heart in the clouds

Wednesday, January 7, 2009

The Freakin Scary Dryer and other joys of the season

So it's 2009. Big Deal. We're getting a new president, I have a really good excuse to go back to Texas at the end of January and Zachary's third birthday party planning has begun.Okay now that I'm done crying about the first and last things in that sentence, I can write this post.

We had a very good trip to Texas and Oklahoma over Christmas and New Year's. It was so nice to escape the cold, dreary, seasonal-depression inducing Kentucky winter climate for a bit. It was SUNNY and warm in Texas and Oklahoma and we had many days where the kids just played outside with light jackets or no jackets at all...it was bliss. And now since we've returned, the sun has yet to show it's face in the bluegrass this year...joy, joy. I almost can't stand it...seriously. I need a SAD light or something, sheesh!

We had plenty of humorous moments while we visited with friends and family during our travels. It occurs to me that God has a huge sense of humor and he shows it to us mostly through our children's innocence and antics. He's also constantly trying to use some of those antics to build in me a patient spirit; I've got a long way to go folks.

Humor and patience-building are combined in Zachary's love for vacuums. The child is truly obsessed with them. He can pretend virtually anything is a vacuum when he's not near a real one. The vacuum at home used to scare him to tears. But when he met the little, red, child-sized vacuum at the consignment store a year ago, he fell in love and couldn't leave the store without it. We thought it was cute and so we spent the $3 and indulged him. It caused such fits the more and more he played with it that it finally had to go bye bye. Unfortunately, a few months ago, Zachary found the vacuum as we were cleaning out a closet and the cycle began again.

Now most kids sit and watch TV with a lovey like a teddy bear or a lamby or something soft. Not my son; he's often seen sitting in front of the tube with his arm wrapped around his vacuum. He wakes up talking about the vacuum and gets very out of sorts when the vacuum is not in the closet it's supposed to be in. I have actually begun to despise the vacuum because he won't stop talking about it. Seriously! It's beyond normal right?

So he got over his fear of the sound the vacuum makes and even asked to use the big one. We thought that was great. But I guess other things with similar noises have to earn their place in his safety-loving world. Take hand dryers in public restrooms for instance. Most of them are reasonally quiet, but then there is the Xcelerator...the one that blows the skin around on your body with it's extreme noise and pressure. There was one of those in the bathroom at a Ryan's in Bowling Green where we stopped on our return trip. Granted the Cracker Barrell's dryer would've been quieter, but the line was out the door and this was our only choice. We talked about the dryer before I turned it on. I told him it would be very loud. He nodded his head and stood on the other side of the room. When I turned it on, Zachary went nuts screaming, trembling and crying. I felt sad for him and so I picked him up and all was well.

We were heading for the car when he looked at David and said. "Daddy, that was a freakin scary dryer." We knew we should not have laughed, but all attempts to stiffle the giggles were in vain. It was just so funny to hear that from him. He proceeded to get on the phone to my mother, where he changed the description from freakin, scary dryer to freakin, stupid dyer.....nice. Then my mom of course gives me the lecture about "you really shouldn't let him talk that way." Really?

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