Life Lessons

Have you ever had one of those weeks when life lessons just keep hitting you upside the head?  It's been one of those weeks for me.  And honestly, when I learn this many lessons, I've just got to tell somebody.  Feel free to escape before I get on my soapbox.
First - kids are CRAZY on sugar.  It was Connor's fourth birthday, and as the birthday boy, he got to choose his meals for the whole day.  Breakfast was cinnamon rolls and hot chocolate.  Lunch was a peanut butter and honey sandwich, carrot sticks, potato chips, and juice.  Dinner was homemade chicken nuggets and fries and chocolate milk.  Dessert?  Peanut butter ice cream pie, complete with Oreo crust and chocolate syrup drizzled over the top.
Can you tell my son doesn't usually get sweets?  But boy howdy, he sure knows exactly what he wants when he does get 'em.  By the end of the day, he was bouncing off the walls in a frantic, giggling blur.  The next day he was dragging, his head drooped down to his knees when we went out for a walking/shopping trip for his birthday party the next day.  He was whiny and tired and flat-out grumpy.
No wonder.  Justin and I have decided that the reason our kid is usually so well-behaved is we keep him away from junk.  Now that we've seen the results of a sugar high, we are quite determined not to relax our rules.
Second - for anyone out there with boys, I highly recommend Bringing Up Boys by James Dobson.  I don't agree with Dobson's doctrine on some crucial points, but the man has parenting wisdom.  I now understand my boy better.  From Dobson's book, I've also had my eyes opened to some things about American culture.  That's one of the bonuses of living in another culture; things that I've always taken for granted about the way we Americans think or do things are suddenly things to be considered; these are not things that are universal.  For example, over-committing of our time.  It is a huge cultural thing that I didn't realize until it jumped up in my face.  In our culture, we look at someone who is always busy, running from one activity to the next, with great respect.  I hear about someone's packed schedule and immediately think oh, well, they're very impressive and what an important person they are to be doing so many things.  I have free time, so I must be lazy or slacking in something.  What's amazing, though, is this is a fairly recent development -- people used to take time to sit on the front porch in the evenings, to play more with their kids, to not have to schedule their family in to their day.  Mercy.  Thus, I have resolved to say NO more often with greater finality and keep time open to "train up my child in the way he shall go" without making it seem that he is inconveniencing me.
Third - and the final one, I know I'm losing my audience here - fridges are not as hardy as they seem. The day before Connor's birthday party, I did all the prep work.  I made a cheese ball (the bare-fingered squishing of cream cheese to mix in seasoning/onions/bell pepper is not my favorite thing, by the way, especially when Justin starts talking about body organs while my hands are full of sticky mush) and a few pounds of chicken salad, started rolls rising overnight, and had a couple dozen chocolate cupcakes cooling.  Finally, I decided that instead of buying juice, I would be SuperMom and make lemonade myself.
This was a bad idea.  I squeezed 16 lemons.  I now know exactly what arthritis will feel like in fifty years.  This particular recipe called for ginger, which I thought was exotic and exciting.  You bring water, sugar, and sliced ginger root to a boil, then turn off the heat, add the lemon juice, and let it sit for 15 minutes.  Take out the ginger and let it chill.  Voila.  It was super important to let it chill overnight because we have exactly 28 ice cubes at a time, which is definitely not enough for a houseful of Americans.
So.  I followed all the instructions, let the lemonade cool a bit, then poured it into whatever containers I had available (not many, it was annoying) and put them in the fridge.  No big deal.  Tired after a full day of teaching and shopping and kitchen-ing, I kissed my husband goodnight and collapsed into bed.
I woke up at about 6:30 when Connor padded past our bed to the bathroom.  He wanted to stay up, Justin said it was too early, I rolled over and asked him what time it was, he said 6:30 and oh, by the way, you broke the fridge.
I usually have a tough time waking up in the morning.  I jumped out of bed at that sour announcement and demanded details, mind whirling with thoughts of spoiled chicken salad and how we're in China, I can't just order a pizza or something, and what on earth are we going to do, and cream cheese is so expensive here and I just wasted about 12 ounces of it, and-
Justin proceeded to explain, in a voice that barely contained his irritation, that my hot lemonade had forced the fridge to run all night, he'd been up until 2:30 trying to fix it, and he was pretty sure the compressor was blown.
I didn't know what a compressor was (still don't, it didn't seem like a good time to ask) but I was pretty sure this wasn't a good thing.  I was also pretty sure that this was one of the dumbest things I'd ever done and that it would never be forgotten by my husband.  I could envision winning a big prize for something very brainy in the future and then Justin would throw his arm around my shoulders and tell the reporters eagerly shoving microphones in our faces that yes, he was proud, but more than that, he was surprised because there'd been this time in China when his wife had murdered a fridge because she lacked common sense.
Very luckily for us, an extra fridge has been floating around the foreigner apartments.  I called one of the other teachers, begged for the use of it until ours got fixed, and dragged Justin out of bed to help me get it.  We transferred food in a panicked flurry.  Also luckily for us, the "broken" fridge was cooler than it had been four hours previously, so nothing had spoiled.
Now, my kitchen is about the size of a shoe box.  The second fridge sat smack dab in front of my two burners, and I had to squeeze past it to turn on the gas.  I now had enough room to turn around - literally - in which to fix breakfast, make icing and frost cupcakes, chop vegetables and make dip, arrange plates and cups and set out food....  and I was about an hour behind.
Justin was a doll.  He blew up balloons and hung streamers while I bumped into shelves and multiple fridges in the kitchen (rather like one of those old pinball arcade games), and he never once criticized me for my idiocy.
The fridge recovered in twenty-four hours.  Justin nursed it through the worst of its illness.  The lemonade was really excellent, by the way.  I have copied the recipe into my recipe book and have titled it "Lethal Lemonade".
I'm not sure which one of these lessons is the most important, but I'm positive the lemonade debacle will be the one to go down in the Hill Family history books.