Hey.

So.

Short break, huh?

But really – this is more of an announcement, and afterwards I plan to go right back to my ongoing attempts to dislodge my lung from my person.

Anyhoo.

One of our sweet bloggy sistas, Jenn, emailed me today to say that she’s not going to be able to use her ticket for the Deeper Still conference in Nashville on September 7-8. Her ticket is for the (sold-out) main arena – not the satellite venue – and Jenn will be glad to FedEx the ticket to the buyer. The ticket cost $70 when Jenn bought it.

If you’re interested, you can contact Jenn at this email address, and y’all can work out all the details. First come, first served.

And I’ll get back to the business of coughing now.

Have a lovely evening.

But I’m trapped in a bit of a podcasting / uploading / embedding maze.

Seriously. I just broke a sweat trying to figure this whole thing out.

But I’ll get it. I will. Because I am as stubborn as the livelong day.

And crazy, to boot.

I am happy to announce that after eight months of fighting with cable internet service that is super-duper fast as long as no one else in our neighborhood happens to be using it at the same time, which, let’s face it, NEVER HAPPENS, we finally have DSL again.

And as a result of our return to steady, reliable connection speeds, my email address has changed.

I’ll change it in the sidebar just as soon as I post this, but for those of you who don’t email me using the link in the sidebar, you may want to make a note in your address book or contacts folder or on a random slip of paper that also contains a partial grocery list, a recipe for roasted chicken, and the time and date of your next dental appointment.

It’s boomama205ATbellsouthDOTnet.

I would not recommend spelling out “at” and “dot” if you use the email address. Because then it won’t work.

In which case we will not be able to communicate very effectively.

There was actually a secondary plot line that unfolded during our recent trip to McDonald’s, but I didn’t write about it at the time because I believe deep down in my soul that a sausage patty should always receive blogging priority.

I mean, wouldn’t you agree that fried pork trumps, well, everything?

So D, Alex and I were enjoying our Saturday morning breakfast when a guy walked in McD’s with his two young sons who looked to be about five and three. The sweet daddy had his hands full, no doubt about it, and I say that because at one point he had to abandon ordering their food so that he could chase down the older boy who apparently had sensed a window of opportunity and made a break for the playground.

Meanwhile, there was a woman sitting a couple of tables away from us, and it only took us a few minutes to figure out that She Meant Business in regards to her McDonald’s visit. She had her purse, keys and cell phone lined up on one side of the table and a stack of newspapers on the other. She sipped coffee as she worked not one but two crossword puzzles, and every time there was the slightest unexpected noise – like a fryer beeping or a door slamming – she looked up from her crossword puzzle and glowered in the direction of the interruption.

As the man with the two boys made his way back to the counter after physically removing his older child from the playground doorframe, he started trying to place his order again, but something – who knows what – sent his younger child into an absolute tantrum. The child was wailing at the top of his lungs, and I really wasn’t paying much attention because if motherhood has given me anything, it’s the ability to almost completely block out high-pitched screaming. I did notice the father trying to calm down his son, but the boy would have nothing to do with calm. It was a full-on breakdown.

After about thirty seconds of listening to the little boy’s screaming, the woman with the crossword puzzles slammed down her pencil, turned her head in the direction of the outburst and said, in a surprisingly harsh tone, “NOW THAT! IS JUST! COMPLETELY! UNCALLED FOR!”

And then she looked at D and me like she wanted us to second the motion.

Little did she know that, as someone who has watched her child SLAP A COMPLETE STRANGER in the paper plate aisle of Party City, I’m not really in a position to cast temper-tantrum stones. Sometimes kids have meltdowns. And my heart was with that daddy who was trying to convince his three year-old to pull it together.

After about a minute, the little boy finally regained his composure, and the daddy took both boys outside to enjoy their breakfast on the playground. He probably thought he’d be a little safer from Crossword Lady’s glares if they had a wall between them. Can’t say that I blamed him.

Because I can’t help but think if that lady was looking for a serene place where she could work her crossword puzzles on a balmy summer morning, McDonald’s might not be her best bet. Odds are that an eating establishment with lots of young children and stacks of pancakes with syrup and a large assortment of sugar-laden beverages is not really an ideal location for some quiet puzzle-solving time.

Maybe it’s just me, but I have a little theory that the next time Crossword Lady really wants to concentrate on the solution to 45 across, she might want to find her a table at, oh, THE LIBRARY.

I hear it’s super quiet there.

Perhaps this is because they do not serve Coke from a fountain, nor do they have milkshakes.

And also: they do not have a playground.

I’m going to switch over to my other blog template in the next day or two, mainly because it has fall-ish colors and I need something, ANYTHING to remind me that fall is just around the corner.

Because I don’t know if I’ve mentioned it, but it’s been a little hot.

However, the heat has been somewhat educational because it has enabled me to reach the admittedly un-scientific conclusion that when the temperature is hovering somewhere above 100 degrees, there is no hotter place in the universe than the parking lot of a Walmart Supercenter.

I would conduct an experiment, but there would be no way to do that without sweating. Which is something I do my very best to avoid.

Anyway.

Today when we climbed in the car after church, it became very clear very quickly that Alex was in rare form. He started telling D. and me all about JONAH! and NINEVEH! and THE WHALE! that SPIT OUT! JONAH! ON THE SAND!

The story is not at all new to him, but today, for whatever reason, it really captured his attention. And after about five minutes of listening to NON-STOP! ENTHUSIASTIC! TALKING! ABOUT! WHAT! THE LORD! DID!, I couldn’t help but wonder if the four year-old Sunday School teachers had put a little Holy Ghost power in the Goldfish crackers they served at snack time.

However, I think the little man’s interest in spiritual matters returned to normal preschool levels by late this afternoon, and I say that because about an hour ago I heard Alex yell, “DADDY! DID YOU SMELL IT? DID YOU SMELL IT, DADDY? I’M A POOTER MACHINE!”

Then they both laughed until they wheezed.

As you can tell, there is a spirit of quiet dignity around our house.

And it is truly our family’s sweet privilege to establish traditions of refined elegance that will no doubt be passed down for many generations to come.

So I’m happy to report that Howard LOVES school.

This is not a huge surprise given that he also loves grocery carts, Veggie Tales t-shirts and English peas.

Oh, and air.

We knew he’d be enthusiastic about preschool; we just didn’t know how he’d react to being at a new place. He was crazy about his Mother’s Day Out and talked about it all summer long, so we were a little bit afraid that he’d arrive at his new school, see that it wasn’t his old MDO and then commence with much wailing and gnashing of teeth.

But here’s what he did when the carpool person opened the door Wednesday morning: “GOOD MORNING! Are you going to take me to my class?”

So I’m pretty sure that he was fine.

I went to pick him up right before lunch, and while I had heard stories about how carpool pick-up can be rough for the first couple of weeks, I figured it couldn’t be too bad. In fact, I was so confident that I understood how pick-up worked that I didn’t even bother to look at the carpool map beforehand because GAH, Y’ALL – IT CAN’T BE THAT HARD.

Ahem.

And I will pause for a moment while you seasoned carpool professionals laugh at me.

It seems that there was a critical point in the carpool pick-up process when I should’ve turned and made a loop instead of continuing to go straight, and as a result of my navigational gaffe I ended up blocking a large line of cars that were trying to make their way out of the aforementioned loop.

So I created a bit of a bottleneck. Oh yes I did.

What’s even more embarrassing is that I really had no idea I was doing anything wrong. I was smiling and waving and LOOK, EVERYONE! I AM A COURTEOUS CARPOOL DRIVER! HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL!

And all the while a very long line of cars could not turn right, turn left or do the hokey pokey and turn themselves about. Thanks to, you know, me.

Meanwhile, I couldn’t merge into the traffic ahead of me, I couldn’t get out of the way, and I certainly couldn’t turn to the right, which is of course what I should have done to begin with, only I didn’t know that because of my previously mentioned failure to realize that CARPOOL MAPS, THEY ARE HANDY.

Finally, though, the traffic jam ahead of me started to move, and after I let, like, two hundred and forty nine cars have the right of way, I was able to merge into the proper carpool lane.

Never let it be said that I don’t know how to make a memorable first impression, my friends.

About fifteen minutes later, I pulled up in front of the school to get the little man. And I have to tell you: when I saw our child walk out of the school holding his teacher’s hand – just as confident and happy and cute as he could be – well, my heart splintered into a million bittersweet pieces. Before I even knew what hit me, I was wiping away the tears.

I love that boy.

After school we met my friend NK and her girls for lunch. NK is one of my closest friends; her older daughter and Alex have been buddies since they were babies. Last week we found out that they were going to be in the same class – and not only that, they have assigned seats next to each other. Alex doesn’t know anyone at New School, but having AC beside him makes him feel right at home. NK filled that exact same role in my life when we moved here seven years ago. God is faithful.

As we systematically demolished a round of chips and queso dip, Alex and AC told us all about the games they played on their first day of school. They talked about their story time, their playground time and their trip to the treasure chest. And as I listened to them, I wondered how in the world we managed to get from this:

to this:

in the span of what feels like just a few months?

By the way, here is where you can feel free to insert the cliche’ of your choice about how quickly time passes.

And sharing in these little lives? It gets sweeter every day.