The Real Story

Now that I have blogged Tyson's special day I only find it fitting and therapeutic to write what happened to make that day a special day. Now before you read this just know that none of it is fabricated or exaggerated. It all happened exactly as I am writing it.
My best friend Cindy was so kind enough to offer her services the day before the baptism to help me get ready. She came up to my house on Friday and the kids went swimming and then they were going to football so she came to my house about 5:00 to help clean up and cook. Before we got started we called in some take out food. As we were about to leave she couldn't find her keys and she was parked behind my car. We started looking frantically and blamed the boys who were at football because we couldn't find them anywhere. I had also lost my cell phone with the coaches number. We looked for an hour and a half. Finally I borrowed a car and left Cindy at home with Wyatt, London, and Crew. She was going to make the poppy seed bread. While I picked up the food I got a phone call from Cindy saying that the kids had gone crazy spilling blue Gatorade all over the kitchen floor, had markers running around the house and there was mysterious green paint on the carpet. And to top it all off she had left out a few ingredients in the poppy seed bread and only realized it after it was in the oven for 15 mins. So I quickly ran to the grocery store to grab more ingredients. As I walked in the door I saw Cindy holding her eye. When I asked what happen she said the vacuum handle came off the vacuum when she tried to pick it up and it hit her in the eye. She also quickly told me about her adorable son Crew (2) who was loving baby London so much that he hit her in the face with a book. I turned around to see London who was falling out of her car seat on to the floor. Cindy did tell me some good news, she had found her keys after she bribed Wyatt with a quarter to tell her if he put them anywhere. He had put them in a special place at the bottom of his electric Thomas the train. Cindy gave him a quarter then he put it in his mouth and ran around the house. Cindy had to tackle him down and tell him if he didn't spit it out the doctor would cut it out with a knife. Hey you have to do what you have to do, don't judge. We took a deep breath and decided to take our food outside and eat before we tackled this huge mess. We were outside for a minute when the boys came home from football and we went inside to meet them. As I walked into the house I smelt an overwhelming burning smell. I suddenly realized what had happened. I have an upper and lower oven and I had turned on the upper oven to cook the first batch of poppy seed bread. When Cindy made her "oops" she turned on the bottom oven to pre-heat for the second batch. Little did she know that earlier that day when I did all my food shopping and I mean ALL my food shopping, I had put the food in the lower oven to hide it from my boys so they didn't eat it. There were donuts, bagels, muffins, breads and all the plastic that was surrounding and protecting this food was now securely melted to it. It was a laugh or cry moment and it was really hard to choose which emotion was going to win. We frantically tried to save what we could. We still need to eat so we went outside again and ate a few bites while watching Cindy's son Luke ride our little electric motorcycle. It is a rule that all kids have to wear a helmet while driving. I looked at Luke and saw that the helmet was just sitting on his head but not buckled. Luke is, well let just say not the most coordinated. I told Cindy, "Luke doesn't have his helmet on and he is going to fall" As soon as the "L" left my mouth sure enough Luke had skidded on the pavement and the helmet went flying as his body became road rash. We took Luke back inside to start the clean up and start another batch of poppy seed bread. By this time it was dark and we noticed it was way to quiet so I went to look for the two little boys and saw them riding down the middle of the street on scooters and suddenly a car was headed their way. I ran into the street waving my arms and yelling as the car with the teenage driver came to a screeching halt. Thank heavens the boys had made it safe inside. We bolted down the house so no one could get out and started the cooking process again. Meanwhile I was supposed to be making a slide show, writing a talk on Tyson and preparing food for 100 people. It was about 10:00 p.m. now and suddenly the older boys were hungry again. We started to make a second dinner which made me forget to set the timer and the raspberry bread came out too early and the inside caved in, not to mention the 3 degree burn that Cindy got on her arm while trying to pull the bread out of the oven. I finally sent Cindy and her adorable 3 boys home about 11:00 that night after I went on and on thanking her for all of her services. The great thing is we pulled it off and it was a really great day. I just think it is funny how most of us don't know the real story. Sometimes when we look at peoples lives it seems so smooth and normal but when you look a little deeper everyone has a story and this one was worth sharing. If any one is planning a large and important event in the upcoming days I would be happy to give you Cindy's number and rent out Wyatt for the evening. One thing is for sure, it guarantees a good laugh.