A tribute to single mothers....

I think I wrote a post with a similar title at about this time last year...
Cory has been gone quite a bit this month travelling to Canada to promote the campground here in Montana. One day I decided to take the kids sledding. I thought maybe we'd even go and see a movie with some of their Christmas money that evening. Here was the time line:
2:00 Saturday chores are finally done, mom announces we are going sledding!
2:20 We find the necessary snow clothes.
2:45 Everyone is in their snow clothes.
2:50 Some of the children forgot to go potty, delaying us for another good 15 min.
3:05 We go to a local store where the children have been given gift cards, and tromp through in all of our clomp clomp and swish swish glory...excited for our snow day!
3:15 They are out of sleds.
3:25 We decide that inner tubes would be fine, as mom has great memories of sledding in those, and we ask if they could inflate them for us (it's a farm store with a lot of handy men walking around). Upon realizing we probably couldn't fit 5 people and 4 inflated inner tubes in our SUV, we decide to inflate them ourselves.
3:35 Child #1 gives the cashier their gift card and their inner tube and gets change put on their gift card and the inner tube in a bag.
3:40 Child #2
3:45 Child #3
3:50 Child #4
4:00 We make it out to our Durango (which is the lesser choice of our two vehicles since Cory took the heavenly Odyssey to Canada, and which needs to have the battery cables hooked and unhooked every time it is started...long story...) We are, at this point, still excited about sledding.
4:10 We make it to the basement of our store where mommy will confidently inflate inner tubes. She's never used an air compressor before, but she can do it. After several phoned calls to Canada, she figures out how to get the pressure up in the compressor and begin to inflate...only to find that the nozzle is the wrong size for the things which stick up out of the inner tubes which the children have all opened, destroyed the boxes, and almost lost the little lids to the thingies that stick up, which I'm sure have a sensible name, like hydroflexometer.
4:30 After mommy wrestles with tubes and compressors and hydroflexometers for some time, she begins to cry, just a little. Her children are getting their snow clothes all dirty in the basement garage and she is not having a bit of fun.
4:35 The children need to go potty.
4:45 The family goes back to the nice man at the farm store who nicely offers to fill up the tires for them while they wait in the car because mommy does not want to swish and clomp through the store again.
5:10! After waiting in the car for twenty minutes, the children are sweaty, cranky, and hungry. The nice man comes out to explain that one of the tubes popped and they needed to get another one. He then helps to squish one in the SUV, two on top of the SUV, and one behind the SUV.
5:20 The sun is setting as the family drives to the hill behind the campground.
5:25 Nathan coughs and throws up a little. Mom lets him sit in the car because they are going to SLED by golly! She helps her other three get down the hill and enjoy a few moments of that blissful feeling as it is getting darker...
5:45 Ellie slides over a stick and her inner tube pops.
5:50 After a few tears, a few snow angels, and a few trips down the mountain, the family heads home... after re starting the car again...
6:15 The children in all of their hat hair, pink cheeked glory, are out of their snow clothes and we are making spaghetti. Nathan is wiped out on the couch. His excitement over sledding waned several hours ago.
6:30 Mom realizes the camera and her cell phone fell out of her snow pants somewhere on the sledding hill. She lets the children eat while she goes to find the items.
6:45 Mom points the headlights toward the hill, walks down and (answer to prayer) finds the cell phone at the top and the camera at the bottom, wondering why she put them in her snow pants pockets to begin with...
7:00 Mom gets back in the Durango, only to realize that she was stuck firmly in the snow. Try as she might, she cannot clear enough snow away from the tires to get the vehicle to move. She decides to abandon the vehicle and walks the slippery road back home.
7:15 She realizes she left her cell phone in the stuck vehicle and goes back to get it.
7:30 She makes it back to the children who are all still intact and puts them to bed as quickly as she can.....Needless to say, we didn't make it to a movie...
8:00 She prays that her husband will return home soon!






P.S.....
The next week, Cory took us on inner tube rides behind the 4 wheeler, and then we went sledding and played fox and geese. It seemed to be a wonderful, carefree event, and I couldn't figure out how he did it. I'm so grateful for the man in my life and the peace and protection and fun he brings to our family.