Tea Parties on the Ceiling?

In 1986, I had four little children between 14 months and six years old. Whitney was six and Cassie was five. They were both in school. Cassie was having a major problem with sleep walking. She walked out the front door one night in January. Thank heavens I heard the door open and thank heavens we live in California or she could have been in a snow bank. I wasn't getting much sleep because I had a teething baby and with Cassie wandering around it was like a three ring circus at night. Luckily, Whitney was turning into a very big help around the house. Brad and Brett played very well together and we had all the kids on strict diets to help their tummy aches. Life was not a bowl of cherries.

Brad was intrigued by death and asked me how you get to heaven after you die. I told him our spirits know the way home because they lived with God before they came here. Brad was also very scared of the dark and he prayed that he would not be afraid and was finally able to sleep without the hall light on. It was a very difficult time in many ways but some very funny things happened in a one month period.

Brett smeared shortening over his whole body. That was a fun clean up. He did the same thing to a jar of peanut butter and was sitting in the middle of the kitchen table covered from top to bottom with it. One of the kids had made themselves a sandwich and hadn't put up the peanut butter. Brett was a climber and he was fast. He could get in a mess in the time it took me to help one of the kids in the bathroom. He needed a leg chain and handcuffs.

Then, in the same week, Brett was tired and needed a nap by 9:00. I had just got Whitney and Cassie off to school. I was exhausted from almost no sleep the night before and Brad was watching cartoons, so I lay down with Brett to see if I could get him to fall asleep. I fell asleep. Horrors of horrors. I woke up not too many minutes later to find the front door ajar and Brad was gone. I searched everywhere inside and outside the house. He was nowhere to be found. I called the neighbors a few doors down. Most of the homes either didn't have kids or moms were at work and kids at the sitter. I walked down the block and thought I heard Brad crying but it was a child at the school. It wasn't him. Quickly my prayer was answered, I remembered the little girl that lived on the corner. They had recently moved in. There he was, sitting up to their counter eating a bowl of oatmeal. He told me that he sneaked out so I wouldn't say "no". He was so right. I would have said "no". Imagine a three year old wandering off to a friends alone. I felt like I needed to strike some fear into him. So, we had a long talk but the boy who was afraid of the dark was not afraid enough of other things that WERE dangerous. Our neighbor must have thought I was a piece of work.

Then, the funniest thing that happened next was 2 weeks later. Glenn woke up at his usual EARLY hour when it is still dark, to go to work. He dressed in the dark like he did every day. But this day was his birthday.
Our new dog we got from the pound had just had puppies, ELEVEN OF THEM, five days before. (Aren't we the luckiest people alive.) We chose a dog that was already pregnant when we got her. Anyway, Glenn had noticed that Cindy (our new cockapoo) had climbed over the gate (we had fixed it so that she and the puppies weren't wandering through the house in the night). They were shut in a linoleum floored room. Glenn put her back in and then went to the closet to slip into his shoes. The first shoe was on and now the second one was giving him some difficulty. There was a little surprise in the shoe. Cindy had messed in his shoe!!! Right in his shoe!! The sound that came out of Glenn when he realized what had just happened is impossible to imitate. I start laughing every time I think of it. He nearly woke up the whole neighborhood. The birthday boy invented a new dance, "The Poopy Shoestep."

I'm sure someone was enjoying the laughter so much in heaven that it wasn't more than a month later before baby Hayley decided to hop on board to join in the fun. And now you see why I have no brain cells left if I ever had any.