God never ceases to amaze me.  He knows just the special way of turning a family out of a bickering slump.  Yet it always comes in a surprising manner, doesn't it?  God is so consistently original!  This time for our family it had to do with two little critters (hamsters) we got by special delivery from our friends the Firnhabers. 

 

Because the Firnhabers couldn't make it to a pool party we were hosting we had a missionary host family (the Burcham family) fostercare the critters for one night and then deliver them safe and sound to our party.  Thank you Burchams!

Our kids were SO excited.  They named them Luke and Ben for Luke Skywalker and Obi One Kanobi (sp?).  We put them into our yardsale purchased cage, set it all up and said "good night" into their bright piercing eyes that were staring back at our smiling faces. 

 

Well, during the night "Luke" (now A.K.A. Houdini) escaped!  The next morning I heard kids frantically moving furniture and bickering with one another in a nervous way.  "Boys, did you take them out?"  "Were they both in there last night?"  "Move!!!"  "Don't open the door, if he's in here he'll get out!!!"  Etc.  I yelled to our daughter Abigail from bed, "How are the mice?" (I keep calling them everything but hamsters - lol)  There was a long pause before she said, "Ben's o.k." then she skimmered away.  I knew something was up.  I got out of bed to investigate.  I was instantly pulled aside and told, "Sshh...don't tell Dad but Luke is missing!" 

 

My hubby Brian is scared of mice (he would prefer I say he "has issues" with mice) and was already being extremely gracious in allowing the kids to have the critters.  They knew he'd be wigging out.  So the search began.  Eventually Dad found out and to the surprise of everyone assisted by not saying anything negative and speaking encouraging words like, "He's probably up inside a wall or something.  He'll come out later."  (lol)  That was more than they expected!  And on Father's Day weekend too!

 

Well, the search continued all day with false alarms and sad faces.  A call to my good friend Stephanie reassured me that he would eventually come out if he got hungry enough.  I passed that info onto the frowning children but they kept their nervous vigil of peering under furniture and turning things upside down all day.

 

To get away from it all we took Dad out to dinner at the Olive Garden and things seemed to turn around.  We forgot our troubles for a while, stopped all the blaming and the interrogating of each other and began acting like a family again.  When we came home we all snuck into the dark house, "quiet as mice" to see if we could catch Luke scurrying about but he was no where to be found.

 

So, we decided to watch a family movie.  It just so happened that "Cheaper by the Dozen" was on.  It's PG but we knew when the bad parts were coming so we blocked them.  Our kids kept saying, "What's wrong with them?"  "Why don't they help their parents?"  "Why don't they help each other out?"  "They're so mean to each other."  Mom said "They need God in that family."  At the end of the movie was the climax - kid's pet frog dies, he runs away, everyone realizes they've been being mean and short with each other and they need to act like a family.  Just then, our Joshua says "Guys, I think I just saw Luke!"  Further investigation consisted of our son Jacob shoving his face under a VCR cabinet confirming that indeed it was the little escape artist!!!  The critter quickly scampered under the dryer which weighs a ton (no joke!) and the following hour consisted of the McQ clan working as a unified team to coax him out. 

 

Abigail worked topside duty on top of the freezer armed with a flashlight, providing us with an aerial view of Luke's whereabouts at all times.  Jacklyn, Jacob and Josh formed a human blockade around the scene, allowing for NO escape.  Mom used tools to scare him out and navigated the rescue operation with Madlyn nearby for the catch.  Dad made more AWESOME surprising contributions from behind the emergency line, getting flashlights, measuring tape and speaking more encouraging words ("Don't let him fall in that hole that leads to the crawl space")  and even cheering at the final capture by Madlyn's quick hands. There was one final scare when we realized a door had b een taken off the cage after we put him quickly back but we were able to get it  in place before he made another breakaway.

 

I think our ending, complete with hugs and high fives and loving, encouraging words being spoken to each other, provided a much better ending to the night then the REAL movie family we were watching on TV.  It reminded us all that we are a unit who really loves each other and loves to work with each other- we're a team from the top on down.  We enjoy each others company and love sharing our tragedies and our triumphs.  Best of all, Dad got to sleep in late on Fathers day reporting that he "slept like a baby because that mouse was back in the cage." 

 

Happy Father's day everyone!!

Entry 5 of 15
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