The View from Our Van

My friend Susan recently completed training to be a CPR instuctor. To get experience in teaching, she offered a babysitting class today at her house which Evan and Matthew attended along with two of her sons. The CPR portion of the class will be next week. I am thankful for the opportunity for the boys to learn practical childcare skills and lifesaving strategies from a mom that I trust. It has been too long since I was trained in CPR and rescue breathing.

Susan invited Sophie to stay and play with her youngest son, but I selfishly kept Sophie with me to keep Logan company. Logan enjoyed riding around in the "white van," sitting up high and watching the parade of vehicles go by. On the way back home, we ran several errands.

At a used bookstore, I "turned in" two paperbacks to be sold, which gave me in-store credit. When I walked in the store, I thought, "What happened here!" The usually neat establishment had books piled on the counter and boxes of books in the aisles. A gruff young woman reluctantly pulled herself away from looking at books to help me at the counter. I told Sophie that she could take Logan to look at the children's section, but when I walked back to it after giving the woman my books, the kids were in the wrong aisle. They apparently could not recognize the children's area for all the books lying around. It was a total mess! I looked with interest at a hardcover version of a book that we own in softcover, but which is falling apart. I raised my eyebrow at the $3.00 price-tag, and then re-shelved it in disgust when I opened the book to a torn out page.

As we attempted to find a treasure amidst the junk, the woman up front talked loudly with another worker about how she had just been fired from another job and how she had attended an event where everyone got smashed. Great atmosphere! I soon gave up finding a good book in order to use my credit and walked with the kids to the door. The woman, and two men who apparently worked there as well, stood talking near a sign requesting volunteers to help shelve books. One of the men asked me, "You didn't find anything today?"

I replied, "Not today, thanks," while thinking "and not any day!"

I predict a storefront vacancy soon.

In the afternoon when Logan took a nap, Sophie helped me to do some blitz-cleaning of the kitchen and other high traffic areas. I gave her some dried blueberries to snack on and sweeten the job. I appreciated her cheerful help!

I picked up Logan out of his crib to drive and retrieve the boys in the late afternoon. Logan did not fuss about the abrupt ending to his nap when I quickly told him we were going in the white van.

Driving away from Susan's house after picking up the boys, I asked them several questions about their day, when I heard a different voice say, "Hi." I glanced in the rearview mirror to spy a stowaway in the backseat. I laughed and threatened to take him to our house to be our slave, but instead turned the van around. Susan smiled questioningly when she saw us pull up in front of her house again, and then we all laughed when her son Ryan popped out of the van. She walked to the van door and joked that Ryan would be paying us $5 for gas money.

This evening, during our family worship, Evan gently interrupted me during my prayer to let me know that Logan had removed his diaper. We had to laugh and paused our prayer time while Evan re-diapered the boy.