Night Owl, Jr.

Headed off again this weekend for time with family. This time to send off the Drs. Netteburg to preparatory time in France for their 6-year Mission Service to Chad, Africa (French is the nation language of Chad). * You will soon be able to follow their adventure -- and learn how to make donations -- @ http://www.missionarydoctors.blogspot.com/ (I suggested several much more "creative" names but apparently they thought this would be more appropriate!).

After dropping Olen, Danea and Lyol (with 3 full, exactly 50 lbs. checked bags and 7 carry-ons) at Dulles Airport, Kerm, Charity, Ben and I headed to Staunton having left Toby & Seth with Ronnee to make sure all got on the plane -- Charity had received 2 tickets to see Garrison Keiller and had invited Kerm to go with her, so we needed to get Ben and I home, them the tickets from the house and on their way. Gamma and the big brothers arrived about 15 minutes later, had some supper and headed to bed where Gamma had promised to read them a story, which left me 40 minutes to get Ben to sleep before the Sunday Night Football game between the Cowboys and Redskins. Ye--40 minutes later, Ben and I sit down on the couch to watch the game! After several more failed attempts to get the kid to go to sleep, I started thinking that his mother would probably be home soon and waiting on her might be the best solution. That was until I received a text from my father-n-law at 9:00 PM that they were just at intermission of the "concert" that had started at 7:00 PM and was 45 minutes away. 2.5 hours later my 1.5 year-old was still chirping around, happy and awake as could be--as long as no one was trying to get him to sleep. Praise God for Gammas who feel stronger about grand kids sleeping than enduring the blood-curdling screams of a very stubborn child that doesn't want to go to bed. After 17 long excruciating minutes, Gamma re-emerged victorious, though the pathetic sounds of a now sleeping child still rang of disrupted breathing patterns as he tried to recover from the hyperventilating scream-fest. Mom walked in the door 30 minutes later.

Of course, he was up before the sun!

If you are wondering how he "re-charged," it was with the grand total of 2 baby spoon bits of baby mush, 5/6th of a banana, a football shaped Oreo (from his brother's uneaten lunch) and about 2-tablespoons of ice cream!