Free Flowing Baby Powder

The last few months have been one big blur.  I wake up to find that the rest of the school year has passed me by along with most of the summer.  In less than a week, school begins again and I will find myself alone with only one child at home during the day.  Oh where has the time gone?

Has it been an empty half of a year?  Has nothing interesting occurred?  On the contrary, it has been so busy that the time flew before I knew what was happening.  I must say that I am somewhat ashamed of my silence.  I know there are a few out there who read my blogs and I feel I have failed you in some way.  This was not my intent; I simply didn't feel like writing.

I know that doesn't sound like me.  Normally I love expressing myself on my keyboard.  But life has been rather interesting to me and, well to put it bluntly, I don't like to be a downer.  It's been rough and I like to be encouraging, uplifting, instead of an old stick in the mud.  I have found it hard to find the silver lining at times, though I know it's there.  I guess it's like Pollyanna, if you've ever seen the movie, in which she finds herself unable to see the positive in life for a while.  While I do find those good things, I have been either too tired to type when I do, or unable to get to the computer.  In fact, until this week, I hadn't even checked my facebook in several months (which is very unusual for me).

As it turns out, though, I did find myself at the bottom of the stairs last week, stunned into silence, with my children gathered around me and giving me gentle hugs.  I was in a bit of a daze at the time, and I was shock still, seeing absolutely nothing.  Of course, I suppose it was so dark because my eyes were shut tight.  Perhaps I should go back a little further.

Last Tuesday evening I was at home recovering from some shots in my neck, downstairs watching the Olympics.  The children had all been tucked in their beds, except for Nathaniel, who was sound asleep on the couch next to me.  Aside from the games on the television, there was not a sound in the house.   You know, come to think of it, that should have been my first clue.

As I was saying, it had been a peaceful evening when we heard the smallest of sounds emanating from the upstairs.  It was the sound of our youngest, making a gleeful noise.  Richard and I looked at each other and realized that perhaps not all was as still as we had supposed, so he started making his way upstairs.  I got up slowly from my seat as we both noticed a scent wafting down the stairs.

"They're playing with something," he stated.  He has a gift for stating the obvious at times.
"It's baby powder," I shrieked with certainty.
"Yep, I see it now."  Then, in his booming daddy voice, "Somebody's about to be in trouble!"

Well, by this time, shrieks were let out from all directions upstairs and I looked at the ground below me at the landing.  The white residue was already staking its claim on every visible surface...and this was downstairs!

It was easy to see the room of origin.  Athos, Aramis, and D'Artagnan were covered from head to toe in their pajamas swelling as baby sweet as can be.  The boys' room was a cloud of white so thick we could not even see to the beds.  Talcum snow lay thickly on the beds, carpet, and toys.  There was no way anyone was going to sleep in that room that night.

Nyssa and Gabriela were stripped down and set in one bathtub while Benjamin was left with not even his skivvies and placed in the other.  While they were busy making white mud, hubby and I were left to vacuum up the carpets and get as much of the powder up as we could.  The poor betas in the hallway had to have their water changed thrice because of the thickness that had saturated their tanks.  Even the inside of the aquarium stand had to be cleaned out; the powder had even saturated through the cracks.  The toys had to be wiped down, as did the stairs and the downstairs floor.  The children, complete with pruned hands and feet were eventually rescued from the milky water and put to bed a second time, all in the girls' room.

Meanwhile, through the sound of the shrieks, past the running water of both bathtubs, and in spite of the vacuum cleaner roaring over his head, our dear Mr. Man lay unsuspecting in a deep, peaceful slumber.  Normally he is the one who jumps at any odd sound.  He runs out the door from a noise too loud.  Yet this time he lay there, hearing nothing, sleeping contentedly inside the cocoon of his thick orange blanket on the couch in the family room.

The next day nobody was allowed in the boys' room until I had given it a thorough wipe down and washing.  I vacuumed the floors once again and wiped down the stairs a couple more times, as well as the wood on the first floor.  While Nathaniel was allowed to play on the computer, and watch a video, the other three were denied that privilege and had to help me wipe down the downstairs hall yet again.  I thought we had done a pretty good job at getting rid of most of the baby powder.

Evidently, pretty good is not the same as good, excellent, or effective.  Friday morning, after breakfast, I went upstairs to get the boys' clothes.  The way I came back downstairs was not the way I intended.  All it took was one slippery spot and down I went.  I went down them as surely as if I had decided to go down a slide, hitting my backside on every single step as I slid.  I did try a couple times to catch myself, but all I succeeded in doing was breaking a few blood vessels in my arms and whacking my neck.

"Oh God, please help me stop falling!" I cried at one point.  Well, he did, once I hit bottom.  'course it would have been a real miracle if I had kept falling at that point.  By that time, all four kids were at the bottom of the stairs checking on me.  There was no way to miss hearing the elephant crash.  Poor Nathaniel came over to me and gave me a gentle hug.  I knew it was him not by sight but rather by his voice in my left ear saying, "You're going to be okay, Mommy."

I knew he was worried because he almost never calls me Mommy anymore, nowadays it's just plain Mom.  The other kids crowded around but took his cue and were gingerly touching me and asking if I was alright.  I slowly opened my eyes and said, "Yes, Mommy's going to be fine.  I'm very sore right now, but I'll be ok in a bit.  I'm just going to sit here for a minute."

Benjamin asked me how I fell and it was one of the hardest things I had to do, but felt it was the right thing to say.  I just looked him straight in the eye and said, "You know the baby powder?  We tried to clean it all up, but some fell on the stairs and I slipped on it."  A trip to the ER and a couple days later, the children are seeing the effects of their disobedience and I'm reaping the consequences.

Sometimes we do things rashly, impulsively, caught up in the moment with no regard to the consequences.  Often we make those choices when we know we should be somewhere else.  To put it bluntly, we often make those choices while walking in disobedience or in doing what we know is wrong.  There are times when we get away with it.  There are times when we suffer the consequences.  Then there are times when others suffer the greater consequence of our actions.  Sometimes, the consequences themselves can be quite painful and take a while to heal.  When we take something that we know is off limits, that we have been told is off limits, and go out of our way to get it and play with it, it just may end up in a cloud of residue that leaves a lasting impression that can hurt more than just ourselves.  It can end up crippling someone else.