Our little threesome had a big day on Thursday. We got up, ate, dressed and headed to the "kids' park" for mom's run. Thanks to Barney, Aubrey Kate fully accepts exercise as a good thing. Necessary even.
Which is awesome.
After that was a stop at the consignment store to sell the kids winter clothes. Pumpkin did not want to go. Not really a new thing. It wasn't her idea so why would she want to go.
Then came the usual lunch, a show and nap or quiet time.
After that is when the "big" in our day kicked in.
When you take clothes to the consignment shop, you have to agree to pick the rejects up by 6:00 pm. That's not always the easiest thing to do with two kids in tow.
But Chris only sleeps at home these days so waiting for him to come home wasn't, and isn't, an option.
AK did not want to go. Again. This time, though, I'd decided to bribe her.
Judge away. It works.
So we loaded up, went to the store and then to the playground at McDonald's for some good burning off of energy and ice cream. Well, I guess I was hoping those two things canceled each other out.
Truth be told, it was 103 outside so any possibility of playing outdoors literally melted away. The indoor playground seemed completely practical.
Aubrey Kate ate her little hot fudge sundae (I mixed it together to make chocolate ice cream. I'm just that awesome.) She played with a couple of the girls in the playground and I chased Rhys around. His favorite activity is to run out into the main dining room while I chase him.
(Can we really call that space in a McDonald's a "dining room?")
After we'd been there around 45 minutes, Rhys was getting pretty wiped. It's hard work running away from Momma. To her credit, Aubrey Kate went without a fight. I mean, she whined. No transition is complete without a few thousand, "But I don't wanna..."
And if I got paid for the number of times I said, "I know." Geez.
Aubrey Kate always gets in the car first. She likes to climb in on her own and I like not worrying about her darting off into the parking lot. Once she climbs in, I close the door and head to the other side to get Rhys strapped into his seat. All the while AK continues with her, "But I don't wanna..." mantra.
Just about the time I put Rhys into the seat, AK gave a whimper and then threw up.
Everywhere.
It was the first time she's thrown up since she was itty bitty. She has no memory of that so she had no idea what was happening. She said, "I was drooling and then it wouldn't stop coming out."
In true deer in the headlights fashion, I stood there and watched the entire chocolate sundae mix come back up. Looking back, I should have looked down at Rhys and gotten him strapped in as quickly as possible. But no, I watched. And then I strapped him in.
As I was running around the car, I heard someone saying...saying not yelling..."Robin Evans." So very calm. Then again. "Robin Evans. Robin Evans. Robin Evans."
I so thought, Who the heck is that?
I searched and there was one of the directors from our church with his family. They were walking into McDonald's.
Two thoughts hit me: One, he goes to McDonald's too? And two, vomit.
I said, ever so lady-like, "Hey! The three year old just threw up so I'm gonna clean that now. Bye!"
Once I reached AK, we started getting undressed and attempting to clean up the entire backseat with wet wipes. She was, surprisingly, not totally freaked. Just mildly.
A thousand years later, the director guy came back out asking if he could help and...AND...hey, did you see Abby in there?
In where?
In McDonald's. She's in there.
Cool. No, I must have missed her. And no, we're good but thanks for offering!
He leaves. Oh yeah, vomit.
Another thousand years later, Abby comes out. (She's a dear friend.)
She could tell I was slightly flustered and offered to take the trash with her. The good news about the clean up is the backseat was covered in a hundred-twenty half-colored pieces of paper from daily trips to the gym. A huge benefit of keeping a messy car is it catches the vomit for easy throw away.
AK's silver slippers are another story.
I hugged Abby's neck and then headed home.
I spent the rest of the night fighting throwing up myself because all I could see was that visual of my baby doing it. Bleh.
Later, I told Chris I had no idea what Abby and I discussed because I was more than slightly out of it.
Chris said, "Shock. You don't do messes."
That brings me to today. We've started a new sermon series at church entitled...wait for it...
"Messy."
Right?!?!
Our pastor talked about how people define us by our mess. Like we tend to do with children. He gave us an example of a time his son threw up the morning's red smoothie breakfast all over a sandwich shop at lunch. He told how it was like watching the parting of the Red Sea. No one offered to help. No one offered to help clean up. Everyone simply moved away as quickly as possible with that look of "unclean" all over their faces.
Of course, I thought about our own throw up story. And how the only two people who knew what had happened didn't move away. They came towards me. They offered to help. They didn't call me or my child "unclean."
The difference is those two people knew me.
Now I don't know about you but I get pretty messy with people. I don't do the whole fake thing. What you see is what you get with me. Honestly, we move too much to waste time putting up walls and hiding behind them. And I've learned if you're not real, others won't be real either.
Today, I spent some time mulling over those two incidents. Thinking about what a difference it makes to be messy with people who know you. Oh sure, there will always be the people who simply don't want to get real and deal with your mess. Much less share their own. But those are not the people we've met here. They want to know about our messes and they want us to know about theirs.
God uses messes. He uses messy people. He doesn't define us by the mess. He doesn't look at me as "struggling mom." He sees me as a woman who is seeking to be a good mom. He doesn't see me as a "band widow." He sees me as the wife who misses her husband and fights loneliness.
He sees me. And then the mess. Not the other way around.
As do the people He placed in our lives.
What a blessing.
I think Chris might have been right. I don't do messes but I do like messy. Messy people anyway.
Who do you share your messy with? Who shares their messy with you?
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