Would whoever is praying for me to learn patience please stop

On Monday he pulled the fire alarm at school.

 

On Tuesday he climbed our play structure and took off all his clothes, causing our 6 year old neighbor to cover her eyes yelling, "I can't look!" Later, fully dressed, he escaped our yard while I was doing schoolwork with his sister and made a break for our neighbor's house. The dog listened and came back to the yard. At least I have one obedient child.

 

Yesterday, big sister (who I affectionately refer to as Jekyll and Hyde) kept slipping into full monster mode. There is no warning system for my children's moods. They are more like tornadoes than hurricanes. You sometimes see signs that one might pop up, but those F4 winds can just come out of nowhere.

 

To understand this next part, you have to know that I am slightly obsessive about wasting food. Okay, I'm full on crazy. So when the almonds that I had carefully soaked and dried looked like they had mold spots on them, I did what any other insane person would do. I peeled every almond. I sent a couple of cups to work with my husband, but I needed to do something with the remaining seeds.

 

After a quick Internet search, I decided to pulverize the almonds into almond meal in the food processor.  I may have left them too chunky in an effort to avoid turning them into almond butter. After reading too many comments on a recipe for almond flour waffles, I took one suggestion to fluff the egg whites to stiff peaks and fold them into the waffle batter. The "waffles" stuck to my wafflemaker, oozed out the sides, and had the consistency of a crepe made from meringue. After peeling/scraping 6 "waffles" from the contraption I decided to dump the rest of the "batter" into a Corningware dish and bake it in the oven.

 

It looked like a success. The "batter" baked up like a lovely meringue. But as I pulled it from the oven, my mitts slipped and the entire dish crashed to the floor. Finally I had reached my limit. The dog came to help clean the mess, and Elijah comforted my by saying, "It ho-k Mommy. Zeke is a good lickah!" But I could not be comforted. I turned to my golden calf.

 

"That's it!" I threw up my hands and shouted. "I give up! I am going downstairs to read in bed." Caitlyn followed me, copying every word and going to get The Magician's Nephew from her room. We sat on my bed and read. Elijah did not know what to do with himself. After about 10 minutes he touched my arm and comforted, "It ho-k Mommy. I can hold you recipe!" Thankfully I was reading on my iPod which can transform into a video camera.

 

 

That was enough to get me back into supermommy homeschooling mode. The rest of the morning was tough, but somehow he took a nap and big sister decided to do her schoolwork in the afternoon while he slept.

 

We returned home late from church, and it was after 9 when I tucked them into bed. But little brother was not interested in staying in bed. Thankfully Daddy was home soon to help me deal with the escape artist. I'll let my 2:20 am Facebook status tell the next part of the story.

   

Apparently he was trying to get the cat, whom he feared was escaping into the wall.

This was as good a time as any to finish typing my devotion, so I ignored him and wrapped that up.

Then at 2:34 am:
     "Mommy you drop you recipe?"
     I nodded.
     "Oh. I hold it. I really hold it."

Bud, you just don't get the problem.

I should have just tossed those moldy almonds.