This Was Supposed To Be A Post-Thanksgiving Post.

So this is the space where I was supposed to tell you about our wonderful Thanksgiving week. I was going to tell you how wonderful the food was, and how happy we were to pull out recipes and dishes that reminded us of tradition and those who are not at the table anymore.

Instead, I think I feel myself going in a different direction.

This morning I was humming along to Christmas music, getting my little ones ready for church. Laura in her red Christmas plaid dress, with a BIG honkin' bow on top of her head (that's what we do here in the South. The bigger the bow, the better), and shiny new church shoes. Emma got her hair straightened, and Jack was in his new red Christmas vest. We filed into our usual pew in church and did the church thing. Which usually includes me keeping the jack jack busy a la cheerios, teddy grahams, books, toys, my bracelet, necklace, and the babies behind us. Anyway...

All was going like clockwork until the closing prayer (THANK GOODNESS it was the closing prayer). It was nice and quiet--well as quiet as it ever gets in an LDS family ward--with the exception of the guy praying. That was when my darling baby boy made some odd coughing/gurgling noises while sitting in Gary's lap. In a rather blase way he proceeded to puke it up all over Gary, all over the seat, and I watched in slow motion as it splatted into the carpet. And I do mean INTO the carpet. Now, what do most babies drink the most? Milk, of course. And what, my good friends, is one of the most disgusting, smelly, vile things when it makes a second visit? Milk. Oh yes, I can tell you that from my pregnancy days. By the time they hit "amen," the smell had begun to waft up. Did you ever notice before how close those pews are?

So that is how, after Gary stripped Jack down to a diaper and carted him out the door for home, I ended up on my hands and knees on the floor scrubbing the most vile stuff out of the carpet on a nice, sunny Sunday. Now, you have to know we have three wards--congregations--that meet in this building. Two English, and a Spanish. So I've got about 30 minutes before the Spanish ward starts it's meeting. I ran to the primary room to tell the others that I would not be in their to begin while my mom ran to her house to grab her steam vac. Why, BECAUSE IT STUNK LIKE NOTHING HAS EVER STUNK. Now, I realize that is not proper grammar, but MY HANDS ARE KIND OF KILLING ME FROM SCRUBBING THE CARPET SO MUCH TODAY.

So here's my mom and me, giggling as we try to hook this vac up and get the gunk out of the fabric seat and carpet below. Of course, it's a bit hard to giggle and gag at the same time, but trust me, we had enough time to get the hang of it. As we are working as quickly as we can, the Spanish members start to trickle in. In the pews around us, a little ring of boys began to form. The ones hanging over the pew in front would point and comment to their buddies in rapid Spanish. Occasionally, we would giggle together. Their mothers would lean over and sympathize. They gave me the universal, "Honey, I've been there before, good luck," smile.

So that was our big excitement for the morning. Since then, Jack has tossed up everything that has ever been in his system, we've done about three loads of laundry, and I am praying, praying, praying that it's just some sort of fluke, or bad milk, or something, and not brewing in any one else's system.

And yes, the pew smells much better now. Which is good, because I think it has now been voted our permanent one. For some reason, no one else seems to want it.