Who Shall I Keep?

Our first week in Idaho was spent in an accommodating room at the Days Inn. Even now, when we drive by the hotel, Della will exclaim, "there's our hotel" as if it were a previous home we moved from. The week consisted of peanut butter and jam sandwiches, coloring, reading, more peanut butter and jam sandwiches, more coloring, and the daily frightful outings to look for a place to rent. The rental market was enlightening providing us with the farm house option where the red painted pipes ran along a 6 ft ceiling matched the red bathtub but did not match the sea foam green painted cinder blocks which were the walls. There was carpet to which Klark commented, "I didn't know they made camouflage carpet." The kitchen looked like a fire hazard and the boys were thrilled with all the spiderwebs and spiders they saw in every window, crack, and corner. The carpet in the bathroom was also camouflage although not by design but due to a leaking toilet or where it's target had been miscalculated. Suitable places to rent were usually rented just that morning or met with remarks such as "Are all these children yours? I see. Your deposit will be $5000." After a weekly excursion of address finding, talking to strangers on the telephone which inevitably requires you to ignore your children, repeated nursing stops, and coming up with ideas for my children to help fool the people into thinking they are well behaved with games such as: "Okay, let's pretend we are soldiers at this house and march in a straight line, keep our hands to ourselves, and only speak when spoken too," I was delighted to find a two bedroom, 3rd story apartment available immediately. I immediately filled out the paperwork and signed all the places they told me to when a lady stepped into the room and asked the loaded questions, "Are all these children yours?" With hesitation, I confirmed that they were. "We don't have a place for you. You may only have two people per room and you exceed that number. I am sorry we cannot accommodate you." I left the apartment, called Chad to explain that we were once again homeless, and started crying. Lanse says, "Mom, why are you crying?" to which Klark replied, "She is crying because there are too many people in our family to live there. She has to decide which one of us to give away."