Loves

We're watching Animal Planet and a commercial comes on for a new extreme fishing show and...

Samuel: I LOVE this show!! I LOVE THIS SHOW!
pause
Samuel: I haven't seen this show before. But I LOVE this show!
Krys (giggling): What is it about the show you love?
Samuel: The FISHING, Mommy, the FISHING!!!!

Regrets

The first regret is that one day my boys will read this…

Now the second. Every few months we go through the boys’ toys and sort into donate and trash piles. One particular toy, a stick horse, landed in the trash pile about 7 months ago due to its state of existence, i.e. the stick had broken in two places and the duck tape/popsicle stick band aid simply wasn’t holding together anymore, not to mention the neighing noise box no longer “neighed” and stuffing was falling out of busted seams.

The horse, named “Horsey” by Samuel, had been a birthday gift a year earlier from Nana, and he had loved it, but I honestly hadn’t seen him play with it for a few months, so I hesitated for about 2 seconds before my brutal purge moment tossed it into the trash box. Samuel never even noticed. Later when the boys were sleeping we hauled the box down to the dumpster and chucked it in without a second thought.

The next night at dinner we bowed our heads and Samuel insisted on praying. He starts out a “Dear God” in his sweet little voice and then goes on with, “Thank you for my horse.” My head JERKS up and I stare at another shocked face (who will remain nameless to protect her identity – but she was a partaker during the purge party). “My horsey has a boo-boo. Thank you God. Amen”

Dinner really just sucked after that. As soon as we got home we sent Brian to the dumpster to fish out Horsey, and we were determined to “fix” him. He came home horseless saying that the dumpster was completely full and there was just no way he could find him. My “partner in purge” and I went down the following day ready to pull every last thing out of that dumpster… however a ridiculous encounter with a wild fox sent us running up the hill (a story for another day). The next day, the dumpster was empty.

Samuel prayed for many weeks about Horsey, always just thanking God for him and his boo-boo. I felt AWFUL. EVERY. TIME. Eventually, FINALLY he stopped.

Until tonight.

“Dear God. Thank you for my horse. I can’t find my horse so I need to get a new one. Thank you for God. Amen!”

If you need me today, I'll be horse hunting.