AARGHHH!!!!

People ask me all the time, “How many kids do you have?” And I usually reply without skipping a beat, ” I have six if you count my husband.”

This morning I got the shock of my life. No I’m not pregnant…again.  At exactly 5:36am this morning (give or take a few minutes) I turned on my kitchen faucet and got shot smack-dap in the face and chest with water.  As I stood there dumbfounded and still half asleep, I tried to figure out just why the faucet was misbehaving.

It took me a whole ten seconds (with the water shooting me in the face the entire time, btw) to realize that it wasn’t the  faucet who was misbehaving, but someone else in my family.

Seems  that particular someone thought it would be funny knock down hilarious to put a rubber band around the sprayer nozzle, locking it in the ‘open’ position.  Which, when the water was turned on, would  spray the poor, unsuspecting  fool with cold water.

Now given that this joke was extremely juvenile in origin, I had two choices as to who the trickster was: my husband or my twelve year old son.  Seeing as how my twelve year old wasn’t hiding around the corner or sprawled out on the kitchen floor laughing, I narrowed it down to my husband.

Sure enough as I entered the bedroom dripping wet, my husband—the guilty party— sat up in bed and began laughing….uncontrollably, mind you.  When asked why he would do such a thing he replied,  “It was either that or ketchup packs under the toilet seat.”

Yes folks, I have six kids living in my house.

Building 429 concert

The kids and I had a blast. As it turned out, I entered a contest and won tickets and backstage passes to see the groups playing.  You’ll notice that I’m not in the  picture above even though I did not take it—I  politely (and quite haphazardly I might add) photo shopped myself out of it. I don’t photograph well  and I can’t stand looking at myself.

The band members pictured above are that of Building 429, Kimber Rising, and one or two members of After Edmund (who were a hoot, by the way). The kids are all mine except for one. She’s my daughter’s friend and the recipient of the extra ticket that I had. My middle daughter opted out at the last moment.

I couldn’t believe how hard it was to give that ticket away; nobody wanted it. At the end of an hour of making phone calls trying to find someone who wanted to go, I felt like a bad mother and a person with no friends.

One mother (and a close friend of mine) told me they didn’t allow their daughter to go to concerts. Even though they’re Christians and listen to Christian music, the band we were going to hear played too secular for their taste.  She declined the offer and ticket.

The mother of the child who did go didn’t make me feel any better either.  She asked me what time the concert was due to be  over at and I told her about ten for sure. ” You let your kids stay up that late on a school night?”  I explained that this was a special occasion and that usually my kids are in bed by 8:30.

After some discussing with her husband, she consented to let her daughter go.  I didn’t know at the time, but it was the child’s first ‘real’ concert she’d ever gone to.  She was so in awe that we got to meet the band members that she was still talking about it the next day my daughter said.

The kids enjoyed each of the bands, but mostly they enjoyed After Edmund.  Those guys are absolutely wild!  My kids kept screaming out, “Did you see that? He jumped off the speaker!”  I was surprised by how good they were too…musically that is. As a mother, watching them jump around like  that and off things made me nervous.

I still enjoyed Building 429 a bit more though—they’re my favorite and I’m a bit biased. It never fails to amaze me how down to earth these guys are.  I know they’re just people with a really cool job, but they seem so genuine and sincere  in their  belief of God and family.

Holding back his tears of his own, Jason Roy (the lead singer), brought me to tears  and just about broke my heart as he explained the meaning behind the song Always and how personal it was for him—especially the last set of lyrics to the song.

All in all, we had a good time.   Rumor has it, Casting Crowns is coming soon—sponsered by the same high school who brought us 429, but I can’t seem to confirm that.  Hope it’s true!  I’d love to hear those guys.

(Did I forget to tell y’all that I took several hundred photos during the concert and not one of them came out? I even had a lady approach me at the end of the concert, giving me her business card, explaining that she wanted copies of the photos.  Seems that my camera is about had it, I guess. I can’t explain why it took fuzzy photos the whole night.  I’ve checked everything and all the settings.  You know, I just thought of something. Maybe it’s not the camera but my eyes that are going bad……. but that wouldn’t explain why the group photo above didn’t come out clear. I didn’t take that one.)