Author: Tricia

For quite some time now, we have used a metal folding table covered in a plastic tablecloth for our kitchen breakfast table. The chairs we have sat on are back from my college days, purchased at Montgomery Ward for a few dollars apiece. Given we have carpet in our dining area, and four small children, it has seemed prudent to eat in the room with flooring, which is more easily sanitized after each meal! So, we’ve taken most all our meals for the past two years around our humble folding table.

While we really would have liked to find a different table/chairs for our family meals, we had delayed making a purchase because of our assumption we would soon be in a different home with an unknown-sized breakfast nook. So we hated to spend money if in a few months we would have to find something different based on size constraints. But ultimately, the current table and chairs were becoming less useable. Those poor old chairs have been wobbling for a long time (one even broke several months back) so every time Jay sat down to eat he wondered if this would be the time his chair gave out underneath him, or worse yet, under one of the children! And the table, while fairly stable, has cost me many a gash and bruise on my knees (I sat at the end, which isn’t really designed for knees and legs to fit properly).

So, a couple weeks ago I hit upon a solution to our table situation. We’d looked at tons of new dining sets, never finding something we liked enough to spend a wad of money on. But we live in Dallas, home to an amazing amount of furniture stores, and people who love to shop in them. People who are downsizing, upsizing, leaving town, whatever, and selling off perfectly good pieces of furniture for ridiculously low prices. So, with a modest budget in mind, I began perusing the classifieds. And after following many many leads, I stumbled upon a set that fit my qualifications: 6 chairs, table large enough for six people but no larger, good quality, sturdy enough to stand up to our household, and (yes, also very important!) beautiful, at least to me. Here it is!

The chairs actually had a bit of an overdone, very shiny finish on them when I purchased them – a bit too much for our tastes, so using very fine sandpaper, I got most of that off, leaving a warm wood finish that was much softer-looking and pleasing to our eyes. I love them. The table is not one I would have thought to pick were I buying new, but it is really beautiful with the chairs, and the set looks just wonderful all set up in our kitchen. Given my elation over finding something I liked so much for such a great price, imagine how fun it was to find this online, and note how closely it resembles my table, down to the similar number and pattern of turns on each leg! And the chairs around it are my favorite Pottery Barn chair as well – feel free to notice the resemblance to my classified ad chairs!

I am thankful for the dear friend who on the spur of the moment, agreed to go along with me to look at, help carry and move, and deliver the new set to our home. Bless you! When I returned home yesterday afternoon from our prior-to-school-starting-up 2nd grade girls’ ice cream party with Abigail, my sweet husband had carried in, and set up the table in the kitchen to surprise me. We enjoyed our first meal last night around our “new” table, and could not be more pleased and thankful for this wonderful addition to our home. We look forward to sharing many family moments here in the years to come.

Like many other churches in town, ours is this week holding our annual VBS program. And like last year, and the year before that, and the year before that, (we’re back to 2003 for those keeping track), I am not at VBS. I am home. With sick children. Not doing whatever it is I’d promised I’d do up at Town North this week to help with our program. Teaching, taking photographs, helping with singing….all my grand plans each year have ended up on the couch, next to whichever little person (or people, in most instances) have taken ill. Oh, I usually end up making it to church for a couple days, to pitch in a wee bit. But, for the majority of the week, I remain at home. Here we are, fourth year in a row, and it’s the same old story.

To the casual observer, we have not much to show for the last two weeks of life — these 15 days immediately following Memorial Day weekend. Our family has experienced a run of illness that is almost unbelievable for this time of year. To say it has been a bit of a challenging time would be accurate. It’s been sad to cancel so many plans, and back out of several things we’d promised we’d do with or for others.

Instead of going to storytime at the Library, swimming in the pool, and eating watermelon in these early (and very hot, I might add) days of summer, we’ve opted for multiple visits to the Pediatrician’s, viewing endless movies from the couch, and sucking down copious amounts of drugs and pain/fever relievers. Not to mention waking up over and over and over each night with multiple children who are sick and sad and in need of mommy’s and daddy’s help. After so many nights of little sleep, plus the amazing amount of germs pervading our household, Jay and I finally succumbed to sickness as well.

The long list of illnesses thus far includes: 2 ear infections, 2 cases of strep, 1 case of croup, 1 sinus infection, 3 bad colds, 3 horrible coughs (these are separate and unique from the colds, I assure you) 1 case of pink eye, and 3 cases of a very tenacious and long-lasting mystery virus whose symptoms are searing headache pain, fever, and sore throat. Not one family member has been spared. Most of us have had at least two maladies.

Some of us are on the mend. Four of us are on antibiotics. But tomorrow, two or perhaps even three children will hopefully be able to attend VBS. I’ll be here still, holding down the fort with those who remain ill. And I am one of those remaining ones.

It is uncanny to me that each year since 2003, when, to paraphrase, the older two had a tummy bug, and little Nicolas almost ended up in the hospital due to dehydration from illness, I have had to back out of teaching or whatever else I’d promised I’d do for our fun-filled week of VBS. Each year since then I’ve felt this weird combination of guilt and frustration as I call our coordinator and explain that yes, indeed, again I will not be there doing whatever job it was I had offered to do. Everyone has been truly understanding, and appropriately sympathetic toward our situation. But after four years, perhaps I should consider that there is a lesson in all this for me. Hmmmm.

Yes, I believe I have without a doubt reached a resolute decision about VBS and my participation therein. Next year, I think that when it comes time for volunteering for the week, I am not signing up for anything. While I hate to be too impulsive, there are, after all, four years of data to back me up. So there you have it. I will not volunteer to teach. Or sing. Or take pictures. Or even be there. At all. There will be no grand plans to upset. No people to disappoint. No expectations, and no letdown. And maybe, just maybe then….we won’t all get sick!!

Bargain hunter that I am, I love a good deal on something slightly used that would have cost me a kagillion more to buy new. Perhaps the fact that it is harder to find such a deal than to just go to my local store and purchase something new is half the fun for me. I’m all about the thrill of the hunt!! And i love good product quality, etc, etc…

In true fashion, when we began looking for a playset/fort/swing thing for the backyard, I scouted out our options, researched like the crazy nut that I am, and found that in Texas heat, wood sets deteriorate quickly, and age, and get rough and splintery, and basically require a good deal of work in order to keep them up. So, most sets require some routine maintenance: sanding, staining, sealing, repeat, repeat, repeat. Those of you with small kids know how much extra time we all have to spend prettying up the backyard swingset!!

Not wanting yet another possession at this stage of our lives that required much investment of time, I wondered if swingsets were available that did not need quite as high a level of upkeep. And, after some searching, I keyed into a company who touted a product with a nontoxic enamel finish that was guaranteed to be smooth and splinter-free. The sets were well-made and attractive, and the various options and configurations available seemed practically endless. This was a product we could purchase and then adapt accordingly to our kids’ growing abilities. The company was well-known, and also had 60 years of reputation behind them. It sounded wonderful, but there is always a catch. And after looking at the bottom line, I determined the product I wanted to buy was out of our price range. WAY out of our price range. Like it would cost more to purchase one of these things than a used car we bought a few years back. That is not hyperbole.

So, more recently I decided that perhaps the new set they sell at Sams would be a good fit for our budget: Sams sells great quality products at value prices, and this thing was really amazing, and had lots of great components. We felt no urgency about purchasing a set though, so we did not move quickly on buying one.

Then in early April, as I often do, I was perusing our local classified ads online when the name of the company I’d hoped to find a set from jumped out at me from the Swingset Ads section. I was shocked, considering the company resides in Massachusetts, and there is nowhere within 250 miles of where we currently live that retails them. I never expected to find someone selling a used ChildLife Set in the DFW area. But after calling and talking with the folks who had listed the set, and visiting and seeing the thing for ourselves there was no doubt: this was a Childlife Firechief’s playsystem, and the owners had purchased several wonderful upgrades which made it a neat fit both for our 3 year old on up to our seven year old, and older. Before agreeing to purchase the used set, I checked in with the company about being able to replace parts/upgrade the configuration, etc as we had need in the years to come, and found out that ChildLife has great customer service to back up their great products.

Well, long story short, we snatched that puppy up. It is almost 4 years old, but in really wonderful condition. The owners were obviously people who took good care of it. And, hey, they only had two kids who played on it. They were selling it to make more room in their smallish yard for some other things.

We hope to get many good years out of this wonderful set. The kids are absolutely thrilled with their new playground in the backyard, and we are thankful for being able to find such a fantastic deal on a great product. All told, we paid not quite 15% of what it would cost us to get one of these brand new. So even I, addicted bargain-hunter extraordinaire, feel we got a beautiful deal. And it was still a good bit less than we would have paid to get the Sam’s set!

Here are some pics of Jay setting up the playsystem, and then the kids trying it out.

We have not posted frequently of late. To say we are busy would sound silly and like an excuse. Everyone in the world is busy. Perhaps it would be more accurate to say that there are quite a host of things which have happened lately that are a little out of the ordinary and which have necessitated our attentions focused elsewhere.

Some of them might include:

a baby who has always slept beautifully waking every night at least once and sometimes more times than that for the past month (Mommy wakens also at these times and she must admit that a full month of this has rendered her usually cheerful personality a tad bit grumpy, and her efforts at home perhaps less fruitful than they might normally be!);

or the close family member whom we love dearly who is suffering terribly at the hands of a little known but very debilitating disease known as Meniere’s (please pray for Mom/Grammy/Ruth if you would);

or Abigail falling and injuring another ankle (thankfully this one was not broken, only badly sprained – she did get a cool Darth Vader-ish looking boot out of the whole thing);

or yet another case of thrush for Tricia and Josiah…….

but the one which I will bring you to contemplate tonight concerns our second-born, little Jonathan, who, yesterday at preschool had a nasty fall and injured his mouth quite badly.

Around mid-morning yesterday at his preschool class, for reasons which were not readily apparent (ie, no foul play from fellow classmates nor tomfoolery on the part of the subject being discussed) poor little Jonathan evidently fell face forward into a self-made creation of wooden blocks and in the process managed to dislocate 3 teeth, completely destroy his upper lip frenulum, and severly cut his upper gum. Aside from the damage inside, the skin and jaw area around his mouth is swollen so badly that he looks exactly like a little boy-monkey.

Around 7:45 this morning he and his Daddy headed to our local pediatric dentist, who is absolutely wonderful, to have the damage assessed. By way of aside, I have always really loved this doctor for his amazing and caring bedside manner with my children combined with an obvious expertise in dental medicine, but have even deeper respect for him after reading this very interesting article in which Dr. Bob aka Robert Morgan is quoted on his thoughts about treating dental Medicaid patients.

But back to Jonathan…the summary is: one tooth was able to be slightly moved back into place. The other is staying put at its rakish angle, as it will not be budged. The third is mildly askew, but not to a degree which raises worry. Gums will heal slowly, but he will be watched for complications, such as an absessed tooth. The two teeth most damaged will also be monitored to see if they truly heal, or need to be removed by pulling. The one which is slanting inward is of most concern, as its current position may ultimately interfere with his bite and as a result, affect his jaw and adult teeth longterm. So we wait one week for all the swelling to go down and we’ll hear the final determination next Tuesday.

In the meantime, it’s a soft liquid-ish-like diet for Jonathan. He’s getting his share of milkshakes, healthy smoothies made by Mom, and yogurt. I’ve also finally put that Baby Food Grinder to good use (certain other small fry around here practically laugh in my face when i try to feed them soft food other than Mother’s super-delicious homemade milk!). Thus far for Jonathan, I have pureed strawberries, bananas, peaches, and tonight even, (gulp!) pasta and meat sauce. Which, btw, dear Stephie, he absolutely LOVED!!! {Added by author: Just so our readers are aware of the challenges presented when a parent purees one child’s supper but not those of his siblings, I will assure you that Nicolas was quite envious of Jonathan’s special dish. In fact, he begged us to make his spaghetti “like Jonathan’s”, but we told him mashed foods were only for those with hurt teeth or no teeth!}

Our sweet boy is handling his funny little face and odd diet in a very brave fashion. And despite his injuries, he is acting for the most part like a healthy, active 5 year-old. We certainly do hope and fervently pray that he will heal with no complications or further medical action needed.

And in the meantime, I say, let’s all raise our glasses of cabernet to a heartwarming and delicious bowl of warm pureed Italian food!

It’s hard to get 4 kiddos looking at the camera at the same time, let along all smiling, especially when some of them think the sun is “SO BRIGHT!!!”, even in the shade. But here’s our best representation of our four, taken this past Sunday after Easter worship.

We had a great Easter dinner and afternoon at Jay’s parents, despite forgetting diapers in the diaper bag for the first time in our recollection as parents! That’s in almost seven and a half years!! I’m afraid we even held up the meal a little. But…we are thankful for stores which are open, yes, even on Easter Sunday!