From the Chronicles of Ma Glo

The day started strangely.
I laid in bed while four rambunctious children alternated jumping, yelling, and kissing me. Grant with a Nerf gun and foam missiles turned my peaceful bedroom into a war zone. I opened my mouth to still the uprising and I ended up with a Nerf missile sticking out of it. The kids found this incredibly humorous. Grant had liquid laughter running down his face.
"It was just like the three stooges!"
Dave and I finally evacuated the troops and proceeded with our day.
At breakfast Ma Glo called and told me she'd take a couple kids with her to the store. This, my friends, is grace. For most of you, like myself, do anything short of crime to avoid the stress of taking young children in the grocery store. My mom sacrifices her sanity willingly to give us some time to get stuff done.
The next issue was who got to go with her. Rose was a given. Rowan and Grant both claimed it was their turn. Avonlea turned her big brown eyes on me and said, "I've never gotten to go Mom."
It was true. She stays home dutifully every Saturday and cleans the bathrooms and the floors with me. The balance swayed in her favor. I told her she could go after she finished her work.
Mom, Rose, and Avonlea set off blithely, and I gave them a lunch list.
Three hours later, I called to tell Mom that if they came home and found us all unconscious, it was from food deprivation.
She, however, was in no mood to hear about it. She was still in Whole Foods and had been stressed in the worst way. She told me about it, graphically.
They had gotten to the store to find that she had forgotten her purse at home.
They came home and got it.
Pulling off the freeway, on the way back to the store, a car side-swiped them.
Mom and the driver rolled down their windows and Mom ordered him to pull over on the side of the road. Avonlea claimed that she had been scared but at this point she got excited, "Because I knew there would be a scene!"
The offender turned out to be a 17 year old guy who wasn't paying attention (sound familiar?).
My mom had her full mother-bear nature roused by this time and began with the intimating statement, "Do you know why we're not dead? It's because the blood of Jesus is all over this car!" A feeble apology and a questioning glance at the blue car did not suffice. "Those are my granddaughters in the car! You could have hurt my granddaughters!" Feeble apology. "Are you a Christian?" Answered in the affirmative. "You'd better be if you're going to drive like that!"
There was quite a bit more in this same vein. I'll spare you.
Finally they got to the store and Mom was a walking time bomb of stress and strain. She waited at the deli counter and saw people working on things behind the counter, but no one helped her.
She raised her voice and yelled, "Is anyone going to help me?"
Here is about where Avonlea decided she was content to stay home and clean toilets.
That night at dinner we expressed our gratitude to God for the girls safety and Avonlea added, "And please help that poor boy that hit us."
Maybe we should pray for the deli guy, too.
I have a feisty Mommy.