Jump

It's about 4 feet from the diving board to the water. That's about 6 inches taller than Jonah. On top of that, the water is about 10 feet deep; and with the maintenance slacking off on the next-to-last weekend of the year, there were plenty of leaves and gunk on the bottom of the pool to make that distance so very visible.

And so, it's no wonder Jonah looked down, looked at me, and then turned around and walked back to the ladder, saying, "No thanks, Daddy."

We had come to the pool for the last swim of the year (my second swim of the year, by the way). Sam, having inherited Stephen's 3-year-old dislike of water, was playing with his friend and running around my wife's chair over at the shallow end of the pool.

Timothy, Stephen, and I had been jumping into the pool down by the diving board. I love the board. Never having been a trained diver, my repertoire clocks in at a massive 4 dives (Watermelon, Can Opener, Cannonball, and a tuck-and-roll dive that lets me kick my feet into the water at full speed). All of these are designed to splash and make waves, and none of them that impressive to anyone over 10 years old. But my kids and the little cousins like them, and so do I. There are no plans to branch out; in fact, the cannonball gives me a headache, so it's seldom used.

Timothy and Stephen love to jump, too. Timothy can do a flip dive, but we mistakenly told him it was dangerous and so he doesn't do it as much now (or at least not when I'm around). Be very, very careful what you tell a first child. He usually just runs and flails off the end of the board, one arm in the air, the other hand holding his nose.

Stephen makes up wierd dives that involve moving as slowly as possible down the board and then simply dropping into the water. It's an odd sort of showmanship, but it works.

Jonah had been swimming around in the shallow end, occasionally calling for Timothy or Stephen to come down and play with him. So we would go down there, visit Jonah, and then swim back to the diving area.

Then Jonah found a floatie vest. He swam all last summer with one of these, and so getting hold of one was like finding an old friend. In an instant, he was down with us in the deep end. He swam, we dove. More swimming, more diving.

Then, after one of my "dives" (a painful cannonball, the only one of the day), Jonah appeared on the board. He walked out, looked down, and then walked back. Timothy jumped, Stephen jumped, I stayed in the water.

And there was Jonah again.

"You can do it!" Timothy yelled. "Come on Jonah!" screamed Stephen, encouragingly. Jonah looked at the water, looked at me, looked at the water, and then jumped.

He hit the water with a miniscule splash, bobbed back up immediately, and beamed. I reached out my arm for him to hold onto, but he swam directly for me and hugged my neck. "Good job," I said, "that was a very good jump. Were you scared?" "Nah, Dad," he said, deadpan, "it's not that high."

His older brothers, floating near the ladder, were still cheering, "Way to go! Awesome! Good jump!" and reaching out their arms to welcome him into whatever club he had just joined. He swam over to them, and they all got out of the pool.

After a second straighforward flailing jump, he did a cannonball. His form was perfect, except that the vest prevented his arms from even touching his knees. But his legs were perfect, and he got a good splash. Then a can opener (again, no knee touching at all) also with perfect form.

His mom came over and he jumped twice for her, to joyous Motherly applause.

Finally, he got out of the pool, beaming with pride. He had jumped, on his own, no coercion, no pushing, no crying. He jumped when he wanted to, and because he wanted to. He flew.

Sam

We were painting the dining room purple.

It was fall of 2002, and we had been in our new, larger house for a little more than a year. At first each of our three boys had his own room, but that July I started working at home, so Jonah's crib got moved to Stephen's room while I squeezed my office into Jonah's old room with the guest bed and a Peter Rabbit light switch cover (the cover stayed in my office, and got moved to the new office in the new house, by the way).

My wife decided that a nice, light, muted purple would be a great color to paint the dining room (our first one), and I had been married long enough not to argue. As she stood on a chair to edge around the top of the wall, she said, "These pants don't fit." I had been married long enough to not say anything.

"Seriously," she continued, "These pants don't fit. I think I'm pregnant." Since I much prefer babies to painting, I put down my brush and headed to Wal-Mart for some pregnancy tests. Remembering the Timothy Lesson, I got two. Both were positive. Here came #4.

When we were first married, my wife and I were of slightly different minds about the number of children we wanted to have. I am from a family of 2 children, and I wanted more than that. My wife is from a family of 6 children, and she wanted fewer than that. That left some room for negotiation, and we eventually settled on 3, for a variety of reasons (which only newlyweds without children would find compelling).

But a little while after Jonah (#3) was born, my wife said she probably wanted 4 children. I said okay, for a variety of reasons (which only a guy married to a woman who's given birth to 3 children would find compelling).

Regardless, the Jonah-to-Sam gap is the largest of the three. There are 22 months between Timothy and Stephen, 16 months between Stephen and Jonah, and 30 months between Jonah and Sam. Some of it was the shell-shock of having Stephen and Jonah so close together; some was the stress of getting into the new house and me being out of work; some was undoubtedly because . . . well, it's hard to get pregnant sometimes.

Sam was an easy pregnancy; morning sickness was (if I remember correctly) almost non-existent, which was a great relief from the other three. The other boys were older, and Timothy was even in preschool some days.

The original due date was July 5. On Sunday, June 29th, some friends gave my wife another baby shower all our old baby stuff was, well, old and needed replacing. Plus, new things would add some spice to the nursery of yet another boy. The shower was across the street, and my Mom had bravely taken the older three boys (either before or after, I can't remember). So when my wife came home, she said she was going to try Castor Oil. Me being me, I said, "Ew, good luck," and left the room.

So she downed about two tablespoons of castor oil, then ate something to kill the taste, and proceeded to have horrible stomach pains for the next few hours. Sometime in the night the pains turned to contractions, and we were on our way to the hospital. (Please note, this is not an endorsement for castor oil. It's nasty.)

Compared to the previous two births (Stephen's super-fast, blue-face, Apgar 4 delivery, and Jonah's though-it-was-a-heart-murmur-but-it-wasn't), Sam's was an easy delivery (for me, at least). My wife's friend Monica was there, and got to cut the umbilical cord.

Then we brought Sam home, and he has proceeded to knock down every parenting trick we had learned for the previous 5 years. He is his own person, and today he turns 3. Happy Birthday Sam.

Update:
This was written for Sam's birthday on June 30th and was briefly posted then. But my wife then said that my recollections of Sam and Jonah's births are mixed, and that some of the details above reflect that mixing.

So I asked for corrections, which have not been forthcoming. So I am reposting the orignial entry. Corrections may be made in the comments section. Nyah.

Update again:
She was right. I've made the changes above.

Monopolist

Because of a brief case of strep throat, Stephen did not go to his first day of 1st grade yesterday. (This is either ironic, or appropriate, or both, since Timothy could not go to his 3rd grade Open House on Friday because he had strep.)

So, about halfway through the day yesterday, my wife and Stephen sat down to play a game of Monopoly. Full-on, no holds barred Monopoly. Not Monopoly Jr., no Kiddie Rules or House Rules to favor the young, and my wife does not dwell in the "let the kids win" camp. She plays to win, even against sick 6 year olds.

He beat her in an hour. "He got all 4 railroads early," was her only excuse.

Last night, after dinner, they were both itching for a rematch, so we all played (Sam was on my wife's team). Timothy picked up the game quickly (why haven't we played this before?), Stephen was on another real estate streak and was perfecting his long-form game. Jonah had some difficulties. He thought that whenever money changed hands it was a land deal. When he paid rent (even $2), he wanted the title; he cried whenever we paid him rent, because he didn't want to give up the property. Sam drove the car around the board and gave me $5 bills from his mom's pile (I gave him hotels in return). My wife kept offering to buy other people's properties, usually at $50-$200 above cost, trying to make a quick set (to their credit, both Timothy and Stephen saw through this strategy and did not sell).

I won, but by such a large margin that I'm afraid that my banking duties must have gotten mixed up with my real-estate deals. If it's unintentional, it's not cheating; I believe it's just wire fraud. Timothy came in second, beating my wife by a couple of hundred dollars (I beat them both by over five hundred). Stephen came in fourth but had the most properties, including the only set. Jonah came in last, but had almost as many properties as Stephen; Jonah also had the widest variety of properties, which would have made him very popular and rich mid-game. Sam had a pile of hotels on the other end of the table that he ran his car through.

About midway through the game, I said that we should get Monopoly Jr. to play with the kids. My wife pointed out that we were playing real Monopoly and doing just fine, so why would we want a dumbed-down version? I replied with an apology and a mumbled statement about having been a public school teacher for too long.

At one point, Stephen landed on a property that cost $220. Seeing that he was out of $100 bills, I told him to give me a $500 and I would give him change. He said, "I've got it," rummaged through is money some, and then handed me a small stack. It was four $50's and a $20. I looked at my wife, she looked at me, and we both shrugged.

I guess we have two boys going to Georgia Tech.

Bits of Real Panther

After two Saturdays of mere unpacking and staying at home, this past Saturday was an exciting, action packed foray back out into the world.

The day started off with, actually, some more unpacking. It was the penultimate load: the garage. Look at it this way: moving is war. And just as in a war there are pockets of resistance that take time to pacify long after the official end of hostilities (the Sunni Triangle, Forsyth County, the Japanese guy in the cave on Gilligan's Island), there are parts of moving that still need to be completed even after the official Moving Day.

In our case, our moving day was 3 Wednesdays ago. With the gracious help of family and friends (thanks again guys!) we got all of the large furniture out of the house that day. What remained were select pieces in my office, the dining room, and the kitchen.

Plus the entire garage and shed.

The office was moved that Thursday, the dining room and kitchen the following Wednesday, the shed Thursday, some of the garage that Friday, and the remainder of the garage that Saturday morning.

One week later, the stuff from the old garage was still sitting in my new garage, which meant that my car was, 3 weeks on, still sitting in our driveway. The driveway is not where my wife believes cars should go. So while she went out shopping, I got to move the last of the stuff (my own personal Japanese guy in the cave on Gilligan's Island) from the new, slightly smaller garage to the new, much larger shed.

My wife gave me three hours to do it. I did it in one. Because there were cockroaches. Granted, they were dead, but they still creeped me out (occasionally they would twitch), but I wanted that job done, and to get back to my nice, cockroach-free, air conditioned office.

Later that day, chores done, we were going to go out to run some errands (or, as Sam says, "Run to Aaron's?") Out for the day! Oh joy!

There weren't really a lot of specifics: my wife had to return something to Macy's, we had to deposit some checks, I had to go to James Avery to . . . garble mumble garble .

So we, huh? What's that? Fine. I had to go to James Avery to get a new wedding band. Mine had gotten "too small," as we tell the kids when they've outgrown their clothes. Sure, some people in my position just stop wearing their rings, but I felt naked for the couple of weeks I went without. And little old ladies at Publix would give me pitying looks when I went out during the day or with the kids. Other people get theirs stretched, but I like my old wedding band, and I didn't want to change it. So I spent my birthday money on a new one. I feel whole again.

Anyhow, before we left, I realized that I was smelling a little "manly" from all the morning's moving work and that I didn't have time to take another shower. During the move, my wife had discovered all of my colognes (okay, both of them) and put them in my medicine cabinet. So I thought it best to "musk up" before we went. ("London Gentleman, or wait. No, no, no. Hold on. Blackbeard's Delight.") Actually, it was Escape, of which I still had 27/28ths of the bottle left after 11 years.

When I got in the car to leave, Jonah, Mr. Observant, yells out, "Ew!" Sam, of course, repeats even louder, "EW!" Jonah then says, "What's that smell? I smell somebody's throwup!"

Goodbye Escape.

The New House

I suppose, when moving, that there are bound to be oddities and juxtapositions. Change is always weird.

Moving 450 feet down the street is a little more weird, though, because we pass by the old house every time we go anywhere, we still go to the same stores, we still see the same friends, etc. But when we get home, all the light switches are in the wrong place, the doors don't lock the same way, and so on.

The cat has taken it the worst. For the first week, Sparkles stayed up at the old house. I'd walk him down the street to the new house, and he'd spend a few skittish hours inside only to clamor at the door to be let out. Once he was out he made a bee line for his old perch up on the hill; it's his hill, wiped clean of all minor mammal and avian life, where he is king. Now he sits and sleeps on the chair in the living room and spends the night under our bed.

Jonah and Sam cried the first day, "I want to go home," etc. By the second day (the day we unpacked all the toys and books), they were both fine. They've taken to their rooms with abandon and play well most of the time up there.

Timothy wasn't affected by the move or the house itself, but the loss of TV has hit him hard. He is his father's son. We promised them videos of their favorite shows when we moved, and I think we'll need to get Timothy a Fairly Oddparents DVD soon. Other than that, he's fine. He loves his new room and practices karate in the (flat!) driveway.

Stephen is completely unaffected.

My wife, after initial despair over the amount of boxes and other work, has taken to the task with relish. The books are now "away" (i.e., in my office on the floor) and she has been working on other household items. Every hanging picture, sconce, and wall-attaching whatnot that is on our dining room table should be off by tonight, so that we can enjoy our mac & cheese on the big table (the 4 seater breakfast table has been doing yeoman's work for the past week).

And me? My kids are safe, my wife is happy, and so I'm doing just fine. I've enjoyed observing the polar opposites, the yin-yang aspects of the old house vs. the new one.

There are no trees on the South side of the house (or Southeastern, or Southwestern). So we've gone from full shade to full sun. I wonder how much a 200-year-old water oak would cost to have installed?

In the old house, my office was the hottest room in the house. Now it's the coolest. I like my office.

The TV room in the old house was the farthest away from my office. As such, it was the "loud room", the only room in the house where the boys could be boys. In the new house, ironically, the TV room is at the bottom of the stairs to my office, and is now the "quiet room," the only room in the house where the boys can't be boys. Thankfully, if they're anywhere else in the house they can be as loud as they want and I literally can't hear them at all.

Well, sometimes I can. The other day I had the back window of my office open. I open it in the mornings to let out the smells from the rugs I have in there. I was sitting at my desk and faintly heard the sounds of children playing. "Those are some happy kids," I thought, and then I realized it was Jonah and Sam, screaming and yelling in their room, playing some boy game of jumping, running, crashing, whatever. Their window is closest to my office window, and that's the only way I could hear them.

It's a good house.