I am not a fan of Charles Dickens. He reads like a man who got paid by the word, and I think he may actually have been. Most people have heard the opening line to A Tale of Two Cities- "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times..." They don't know that the opening line lasts for a paragraph's worth of space or that it compares about 20 things to each other. Nonetheless, that whole "best of times, worst of times" thing is about how I felt last night.

We've had a bit of rain here in Oklahoma. OK, we've had a LOT of rain. Yesterday cars were getting stuck, fire trucks were flooded, and interstates were damaged...all by rain. Last night Mom called at about 8:00. She was crying, which is something that she just doesn't do. She had come home to her house, opened the front door, and stepped into standing water. Since Dad died, it's just her and Sam out at the house, and all of us live about 45 minutes away. It looks like the people that we hired to build the addition on to the house when Dad got sick didn't do it properly, which we already knew. When we got so much rain, it came in over the wall that they built along the outside of the addition. There was at least an inch of water covering all the floors on the entire downstairs level. The carpet that she had installed just two months ago was completely saturated. There was red mud in the den. The bottom inch or two of the sheetrock is ruined on all the walls. I called the insurance company to get a claim started- they don't have anyone who works on the weekend, so they'll call on Monday. Nice.

That's the worst of times bit. Her house is trashed. The sheetrock will need to be replaced, which also means it will need to be re-textured and painted. The wainscotting in the front hall is done for, and at least the pad of the carpet is done as well. There was one good thing, though- and that's the people that came to help.

We got off the phone with Mom, grabbed our cell phones, and started calling people. Keep in mind that it is 8:00 on a Friday night, and time is a precious, precious commodity today. Kyle called his brother Bruce and explained what was going on. Bruce simply said, "Where do you need me?" He loaded up a wet-vac and his teenage son Jake and went to the house of a lady that he'd met just once. I called James and Debra to mooch a wet-vac off of them, and James said that he was going, too. Kyle called Danny, one of our elders, and all he said was "Let me change my clothes." and then he came too. Those guys vaccuumed several hundred gallons of water out of the house, moved all the furniture, ripped up the carpet, and hauled out the carpet pad. We just would not have been able to take care of things without them. I told Bruce thank you, and what he said made me extremely glad (AGAIN!) to have married into such a fantastic family. He just said "That's what we do." I love my family, both the legal one and the church one. I don't think that there are many places where you could call people and have them be there within the hour, but Lakeview is one of them.

So it's awful that Mom's house is so messed up. She has been trying to get things fixed up so that she can sell it and get something that's a little smaller and easier to maintain, and this is a pretty substantial setback. Right now we are hoping that the insurance folks will move quickly and be fair, and get her the money that she needs to fix things. We'll have to see what happens.

But what a blessing it was to have friends and family that were able to come and help and make her feel a little bit less alone.

Noah had a big weekend last weekend. We decided to make the trek up to Tulsa for the Soul-Winning Workshop, mostly because Auntie K was going to be there participating in the flag ceremony for AIM. She's coming home on April 10th and doesn't head out to Australia until June 5th, so there will be some baby-snuggling photo ops for her...but we took this one at Tulsa and it came out rather well. She's got the touch for babies- Noah is OUT. He also looks even bigger in this picture than he is. Don't get me wrong- he's a big boy. Just not a toddler yet.

It was an up and down weekend- we were trying to buy a car (which we wound up doing. Tip for anyone trying to negotiate with me: it is NOT a good idea to open with the line "Don't you think you should call your husband?" I definitely won that one.), thinking about church stuff, thinking about Karissa leaving (we're proud of her, obviously, but it's also Australia. Where they have spiders and toads that are the size of small dogs.), and such. So in the interests of things, I'll just post a few more pictures. This is one Kyle took while we were in Tulsa...he thinks it's cute, so I'll stick it up just for him.

We had a garage sale a couple of weeks ago, and Noah was hanging out with me until he fell asleep. It was still a little chilly, so of course he had to wear a hat...

Another shot from the garage sale- Noah with Aunt Ash. She was my posse for the day, and a big help. And one final parting shot, just Noah being amused...

This has been a good week. Any week in which your kiddo smiles at you like this HAS to be a good week, regardless of what else is going on. This week, Noah discovered that he really can fit almost all of his hand in his mouth, that holding a rattle is fun because they make noise, and that Daddy throwing Noah's clothes on Mommy's head is a source of almost endless amusement (actually got a giggle out of that one, though not a full-blown laugh). Just thought I'd take a minute to share a picture that you can't help but smile at. Take care, all!

I have come to the conclusion that any parent whose child is less than 6 months old should get a pass on "springing forward." It's insult enough to have to start a 10 hour long workday after getting only four hours of sleep, but to try to do it when your body knows good and well that it is an earlier than the clock says it is is just cruel. Think how much more productive we'd be with an extra hour of sleep...

Someday I will get more than four and a half hours of sleep a night. I know it's possible, because I did it on Thursday. I mean that I'll get more than four and a half hours of sleep a night on a regular basis. I'm not quite sure that I'll know what to do with myself if I'm not spending half of the day yawning. It's not that Noah is a bad baby- far from it. He's usually very sweet and goes right back to sleep after nursing at night. It's just that his stomach is a bit too small to keep him from starving half to death if he doesn't fill it every few hours.

Good thing he's so cute.

We had a traumatic experience last night at Kmart. I just needed to run in for a few things and he was being a little fussy. I attributed it to being tired until he started screaming. I unclipped him from his car seat and noticed that he was, to put it politely, very dirty. He hates that, so I thought that was why he was screaming- until I got him changed and he started screaming even more loudly. He was shaking and red and I was rocking him and trying to be soothing as I'm freaking out because he sounds like he's in some excruciating pain. It took probably five minutes to get him chilled out, but it felt like forever. Kyle came and met me in the store and took over pushing him around in the stroller while I tried to keep from feeling sick. He was so pitiful, and I just could not figure out what was making him upset. Talk about feeling helpless.

At any rate, we both survived, he even snuggled a little bit before dropping off to sleep. I'd rather not repeat that anytime soon.

I'd better run- must get to work and get things taken care of for the day.

This post goes out to my Uncle Timmy, who is a hoss among men. Yesterday, he graduated as a member of class 06-02 from the Oklahoma City Fire Department training. 1300 men applied in December of 2005. In November of 2006, the 25 of them who were selected started a 16 week training course. They were challenged mentally and physically. 200 situps, 200 pushups, miles of running, 40 pull-ups...that's all in ONE day's PFT workout. Even the day of graduation they had PFT. If he looks tired in these pictures, it's because their last run was two miles. He said wasn't a big deal- he finished the training able to run that in under 10 minutes. The kicker was that they had to run those two miles in a creek. They also learned how to put out fires (obviously), break down doors, tear apart cars, drag people from burning buildings, do CPR, climb ladders, get OUT of burning buildings...the training video was very impressive. My uncle is 43 years old- he made it in right under the age cut-off. He was hanging with guys 20 years younger, some former Marines and police officers. He was a bank vice-president until he decided that he wanted to do something different, something where he would be serving. So he sold the shiny silver SUV and bought a 1995 teal Saturn that required you to travel everywhere with quarts of oil in the backseat. It was a huge risk and a huge leap of faith- and he did it! We are all so, so very proud of him. It takes a certain kind of intestinal fortitude to leave something that's secure when you realize that you want something better. He now has his first duty assignment and will start on Tuesday.

It was exciting to get to see all the things that they had accomplished. We had a good family turn-out, especially for 3:00 in the afternoon. Granny and Pappy were there (Pappy pinned Uncle Timmy's badge on), as were Mom and Sam, Ash and Abbey, and Kyle and me. Noah was at Grandma and Grandpa's house, but he came for the after-party. All in all, a very cool and special day. Congratulations again, Uncle Timmy!

Noah did not start out in this outfit on Sunday. He started out in jeans and a onesie that said "Mommy's little monster" and had a picture of a dinosaur on it.

By the time we got to morning worship, he had already had one wardrobe change. Another one came halfway through services, and a third after services when Noah proved that he has a truly dramatic sense of timing and made his presence known while we were waiting for one of our girls to be baptized. We had small groups Sunday so couldn't go home for backups. After change number four, Mommy ran out of more clothes. The result is the outfit you see here, also known as plan E. Leftover camp shirt: check. Socks that matched outfit number one: check. One really tired baby: also check. Still awfully cute though, isn't he?

Noah and Daddy got to go play outside today. You can't really tell, but he's having quite a lot of fun. We had mid-70's today. It was fantastic.

Uncle Timmy graduates from the Firefighter's Academy tomorrow. I think it's just one of the coolest things ever that he's officially a fireman. It's something he really wanted to do and he went for it...and now he's doing it. I admire that so much. I'm going to attempt to get off work to get over there- graduation is, quite randomly, scheduled for 3:00 in the afternoon. Pictures will be forthcoming.

Athena had puppies today. We didn't even know that she was pregnant. Three black, two brown, and we'll see how they look once she gets settled in and won't eat us when we go in the pen.

Not that I'm proud of my kid or think that he's going to be very smart or anything, but take a look at these two pictures:

They may not share hair, or quantum theories (yet), but they do both have a feel for a photo op.

Noah had to get his shots yesterday, and his Daddy was sweet enough to take him. Apparently he was pretty pitiful (Noah, not Kyle), but tolerated it well. He hasn't run much of a fever, and he still smiles at us so I don't think that we're in too much trouble.

Now, if you'll excuse me, it's almost 5:00 A.M. and I have to get some work done before the baby is up again. Be well!