God Bless the Body-Snatchers !

So yesterday, after we managed lunch at the Chinese Buffet that invariably gives the whole family a wonderful new form of dysentary ( the Good one was closed :-( ) we made an amazing realization . Tonight was the night Vacation Bible School (VBS) was set to start at our new parish !

Now our parish is uber-small , so the children there are munchkin and a nice little six year old boy named Eli. So a week worth of the two of them making sock puppets and singing Jesus loves me would still get her out of the house for a while, but it would royally SUCK for her. Thankfully our small town of Mayberry is resourceful ! Therefore our parish combines with the Methodist and the Lutheran congregations to form one BIG VBS together . This is awesome since those congregations are far larger than our own so there would be KIDS yea ! ( just in case you didn't know, activities involving other children are the highlight of an only child's life) So far , this is a win-win here :-)

So we decided to pack up our frustrations and leave the buffet in order to go home and prepare her for VBS.

At last the magical hour of 4 pm arrived and it was drop-off time ! Yea !

After navigating my way through the catacombs of First United Methodist Church I eventually located our Priest who pointed me in the right direction. Excitedly she skipped off down the hall to make new friends.
Ecstatically I skipped of through the parking lot to go spend some LONG overdue alone time with my husband.

Sunday night was supposed to be our first date night in like 2-4 months or so , but our sitter gave us the ole' "no call, no show". Thank God for VBS !  Just in the nick of time ! Woo Hoo ! ( gives the term saved by Jesus a whole new meaning I'll tell you ! :-)

We chittered and chattered like a couple of little school children all the way home we were so excited ! We hadn't been alone in so long we hardly knew what to do with ourselves !

That said, by the time 8 pm came and we had to go and pick her up , we were starting to miss her. We even brought her a pineapple shake from Sonic because we felt guilty for leaving her for a whole 4 hours :-(

Not long after we made it home, Munchkin looked up at me and said something that truly took my breath away.

" I realize now that we can't play until the work is done, and you have an awful lot of work to do."

Holy Crap ! I have been trying to explain this to her for the last month ! Longer !  I was in awe !
Then, just as I was starting to feel like I was in the Twilight Zone, it got even weirder !

" Can I help you with your housework so we can play later ?"

This knocked me Shock-Jawed completely. Insert theme from Twilight Zone here.

Not one to complain, but who are you ? and what have you done with my unruly , oppositionaly defiant , willfully disobedient and smart-mouthed child ?

All the same, I am SO not one to look the proverbial gift horse in the mouth. So after i pried my jaw off the floor with a spatula, we got to work .

She collected trash from around the house !

She even took the trash out to the can with me ( this has NEVER happened before ! )

She helped unload the dishwasher !

Helped put away the dishes!

Collected the dirty laundry !

Helped put away the clean laundry !

Put all of her laundry away by herself !

I was so elated I couldn't help but hug and kiss and go crazy on her every time we finished a chore !
IT IS NEVER LIKE THIS AROUND HERE !

She even helped Hubby collect his newspapers and get them to the recycling bin .

I was beside myself with joy and awe !

BY this point it was getting pretty late, but I was determined the playing part was still going to take place, she had done far too much to not get her reward .

Her instrument of choice, MAKEOVERS !

She did her own of course, which really looked pretty good.

and then she did mine. . .

ehhhhh, not so much .

The end result was somewhere between if Liza Minelli and Tammy Faye Baker had a drug-addled and brain dead love child, and the clown from " Spawn ".

Either way you dice it . Atrocious.

Hubby held up admirably and did not laugh ( at least not while she was in the room , anyway) and told her how pretty she looked and what a good job she did on Mommy.

Some day soon it will be his turn , and I will get him back . . . oh yes . . .

After about 20 minutes of scrubbing i managed to get my face back to normal.

Munchkin however fell asleep in her makeup , and refused to wash her face this morning ( back to normal, I see )

and now its almost time for us to go collect our little 3 foot tall drag queen Dolly Parton from VBS.

I can't wait to hear what the teachers have to say about this . . .