A WOMAN SCORNED

You see folks, what John has failed to tell you is that I was hosting a ladies' Bible study at our home last night. I had worked hard on preparing the study on Judaism, spent countess hours cleaning the house and picking up yet again, and making sure that everyone had had a good dinner and dessert so that they wouldn't have to come downstairs AT ALL to interrupt our group. I asked two things of the family (and John, more specifically): Keep the kids upstairs. Keep the dog upstairs.

Considering the previous post by John then, I have to assume that he was too enthralled in his gauntlet world that he didn't realize that Sadie spent a considerable amount of time leaning over the stair-rail and watching our group. All of a sudden, it seemed odd to me that everyone was sort of looking past me and over my head.... I turned around to see a thumb-sucking sx year old on the stairs. Of course I asked her to go back up.
*sigh* Do I have to even tell you that she didn't listen? Afterall, what was mom going to do in front of all these ladies?? And do I have to say even further that the little darling came and stood directly behind my chair for some time; but how silly of me.... she was thirstly. "Go ask Daddy", I say. "He didn't listen", she replies. So I get her a drink and send her back upstairs. I can imagine this was all a blink of an eye for the X-box junkie.

Next comes Spanky, running into the group and jumping up on peoples' legs, sniffing, licking, and doing his dog thing. Well, at least one of the ladies was afraid of dogs, so I tried to get him; he jumped up on the couch between two others who weren't happy to have him there. Spanky thought it was really fun.... the game I was playing... trying to catch him. Well, finally I grabbed him and marched up the stairs and dumped him into the playroom. I asked John if he knew that Sadie had been hanging around downstairs and that the dog was harrassing my guests. "No", he replied, without averting his eyes from the tv screen. Well, obviously.

Did you catch the part that it was 11:30 pm before I finished cleaning up the kitchen and coming up to bed? And yes, there they sat. Gee, why do you think the kids gave me such a hard time about getting up for school this morning? Why has the boy been grounded to his room all afternoon because he was too cranky to listen to me read? The oldest girl is also grounded for not getting up this morning, until I had asked her six times and finally threatened her. She doesn't understand why she's grounded... she was just so tired and couldn't wake up. Hmmm. What about the six year old who has fussed and whined and sucked her thumb all day??

Yesterday, something really sad happened... one of the boys in our neighborhood came and sat on our porch and told us that his mother had left; moved out. I couldn't help but wonder how she could have the heart to leave her husband and children alone. It was heartbreaking.

"And that, your honor....."