Mon., Sep. 10

I must have been in super-productivity mode today. I feel like I got a TON of stuff done. No wonder I feel so wiped out! :) Laundry, meals, and dishes are a 'given'. I only had to clean up one puppy accident today; Jeremy was first-on-the-scene for two others.

The other floor clean-up needed today was after Justus badly injured his head. (Natasha cleaned the blood off the walls, I scrubbed the carpet.) After breakfast I painted the paper towel holder Wayne England made. Once it was dry Justus was playing with it, and in the process of flinging it around, just completely jabbed the thing into his forehead, about 1/2" above his eyebrow! By the time I got to him there was blood everywhere; I had trouble locating the spot! Sadly, I didn't think well enough to keep him from the mirror, so when he saw the mess he had to start screaming all over again. Jeremy and I agreed: if we had good insurance we'd probably have taken him in. Since we don't, we did the very best we know how to do and will watch it for the next few days to see that it's doing okay. Boy, J was tuckered out after all that drama, though. The first Band-Aid leaked through in only about eight minutes, so the second dressing was this gorgeous sample of artistic nursing care.... He's not asleep in the picture, just 'resting'. Natasha sat on the couch with him and read books to him while he held a cold pack on his head for a while.

We were eating lunch when Jeremy got home from work today; in a previous telephone conversation I'd mentioned to Jeremy about Justus's accident. Jeremy came in the door from work in a flurry of stories and energy, but then Jabba needed to go outside, so since Jeremy was up he took the dog out. As Jeremy stepped out and put his sunglasses on, he gently said to Justus, "When I get back in I want you to tell me about what happened with your head." Just as the door slid shut, Justus, pitiful with his right eye pooching down from the swelling and bandage above the eye, swivilled his head to me and sweetly said, "I really like Dad."

Natasha and Justus very badly wish to use their money to purchase a new artsy/toy called "AquaDots". I've neither heard of them or priced them, so during a quick-trip to Wal-Mart this afternoon for about $20 of groceries (still waiting on that check!!), Natasha and I located and priced them. It will take every dollar Justus and Natasha, together, currently have. But it does look like an IDEAL thing for them to have. They can play it together as well as alone, and it's right up their alley(s?), so we will probably let them purchase it at the end of the week during the next trip to Wal-Mart; we expect to be getting more groceries sooner rather than later because Jeremy called the VA today to ask them to re-issue the check, and do it as a direct deposit - now and from now on. Maybe we won't have this problem again!

Jeremy and I did the "cook supper/weed" switch-off again this evening, but I was making cinnamon rolls and talking with Stephanie while waiting for the temperature to come down ... which it never really did, so I didn't get too much weeding done, just a little. Still, it's progress. (sigh) Natasha played for a little while with the next door neighbor kids; they don't seem very nice to me, although the parents seem plenty friendly. Hmmm ... a topic to be revisited, I'm sure.

The Tooth Fairy visited Natasha again last night. ("Mom, please don't forget this time?" LOL!) So, need I explain that before our trip to the store there was a grand money-counting project? Both children emptied their piggy banks on the kitchen table. Natasha counted her money ACCURATELY [!!! :) :) :) ], and practiced writing the amount. She wrote: "$12.87(cent sign)" Pretty good!! Then, during our shopping excursion she REALLY wanted to buy a new notebook to take to church meetings. She chose the $.97 one instead of the $1.37 one, in order to have more money for the Aqua Dots. Good shopping choice! ;) She also chose a $.50 candy "for Justus"; I'm still convinced that her love language is "Gifts", and it seems that after Justus's bloody accident, she was anxious to show him extra love today. During her hair cut this evening (explanation and pictures tomorrow), she basically vocalized this. The scary moment freaked her out to the point that she seems to have done some real introspection about how she has been allowing herself to be overly-annoyed by Justus just being a kid, to the point of saying, "I don't think I want a brother." (!! GR!) During the hair cut she said, "When Justus hurt himself today it made me cry because I started to imagine what would happen if he died (explained in detail!!), and it made me think that I'm really glad I have a brother, even if he is annoying sometimes." (YA THINK??)

Now some Water Balloon Volleyball pictures from the youth day in Sierra Vista. The teens in these pictures are those with whom Jeremy became super-close during his week at camp. In this first picture Jeremy's towel-partner (green shirt) is the youth minister for Ina Road Church of Christ, Travis Campbell. I want to tell you about Ben and Joseph. Ben (dressed in black, backward hat) and Joseph (Ben's towel-partner) are the oldest/handsomest boys of this group of teenagers, so they are seen as the 'coolest', and draw all the girls.... (ack) Well, thankfully they were open to some deep spiritual counsel from Jeremy while at camp, and they LOVE Jeremy. It was so fun to see their faces light up when they saw he was there; they didn't know we were coming. Ben has called our house four or five times since camp, trying to arrange times to get together with Jeremy for this or that. And here is a precious story about Joseph. When everyone was saying his good-byes at the end of the day, there was a crowd of about six kids circled up with Jeremy, teasing, joking, laughing, saying good-bye. Joseph was immediately to Jeremy's left, standing quietly as though waiting for everyone to get through. He stood there for probably two full minutes, with his hand on Jeremy's elbow, just comfortably waiting for Jeremy's attention. It's just not what I expected from this 'cool-kid' Mexican, piercings, 'at-ti-tude', etc. Those two boys sat with our family during the meal and they were some of the FEW teens there who could hold a conversation with both us parents AND our children. Ben, incidentally, is homeschooled; he was being trained as an Olympic gymnast until a bad accident a couple years ago. Public school didn't agree with him, so they still homeschool.

Look how HIGH the balloon went!

Three of the 'little kids' watching.

Then came time when they worked the little kids into the game!! This was major excitement for both N & J, after having watched it for a while! Jeremy teamed up with Natasha and Travis volunteered to be Justus's partner. (This is the Travis who has shared two meals with us in our home, now, so both children were looking very much forward to seeing him again.)

Justus really didn't have the hang of it, so Travis was coaching him about it.

When Justus still wasn't really 'getting it', Cecil (Sierra Vista's preacher and one of Jeremy's 'local', treasured mentors) let Travis and Justus have the 'serve' on this turn, and Cecil hopped in to give Justus hand and help him get the feel of it. :)

You can't tell by the picture, but two seconds after the shutter caputred this picture, Justus and Travis got the water balloon over the net!! All the teens were so sweet and patient!