Forward Motion

One of the items Luke requested for his birthday was “a real first aid kit.” I was happy to oblige, and found him a splendid 299-piece kit with a zip-up case.

He also requested “a real Swiss army knife,” which, after some thought, I decided he was probably old enough and responsible enough to use wisely. His Destructo-Boy years are long past, thank goodness.

Predictably, getting the hang of the Swiss army knife soon necessitated the use of a band-aid or two from the first aid kit. I think Luke was delighted to have such an early opportunity to put his kit to use, and he’s kept it at the ready ever since.

I’ve spent the past few days tackling a long-neglected section of the yard where random objects have been piling up for ten years — on top of all the crap that was already there when we bought the place from an old woman who was apparently unable to throw anything away ever. It’s like an archeological dig. I kid you not, I found an actual gold pocketwatch at the bottom of one pile the other day.

Anyway, there’s this heap of old scrap lumber out there that I’d been sorting through until I unearthed a wasps’ nest; then I moved on to other junkpiles and resolved to address the lumber/wasp situation very soon and then kind of never did. Because I’m ON THE BALL that way.

So today I was carrying an armful of historical finds to my “stuff that’s probably worth keeping” pile behind one of the sheds, and being just a smidge preoccupied of late I forgot all about the wasps’ nest and walked right over the top of it. Naturally the wasps took umbrage at this, and swarmed up angrily around me, and one of them stung me on the arm.

My first thought was, “Wow, Luke will be so happy about this.”

I jogged into the house and called, “Luke! I need your first-aid kit, I just got stung by a wasp!”

He flew into the living-room at Mach 3, practically quivering with excitement. “Stay right there, Mom, I’ll get the stuff!!” He rifled through the kit until he found a packet of “Insect Sting Relief,” tore it open and carefully swabbed my booboo with the little medicated towelette. Gotta say, those things really work; a half-hour later you couldn’t even see where the sting was, and there was just some minor itching.

Luke felt so invigorated by this incident that he pulled out his new chemistry set and asked me to help him find something complicated and scientificky to do with it. Not feeling terribly gung-ho about the yard-clearing at that point, I agreed. We flipped through the little experiment guidebook and found a recipe for…CHEMSLIME!

How cool is that?? Luke is calling it his “Pet Blob.” I’m just glad he doesn’t have carpeting in his room, because you know that thing’s going to…

…and as I was typing that, Luke called me into his room with complaints that his Blob was “getting all over everything.” Yes indeedy, looks like I’ll be washing bedding tonight.

Still? A good day. We’re having more of those lately; just a general sense that life is getting better and forward progress is being made. I think I’m actually going to accomplish my goal of having the entire property cleaned up and organized by the end of the year!

I’m not quite out of the tunnel yet, but I’m definitely seeing some light up ahead.

Just going to keep on walking till I get there.