Food, Fun, and Family Service

One of my goals as a parent is to develop a servant heart in my children.  I want them to take initiative to help others.  I want helping others to be second nature to them.  I want them to think beyond themselves and put others first.

So I am on the lookout for opportunities that provide this training.  Last week a mobile food pantry truck came to town and I signed our family up to help distribute the food.  It was so great.

 Charlie and our friend Diane handed out laundry soap to all 118 families who came through the line.

For two hours.

He was laying down on the table toward the end.

 Peter's job was to pull this cart as the client loaded it up with food.

Then he took it to their car and helped load it in.

This is how it made him feel.

Peter was a little unsure of himself at the beginning and wanted me to stay right with him.

So we worked together until a family who had walked to the park needed a ride back to their house with all their food.  I took them home, leaving a hesitant Peter.

He said he would stay right there and wait for me to get back before he helped another client.

But I tried to encourage him that he could do it by himself.

By the time I returned he had gone through the line ALL BY HIMSELF with a client.

When I rejoined him he said to me,

"Mom, maybe there's something else you could go do now."

Aha!

Confidence built.

 Reuben and Paul also got to use the fun carts.

Here they're waiting for the next family.

Reuben reminded Paul to tell them,

"Jesus loves you."

 We all enjoyed the time of serving.

 Charlie and I found that it was important to stop and take cuteness breaks now and then.

 Ok, so we're all done and the boys got permission to take these large boxes home to play with.

 Too big for the car

so they walked them home.

And then they spent the afternoon being extremely silly with each other and their boxes.

Which is another of my parenting goals:

brothers who love each other and enjoy each other.

What we've been talking about...

How good-looking we are.


We are, apparently.


I was walking home just a little bit ago and this hoodlum guy stopped me to tell me, "You are a very attractive lady.  I know Paul gets all the attention in town, but you need to know you are very attractive."


Paul's response to me after I told him this, "Well someone on YouTube thinks I'm hot."  (An anonymous comment left on one of his Thanks to the Turks videos.)


Me - "Well, we go well together then."


How boring and ordinary I am.


Paul was indecisive about his birthday plans on Monday so he said to me, "I'll spend it with you.  It's not special or fantastic but..."

GASP!  And then we laughed and laughed and maybe I punched him in the shoulder and said, "Thanks a lot."

Not special or fantastic.  ha.


How great and horrible the weather is.


We haven't had rain for a really long time.  If I had a farmer sitting next to me I'd ask him how many days it's been.  It's been in the 90s and 100s and super dry.  Our small town is surrounded by corn and soybean fields.  Our farmer friends are very concerned.

So I feel bad because I love this dry heat.  It feels wonderful.  Like an oven thawing out my frozen bones from that one time when I lived in northern China and was out-of-my-mind cold for six months.

It's usually very humid and sticky here and there's no point in straightening my hair because it will frizz and poof when I walk outside.  I know.  Vain.  I'm so vain.  That's why I only mention it here, where no one can hear me.


What else?  Matthew McConahey and Brad Pitt


In honor of Matt getting married I watched a movie he was in.  That's all.  And I informed Paul about this news, which he cared not about.  And does anyone really know how to spell his name?  I read that she took his last name.  How charming.

But Mr. Pitt, we've been watching him a lot.  As Benjamin Button.  In Turkish.  I realized I'm not hearing Brad's voice, but a Turkish voice-over.  And I don't hardly see him, really, since he's so costumed and make-upped.  As he is aging in real life he is looking less like my cousin Christopher who Grandma always said looked like Brad Pitt.  But I haven't seen Christopher (he's probably called Chris now) for years, so who knows.  Enough nonsense.


Our fourth child


I dreamt last night that our social worker called and said we were matched with a girl.  It's a girl!  I was so surprised.  I didn't even know we were in the adoption process again.  But, a girl!  How exciting.

Our social worker is visiting us on Saturday for our last post-placement visit for Charlie.  So I'll check with her then about that "we're having a girl thing."

I think the idea of another child joining our family is always hiding out in my subconscious.  If Charlie or Reuben's birthmom has another child that she needs to place for adoption, then we would be called first to see if we would consider adding her, as it were, to our family.  You're wondering, would we adopt Charlie or Reuben's sibling if that happened?  YES!  For sure.  Absolutely.  (Right, Paul?  Snookems.  Honey.  Sweet Man.  We can talk about it later, over your favorite dinner.)

And, my sister is very great with child (a girl).  Any day now.  And I've been reading that book about girls adopted from China.  So little girls are on my mind.


Seven early warning signs of a heart attack


That's a Yahoo article I'm headed to read.  Because I've been eating a lot of beef to, um, beef up my iron.  And I'm concerned about my cholesterol now.  What I should do is drive 20 minutes south to the buffalo farm.  Have you read about buffalo meat?  It's so lean and high in iron.  But it's also high in dollars.  But, can one put a price on her health?  Especially when it's someone who is so attractive?

Bank Love

Boy do we feel appreciated.  Our small town doesn't have a stop light, or even a flashing yellow light.  But we do have a cute little bank that appreciates us.  They said so with their free hot dogs, chips, and drinks today.

I accepted their love with a bottled water and magnetic clippy for the fridge.

You may know of my unlove for hot dogs.
But fridge clippy is super useful in my kitchen.

How could they not love this cute guy?

And here is a funny video about the coolness of minivans.  Maybe you've seen it.  Made me smile.
I totally snagged it from Rage Against the Minivan, a blog you might enjoy too.  An adoptive mama from SoCal with a sarcastic tone and a passion for orphans, Haiti in particular.  She's entertaining, but deep and thoughtful too.

You can watch it full screen here.

We don't have a minivan, nor do we have plans to get one.  We're going to try to have three kids in the back seat of our RAV4 and see if we can all survive.  It would be miraculous.  Two within touching reach is a bit much already.