Snack break from the heavy bites I've been dishing out!

    I’m not an octomom anymore, I’m a chartered bus driver for my kiddo’s, only I don’t get paid. I could say I’m an Uber driver, but I don’t get Internet orders, just text ones. If I’m not picking one up at her Dad’s and bringing her to work, then going back a few hours later to transport her back to her Dad's, fetching her from her tennis matches, then I’m picking another one up from choir practice, or play practice, or bringing one of the three younger ones to either a friend’s house, girl scouts, or cub scouts. Basically, I schlep kids around. The only tips I get is an occasional bowl of ice cream cake fetched for me. When my children were little, it was an endless eternity of butt-wiping, nose cleaning, consoling, arbitrating, dishes, sweeping, vacuuming, all while homeschooling, nursing an infant or toddler and/or while pregnant. The only thing I stayed clear of was, of course, vomit. That was their Dad’s job.

     One dreadful evening, after my husband had already abandoned us, my poor number four had the worst of the stomach bugs that plagued the house, imposing itself on all my kiddo’s. My darling daughter was maybe fourteen or so, and now, I I was trapped, having to deal with vomit as a single mother. The poor dear was retching so bad, she could barely take a breath in between the projectile spouts of her stomach contents. I didn’t know what to do. I did what any good mother who couldn’t be near vomit would do. There I was, practically crying for her, about seven steps down in the stairwell, yelling up to her whilst in the bathroom, leaning over the porcelain bowl, “Honey, are you okay? Can you breathe? Sweetie, I’d be there holding that beautiful thick head of shimmering chocolate brown hair back for you, but if I did, I’d be vomiting all over it with you!”

     The poor dear, in between retches tried to say, “That’s okay, Mom, I know.” My oldest is twenty-nine, the next one is near twenty-five, number three just became legal at twenty-one, number four lives with her dad, so, the only one home are fifteen, twelve, ten, and eight. They are extremely independent now, and can vomit on their own without their mama. They are on clean-up by themselves, also. They close the door when they get sick so I don’t have to hear or smell it, and I just yell from my bedroom, under my covers, “Are you okay?” They assure me they are. Many times, they’ll get up in the middle of the night, do it, and somehow manage to not even wake me. Occasionally, they’ll mention it delicately to me the next morning when they ask if they can stay home from school. They even clean their own mess if they don’t make it to the bathroom, including washing their sheets.

    I used to work full-time at a pharmacy, but my now important role as their Uber driver was getting in the way of my writing and studying. Something had to go, and it wasn’t going to be my gift, or my kids, so, I turned in my name tag, hugged all my regular customers goodbye, and I’m now a part-time Uber driver for my kids and a full-time writer/Bible student, just waiting for the LORD to decide it’s time to go on the road for Him, as opposed to just for my kiddo’s.

     My kiddo’s are extroverts, thriving in school, getting straight A’s. They got their flair and funny from me, and their brains from their dad. Their dad is extremely generous when it comes to child support. Basically, he dumps all his money in my account, lives off what he needs for rent, utilities and food. I consider my life quite idyllic now. I get to do all that I love to do, read, write and study. My kiddo’s had to learn to cook for themselves when I worked full-time, and I’m not about to change that, now that I have a good thing going. They’ve been doing their own laundry since they were tall enough to reach the knobs on the machines. I got tired of rewashing their clean clothes in their hampers, or finding all my hard work strewn across the floors of their rooms, so I learned early to let them do their own.

      My job besides being their personal chauffeur is to always be available when they want to tell me what happened at school, the latest cafeteria gossip or squabble, look at their artwork, laugh at their Snap-chats, or advise them on righteous living with lots of love and grace sprinkled in for good measure. We sing and dance together in my room, we laugh and are the best of mom and kid buddies that we can be, when I’m not taking away their devices for some infraction or infringement, like sneaking this or that. They always get caught, they should know by now that God is watching them all the time, and He finds a way to let me know when they are doing what kids do, try to get away with as much as they can, before they lose their device for a week or so.

     How I ever managed when I had seven in the house at one time, plus a husband and four cats is simply beyond me, but compared to then, I’m living a dream life, now. So, am I extremely contented and happy beyond all imagination? Heck no, there is that one little thing that I simply must do before I leave this planet, and that is to be a lighthouse to those drowning in their seas of despair. I serve a BIG God, so if He ordained it, put the dream in my heart, stuck me in the refiner’s fire with the heat turned up seven times the normal, crushed me, humbled me to the point of horrifying embarrassment, I suppose He can use me as a vessel to change at least one person's world.

     So, what’s the point of this particular entry in this blog? Simple, I’m here to tell you that you can live in the valley of the shadow of death for nearly three decades, drown in a sea of tears and despair, call out to our God daily, stay the heck away from vomit, and eventually, God will put you out there and fulfill the purpose for you that He had ordained since before the creation of the world. You just have to do one little four-letter word, W-A-I-T. It will come, in God’s time, in God’s way, and there is not one thing you can do to speed it up, unless you want to make a complete fool of yourself. Been there, done that. I think I’ll wait!