I believe. . .

There are angels among us, sent down to us from somewhere up above. They come to you and me, in our darkest hours to show us how to live, to teach us how to give. . . .

That song has been in my head for the last two hours because I was served by an angel today! Actually I could argue that I have seen angels almost everyday in the last couple of weeks, particularly the last couple of days; which is awesome, because I have really needed them!

I'll start with today's adventure. Today was one of those days where at 2:00PM I was still in my PJs and hadn't brushed my teeth, yick. It all started last night. See, Bentley doesn't really sleep at night. . . and as much as he doesn't sleep on most nights. . . he really didn't sleep last night. He was all congested and sad and inconsolable. This made for a rough night for me. What was really sad was that when he finally fell asleep (at about 6:30AM) our fire alarm batteries died, or started dying, which resulted in a repeating chirp from our fire alarm. Is there anything more annoying than that high pitched continuous noise, I think not. Blaine must have fixed it when he left for work (thank heavens!). So I was finally drifting off to sleep at about 8:30AM when Gwen sprang into my room (I couldn't help but envy her obviously well rested body and the energy and zeal that came with it), "Waaaaake uuuuup Mommmmy!!! Wake up little brudder!!!" "It's not time for sleeping, it's time for breakfast!".

I drag myself out of bed. The brother starts screaming as soon as I set him down. I pretend I don't hear (I am surprised that I can still hear at this point due to the continual screaming that was happening all night long). We get down stairs and... we are out of Lucky Charms. This may not seem like a big deal to most of you. They really are magically delicious to Gwen, so magical that she refuses to eat any other kind of cereal (we have Dora cereal folks, that says a lot!). Anyway, so after all this stuff the doorbell rings. It is my visiting teachers. I am in my robe. I guess I should be thankful that at least I had on a robe!! They were so nice to come and we had our usual chaotic visit. For some reason Gwen is very anti younger children these days. So she wouldn't let them play with her toys or come within a ten foot radius of her. Then the brother started screamin' again. Wow.

Anyway, the day carried on this way. Finally at 4:00PM I was ready to go to the store. Just a few necessities. That's all. I was gonna get in, get out and get on with my real life! An hour and half and an entire cart full of groceries later I was in line at the checkout. I had a very delicate balance going on with the brother. He was in the sling, but I haven't quite learned how to get him in there securely yet. Needless to say, getting the groceries onto the conveyor belt without dropping the brother was a challenge. He had been so good the whole time we were shopping, but right as we got to the checkout he started wailing. Screaming. Ehhh. How was I going to make it through the checkout process and to my car, and home and unload the groceries. I didn't have enough hands and I feared that I did not have enough patience.

I was in the checkout lane for eternity. The checkout gothic. . . I mean girl, was not pleased at the ruckus. By the time I had all the groceries back in the cart Ben was a big mess in the sling and not happy. I had to hold him with one arm (pretty sure the point of a sling is to free up both hands, whatever); which left me with one arm to push our 500lb cart and to keep Gwen from being hit by a car. She refuses to ride in a cart [I have to note though that she does AWESOME usually at staying by me, I just worry as we walk through the parking lot]. Have you tried pushing a full grocery cart with one arm, it's hard on its own but with the two additional children, wow.

So I was thinking wouldn't it be nice if someone from the ward would walk by and help me. It wasn't even really a prayer or anything. When I get to my car this man (who looked a lot like Doc from Back to the Future) approached. "You look like you could use some help" (I am sure he meant "it SOUNDS like you need some help" since the brother was screaming still). I practically burst in to tears as he took my groceries and put them in my cart while I buckled the kids in.




He will never know how much that meant to me. I will vouch for him in Heaven.

And you Ralphie, will not know how much it meant when you made me dinner the other night (and the ten thousand other things you have done for me recently)

And you next door neighbor whose name is John I think, will not know how much it meant that you trimmed our tree for me yesterday.

And Blaine won't ever know how much it meant to me when he didn't go to Scouts last week because I needed help.

And Gretchen, thanks for shaking all of the fire ants off of my shoe yesterday while I was standing in my car crying like a baby!

And so on, and so forth.

Here's a shout out to all of the angels in my life!


P.S. Just to note-- I stepped in a fire ant mound yesterday. About ten minutes later I accidentally rolled up the window and smooshed three of Gwen's fingers in it. I am on a roll!

P.P.S. I love Bentley, he just is a little noisy sometimes ;)