The Alarm

I asked you guys to share funny stories with me a while back, so I decided to share my funniest, most embarrassing moment ever-with you guys. It involves firemen. Even better. It's kinda long, so bear with it. Let me set the scene. This all happened about 2 years ago. If you don't know me by now, to say I am a sucker for a man in uniform is an understatement. I was driving down the road one day with the girls in the back seat. I pull up in the lane beside a fire truck and this HOT fireman is waving at me...or so I think, until I look in the back and the girls are waving at him. He is just returning the favor. That next Saturday, I take the girls to some family fun event and there is a fire truck...lo and behold, Mr. Hottie Fireman is there and I smile and move on. But man, he was hot. So that Tuesday, I had an event at work and was there until about 8pm. The girls were with their dad, so I walk into my empty house. I take off my shoes and then this noise starts coming from somewhere. An alarm is going off in my house. It's coming from above the sink but there is no alarm there. I open the cabinets, I check under the sink, I pull out the ladder and TRY to peek in the attic to see if something is amiss. Carbon monoxide detector maybe? But nothing. Nadda. Couldn't see anything strange. I call the landlord and get his voicemail. The noise is obnoxiously loud and I am wondering if my neighbors are annoyed by this point. I don't have anyone close by at the moment to call, so I call the fire department's NON-EMERGENCY number in the phone book, explain the situation and ask if someone could come and check it out. A few minutes later, I am watching in disbelief as 3 fire trucks surround my house and the fourth parks just down the street. Spotlights, yes, spotlights, sirens, and red flashing lights are everywhere. My entire front yard is covered in fully dressed fireman, complete with oxygen tanks, boots and hats. I do a quick scan to make sure Mr. Hottie is not among them. He isn't. Whew! I lead the main fireman into my house and a few others follow in behind me. [Let me stop the story here and reiterate that I am a single mom. My house isn't always the cleanest and almost every visitor might get a glimpse of clean or dirty laundry somewhere in the house. At this particular house, there is no dishwasher, so there is a sink full of dirty dishes soaking in water, complete with broccoli floating in the top]. But it's OK. I need to make sure my house is safe when the girls get home. So the main fireman goes to the sink. Like me, he is looking up because the sound is the loudest from the ceiling. He looks in the cabinets and all around. Nothing. Then he proceeds to ask me where my fire alarms are in the house. One is in the hallway by the bathroom. It is up and functional and not going off. The second one...I look up...it is supposed to be by the back door. But it's not there. Wait...what did I do with it? Oh yeah, I changed the battery last week and hadn't put it up yet. I had laid it on a pass way from the living room to the kitchen, but as I look around, I don't see it anywhere. So the fireman starts to dig through my dirty dishwater. I don't realize what he is doing right away but as he swishes his hand around the sink, sure enough amongst the broccoli, is my back door fire alarm going off down in the water. The sound was muffled by the water but was bouncing off the ceiling explaining why it was louder from above. I guess one of the girls thought it was a bowl and happy-little-helpered it into the sink. As my face turns bright red and I want to cry, sure enough, I look over my left shoulder and who gets a front row view of my genius level? Yep. Mr. Hottie fireman. Ugh! The firemen ROLLED in hysterics laughing at me. They got my name and address and told me they had to make sure I was correctly blacklisted for playing pranks. My only response was, "How else can a single girl get this many firemen's attention all at once?" I was SOOO embarrassed. I tried to blame it on the girls, but as you know, they weren't home. So I have a hidden fire alarm and a messy house, but no visual kids to blame it on. They thought I was crazy. But it makes for a good laugh...so I hope you got a chuckle and I hope you have a great week!

Mini Mom & Many Moms

Happy Mother's Day! So, I didn't get to this yesterday. I was busy being a mom to a very feverish litle girl and her big sister, who, in trying to "take care" of little sis, made mess after mess yesterday. But when the day was done, I looked around my trashed house and smiled. This is what it's all about. I was extremely lucky to have such a wonderful mom (I can call her Mini Mom, she barely clears 5 feet). She worked too hard and was stressed out a lot, but she was fantastic. She taught me so much about life and what it meant to "give of yourself". I love her dearly and would do anything for her. Not only that, but I had many other "mom figures" in my life (Many Moms). Several moms of my childhood friends loved me like I was their own, and my mother-in-law (when I was an in-law) has been a great mom to me too. I stress as a mom quite often. I am always wondering if what I am doing is the best thing for the girls...Now this is going to get a little personal and I mean no offense in anything I say-Just Steph getting personal...What I mean by wondering...Most of you know that I am divorced. All reasons aside, I, ME, I moved the girls away from their dad. Again, circumstances aside, it was MY final choice to divorce. At the time, I was a Christian out of church, struggling to even acknowledge God on a daily basis and tired of explaining "God things" to a husband who wasn't even sure if he believed. We both had many faults and we both contributed to the final outcome. But it boils down to this...we were not on the same page in life. We didn't seek God's will in our marriage or in our lives, and me being the stronger Christian in the relationship, feel like I failed my husband and my marriage by not trying to keep it on the "God track". That is a hard fight to fight though-a definite uphill battle that leaves you feeling defeated and alone. But I wonder...If I had stayed married, would my girls even be in church? Who knows? As it stands, they are very active in church. They know who God is and believe in Him and don't question. So in some regards, I believe the divorce was the right choice. The girls know that I love them and would do anything for them. But is my love enough? I used to think so. But the more I learn about myself, the more I see a need for children to have a strong female AND a strong male influence in their lives. Now please don't get me wrong, I am not bashing their dad. He sees them every other weekend (and will be seeing them more the next couple of months because of Kennedy's baseball schedule). When he is with them, I believe that he is great with them. They go swimming and do fun stuff together. But the time is limited. And as much fun as that time is, ultimately, they are growing up in a home without a father. And don't get me wrong to the other extreme either. I had no desire to fight and fight and fight with their dad for the rest of my life. We weren't compatible. You think you'd figure that out before you marry someone. But we didn't. It's because we had fun in the short term, we laughed a lot. We had a great time together, we wanted to be married. But when reality hit, we fell apart because we were not on the same page, and God was not at the center. Period. But back to the father influence...I had a father in my home. He was married to my mom and he is my father. But he was absent both physically and emotionally from our lives most of my childhood. OK, well, all of my childhood and even into adulthood. I don't have a relationship with my dad. I hug him when I see him which is a few times a year at best and most of the time he isn't coherent. I love him dearly and wish to God I had a way to get to his heart and just tell him I love him. I LOVE HIM. The broken man that he is, I love. But was he a positive role model in my life? Sorry, mom if you are reading this...but no, he wasn't and isn't. And now I am learning that his absence created a hole in me that I have never been able to fill. And a sad note to anyone who's tried to be in a relationship with me, I apparently hold people to expectations that they would never meet. The hole is there and I need it fixed. I have tried to fix it through "people" throughout my life. But couldn't. It's scary to think of the ways a person can try to fill a void. Most of it is sin-related and self-destructive. I don't want my girls growing up with a void that I, mommy, can't fill-or one that they don't even know exists so they are not asking God to fill. But the truth is, that is why God designed us to be partners, and to raise children together. With a balanced family. I know that there are many families who have pieced together the influences needed to raise a healthy, happy child, and good for you. Because I also wonder, if my stubborn, "refuse to date" attitude is keeping the girls from another positive influence they could be having. Don't get me wrong on this one either...I don't ever want an influence to replace their father. I don't need another father for my children, they already have one. But what any child needs is many people who love them, and who create positive role models in their lives. Kinda like my "many moms" growing up. I believe the more people you have love you in life, the better off you'll be, right? Sorry to rant. Just thought I would share some of what I think about when I look into my beautiful girls' smiles. Will they feel like they are missing something because of my choice? I wonder...