Joyful Noises times six!: The destroying angel

My inspiration for this record of my days:

“The biggest mistake I made [as a parent] is the one that most of us make. . . . I did not live in the moment enough. This is particularly clear now that the moment is gone, captured only in photographs. There is one picture of [my three children] sitting in the grass on a quilt in the shadow of the swing set on a summer day, ages six, four, and one. And I wish I could remember what we ate, and what we talked about, and how they sounded, and how they looked when they slept that night. I wish I had not been in such a hurry to get on to the next thing: dinner, bath, book, bed. I wish I had treasured the doing a little more and the getting it done a little less” -Anna Quindlen

Friday, January 14, 2011

The destroying angel

You’ve probably heard of the destroying angel from the Bible. Have you ever wondered what he looked like?

It’s the face of an angel, all right. And in fact, he is an angel. He is so sweet and loving and fun to have around.

But wow! He leaves a wake of destruction wherever he goes. He loves to dump things out and then get handfuls of blocks, game pieces… whatever he’s just dumped, and throw them into the air. Just for fun. Or sometimes he likes to throw them as hard as he can at my face. With a look of sheer joy on his face.

He is constantly getting all the cups out of the cupboard (at least it was constant until Jeff put locks on the cupboards today… ) and filling them with water from the drinking fountain. Some of the water he drinks, some he throws into the air just to see it fall. Again, with that look of sheer joy!

One of his most favorite haunts is the refrigerator. He loves to help himself to “hogogs” all day long. I took this picture right after I had swept up the bag of shredded cheese he had just dumped out, and thrown away the bowl of popcorn that had a cup of water dumped in it.

When I tried to take away some of the hotdogs, he wouldn’t even listen to my lecture on well-balanced snacking. He spit out the one he was chewing into my face and started jabbing me repeatedly with another one.

So far, the Israelite solution to the destroying angel- putting lamb’s blood over the front door- hasn’t worked for us. The mop across the fridge is only marginally effective: