Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Where Are Your Clothes, Little Girl?

I received a brief note from Kellie this morning. She said that Jack Henry “is doing very well. Surgery was a success! He is groggy and sleeping a lot.” She is thankful for everyone’s prayers. Thank you, God, for watching over this little guy, for guiding his surgeons, and for taking care of pirate mom and pirate dad.


Recently, sitting and staring at a blank word processing screen has produced the same question over and over again. What happened to the stories? What happened to the insanity that defined my life? Where are the stories that I shared on my blog that were nothing more than a venting rant that people found entertaining? Some readers laughed with me while some readers laughed at me, and I really didn’t care as long as everyone was laughing.

The answer came to me when I realized that my children have settled down. Captain Chaos hasn’t been chaotic. Major Havoc hasn’t created any havoc. If General Mayhem’s recent behavior (he’s 12 11/12 years old) is any indication, the teen years might be tolerable. He’s almost human. Any thoughts that sanity might reign in the Arby household were forgotten when we found the girl standing in the living room at 10:30 last night, wearing nothing but toe nail polish and a smile.

“Hello, little girl, where are your clothes?” I asked.

“I took them off,” she replied, spinning in a circle. The twinkle in her eyes indicated that she was wide awake, ready to play, and enjoying her nakee-ness.

A little food helped put her in a sleepy state. When we brought her to bed we discovered that she had set up camp on the floor of her bedroom to play. She had a small TV on for an illicit viewing of Kipper the Dog. During a recent rearranging of stuff in our house, we tossed a small TV and VCR in the kid’s room, more out of a lack of anyplace to put it than a desire to allow our children to have a TV in their room. There is no television reception in their room, so this was only for children’s VCR tapes. We really do not want our children to have either TVs or computers in their own rooms, and this one is going to find a new location in our home today.

Captain Chaos understands stealth. I have no idea how long she was awake before we discovered her streaking upstairs. I suspect a long train of blogging topics is just below the horizon, heading my way!

10 comments:

Teacher Mommy said...

Ah, yes, the nakedness. DramaBoy is quite comfortable in his own skin, thank you very much, and has no problem displaying his goodies to whoever's around.

Fun times.

I feel ya on the humor thing. I'm feeling the lack myself...

CrossView said...

As long as it's Kipper, it'a all good! I love that show! Though I never have stripped to watch...

Unknown said...

You might want to try it, Crossview. According to the Captain, it makes Kipper a whole lot more fun to watch!

Kathleen said...

Awww...what a cutie pie. At least from a reader's vantage point. I imagine from your perspective at 10:30 at night it might not be as adorable.

My boys are quite stealthy. I often find huge new Lego creations in the morning that weren't there the night before. (Note to self: Get a dimmer nightlight.)

Brownie said...

Red is always stripping. Now that cooler weather is here he has limited his stripping to indoors. He also likes to run after big trucks and tractors - and since we live in the middle of several big fields.... well, he made one farmer's day; unfortunately it spread quickly around town that Red runs naked after tractors.

Anonymous said...

Ah yes, the joys of being naked. Should you be thankful that she's not changing clothes 17 times each day and putting each of those into the dirty laundry basket? My girls have determined that my lot in life is doing laundry-and trying to match the fifty socks that seem to not have any matches. That's my life right now, but I fear with a two year old, my days of naked kids are far from over......soon I will have mountains of dirty clothes and a streaking child in the house.....bring it on.....as soon as I buy more laundry soap.
Michelle
www.eagleeyeacademy.blogspot.com

Linda said...

I have one too. Cooler weather, still stripping. Diapers are apparently, all the rage, and all that is needed for 2 1/2 yr old girls.

Know what you mean about the 'nothingness'. Nothing much going on my head or house, that's for sure.

TobyBo said...

LOL. The Queen of Stealth, Miss Dog Lover, lives in *my* house. She is almost 14, going on 4 or 5. When she was a toddler, we called her Houdini. We never took her farther than the pediatrician's or Wal*Mart (both about a mile from our place) and she could be stripped naked in the 5 point harness by the time we got there. I never have figured out how she did it.

Unknown said...

Toby, you win. The Captain is not worthy!

Kellie said...

If you're having those kinds of thoughts, then it's time for you and the Boss to have another. If you'll remember, in the entry when I announced my pregnancy, I said something to the effect of "Just when you think you might run out of blog fodder someday...." and then the picture of my positive test. = ) I think you should name it Private Pandemonium.

Thanks again for your prayers....much appreciated!