A Good Kind of Tired

What a lovely day the Lord has given us!!! It’s probably one of the last nice summery days of the year. I can hardly believe it’s already the end of August. But I think I said that already. =)

I don’t think I played the piano very well today. There are some songs I play better than others. I’m so glad Mischa is there to cover my mistakes! I find that people always sing well with the American hymns though. I love them. Today we sang “Lead Me To Calvary” and “Hallelujah, What a Saviour.” I love those two!

Dad preached on Jeremiah 33:3, but I was in the nursery with Patricia today. We had a nice time talking about our hobbies. The kids were cute. Patricia let Nathan out of his little chair. He was thrilled to be free to crawl around. He propped himself on his knees against the toy box, with his head resting on the edge and his arms dangling into the box so he could rummage through the toys. Every few minutes he would raise his head and hold up two fascinating toys, one in each hand, and look up at me with those big brown eyes and smile as though he was having the time of his life. I never have my camera with me when I need it! The rest of the time Nathan enjoyed crawling around on the floor, and when he got tired of being happy that he was free from his chair, then he wanted to be free from the room as well, when he discovered that there was a door leading OUT of the nursery. You give them an inch and they’ll take a mile. (chuckle)

Little Daniel, Nathan’s older brother, happily played planes and shouted “koeka” (“koekje” or cookie), which happens to be his favorite word, every time he discovered a certain toy that he considers to be worthy of the title “koeka.” (chuckle)

At one point Patricia had to step out to deal with a situation that came up. Between holding a crying baby girl, wiping up spilled juice on the floor so a crawling toddler couldn’t mop it up with his hands, pants, or even worse, his tongue (little boys seem to be magnetically attracted to liquid disasters…or any kind of disaster, for that matter), and telling two other little kids to stop fighting over toys and share, I had my hands full!!! Thankfully by the time Patricia got back it was all under control again.

As things calmed down, I half-absentmindedly watched Nathan crawl around the room, and I was thinking about some mothers I know with a bunch of young children and wondering how they do it and having compassionate thoughts towards them, because I think I have a pretty good idea what it must be like to be the mother of four or more small kids, and I wonder if I could do it…

I wasn’t feeling too well today, so I was happy when everything was cleaned up and I could sit down during the coffee break. Only, I didn’t move on to anything any more calm, as I had planned to. Little Daniel calls me, and anybody else who happens to be available at the time, “Mama.” He excitedly ran into the kitchen, shouting “Mama,” with black foamy things in his little hands. His real mama was busy cutting cake because Daniel’s daddy had a birthday, so I took Daniel by the hand--his clean hand--and had him show me where he got the gross-looking things. Sure enough, he pointed outside. Heading back to the kitchen, I decided they were worthy of the garbage and disposed of them. Then I got a stool so I could help Daniel wash his hands. Mom and Nathalie laughed at my dilemma as I squealed for Daniel to stop touching the soapy sponge with his clean hands, while at the same time I grabbed for the hand-drying towel and tried to make sure he didn’t go and tumble off the chair. Motherhood is something I so much look forward to!!! I just have to smile when I hear married ladies say “Just you wait,” because one day, Lord willing, all the trials and tribulations of motherhood will be mine, and I will love every minute of it!

Anyway, I didn’t end up getting that desired quietness, because I asked Lydia and the boys--Josiah, Jeremiah, Nathaniel, and Gino--if they wanted to play a game of Spoons, which always gets noisy. I got a snack and we settled down in the back room off the kitchen to set up the game. It used to be our storage room until the school decided to turn it into a teachers’ conference room. It’s really quite cozy! We played several games until I couldn’t take it anymore.

Anyway, that was what my day was like in church. I say “day,” because we spent about 6 hours in church. By the time we got home it was 3 PM. But I’m getting ahead of myself. Dad led a visiting lady to the Lord after the service!!! Isn’t that neat? We ended up staying a lot later because of that. Then Dad still had to direct the ABC Bible study. Morena and her two boys stayed to help Mom and us three kids clean up the kitchen and all the chairs. Lydia and I had fun teasing the boys about being lazy and tried to help them become gentlemen by making them carry some things to the storage room for us. They kept getting into boyish tumbles on the ground, so it was obvious they needed something constructive to do. (chuckle)

Baby Elona was overtired and crying, so we watched her while her mommy went back to the Bible study. Lydia rocked her to sleep by the window, where there was a nice summer breeze. It was cute to see.

Then we could go home. I always know everybody’s tired by how quiet the half-hour drive home is. We were tired!!! We usually have spaghetti for Sunday dinner, but it was (and still is) warm out and we were (and I still am) exhausted, so we did a fend-for-yourself meal, which means you make a sandwich for yourself. I’m going to rest now. Lord bless ya today!

P.S. A little later: I just read an old post I wrote on my missionary blog about the ministry (click here). I guess God knows I needed the preaching. =) Okay, I really am going to go now.
“My contact lenses have become a permanent part of my eyeball, and everything’s kinda….blurry.” That’s about how I feel right now. Ha, ha! But, it’s a good kind of tired…I think. =)