murphy’s law and 911 calls

I flew home from Arkansas last night – I had an incredible time at the Idea Camp.  It was an amazing and comprehensive look at orphan care, and there were so many inspiring speakers, most of whom are running NGO’s that are doing amazing things to keep children from becoming orphaned in the first place, and then to serve the children who have been abandoned or who have lost their families.  A sobering statistics: less than 2% of orphaned children will be adopted. I am still unpacking everything I learned and will write about it soon. Even though I was only in Arkansas for 42 hours, I still missed my kids like crazy.  They managed to have quite the dramatic weekend.  Why does this stuff always happen when I am gone?  Last time I left, our glass slider shattered on Jafta, leaving a gaping hole in the living room during the rainiest week of the year. Karis managed to top that Friday night by putting two coins in her mouth that got lodged in her throat.  Her airway wasn’t completely blocked but they were stuck and she was gagging – so Mark was doing trying the Heimlich with no success and ended up calling 911.  She coughed out the coins while he was on the line, but they had already put out the call, so in a few minutes an ambulance, a police car, and a fire truck all showed up at the house.  Of course, the bigger kids were thrilled to have so many “community service professionals” show up at the door. Apparently earlier in the day Karis found a glue stick and applied it to her entire face like a sunblock stick.  She also put it in her hair.  So Mark had fun washing that off. I think they are conspiring against me so that I never leave town. Mark did tell me that he was tempted to take a picture of the kids getting stickers from the firemen, but that he thought maybe it was inappropriate to do during a 911 response.  I told him he was right, and that he should have done it anyway. He did managed to get this cute shot of them: They went geocaching.  A lot.  They managed to find their biggest treasure yet: a box with a batman toy and a shark.  The boys were thrilled.  I think we’ve found our thing.