Well, what would YOU have done?

About four and a half years ago, I took a little trip to Chicago. And boy was it an adventure! Of course it was...because I was with Kristen again. Somehow she and I don't have "normal" trips. They're always adventures with the oddest things happening and we always laugh ourselves silly. And this was no different.

I'll save some of our mischief for another day because there are photos to find before I share it. Some of you will remember it, but for some it will be new so I'll tell the tale another day.

But for today I want to focus on the whole reason I was in Chicago. Kristen's 3rd of 4 daughters was being baptised in this big Catholic church there. Now I'm not Catholic and other than a wedding or two haven't been to a Catholic church so it was a new experience for me. The baptism was on a Sunday afternoon when there was no one in the church except for a few groups of people there for their babies' baptisms.

I basically knew no one but Kristen and her hubby before going that weekend, though I'd met a few of the others that morning. Our group waited and eventually they called for Kristen's daughter's baptism and the group went forward to stand up for the baptism. I wasn't an "official" member of the party so I was standing on the fringe. So when the baby began crying, Kristen finally gave the signal for me to go grab a bottle for her. So I quietly headed back to the rows where the diaper bag and all our coats, etc., were sitting. It was several rows over.

A couple things to note here. The church was huge. The floors were hard wood (except maybe up the aisles??) And the place was more or less empty of people. All that set us up for some LOVELY acoustics. Translation: You'd better be quiet or EVERYONE will hear and there will be a TREMENDOUS echo.

So I quietly head toward the diaper bag and the coveted baby bottle. I make it over most inconspicuously. But then as I went to pick up the bottle, I'm not sure what happened but it fell with a LOUD *THUMP*. Now,what would YOU have done? Hmmm...? I suppose most normal folk would have thrown an apologetic look toward the folks over at the baptism (because, after all, they're ALL looking at you with the racket you just caused.)

But what did I do? I'll tell you what I did: I HIT THE DECK! I didn't want everyone to see me. lol I was too embarrassed. Of course, then I had the predicament of deciding what to do now that I was down on the floor. Do I just...stand up? Didn't sound too smart. Of course, dropping to the floor wasn't a stroke of genius. Do I look for an exit? That wouldn't do much good. After all, Kristen is waiting for the bottle with a very unhappy baby. So I did the only thing I could do. I stayed low and snuck to the back of the church until I thought everyone would have returned their attention to the priest and I QUIETLY stood up and quickly made my way back to the group, delivering the bottle.

Of course, everyone in our group KNEW it had been me...as I could tell by the smiles of some who saw me returning up the aisle. But apparently I'd kept the priest guessing. Later, Kristen told me that when they all heard the loud *THUMP*, they all turned to look, and seeing nothing, the priest said something like, "Guess we've got a ghost today." hee hee hee...errrr, I mean, "BOO."

What does YOUR painter wear?

My youngest daughter didn't start talking until she was three. Prior to that she could make the sound of nearly every animal I could think of (and knew the sound to teach her, lol.) but she wasn't much into human sounds, I guess. When she finally started talking at three, she took off like wildfire. She went through quite a while (as does any child learning to talk) where I, Mama, was about the only one who could figure out what she was saying.

However, there was one day that she was perfectly understood by ALL. And I will never forget it.

We lived in a condo at the time and the condo association had hired a painter to paint the exterior of all the buildings. One morning he was painting the portion of wall between our ground floor and the floor above us and was within 6 feet of our door. All you could see of the man from our doorway was his legs...and a bit of his khaki shorts...which blended in with his tan at first glance.

Well, we were headed out and the girls headed out the door just a few seconds before me. I had turned back to grab my purse and just as I stepped out the door, Alli calls out in perfectly clear speech (very loudly because she thinks I'm still inside), "MOM! THERE'S A MAN PAINTING YOUR HOUSE! HE'S NAKED!!"

The painter bent down to peer under the edge of the wall he was painting, grinned at me, and went right back to his work.

Think he heard her??