I was thinking about calling this blog entry “The day of blood and toilet water” because that is what it is about.  That pretty much describes my Tuesday.  Blood.  Toilet water.  Sure, there were other things in the mix, but those will always be the events that come to mind.  Let me explain…Tuesday is our “Monday”.  Because Jamey and I are pastors, our weekends are busy, so we have Monday as our family day (day off).  So, Tuesdays are the day we are getting back into the swing of things.  It is especially busy because on Tuesday mornings my parents come over.  This is a great blessing!  My parents were both teachers and my mom comes and does a special school unit with my three oldest, while I do preschool with my three and four year olds, plus my four year old niece.  And, my dad gets to connect with the kids and he does stuff around the house for us, too.  As I said, it is a great blessing.  However, we still have all our regular school stuff to get done too, so after they leave our afternoon is quite packed.

This Tuesday, we had a little hitch.  My parents were over and I decided to take my dog out real quick.  (My dad is a dog’s version of the circus or amusement park or something. They love him and get really excited around him.  Really excited.  So excited that they often lose control of themselves, if you know what I mean.)  So, before anything got too crazy, I wanted to take Toby out.  As I was putting the leash on him, I realized that blood was splattering all over.  Toby’s tail was bleeding and while thankfully it didn’t hurt him, his happy tail wagging was splattering blood everywhere!

If you have never met my dog, it may help to understand that he is a huge Golden Retriever.  Possibly the biggest one ever.  So, this wasn’t just a little mess.  I quickly got him outside (where he promptly peed on our front step as I was calling to my dad).  He continued wagging his tail and blood was going everywhere–all over me, my house, our step and sidewalk, the snow in the yard, my dad as he came out to help me try and see what was wrong, etc.  Have you noticed some red streaks or splatters in your yard?  If so, it’s probably from him.

The good news is that there was apparently nothing seriously wrong with him.  The bad news is that it took a while–most of the day and into the night, actually–for him to stop bleeding.  So, a considerable time was spent cleaning up blood.  Thankfully it wasn’t too cold outside, or scrubbing the blood off the siding would have been completely miserable. (There still is some blood on our concrete sidewalk that I couldn’t get off. I’m wondering if I’ll raise any red flags by doing a “getting blood off concrete” search on google.  A friend suggested I put some police tape in our yard as a joke because of the crime scene look it has had.  I think “Practical Joke Gone Awry!  Innocent Woman Spends Months in Jail” stories probably aren’t funny for a loooong time to the people they actually happen to.  I’m not willing to risk it.)

So, anyway, it was an exciting morning…that stretched into afternoon.  Somehow we were able to finish our school work just in time to eat some dinner and get ready for bed.  Since we had an early morning the next day, I wanted to make sure to get the kids in bed on time.  Unfortunately, a 20 minute phone call put me, once again, behind schedule.  So, when I got off the phone, I quickly put my three and four year olds in the tub.  With no time for them to play, I washed them up real quick and started to get them out of the tub.  During this time our one year old had wandered in, stood by the tub for a couple minutes, then toddled away.  I didn’t really think anything of it. Until…

(Until.  Isn’t that such a terrible word sometimes?  Ominous in some settings.  Like this one.)  Until I heard some splashing.  I had just gotten one of the girls out of the tub and was about to help the other who was standing in the tub with her towel around her.  There was no water running.  Why was there splashing?  And laughing?  I looked around, and…maybe you’ve already guessed…our one year old was splashing toilet water all over herself, giggling.  If she wasn’t going to be allowed in the big tub, I guess she thought she’d find her own.

Now, this is gross enough.  But, again, let me explain.  We had a problem with our toilet a while back.  It had gotten fixed, but the new parts made it more difficult to flush.  You have to kind of hold the handle down a second to make sure it actually flushes.  The kids aren’t so good at this all the time. Thankfully, THANKFULLY, the water she was splashing was clean!  But, I didn’t know that at first.  Plus, because of this issue, I had started using those tablets that turn the water blue.  So, she had toilet water with chemicals all over her.  (Just for the record, she thought it was great. She was giggling away!)

As quick as I could, she was in the actual tub and washed up.  Crisis taken care of.  I got the three youngest tucked in bed, read with the oldest ones, then went to tuck them in.  As this was happening, one of them said, “Mommy?  I should have told you this before, but…” and proceeded to tell me something that, yes, they should have told me before.  So, another mess had to be dealt with.  Finally, all important matters taken care of and kids tucked in, I sank down on the couch to talk on the phone with my hubby (who had a late night at work and was just on his way home).

It was quite the day.  However, do you know what our home was filled with on Tuesday?  Laughter.  A lot of it.  Our home is usually filled with laughter.  It isn’t that we don’t ever cry or allow times of mourning.  But, we have discovered that laughter is truly a gift.  When we laugh–at ourselves, our circumstances, and so on–discouragement and stress are broken off of us.  It connects us together as a family, knits our hearts together.  Laughter is an amazing thing.

And it doesn’t just help in times of dog blood and toilet water.  I remember a time when our home life was stressful. (This was before we had children.)  Jamey and I were struggling in our marriage, yet we would still laugh together.  It was a beautiful gift to help us get through that time.

I also remember the healing balm it was during my first miscarriage. I ended up in emergency surgery in the middle of the night in an Air Force Hospital in Germany.  After the surgery was over, Jamey was laying in bed with me in my room and I saw the end of the bed moving.  There was something making it go up and down.  I asked Jamey what it was.  He looked at me and said, “You!”  I argued with him, after all, I was not moving, but simply laying there.  He just looked at me and laughed.  Pretty soon I realized that he was, in fact, correct.  I was moving the bed.  My legs were actually moving.  I just didn’t feel it because my legs were so numb from the epidural given to me for the surgery.  We laughed and laughed.  And, when we did, some of the grief broke off.  Not just temporarily, but the laughter was a true healing balm for both of us.

I could go on, but I’ve already taken enough of your time.  Let me close by challenging you to make laughter a priority in your home.  People sometimes remark to me about the peace they experience in our home.  There are many reasons for this, but toward the top of the list is our value for and ability to laugh in the midst of all kinds of circumstances.  So, the next time you feel the stress rise, what should you do?  Laugh.  And then laugh some more.  You and your home will be happier for it!