We hada rough night last night with Bradey. He was running a fever most of the day (around 100°-101°). We’re not sure from what/where, but we know Logan was also running a fever Sunday night after leaving here.

Anyhow, Bradey just didn’t want to go down. He was crying and had no interest in laying his head down. We finally gothim calmed down a little after 12:15am & I had to get up with Taven about 1:00am because he was having bad dreams (undoubtedly due to the hours of screaming earlier in the night).

Now on to the strange title…

I rarely remember dreams. I specifically recall many years in a row where I could not remember a single dream. Anyhow, I woke up this morning remembering the strangest dream. In all kinds of detail (even more unusual since I usually just remember fragments).

I was leaving a doctor’s office with Melisa and 2 old friends from high school (I haven’t seen these friends since high school in real life). We got in a large car (LOTS of room inside), and I shared the news… I’ve got a ham infection in one of my lungs and that lung was going to have to be removed. I even had some sort of pamphlet that I handed them (maybe this was a common infection?). Apparently I inhaled a piece of ham while eating a ham sandwich and it got lodged in my lung.

I remember we were out of town, or at least some where unfamiliar, and for some reason we sought help at a near-by church. Some how we had heard of a bible study there and thought we’d find some kinds of answer there. It turned out to be a huge Catholic church with the bible study meeting right in the lobby area outside the doors to the sanctuary (where people are all walking around at this time too…???). So we meet the priest leading the study and I try to tell him why we are there, but he hushes me & shows me to a seat (in a small group of about 10 or 12 including the 4 of us).

We start off by a couple of people telling their sad stories, and I remember thinking, “Those aren’t so bad! What do you mean your relationship with your sister could be better? I’m dieing here!”… I think it was probably about 30 minutes of this & we were praying over each person (not having reached me yet), and I look up to see my friends gone, then I see Melisa get up & sneak away. Before she got to the doors, she motioned for me to sneak out too. I did & remember thinking “this was the biggest waste of time!”.

That’s the last thing I remember.

I’m not sure I believe all dreams have some hidden cryptic meaning , but if this one does, I’m a little creeped out by the delivery method (the contents of the dream).

Welp, it was one of those weekends where I was almost happy to get back to work.

It wasn’t really bad or anything, just busy & crazy.

Saturday we got up & went up to 121 to join in on the church’s first Saturday Serve. This was a specific time for people who are not currently serving in another regular fashion to show up & be used to serve other people in the DFW metroplex. There were 4 organizations we were dividing up to serve this Saturday… Mission Arlington, Grace, and a couple of others I don’t remember… (Doh).

Anyhow, Melisa, Taven, Bradey, and I went to Mission Arlington to help out along with a couple dozen more 121ers. We ended up in a group that went to an Arlington apartment complex & handed out Mission Arlington event calendars. We also scouted for kids & invited them to join us for games & story telling at the playground.

We (the Smith clan) were delegated to hang out around the playground to greet any kids who made their way there and start up whatever activities we felt appropriate.

We showed up about 10:40, and by 11:40 no kids had come by & the rest of our team was making their wat to the playground. It felt good to be where God was asking us to be & serving the local mission effort, but we ended up feeling like we were only able to half-way accomplish the goal since no kids came around. (The primary goal here was to distribute the calendars with a secondary goal of reaching out to any kids we ran into).

Anyhow, after this, we went to Mimi’s Cafe for lunch. It was Melisa’s birthday and she loves Mimi’s Crab & Avacado Omlet. The kids hadn’t had their typical morning naps & “room-time”, so they are a bit restless, but we make it through lunch mostly unscathed.

Then we have a little down-time while the boys nap and Melisa gets ready to go hang out at a friend’s (Katie Brymer’s) baby shower.  Katie’s husband, Ryan, was headed over to our house to hang with me & the boys while the wives did their thing too.  I enjoyed hanging out with Ryan & look forward to growing that relationship.

Anyhow, it was a busy day. Then on Sunday …:

• Went to church
• Justin, Brooke, & Logan came over to watch the boys
• Melisa & I went out to grab a quick bite @ Taco Cabana
• Went to the Rave Motion Picture theater to watch Underworld: Rise of the Lycans
• Came home right as boys were getting up from their naps
• Tim & Penny came over to celebrate Melisa’s birthday (Big deal, they rarely come over for more than 20 minutes at a time)
• Watched the latest episode of Fringe snuggled up with Melisa
• Got up 3 times with Bradey in the middle of the night (teething…)

It’s now Monday & I’m looking forward to the next weekend.

Taven is finally starting to go to bed a little easier. Ever since we upgraded him from a crib to a twin bed (originally because he would crawl out of his crib anyway) he would stay up, turn on the lights, and play with anything he could get his hands on (including the bedroom door!). Well, it’s been about a month and he has been staying in bed the last few nights after we lay him down. YEAH!

However, last night, he started SCREAMING about 90 minutes after we laid him down. Melisa & I thought “maybe he fell out of bed”, so we ran to his room to find him still in bed & screaming his little head off.

Night Terrors…

Poor kid. He’s had maybe 5 or 6 night terrors before. He sounds like he’s mad, yelling & screaming mostly non-sense words & frustrated sounds. He whips around so much that I have to hold him some just to keep him from falling to the floor or beating himself against the wall. He gets even madder (is that even a word?) if I try to hold him tight, so I have to just lightly hold him ,but that means I’m getting beat up in the process. Ug… Anyhow, he usually seems aware enough to know we’re there & when one of us leaves (like if Melisa walks away). He can even say “NO” to just about any question we throw his way (ie “Do you want some water?”, “Do you have a boo boo?”, “Do you want up with Daddy?”, “Do you want to go night-night?”, etc…)

From time to time he would say “Want some water”, but then throw a fit if we actually offered it to him… He’s not fully aware of what’s going on or even what he’s saying… He’ll eventually end up just crying & saying more non-sense things & he’ll finally start winding down. By this time he’s usually having a hard time breathing because he’s so tired from the screaming, so I’ll just lie there holding him in his bed until he stops crying and he’s able to breath more evenly & then sneak him back onto his pillow for the rest of the night.

Last night it was about 45 minutes from the first scream to finally laying him back down (9:30 to about 10:15)…

You feel so helpless & there really is nothing you can do for him but sit there mildly restraining him until he finally wears out & goes back to sleep. Melisa definitely takes it harder than me… She wants to do anything he says (even though he doesn’t realize what he’s saying) and she wants desperately to just hold him tight & stroke his hair (niether of which gets a possitive reaction out of Taven in the middle of all of this).

Sadly, all we can do is keep him from getting hurt & wait it out. Ijust thank God than Bradey was able to sleep through all the noise. It gets that much harder when both boys are going…

25 Random Things About Me

1.) I’m anal about some things (like the formatting of text documents)

2.) I could care less about other things (like whether or not I “disinfect” when I “clean”)

3.) My nickname, “Mas”, originated because I didn’t want to go by “Tom”, but still wanted an abreviation of my name “thoMAS”

4.) I like multi-tasking, but only if most of the tasks are related to things I like doing… (like techie things, go figure)

5.) I’ve worn size 10.5 shoes since 9th grade

6.) I’ve been around 6′-2″ since 9th grade

7.) I gained 45 pounds in High School (I went from tall & skinny to tall & not quite so skinny)

8.) I played the Bari-Sax in marching band in High School

9.) I’m allergic to cats & dogs… (But I grew up with 2 of each…???)

10.) I have a deep rooted desire to start my own business

11.) I don’t have the guts to start my own business

12.) When I pass an empty business suite (building, strip mall space, etc…), I think about how I would set up my own business in that space… (I told you it’s deep-rooted)

13.) I’ve been in at least 6 car accidents (that I can remember). 3 were my fault.

14.) I consider myself a hacker. (See definition here: http://catb.org/jargon/html/H/hacker.html)

15.) Favorite quote by yours truely: “I may be crazy, but I’m not insane!”

16.) I love free stuff… I even signed up for about 20 different “samples” one day when I found a consolidated list of sites offering free samples.

17.) I was diagnosed with ADD (attention deficit disorder) when I was in elementary school

18.) I made it to the State-level tournaments in High School wrestling my senior year

19.) It’s taken me 2 days to get this far on this list…

20.) I’m a pack-rat… My poor shed in the back yard is starting to swim in “projects” that I’ll get around to some day

21.) I greatly dislike my current job… Maybe that’s why I’m writing this list instead of working right now…

22.) I use ellipses too much… … … I use them as a sort of writen “pause” or to add suspense. At least that’s how I justify them.

23.) My past jobs include: Neighborhood Lawn Service, Arcade attendant, Office Depot stocker, Applebee’s waiter, CAD Drafter, CAD Manager, IT Guy

24.) I did runway modeling for about a year

25.) I procrastinate so bad, some times I don’t even get around to finish thi

Well, it was a busy weekend…

I painted the backsplash in our kitchen. This was my first go at doing a faux-finish, so it took a little longer than I had hoped, but it turned out OK.

Oh, then Taven fell out the window.

We had the front window open to help vent some of the paint fumes & Taven was running around after his nap. Melisa was playing with him & I was feeding Bradey in the kitchen… The next thing I know Taven was running toward the front window (which he’s used to leaning on to look out) & I see his legs flip over as I run & dive out the window after him while Melisa is freaking out  can’t get the front door unlocked to get out there to him.

We were all freaked out a bit, but he was OK. Just a little scrape on his chest where he hit the window frame before flipping down to the ground. Of course, as soon as he calmed down enough to run around again, the first thing he does is go over to touch the screen… Stubborn kid…

We’re still trying to recover from Melisa being gone last weekend.