Dilemma

So I found myself to be part of what felt like an "I Love Lucy" episode yesterday. Between Katie and me we had all five kids on the Fast Track mini bus with 15 minutes to spare before the service would be starting. Don't know if you have ever been on the Willow Creek Community Church campus but it is huge, much like a college campus. It pays to be strategic on which door you enter...

I volunteered to take Denver (7), Maya (5) and Isaiah (3) to their classes for Promiseland so Katie could take the twins to the infant Promiseland. Isaiah had already announced he had to "poop" so time seemed to be of the essence. We flew into the building straight to the closest bathroom. Denver waited outside the door since it was a ladies room. One minute, two minutes, three minutes...no movement if you know what I mean. Poor Isaiah would say he was almost there, then nothing. I am going back and forth checking on Denver with Maya holding Isaiah's stall door closed...

Five minutes, now ten minutes, no coaxing was going to make this go faster. At the 15 minute mark, Isaiah is a little weepy. I suggest we take Maya and Denver to their classrooms and find another bathroom to resume the task. "No, I've got to go.." By this time I finally decide to send out a God SOS. And thus, Dorothy appeared! She was hearing our bathroom stall conversations, and had seen Denver and now Maya waiting patiently outside the door by the water fountain. (That had all sorts of visions of waterplay going in my head.) She said "I'm a grandma; can I help?" Yes! She stood guard outside Isaiah's stall after introductions; I ran, literally, with the other two to their now beginning classes. Running back up the stairs and flying into the Ladies' Room, Dorothy tells me she thinks the mission has been completed! Hooray! Back down the stairs to Isaiah's class, back up to church. It took ten minutes for me to cool down from my Willow Creek workout.

I know some will think I never should have left "Mr. Constipated" with my new friend Dorothy and maybe I shouldn't have. I need to work on a new strategy for future nature calls. Of course, the adventure didn't end there. Maya left her purse in the Promiseland Lobby. So while daughter Katie with five kids in tow and son Chris with his two little sons took off for a local restaurant, I went back for the purse. This adds up to eight trips up and down the levels of Willow and yes, there are elevators but that's for wimps! At the restaurant where we are well known for our family, and often complimented for how well behaved the kids are, we had a great breakfast, and the comped Bloody Mary was a nice little reward for the mornings activities. It actually was pretty easy to get over an older lady a table away who had been casting hostile glances at our troop of seven kids and three adults. Too sad she didn't know the same joy that these moments bring me. Life is meant to be lived in the moment. Pass it on.