The Sacrifice of Thanksgiving

I had a post of laments queued up, but I've consigned it to the virtual dustbin.

People have come out of the woodwork this weekend to tell me about their run-ins with CPS. Every story is worse than ours, because ours has the virtue, if you will, of being so easily, obviously explainable. There are a few horror stories in the comments of the CPS post. A friend whose children have hereditary dental issues told me of how a new hygienist at the orthodontist's office called CPS about the condition of her kids' teeth while my friend was at the office, working out payment plans for treatment. Someone else said that his son's school called CPS because his son would eat his packed lunch on the way to school and then complain about having no lunch. Some had stories of vindictive family members reporting them. All in all, we're very fortunate.

We've had a wonderful, busy summer. Our theater experience was marvelous, marred only by the fact that Darwin, who put in so many hours watching the little ones while we were at practice, barely got to see the show at all because of a certain 2 1/2 year-old boy who spent most of the performance chatting loudly in the lobby. But Darwin doesn't seem upset by it, so I won't be either.

We are getting ready to go on family vacation in the beautiful Shenandoahs with my dad and all my siblings and all the nieces and nephews. My family is a source of delight to me, so this is a long-anticipated treat.

We're getting ready to install a new toilet in the kids' bathroom, and new lighting in the princess bathroom. This sounds small, but it's actually YUGE, considering that I've had the lighting fixture sitting in a box for a year waiting for me to call the electrician.

I'm going to finish Tristram Shandy, which I've been trying to read for more than two years.

...And the kids are all yelling that the baby has just spilled a bottle of green ink all over himself (and his new shorts), right before we are to leave to go get tested for our homeschooling notification. God is good. God is always good. I need to keep telling myself that...