Better than I could have planned, part 1

Have you ever spent lots of time planning for something you hope will turn out great, and then it works out to be not as much fun as you had hoped? It seems that one of the great ironies in life is that often, no matter how much we plan, things never quite turn out the way we had hoped.

But sometimes they turn out much better than we ever could have planned.

Yesterday I had a very busy day, and I had a plan -- church in the morning (very early morning, I was there before eight for a rehearsal), go home after church as quickly as possible to take a nap, run to Target for bobby pins, get ready for the Christmas banquet, go to the banquet, sing in various languages, go home.

My day didn't quite turn out like that. It turned out much better.

After church I went to say hi to Joy, and she offered to let me hold Lucy, I thought about it for all of .00657 seconds, and I ended up holding her for a while why Joy ran around and did all the stuff you can do much more efficiently when you don't have a baby strapped to your chest. Then Lucy had a small explosion in her pants, so I went with Joy back to the nursery so she could change Lucy and we could keep talking.
I had never been in the nursery in our new building before, and I had no idea I would end up spending as much quality time there as I did. Remember that small explosion I mentioned earlier? Well, she ended up with *ahem* shrapnel all the way up her onesie (and all over the changing table), so she had to have a whole new outfit. Joy, being the responsible and prepared mother she is, had some spare clothing, so she changed Lucy, who then immediately spit up. I am pretty sure her spitup has magical powers, because it ran down into her onesie and somehow managed to get all the way down her sleeve and onto her hand.
Lucy had been fussing a bit, and Joy said that the milk factory girls were telling her it was time to feed, so she sat down to nurse her, which would have been lovely had Lucy not decided that she did not like her new outfit and would express her displeasure by pooping. Again. All the way up her back, onto the onsie, Joy's pants, and one of the couch cushions in the nursing mother's room. The girl has talent. By this point Joy and were laughing so hard I thought I might need a diaper too. So off go the outfit and the diaper again, out come the wipes since no hose was readily available to hose her down (would have been more efficient), Joy wiped her down, not only to get off the poop but also the spitup that she had managed to get all over her, and no sooner was she all wiped down than....


wait for it...



She spit up. Again. And managed to get it not only all over her face but down in her ear. Fortunately she wasn't dressed yet. More wipes to the rescue. Then we dressed her in another outfit (that's number three for those of you keeping score) and thought we were going to finally get to leave. Until she started the hungry cry again, and Joy realized that the feeding had been cut short by all the poop drama, so she sat down to nurse her again. No problems this time, and we thought we were in the home stretch. After Joy finished I was holding Lucy so Joy could get her stuff together when I felt a rather disconcerting feeling on my arm, and I swear I heard a splash. Yup, you guessed it, spit up again, this time all over the floor and my arm. More wipes, and a phone call from Brian wondering if Joy had been eaten by a troll or something later, we were finally ready to go.

The final casualties:
Changing pads: 1
Couch cushions: 1
Adult clothes:2
Onesies:3
Baby pants:1
Carpet:1

Minister's kids. Trouble from birth.

Tune in tomorrow for part 2!