This Sanctuary has Come Undone!

Crushed red pepper flakes, shards of glass, toothpicks... all just signs of the madness that was to come to my Sanctuary on Sunday morning.

McClaine wakes, screaming at 7:30 am. My sweet husband retrieves McClaine and his siblings, that he managed to wake, and takes them all to the playroom so I can continue to sleep. Caleb can do this, he has a supernatural ability to sleep on our horribly uncomfortable couch, with three children crawling on top of him and that dang "Hot Dog, Hot Dog, Hot Diggety Dog" song blasting in the playroom. He has the safety gate up, I am sure, otherwise I would have been woken by more children than just Avery.

And she was so sweet and quiet when she came in, that I hardly woke from my sleep to nod incoherently, that she could heat up my corn bag in the microwave. People, I was nearly unconscious, that is the only reason why I gave my four year old daughter permission to put the sock filled with deer corn (that when microwaved for 2 minutes brings deep relief to my aching muscles) into the microwave. So I doze back to sleep, and Caleb continues to sleep through Little Einsteins.

12 minutes later I wake to the smoke alarm going off and what smelled like a movie theatre burning to the ground. I run out of the bedroom, frantic and disheveled, and find Caleb looking just as confused and dazed standing at the open microwave door wondering what in the heck exploded in our microwave. So he unplugs the microwave and I proceed to explain what I thought had happened.

8:20 am, we have a plan... I will take a quick shower and he will feed the kids breakfast so we can make it out the door to church on time. 8:28, I am out of the shower and hear Caleb yelling for me to help. Audrey's diaper had exploded, and apparently he needed assistance because he was making french toast and it was burning on the stove. French Toast, delicious, thoughtful and a HORRIBLE choice when you only have 35 minutes to get 5 people out the door. So I run into the kitchen in my towel, pull the pan off the stove top and pour three bowls of cereal while Caleb changes Audrey's diaper. Then I run back to my bathroom to dry my hair and put on my clothes.

Avery is screaming. Screaming. "Sit down, Audrey. You better sit down. Daaaaaaaaaaaddddddddddy, Audrey's standing up in her highchair. Daddy, Where are you?"

Great question. Where the heck are you and how hard is it to feed the kids three bowls of cereal? So I run again, hair half-dried, only in my undergarments into the kitchen to find...

AUDREY STANDING ON THE HIGHCHAIR TRAY! One foot dangling on the edge, clapping her hands at her proud accomplishment of escaping the straps, the tight tray and climbing on top of the slippery tray 4 feet above our tile floor. I grab the crazy toddler and proceed to run around the sanctuary looking for Caleb. I finally found him out in the back driveway and gave him the look of a crazy woman, "What are you doing?"

"I am trying to extinguish your corn bomb!"

Apparently, when Caleb closed the microwave, it continued to smolder, and smolder, and smolder. When he noticed that smoke continued to spill from the microwave, he took it out. Immediately the oxygen aroused fire, so he threw it out in the back driveway, where the winds caught the mild flames and it combusted into a huge corn bomb. All the while, Audrey is attempting new acrobatics over our tile floor.

9:17, all three children dressed, loaded in their car seats and the White Family leaves their little sanctuary, smelling like they barely escaped a popcorn volcano, to go worship the Lord at a more peaceful and fresher smelling sanctuary...