At age 3 1/2, L says things daily that make me pause, smile, or laugh out loud. Here are three cute ones from today.

As I’ve mentioned before, I’m a casual girl. Jeans and fleecy shirts are my staples this time of year. But for church today, I dressed up a little. For me, that meant an actual skirt. I had on a red sweater, a courderoy skirt, and black leggings.

L’s first comment (after asking me what type of clothing my skirt was, since he so rarely sees me in one) was: “Mommy, why are your legs a different color today?” He seemed very interested as I explained the concept of tights. (See? I told you I’m casual.)

After he had processed the fact that I was dressed so differently this morning, L pronounced over breakfast, “Mom, you are very dressful today.”

At first, I thought he was telling me I was stressful today, and I was wondering what, exactly, I had done to stress him out before 8:00 a.m. But it turns out he was just commenting on how very fancy I was.

Dressful. I like that one.

Finally, we were wrapping up our evening by enjoying some yummy cookies that had been given to us. I asked L whether he wanted a Peanut Butter Blossom or a Buckeye.

After thinking about it for a few seconds, he made his choice.

“A butt-guy.”

He couldn’t figure out why the rest of us were laughing so hard.

After I could finally breathe again, I gave him a Buckeye and then helped him pronounce it correctly. Who knows what the preschool teachers would think when he announced that we ate a lot of butt-guys over the holidays? Better to correct that one ASAP.

It was just a normal Sunday morning. Well, mostly normal.  Chad had to teach Sunday school during the first service and I had to be on hand to help run the technical equipment second service, so we needed to get out the door a little early…to get everything set up.

No problem. The kids get up early anyway, so heading out the door around 8:10 isn’t hard on anyone except the one person in this house who is not a morning person.

[Note: That'd be me.]

[But it's okay -- I'm used to living with a houseful of morning people.]

[And dragging myself out of bed early.]

Just as we were about to walk out the door, the phone rang. It was Chad’s brother, who was calling to inform us that on their way to church, they had pulled out of their driveway and promptly slid right down the hill they live on.

Icy conditions, to put it mildly.

We loaded the kids in the car and pulled out, thinking that maybe things were just wet out our way.  Wishful thinking.

The first thing we noticed was a car that had run directly into the yard across the street from us and had been abandoned. Strange.

The next thing we noticed was that we were sliding down the hill that we live on.

Yeah. Icy conditions.

Let me pause here to say that I grew up in a place that was…um…snowy. It started snowing in November and we usually didn’t see much of the ground again until April. It was good for the local ski resorts, but not so pleasant for drivers at times. I learned to drive in snow. I learned to expect salt trucks to come out and make the driving easier.

But roads completely coated with ice? With no salt trucks in sight? Not so much. I don’t do ice.

If I were the one driving, I most likely would have accidentally landed our car in a ditch, and attempted to ice-skate walk the kids home. It would not have been a pretty sight.

But I’m happy to say that Chad is a much better bad-weather-driver than I am, and although he doesn’t particularly like driving on ice either, he can do it when he needs to. And since we had to get to church, he kind of needed to.

Church is normally 15 minutes away. Not yesterday, though. It took us about 45 minutes to get there. We crawled through back roads (the better to avoid oncoming traffic), attempted to steer clear of hills (not easy, since we pretty much live on, near, and surrounded by hills), and listened to the persistent accompaniment of anti-lock brakes fighting the ice.

Chad focused on the driving, mastering the skill of letting go of the brakes enough to get traction, while not allowing the car to go careening down a hill or around a curve. The boys stayed (mostly) quiet in the backseat, after firm instruction from me that Daddy Needs to Concentrate So Please Do Not Speak.

And me? Well, here, I’ll let you guess what I was doing:

A. Helpfully telling Chad that if he wanted to go super-duper-slowly, that was okay with me. And if he wanted to stay off the road with a curvy hill and no guardrail, I’d be cool with that too. Also, trying not to be so “helpful,” because he was really doing a great job and he knew what he was doing.

B. Holding my breath, and holding onto anything within arm’s reach with a death grip.

C. Praying that we would make it to church, and possibly praying that God would keep all other traffic off the roads so that those crazies wouldn’t run into us.

D. All of the above

(The answer is at the bottom of this post, but you’ll have to turn your monitor upside-down to read it.)

The bottom line is: we made it. Chad was awesome, I managed to not pass out from breath-holding, and the boys (who might have been a teeny bit stressed as a result of the tension oozing from my pores) were glad to see us pull into the church parking lot.

Needless to say, things were pretty quiet. Many people did not make it to church, due in part to the fact that local highways and other roads were shut down as fender-benders happened at an alarming rate.

Chad taught a handful of kids. And throughout the church, the people who had made it in all had exciting (or scary!) stories to tell about their drive.

It was kind of a bonding experience, actually. We were Those Who Conquered The Ice And Made It To Church.

We were also Those Who Were Really Hoping The Roads Would Be Better For The Drive Home.

They were, of course. The temperature rose a few degrees, allowing most of the nasty ice to melt. And the salt trucks — whose drivers had been just as caught off guard as the rest of us by this sudden freaky icing of all roads — had made their rounds. It was nice to drive home at a normal rate of speed.

It was even nicer to collapse on my bed for an afternoon nap. Holding one’s breath, and holding onto parts of one’s car with a death grip is exhausting. Or so I hear.

The local meteorologists were all saying they’d never seen anything like this in our area — the suddenness and extensiveness of the ice. So I’m hoping that means it won’t happen again any time soon. And I’m praying for those who were involved in the fender-benders yesterday, whether they’re dealing with injuries or just the insurance hassle that goes along with car bumps and bruises.

And…I’m telling Chad “Thank You” one more time — for keeping your cool, putting up with my craziness, and handling the ice so well. Love you!

ǝʌoqɐ ǝɥʇ ɟo ll∀ ˙p :ɹǝʍsu∀