here's the cool part- did you make it this far?? :)

When I'm done tutoring I asked Mike what he'd like for dinner and like a sweet husband that KNOWS that I'm spent and really don't want to make ANYTHING for dinner, much less starting at 6pm, he says "Why don't we go out?".

Well, that's the question, isn't it? And I had a reply on the tip of my tongue just WHY we shouldn't go out-- it's the WEEK BEFORE CHRISTMAS, we're trying to ADOPT, we have a HOUSE ON THE MARKET, Mike's in GRADSCHOOL... all these seemed like good reasons why we don't go out to eat. But... I was spent. So we spent.

Mike suggested Sonny's and I thought, "ok, I have a coupon for $5 off and we'll just get something inexpensive". So we went out. And when we went to pay our bill it was $26, then the coupon brings it down to $21, and a tip back up to $26. Mike hands the casher the slip and coupon then stands and waits for her to ask for his card. She needed a manager 'card' to scan to input the coupon so she went and got one, then when she asked Mike for his card she instead looked down, saw what looked like a gift card on the counter, and swiped it. OOPS! It was the "manager's card". It MESSED UP their system!

So 10 minutes later we were finally able to pay our bill and they had to get the ?owner? out there to fix the mess that this card had made. And guess what? He reduced our bill by 50%! So now our $26 dinner (including tip) was $12! We added the tip back on to that and dinner for 4 ended up being $17. What a night. I guess God knew how much we needed a night out. Even if it is Christmas and we have other financial responsibilities. Isn't God's provision great?