Mother's Day aka Things We Lost in the Fire

My Mother's day post will come in two parts. First, the one I planned to write:

It's Mother's Day, and I hope you've all taken a moment to tell your mothers how wonderful and special they are. I'm not just going to tell the moms in my life how wonderful they are, I'm going to blog about it, and tell the whole world (or the 10 or so people that will actually read this) how wonderful they are!
Matt and I are lucky. We have awesome moms. The kind of moms that are there for you, no questions asked, through thick and thin. And boy, are we thankful for that. There have been many, many times in our marriage where things have happened that we looked at and went, "Uh oh, what are we going to do?" Appliances have failed, enormous unexpected expenses have arisen, the kind of stuff that keeps you awake at night wondering how on earth you're going to handle it- and Pat has rescued us. More times than I'd like to admit, she has saved the day. But she's not just good for bailing us out of tight spots- she does so much for us. She babysits our boys and gives us much-needed nights out, she's looked after our pets, sponsored home-decorating projects, and given our boys and our family opportunities Matt and I couldn't have managed on our own. We love her, and we are truly grateful from the bottom of our hearts for all that she does.
And then there's my wonderful mom, who is my friend, confidant, therapist, advice guru, wise sage in all areas of etiquette and child raising. I go to my mom with every question, worry, triumph and failure. And so do my sisters. Whatever she did raising us, she must have done it right, because not every mom is completely revered by their grown children. But my mom rarely goes a day without talking to all three of us, usually more than once. And when I've got free time on the weekends, I'm usually spending it with my mom- there's really nobody I'd rather hang out with. Not because I'm that pathetic, but because she's that awesome.
So yeah, when it comes to moms, we are seriously blessed. We really hit the mom jackpot. It sets the bar high for us to follow. If our children love us when they're grown like we love our moms, we will have done something right!


So that's the sweet post I intended to write. But here's the true story of what occured this Mother's Day......

Part II- Things We Lost In the Fire....

Sinner that I am, I don't make it to church that often. But I was going today to help my mom. She had to do fellowship (a fancy church term for setting out the doughnuts and coffee before church) and my dad was going to be out of town. Paige and I didn't want our poor mother to be alone on Mother's Day, so we went to give her a hand. Things were going along swimmingly- the coffee was perking, the doughnuts and mini muffins were nicely arranged on trays- then Mom tried to heat up some water for tea....
It shouldn't have been that hard. There was a kettle sitting on the stove. Mom filled it with water and flipped on the stove burner. I went to set some trays on the table, and returned to the kitchen to smell burning plastic. "What's burning?" I asked, and we all turned to see smoke coming from the kettle and flames licking at the bottom of it. Holy crap, the kettle was on fire. Mom panicked (I won't tell you what she said, but it was definitely not appropriate for the house of the Lord.), yanked the burning kettle off the stove and threw it in the sink. But it was too late. Clouds of acrid white smoke were billowing into the kitchen, and there was a ring of charred, melting plastic smoking on the stove. Turns out, it wasn't a regular kettle. It was an electric one that sat on a hot plate, not on a stove. So the hot burner had melted the rubber bottom and burned the electrical wiring underneath it. Awesome.
It was inevitable that the smoke detectors would go off, and boy did they!! Quite frankly, I was just relieved it didn't trigger the fire sprinklers! The minister and assistant minister rushed in to try to air out the room and stop the shrieking alarms, but they weren't having much luck. Mom refused to come out of the smoky kitchen because she was dying of embarrassment (and trying to scrape burned plastic off the glass-topped stove) About that time, the fire trucks showed up. Yup, that's trucks, not one, but two fire engines, lights blazing, showed up.
Once they determined that an arsonist in a pink dress wasn't trying to burn the whole place down, they shut off the alarms and brought in huge, industrial fans to clear out the smoke. About that time, people started arriving for church, and coming into the kitchen to see what the heck was going on. My poor, mortified mother claimed that she was going to have to leave town. Luckily, everyone found the whole debacle hilarious (especially Paige and me!)
The one remaining concern was the charred plastic-encrusted stove top. We were afraid that thing was a complete loss. Thankfully with a couple of plastic mesh scrubbie things and a LOT of elbow grease, we got it all off.
Once that stove was shining like new money on a bear's behind, my mom could finally start to laugh at the absurdity of the situation. No one was hurt, it was hilarious, and it certainly made for a Mother's Day we'll never forget (nor will any of the church members.) Best part- our town is so small that the police blotter lists any events where emergency vehicles are deployed, so this will be in next week's paper. I just hope they include her name....