Since I woke up this morning ...

... as I write this Martha's father Robert and our friend Donovan -- he fits in the family, we just haven't figured how -- are in our driveway getting a new battery put into our Chevy Lumina. They actually got a battery from Kmart yesterday yet when hooked up to a battery tester it wouldn't do anything. And the reason we had to get a new battery for the Lumina was because Saturday when Martha took it to work and outside it ranged from the mid-teens to the low twenties below zero WITHOUT the wind chill. And without starting the car every few hours or having it plugged in in weather like that, it tends to not start when the day is done. Or so Martha found just after 4 pm our time before she called me at home and asked the kids and I to pick her up!




I've been caught like that too, so I'm not mad about it. A few weeks ago when the rear window on the same vehicle got smashed it, now that annoyed me. Especially since I thought I'd been doing so well at controlling my temper (even with prayer on this, it is not easy for me) it doesn't take much at just the right time from just the right person to convince me Why Am I Wasting My Time? After church Sunday where Martha sang in church choir and Sarah and Jeffrey sang in chapel choir, I was trying to understand what Martha was saying to me regarding the Lumina (which courtesy of Robert and Donovan again got jumped and got home -- but after that, nothing) over lunch but she says I looked at her like I was mad. Stop. Telling. Me. I'm. Mad.


That's so waving a red flag in front of a bull (incidentally, bulls rush toward those because they're waving, not because they're red as they are color blind) -- you want me to not "put words in my mouth and thoughts in my head", kindly do me the same courtesy. So on to Monday. Martha and I still had to go to work, but Sarah and Jeffrey were off that day due to a federal holiday, and that afternoon Jeffrey's Scout troop was scheduled to go to Roosevelt Park Zoo (one on Jeffrey's fellow Scouts' dad had a connection) and they got to see animals in their habitat and a few things inside as well. From the photos I'd seen Martha take and from what little the kids told me -- they're at the age when they don't say much even if I ask -- it seemed to go very well.


This morning before school, Sarah cleaned up the stuffing that had fallen out a massage pillow she and Jeffrey have been using as a basketball. And I didn't even have to ask. That sounds like I'm saying a lot for a nine-year-old (our daughter turns ten at the end of February? TEN?) but after the Tooth Fairy tried to visit her the other night and she sounded ... ungrateful for the money she'd have gotten for the tooth and she just didn't get it. Heck, I have days I don't "get it" either, but I'm the parent and I have to model a better example for my kids and pretend I know what I'm doing most of the time. Even if that means going back to school, learning how to perform basic maintenance on a car, getting more jobs to get our household back on its feet.




And swallow my own pride,




David