4 Boy Dad

This Explains A Lot

2009-01-23T15:30:00.002-05:00

Sam: Mommy, can I watch a movie?

Kristie: Sure. Would you like to watch the one from last night?

Sam: Yeah! It was so funny!

Me: What did they watch last night?

Kristie: Escape To Witch Mountain.

Truth

2008-12-02T09:46:00.004-05:00

We've got a runoff election here in Georgia today, and for the past week computers across America have been calling us, urging us to vote for the candidate of their choice. The situation has really gotten out of hand, and I've stopped answering the phone at home during the day.

This hasn't been much of a problem, since I'm usually home alone, but yesterday Kristie subbed at the boys' school, and so I had Jonah at home alone for a few hours. After the first few robo-calls, I told him not to answer the phone. It's a big boy thing, to answer the phone, and the big three all wait anxiously when the phone rings, hoping against hope that they'll be called on to answer it. Remember looking forward to answering the phone? To driving? To getting the mail? Sam loves to get the mail. But, then again, he doesn't have to pay any of the bills.

As the day progressed, more calls came in and things were fine. Then, after one call, I heard Jonah crying. He knocked on my office door, very upset. I walked down and hugged him, and waited for him to calm down.

I asked, "What happened?"

He cried, "There's a scary message."

My initial reaction, of course, was anger. I could hear in my mind the low-pitched, scary-movie-trailer-voice-guy railing against the wickedness of one candidate or the other. The message was on the machine, so I asked Jonah to leave the room while I listened to it.

It was Michael Reagan, Ronnie's boy.

Chipper as can be, Mike was touting the virtues of Saxby Chambliss, who was running for Senate. Reagan talked a little about what Obama would do with a 60-seat Senate.

Surely this couldn't be what upset Jonah. But it was the only message on the machine. I called Jonah back in and played it again. "Is this what scared you?"

He nodded.

"What did it say that was scary?"

"He said Obama's gonna do bad things to us."

"Like what?"

"Raise taxes."

To my great credit, I kept a straight face. Then I asked, "Do you know what taxes are?"

He nodded.

"Tell me what taxes are."

"It's when the government takes your money."

I hugged him again, and told him Obama wouldn't take all our money. He calmed down, then went off to his room, presumably to begin hiding his Webkinz. My little Republican.

Sorry I Missed You . . .

2008-10-15T16:34:00.002-04:00

Hello, this is 4 Boy Dad. I can't blog right now, because I'm in law school. Expected graduation is 2012. Your prayers are appreciated, and we'll see you back here then.

Beeeeeeeep.

FDOC

2008-08-11T08:39:00.002-04:00

That's what it says on my calendar, in three different places: "FDOC", First Day Of Classes. Timothy, Stephen, and Jonah all start school today, I start in a week (kinda, it's complicated), and Sam starts Kindergarten in a couple of weeks.

Summer went out with a bang and a whimper last night. I was in our shower taking note of the fact that the leak remains, rendering our shower inoperable for yet another few weeks at least. (There's a great story there, in the showers. Maybe I'll write it one day.) I was standing there trying to figure out how large a bead of water would have to be on copper pipe threads before it moved from the category of "possible condensation" to "inanimate retribution."

Then Jonah yelled: "DAD!" His voice had a painful, mournful tone, so I got to moving instead of just yelling back. While I was en route, he began crying in fierce sobs.

I found him in the hall bathroom upstairs. He was naked, of course (because he has a little George Constanza in him; don't we all?) and standing beside the toilet. His hand clutched a LEGO contraption, but his eyes were locked inside the bowl.

I stopped just outside the door, "What happened?"

He began crying again, "I dropped a LEGO in there!" His free hand pointed to the toilet.

Now, a good dad would seek to comfort his child and reassure him that things were not as bad as they seemed, etc.

I yelled. "No more LEGO's in the bathroom! Do you hear me? All of you boys, come here right now. No more LEGO's in the bathroom from this day forward!" Timothy smirked, Stephen looked stricken (since his favorite post-bedtime pastime had just been taken away), Sam kept trying to look into the bathroom to figure out what happened.

Jonah continued to cry. "Can you get it out? It's one of my favorite pieces."

"Yes, I can get it out. But no more LEGO's in the bathroom. Ok?"

"Okay. Can you get it out now?"

I looked in the toilet for the first time. Suffice it to say, the bowl was full. I actually had to ask, "Where's the LEGO?" Jonah pointed it out from a safe distance and apologized. "It's fine," I said, calmer now. "Don't flush."

While Jonah stood guard over the toilet, I headed back to my bathroom and got my tweezers. Then I stopped and put them back. Ew.

I went downstairs and got a long, wooden skewer, snapped it in half, and figured that would be a) long enough, and b) disposable.

There are some similarities between using chopsticks to remove food from a plate and using a broken skewer to remove a LEGO from a full toilet. But there aren't enough similarities to make what I was doing pleasant. After a minute, I had the LEGO suspended on a skewer and outside the bowl. I wrapped it in toilet paper to keep it from dripping while I decided on the next step in the plan.

At this point, I flushed the toilet. Jonah screamed and came running back into the bathroom, still naked. I told him that I had the piece and showed him the toilet paper ball on the end of the pair of skewers. "Ew," he said. I gave him a look that said, "Ew indeed."

Holding the toilet soaked, paper wrapped, skewered LEGO, I went downstairs to call my friend, who works in water-borne diseases at the CDC. I asked him if it would be okay to put a LEGO that had fallen into the toilet into the dishwasher. My main concerns were a) would the dishwasher clean the LEGO and remove the germs, and b) would the presence of said soaked LEGO contaminate the other items in the dishwasher. He said yes to a) and no to b). Good enough for me.

But we're out of dishwashing detergent, so the LEGO is still in the dishwasher, along with all the spoons. Which means that I had to steal my wife's spoon this morning to make chocolate milk for the boys' first day of class.

The boys are pros at this by now, and we all slid into the normal routine: up at 7:00, herded upstairs at 7:20 to get dressed, etc. Because of the relative newness, everyone finished a little early (except Timothy, who got up very early and was done before of the other boys was awake). Then we went outside to take pictures, which will be posted at the appointed time.

Tomorrow will be a little easier and a little harder, just like this school year will be a little easier and a little harder, until one day I won't be needed to pour milk into Yellow Cereal or to remind Stephen to take off his shirt before brushing his teeth. And then one day they'll be gone.

But that's a bit heavy. It's just the first day of class. Fifth, third, and second grades. Kindergarten for Sam. Law School for me.

On The Mountain

2008-07-19T14:48:00.003-04:00

This past Saturday (not today, in other words), Timothy and I began what hopefully will become a long-standing tradition: Saturday with Dad. It sounds a little ridiculous, but unfortunately it's necessary. To wit: on Saturday morning, around 8-ish, one of the boys and I will go do something. Just him and me. We'll rotate through a 6-week cycle: Timothy, Stephen, Jonah, Sam, Kris, rest.

Of course there are rules:

We can't spend more than $20, including lunch but excluding gas for the car.
We are not going shopping, i.e., we won't just go to the mall and spend the $20 budget.
We have to be back at the house by Noon.

We've been talking about this for a while with the boys, and the current lineup of activities seems pretty much to be Stone Mountain and Fernbank. I'm sure other things will come up after the upteenth time up and down Stone Mountain. But the choice of what to do belongs to the boy. I'm just along for the ride.

Why are we doing this? Well, starting August 18th, I'll be back in school. In case you haven't heard, I'm beginning law school at Georgia State. I'll be going at night, three nights a week. This will essentially remove me from family life for about 3-4 days a week for the next four years.

On Sundays we have church, Scouts, and community group. Monday through Wednesday I have work, then classes from 6-9, then in the library until it closes at 11. This leaves Thursday night, Friday night and all day Saturday to make up the projected twelve remaining hours of reading.

I love my boys. I want to see them. So we've carved out Saturday mornings as a time to spend one-on-one with them. We'll see how it goes.

This past week was the first one, and Timothy and I went and walked up Stone Mountain. Because of an earlier event, we actually did this after lunch ("earlier events" are not allowed during school, btw). He was excited, but nervous.

(The last time we walked up Stone Mountain alone, two years ago, he and I had The Talk. I don't think that was too traumatic an event, but he looked at me funny for a few weeks after that, and turned down other hikes for a few months. He's fine now.)

In the car on the way out, he put forward his wonderful Timothy Conversation Starter Question: "So Dad, what do you want to talk about?" Me being a nerd and he being my essential clone, we talked about soil formation on the mountain.

Yes we did.

And as we hiked up, we took turns pointing out to each other interesting examples of how and where plant life had found a way to live on a massive granite rock. We even saw a couple of lizards (or salamanders, or newts, who can tell?).

It was a relaxed walk. On previous solo trips this summer (I've been walking up the mountain in the mornings when Kris and the boys were at the beach), there have been similar father-son teams walking up, and several of the boys have appeared to be in a race. None of this with Timothy. We would walk, stop and look at something interesting. Then we'd sit down and drink our water and chat about what we'd seen.

Another point of interest was the carvings. Over the years (but not recently) people have carved their names into the granite of the mountain. Older carvings are much more elaborate, almost like calligraphy, with different widths within a letter and serifs on the type. Newer carvings are just block letters that might as well be done in Arial. There was also a portion where people had written their MySpace page addresses with Sharpie markers. Hm.

When we finally got to the top, we went inside the "new" building, sat in the AC and refilled our bottles with cool water. They have some interesting boards in the building showing the geology and biology of the mountain. On one of them Timothy read about tiny shrimp that live in the seasonal pools of water on the mountain. He was transfixed. "Shrimp? Here?"

For the next 30 minutes, we looked into every pool on top of the mountain. Most of them had nothing, and at first we thought they must just be too small to see. But then one puddle had dozens of them. We sat and watched them for a good ten minutes before moving on to the next puddle. I had to promise to bring a film canister so that we could catch some and bring them home.

All the way down the mountain we talked about shrimp. We talked about the kind that were there now (Clam Shrimp). We talked about the kind that used to be there but were considered extinct (Stone Mountain Fairy Shrimp). We looked into other pools on the way down (no shrimp). We talked about the Clam Shrimp lifecycle (one week) and about how their eggs exist as cysts and can last for years until the puddles fill up again.

On the way back down, we stopped at the "halfway" pavilion to drink our water. Now, there is only one water fountain on Stone Mountain: at the top. They trick you, though, with a pavilion about halfway up. Actually, it's halfway up vertically; it's about 2/3rds of the way up horizontally.

Anyway, the pavilion itself is straight out of any state park or church grounds. And in any other state park or church there would be a water fountain just next to the pavilion. Not so here. It's a mean trick, and most of the people sitting down on the benches don't seem too happy about it.

Being veteran mountain walker-uppers, Timothy and I had brought water bottles and had refilled them at the top. At the pavillion on the way down we drank some and then used the rest to re-wet our bandannas.

As soon as we finished drinking and using all the water, a massive family reunion group arrived at the pavilion. Every one of them asked where the water fountain was and cried out when told that it was at the top. I didn't have even a drop left in my bottle. I hope they made it.

Walking back down, we stopped to look at some out-of-the-way parts of the mountain (not on the steep side, just off the main trail). I pointed out to Timothy how different it looked compared with the path where we walked. Over on these parts, there was lichen everywhere and little clumps of secondary growth were starting even on the flat and exposed parts of granite. Timothy could have spent hours there.

On the way home, we had a meta-talk about the day and about beginning a new tradition. I told him that I hoped we could continue to do this even after I got out of law school. He said that was fine, but that he'd have his own kids someday and so he couldn't promise to be available every Saturday morning.

I said that was okay by me.

Hard To Buy For

2008-06-26T16:20:00.002-04:00

Sam's 5th birthday is coming up next week. As usual, the actual birthday itself will see the family splintered. I'll be at home; Kristie and the boys will be at the beach with our Memphisian friends. So we obviously can't have the party then.

What to do . . .?

Well, we had begun to plan out a party when most of the invitation list showed up yesterday. My mom came, along with my sister and her two children. Some of Sam's other friends and their families showed up, and at 4:30 a raucous birthday party erupted below my office. Yay!

Sam's birthdays are an issue. My wife's birthday is in January, Sam's is in June. There are no birthdays in our house between those two, so we get out of the habit. As for presents, the other three boys have no problem letting us know what they want. Sam is different.

"Sam, what do you want for your birthday?"

"A Lil'Kinz Tiger."

"Okay, we know that. You've said that a thousand times. What else?"

At this point, Sam would just stare at me like I was crazy.

"I want a Lil'Kinz Tiger."

"Do you want anything else?" I'm pleading at this point.

The Look again. "No. Nothing else."

Even Jonah, who is has his finger on the pulse of all materialism in the house, could not offer any help. "I dunno." Timothy suggested a particular Bionicle, so he got drafted to go with me to Target to get the Bionicle.

One thing Sam does like is His Own Stuff. He's always asking, "Is this mine?" As in, "Is this mine instead of brother's?" So I got Sam his own frisbee. He loves playing frisbee out in the street with us in the evenings, so I figured having his own frisbee would be a chocolate-peanut butter moment.

On a lark, I also got him a box of sidewalk chalk and a copy of Schoolhouse Rock on DVD. I got the chalk because we were walking through that aisle to get to the toys. I got the DVD because I didn't think yet another Backyardigans DVD would have any impact. Plus, I like Schoolhouse Rock, and one of my sister's old boyfriends walked off with my Grammar Rock VHS.

We didn't give all of the presents to Sam yesterday. Some are held in reserve for next week at the beach. It turns out that the impromptu party also included gifts. It fell to my Mom to get the Lil'Kinz Tiger. She was as perplexed as we were at Sam's lack of avarice, and so she also got him a Lil'Kinz Lion.

However, having received the only thing he had asked for, Sam immediately gave the Lion to Stephen. How crazy is that?

Diary: Friday, June 20, 2008

2008-06-20T23:20:00.003-04:00

Tonight was our last night without Timothy and Stephen. They come home from camp tomorrow. We've been looking at pictures of them on their camp's website, and they look to have had a good time. Tubing down a river, a ropes course, a mud pit, and a home-made, industrial Slip & Slide were all featured in the photos.

Last year we were surprised to find that the camp took and posted these pictures, but we were more surprised to find that the outdoor, photographed activities were not what Timothy liked most. He really enjoyed the "church services" they had each day, and he and Stephen talked about these services the most before going.

Who knows what blend of righteousness and rebelliousness we'll see in each boy when he comes home. I'm curious to see what effect this week has had on Stephen. Timothy is steadfast and trustworthy. Stephen is a barometer, and a highly accurate one. They're both good boys.

Because my wife had plans out tonight with friends, Jonah, Sam and I went to Enzos Pizza in Tucker for dinner. I like Enzos, although I think Fellini's has a good case if they decide to sue for infringement of "look & feel". The pizza is at Enzo's is better, with a better selection (I like the Goombah: the meat-covered pizza). They also still have glasses for drinks, which Fellini's abandoned long ago. I loved those Fellini's glasses. Our home glasses, which we signed up for in our Crate & Barrel wedding registry, were directly inspired by the ones at Fellini's.

Enzo's pizza is not as good as Shorty's, which is also in Tucker. When we moved here 10 years ago, there was no pizza place around, except for the Three Deliverers: Domino's, Papa John's, and Pizza Hut. Now the Domino's is gone (that's right; you can't get Domino's pizza in Tucker), but we have three new independent-y pizza joints in town: Enzo's, Shorty's, and some new place next to my barber on main street that we've never been to.

None of this background is relevant, however, if Jonah and Sam don't like the place. After tonight, they may never want to go back to Enzo's again. You see, Enzo's doesn't have lemonade. This is a great sin. Jonah will drink only lemonade and water. That's it. Tonight he cried when he found out they didn't have any lemonade, and then he drank water.

Sam likes "mix-ups" (which we used to call "suicides"; I like the new name better). His usual mix is Sprite, fruit punch, and then lemonade. If he's standing there watching, you have to do it in that order. Moe's has these three, as does Fellini's. But Enzo's didn't have lemonade or fruit punch. So Sam bravely tried Sprite mixed with grape and orange Fanta. He didn't like it, and settled for "just Sprite".

True to form, Sam ate half of his slice of pizza. I ate half of my Goombah. Jonah ate his whole piece, plus a piece of cheesy bread.

Then he ate a waffle cone of chocolate ice cream at Bruster's. I don't know where he puts it, and I was amazed to watch him eat the whole thing. Sam barely downed a "baby cone," which is about two tablespoons of blue Italian ice. Jonah's cone was easily two full cups of chocolate ice cream, plus the waffle cone itself.

I had a cup of chocolate-peanut-butter something-or-other and then promptly came home and took a Lactaid tablet. God bless Lactaid.

When we got home, Jonah was too wired to go to bed, so he invoked the summertime Friday Night Family Night of Movies Night, which means the three of us sat down and watched Toy Story, "the first one, with the boy with the skull t-shirt," as Jonah explained to Sam. Jonah loves skulls on clothing, and Sam loves to know what's going on.

This being a Family event, I was required to sit down and watch it too. In spite of my Stephenity, I actually was able to sit and watch half of the movie. I love Pixar. I'm glad they made movies when they did, so that my kids could be exposed to some good ones, instead of the drek that I watched as a kid. Nostalgia is the only reason people will watch cartoons from my childhood, and when we're all gone nobody will ever watch He-Man again. But I think people will watch Toy Story and The Incredibles a hundred years from now, and I think John Lasseter will be held in the same esteem as Walt Disney.

Needless to say, I enjoyed the movie.

Now the boys are in bed, my wife is not home yet, and I'm sitting here at the computer. Tomorrow is the birthday party for my father-in-law, but Jonah has another party to attend, and Timothy and Stephen will be home sometime. So I'll stay home and wait, and read some pre- law school books. I'm okay with that, but I wish that I could go to the party.

Still, it's not a bad life, and I'll get to see my Wandering Sons return home. And frankly, the anticipation of them coming home is keeping me just as awake as their anticipation the night before they left.

Diary: Monday, June 16, 2008

2008-06-16T23:08:00.002-04:00

Oy vey.

Well, we never did find Timothy's GameBoy Advance SP. So he had to ride to camp today with just a couple of books. Stephen was kind and didn't take his gameboy. They took the two "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books, which Timothy has read but Stephen hasn't. I told Stephen last night that he could finally read them and he smiled his big, genuine smile.

Timothy and Stephen are at Ridgehaven camp for the week. Timothy went last year and really loved it. This is Stephen's first year, and since he's our homebody I was expecting a little more drama than what occurred. But he was fine. His fierce independent streak seems to have overcome his love of home. Not for the last time, I'm sure, but the first cut is the deepest, etc.

Kristie drove them up, a three hour trip each way. Because Sam was sick (and because our usual "hey can you watch Sam for the day" friends are out of town), both he and Jonah stayed home. I "watched" them while I worked. But since it was a horrible and busy day at work (I hate the Internet), I wasn't able to do much watching. Jonah and Sam, on the other hand, watched most of the first Star Wars trilogy.

Thankfully, the boys are fully trained not to do crazy things when left to their own devices, and I have pretty good hearing for crazy things, so nothing happened. The worst was when Sam came and knocked on my door while I was on a call. I've explained to the boys that they should knock on my office door if they need me, and then to wait until I respond. If I don't respond right away, then I'm probably on the phone and they should wait.

But Sam missed that last part, and kept knocking: little triplets from little knuckles on my door, every 5 seconds for about a minute. I finally put the phone on mute while my customer was explaining something and asked Sam to "please wait." He did, for another 30 seconds and then began rapping again. We had a talk when I was done with my call.

They only knock when they want something: cookies, juice, drawing paper from in my office. Nobody knocks to say hello. Sigh.

Throughout the day, Jonah discussed with me the fact that today was his Pajama Day. In first grade, Jonah's class had a Pajama Day, where all the kids wore their pajamas all day. This concept was, to Jonah, what French philosophy is to college freshmen. The idea of Pajama Day has consumed him. Ask Jonah what he learned in first grade, and he will most likely tell you about the day he learned that you could stay in pajamas ALL DAY.

He's internalized this lesson, and has decided that one day per week this summer will be his own Pajama Day. As the summer has progressed, this celebration of Not Wearing Real Clothes has moved earlier and earlier in the week. Today was the first Monday Pajama Day, and I predict that all future observances will be on Mondays as well.

At lunch today, Jonah began to make grand plans about a Pajama Day Chart, on which he could both record glorious Pajama Days past, and also plan out future ones. As he waxed eloquent about individual Pajama Days for the brothers and also about Family Pajama Days, it dawned on me that what he was doing was negotiating for TWO Pajama Days per week. I let him build his case, and then explained again that there would be only one per week. He took this news well, considering that it was Jonah.

Sam's fever eventually calmed down, and I stopped interspersing his Motrin doses with Tylenol. I like to keep them evenly spaced: Motrin, 3 hours, Tylenol, 3 hours, Motrin, etc. But with the length and number of calls today, I got off track and eventually had to drop Tylenol altogether. Fortunately, he didn't throw up again, although he did ask me to sleep with him "all night" just in case he had another 4 AM episode. I told him that a) he wasn't sick any more, and b) since I was able to wake up in time to get him to the bathroom last night, I had proven myself more than capable of doing so again tonight.

He shrugged, as if to say, "It's your floor."

When Kris got home, we went to McDonald's for dinner. Because I miss Timothy so much, I got his favorite, the Southern Style Chicken Sandwich (a.k.a. the Chick-fil-a knock-off). Jonah and Sam played with some friends from CBS (the Bible study, not the TV network), and I went to Rite Aid to get some wart cream for the boys. Three of them have warts, and their cream costs $10. Stephen has molluscum on his face, and his medicine costs $600. No joke. Our insurance covered all but $45 of it, and I experienced my first case of medical sticker shock. That packet of goo costs more than my wife's engagement and wedding rings, even accounting for inflation.

We got home from dinner and put the kids in the bath (the play place at McD's smelled ripe, and Kris worried that the boys might catch fierce playplace diseases). Then they went to bed. It's crazy having two kids here. The younger two are the louder two, but the older boys are more active. Their absence is a felt absence, like missing an arm.

With the boys in bed, Kris and I watched Stranger Than Fiction, with Will Ferrell. It's a great movie, and watching it the second time I picked up some interesting things I had missed before. At one point, when Ana is talking about baking cookies for her study groups at Harvard Law, she says that she realizes she can change the world through baking cookies. And it hit me that this was a great example of the Christian idea of vocation. I told Kristie this, and she said I was a nerd.

Which is true.

Now they're all in bed, and tomorrow I'll go to work, run credit cards, answer phone calls and emails, and try to convince angry customers that we're doing the best we can. And hopefully I'll remember Ana's cookies and her commitment to serving her neighbor through cookies.

Diary: Friday, May 25, 2008

2008-05-16T23:01:00.002-04:00

Today was our last Enrichment Day at school this year. At our school, on most Fridays, parents come in and teach the 1st and 2nd grade classes. At first I thought it was a cop-out on the school's part (I remember actually asking my wife if we'd be paying 1/5th less tuition at some point), but after doing a few I've grown to like them.

School ends next week, so this was the last one for the year. It was in Jonah's 1st grade class, the one with 9 boys in it. We taught on Fairy Tales, which was bizarre to do in such a testosterone-laden class. Their teacher is a saint. In most schools, half of those boys would be denied recess, labeled, and medicated to their eyeballs. But Mrs. Hayes lets them go just to the edge of their true boyishness, then she reigns them back in.

Sometimes she lets them go onto the playground and run laps, and each lap has a "theme". We did this some today after having cupcakes for the teacher's birthday. There was a Silly Lap, a Hop Like A Bunny Lap, a Swim Like A Shark Lap, and some others. The boys loved it, and were visibly calmer when they returned.

We came home after school, getting lunch on the way. Wendy's for the boys and Chipotle for Kristie and me. I'm still feeling a bit woozy, either from allergies, some bug that's going around, or the after-effects of my second MMR shot. Here's a lesson: if you switch doctors, have your full medical records forwarded. That way, if you decide to go to graduate school and your pediatrician is dead, someone will have a record of your immunizations. Just a hint.

After work we ate some sandwiches and piled in the car to go see some cousins perform. My wife's sisters' children were in a end of the year show. Elementary and middle school bands and choirs performed. It was a very Music Man moment, but I was happy to see Frances play the violin. She's very good. I missed seeing Lotte and Asher sing, but hopefully I'll get another chance.

Timothy didn't go with us. He went to our school's talent night. It's a kind of variety show, and one of his good friends was performing as Elvis. Timothy enjoyed himself, and we picked him up on the way home. It was "only" 9:15, so we had the usual discussion/argument about him staying up late. He wanted to watch a movie, but we said no. After much weeping (him) and gnashing of teeth (me), I agreed to let him read until 10.

Then we argued about what he could read. He wanted to read Harry Potter 3, and I wanted him to get started on his summer reading list. We met in the middle, with him getting 2 weeks to finish the HP book before beginning Redwall.

While Timothy was snuggling into the guest bed to read (honestly, it's the best place in the house to read a book), Jonah and Sam were getting ready for bed. Sam would not brush his own teeth, so I helped him. Sam after 9:00 is a totally different creature, unable to get out of the car, walk upstairs, pick out his own pajamas, or brush his teeth.

While I was brushing Sam's teeth, Stephen was sitting on the potty, doing origami. The floor of our bathroom is littered with books, since both Stephen and Jonah have taken up having "quality time" in there after bedtime. Stephen's set of books includes his origami manual, and he's been getting better. I bet if I went and checked in their bathroom now, there would be a paper frog or crane sitting on the window sill.

I joined Facebook today, and we'll see how it goes. I never had a MySpace page, and I felt the lack not one little whit. But Kristie caved to her sister Susan's demands and got herself a Facebook page. So I got curious and set one up to see what it's like. If it's anything like my LinkedIn page, it'll languish after 2 day's use.

Tomorrow I'm taking the big two boys to the Turner offices for a tour. It's the absolute last day to finish up Tiger Cub requirements before Sunday's banquet, and half of my den couldn't make it last week. Then we'll go to the Varsity.

After that, we'll come home, finish Jonah's Tiger Badge and see how far in the hole we are for Stephen's and Timothy's badges. I doubt we'll get them done in time for the banquet, but I've promised both of them that we'll get their Wolf and WEBELO's badges before the end of the summer. I've got until August 11 before all my free time goes away. Here's hoping.

. . . For Me, Not For Thee

2008-04-22T10:28:00.002-04:00

Last night, while Timothy and Stephen (10 & 8, respectively) were at Karate, I was home with Jonah and Sam (7 & 4, ditto).

Seven o'clock came, and I began ushering them upstairs to put on their pajamas. As we climbed the stairs, the two little boys noticed a Capri Sun (unopened!) sitting on the stairs.

Sam turned to me and said "Look! A juice box. Can I have it?"

Simultaneously, Jonah and I said, "No."

I looked at Jonah, surprised, and figured that he must be remembering the No Juice Before Bed rule. I had no such luck, because Jonah turned to me and asked, "Can I have it?"

I said no.

What They Said

2008-01-29T14:09:00.001-05:00

Note: this post will be much funnier and enjoyable if you can picture Jonah and Stephen and if you can "hear" them in your head. If you can, this is pretty hilarious stuff. If you can't this will seem a gratuitous "aren't my kids awesome in school" post (which it's not), and you can just skip it.

Three of our boys are in school: Timothy (10) is in fourth grade, Stephen (8) is in second, and Jonah (7) is in first. Near the end of the first semester (in December) there is a sort of cumulative "exam" given, so that the teachers can gauge how well the children are learning.

In first and second grade, the student sits at a table with a parent volunteer. The volunteer asks the question and then writes down everything the student says. And I mean everything, as you'll see. (My wife has done these before, and she says they're lots of fun.)

For the first graders, the question is along the lines of, "Tell us what you remember about the human body." They had done a unit on the body earlier in the year, spending weeks and covering most of the major organ systems.

Here's Jonah's answer.

The most greatest part is the skeleton. It keeps your brain safe like a helmet. But you need another part to cover it up. The skull is one of the coolest parts. The teeth are part of the skeleton that you can touch. That's how your skeleton feels. You have gums and they are pretty rubbery.

Now the rib cage. It looks like the wires. I like the spine. It's really cool. It has scale things.

The heart keeps you alive and it is red. It has these four spaces. They are like doors that open and close. Air goes in and air goes out.

The digestive system. My most favorite part is the esophagus. It goes through your chest, after your throat into your stomach. You can feel on your throat when the food is going down. It's like a muscle and pushes the food down.

When you rub your knuckles together, it feels weird.

Feeling, seeing, hearing, tasting, smell. The brain can store memories. Sometimes you can't remember. Your brain makes you do whatever you have to do (like talking). They do that really quick.

Stephen's question was a bit more detailed. He was asked about the Oceans, and was given a list of topics to cover. Here's his answer.

There are the Pacific Ocean, the Atlantic, the Arctic, isn't there a fourth one? What's the fourth one? I don't really remember the last one.

There are many creatures and plants an we learned about this last month, but I missed part of it on vacation. Some creatures are octopuses, sea horses, crabs, jelly fish. And there are some creatures in the deep water called the monkfish and squid. I have a movie called Planet Earth and it has deep waters and shallow. Let's go for some of the shallow. . . there are whales in the shallow waters and there are sharks that come up and catch anything they can. What other animals are there? There's something like a squid that lives in a shell that lived in the dinosaur times. . . what's it called? It lives in the deep and comes up to feed. Hey! I know pretty much my favorite ocean animal is the stingray. The stingray has a stinger on the back of its tail that it uses to catch prey and sting it. It also has these things on its mouth that help catch plankton and pushes it into its mouth (acting it out with his hands and mouth). Pretend like my fingers are the plankton and my hands are the thing-a-ma-jiggers, whatever they're called. They go inside and eat it up.

I think I should go to the deep now, see what I can remember about the deep. I think that's all I can remember.

A tide pool is where some rocks are in a circle and the water gets in and gets trapped. Some crabs live there and so do some starfish. What are those things called? That live in a shell? Do eels live in the open ocean or the tide pool?

A coral reef is a bunch of little corals. It starts by one coral that dies and then another one grows and dies then another one grows and on and on until it makes a beautiful coral reef. Some animals that live in a coral reef are some fish and maybe a bit of crabs, and well, let's just go with crabs and fish. Some interesting facts I found on the coral reef are it has many colors and it's an animal habitat, sometimes maybe, and it can come in many shapes and sizes and it can live for a very long time. I think that's everything I know.

The eel! An eel looks like a big wiggly string that's kind of wide and long. Eels eat some fish, some even eat sea urchins--spiky balls. I once stepped on one, I hate sea urchins. Good thing eels are here! An eel can get at least 23 feet and its enemies are stingrays, maybe. Really, I don't know much about the eels. It lives in the open ocean."

Timothy's exam was a writing assignment. They had just done a huge module on Ancient Egypt, including both an oral and written report. (He did very well on the reports, by the way.) The end of semester exam had two questions that he could choose from, and one of the questions had four parts. Unfortunately, due to misreading the instructions, he only answered one part of the one question. But he did that one part very well and very thoroughly.

And no, I don't have it written out. Sorry.

Sam and the Toothpaste

2008-01-25T08:48:00.000-05:00

Our boys get toothpaste for Christmas. It's not their only gift, nor is it their main one (that spot seems to be held ad infinitum for LEGO's). But neither is it a scorned gift, like socks.

The big thing about Christmas toothpaste is that each of the boys gets his own tube (not that it comes in tubes anymore, but that name seems stuck in the language, like "books on tape"). Normally, throughout the year, as the boys use up a tube of toothpaste, I'll pick up a new one at the grocery store on the daily run. If I forget, then we tell them, "Just use water." And then I remind them, for the upteen-gazillionth time, that "80% of the work is just in brushing. Quit whining about the 20%." We like to work our math lessons in with our life lessons.

One big problem with toothpaste is that Jonah (7) and Sam (4) go through theirs very quickly. That would be caused by the way they use toothpaste:

Step 1. Put toothbrush on counter, bristles facing up.

Step 2. Put a lot of toothpaste on the bristles, and the handle, and the counter, and possibly the sink. Do try your best not to get it on the floor. If you do, wipe it up with whatever is handy, like Mom's bathrobe.

Step 3. Run the toothbrush under a high-powered stream of water from the sink until all the toothpaste has come off the bristles.

Step 4. Brush your teeth with the mildly toothpaste-infused water that remains in the bristles.

Now, it doesn't take an SEI-trained process specialist (*cough*) to see the flaws in this procedure. It also doesn't take a genius to predict that Jonah and Sam will burn through a new tube of Christmas toothpaste very quickly. In this case, it was two weeks.

Last week, Sam was out of toothpaste, but his eldest two brothers still had some. So, when confronted at 7:30 with cries of, "My toothpaste is all used up," I told him to use some of brother's. He started crying.

But this was not the normal, I'm-not-getting-my-way crying. This was serious, mournful wailing. "It's mint! If I use mint toothpaste I'll die!" He was serious. He believed it.

"Who told you this?" Sam has a wonderful imagination, but he's not death-obsessed, and would not come up with bizarre rules like this. That's Jonah territory.

"Stephen told me," said Sam.

"I did not!" yelled Stephen (8), from the next room. I believed him, since he's usually very up-front about these sorts of things (he's a brilliant trickster, and loves to take credit for his clever schemes).

Sam and I went back and forth on this for a few more minutes. I told him he would not die from using mint toothpaste, and he claimed that "Brother told me I would."

Finally, "Brother" changed to "Timothy" (10), who was standing nearby but, atypically, was not getting involved in the discussion.

I looked directly at Timothy and asked, "Did you tell him this?"

Timothy looked sheepish and horribly guilty and said, "I didn't want him to waste my toothpaste."

I gave Timothy a look that conveyed both mild amusement and profound disappointment (it's a hard look to pull off, but having huge eyebrows helps).

So I said to Sam, "See, mint won't kill you."

Sam, not having heard a verbal counterspell or repeal of the original Law of Mint Toothpaste, yelled even louder, "But Timothy said it would kill me!"

I looked at Timothy again. "Well?"

My oldest son is quick on the uptake. "Sam," he said, "I was wrong. You will not die if you use mint toothpaste."

Sam, looking up into Timothy's face, accepted this statement stoically and said, "Okay." Then he turned around, went into the bathroom, and brushed his teeth with Timothy's mint toothpaste.

He left at least a teaspoonful on the counter.

Willy Wonka

2008-01-24T08:47:00.001-05:00

First, I'm sorry to begin writing (again) with a screed. But I just figured this out the other day, and it's been stuck in my head. Maybe now it will crawl out and leave me alone.

Second, SPOILERS AHEAD. I'm going to give away important details about a book and a movie. However, since the book has been out for over 40 years, and since the first movie has been out for 35 years, I find myself well within reasonable limits for posting spoilers.

When I was a kid, I loved Roald Dahl. I read his books over and over again, particularly loving The Wonderful Story of Henry Sugar. For some reason, I never got around to reading any of the Willy Wonka stories before seeing the movie with Gene Wilder. And since several parts of the movie were disturbing (Augustus in the pipe and the chicken-head-lopping-off boat ride, to be specific), and I didn't enjoy it very much. So I never read the Willy Wonka books.

This past weekend, we took a trip to Memphis (Tennessee, not Egypt) to visit some friends. They had lived in Atlanta for a few years, leaving two years ago to help plant a church. They have a great old house in a great old neighborhood near downtown. We had a good time, even though almost their whole family was sick when we got there. Also, it was cold (below freezing for the entire weekend), so we only spent 5 minutes outside, down at the riverfront. But they are great folks, and so we didn't mind staying inside all day with them.

The drive to Memphis is long, so my wonderful wife got some books on CD to help pass the time. We ended up listening to Charlie and the Chocolate Factory on the way out and The Tale of Despereaux on the way home.

I liked Despereaux and think it's a great book for kids (our school apparently reads it in Second Grade, so there you go). But, given my history, it was Charlie and the Chocolate Factory that interested me most.

As we listened to it on the way to Memphis, I was listening to how the book handled the scary parts. Sure enough, Augustus Gloop did indeed get sucked into a pipe full of chocolate, get stuck, and then get pushed through by the pressure. However, the boat ride in the book was made scary just by the fact that they were going fast through a tunnel. Apparently that kind of excitement doesn't translate well into a movie, so they added a bizarre montage, including the chicken head removal, to make sure that we got the point. Stupid movie.

With those issues out of the way, I settled down into the rest of the story. As we got toward the end I noticed that the book lacked two things that were in the movie and that were very important to the plot.

First, Charlie and Grandpa Joe did not drink the Fizzy Lifting Drinks. In the movie they do, and almost get cut to pieces by the fan. In the book, Wonka explains about the drinks and the burping as the characters walk past the door (this explanation made my boys howl with laughter).

Second, while the book does talk about the spying done by other candy makers, the books does not have Slugworth approaching Charlie and trying to get an Everlasting Gobstopper.

Which leads me to my point. The book and the movie are very different about one very important fact: how Charlie wins.

In the book, Charlie wins the contest by simply not being a spoiled brat. This is shown in the story by him not breaking any rules. The other four kids all break important rules, and they all disobey direct instructions from Willy Wonka. It's made clear that each of the other children in the story are spoiled rotten by their parents and given whatever they want. This leads to their downfall, sometimes with long-term consequences (Mike TV is 10 feet tall, Violet remains blue).

In the book, Charlie wins by following the rules. You can see why this would not be a popular object lesson in 1971, so the movie adds a twist.

In the movie, Charlie breaks a rule, just like all the other children. He and Grandpa Joe do go back and try the Fizzy Lifting Drinks. So everybody breaks rules, but only those very clever people manage to avoid the consequences of disobedience. Classic.

But if Charlie disobeys in the movie, how then does he win the contest? I remember vividly what happens They're standing in Wonka's office, he's just told them that they broke the rules by drinking the drink and dismissed them. Charlie has lost.

What does Charlie do? How does he make himself different from the other contestants?

He gives back the Gobstopper. You see, all of the kids took a Gobstopper to give to Slugworth, even Charlie. But he gives his back to Wonka. Then the celebrations begin. Charlie wins by not giving in to corporate greed. He stuck it to The Man. You can almost see this story line being written by the 1969 graduating class of Wellesley College.

There. I've said it. Whew.

There are other interesting differences. In the book there are two parents per kid. You can see why they reduce this down to one parent each in the movie, since that would be a lot of people on screen at one time. But in the book, one parent is actively involved in spoiling each child, while the other parent stands back and lets it happen.

The language in the book is decidedly un-PC. Augustus is called "fat," with a description of his appearance that made Jonah laugh out loud. The Bucket family is described vividly as starving to death. Mike TV's dad only speaks once (in my memory), and then only to tell his son to "Shut up." Charlie's grandparents speak ill of the other contestants, as do the Oompa Loompas.

Books are better than movies. We've gotten used to that fact, and we've tried our best to pound it into our boys' heads. But it's bizarre to see a movie take such a wonderful book, remove the core, and then use the book's surface features to tell the opposite message.

We'll read the book again, I'm sure. Although I sound nothing like Eric Idle, and he does such a wonderful job with the voices.

Sam's Cousin Aaron

2007-11-21T09:15:00.000-05:00

Sam (4) has 3 friends: Anna, Marcus, and Aaron, who is Sam's cousin.

That's how Sam says it, every time: "My friends Anna, Marcus, and Aaron, who is my cousin." Outside of this little mantra, Aaron is referred to exclusively as "my cousin Aaron."

Sam loves Aaron. If we even breathe the word "Macon," Sam is right there, wanting to know when we're going, if he's going too, will he get to see Aaron, will he get to spend the night, etc.

And if we do make plans to go to Macon, we cannot change them. Because Sam never forgets. Let me stress that. Sam NEVER forgets.

Aaron is a mania. Going to see Aaron. Aaron coming over. Going to Memaw's house together with Aaron. We're going to Disney World in a few weeks, and the biggest draw is not The Mouse, not the rides, nothing about the destination itself. It's that Aaron is going too.

How bad is this problem? It's difficult to say. Our friend Erin may be coming over today, and Sam is excited. We can't seem to convince him that our Erin is not his Aaron.

And if I say that I'm going to run some errands, Sam is right there, eyes big and pleading, wanting to go too. His disappointment is plain when we end up at the hardware store. Even playing with power tools doesn't help.

By Myself

2007-10-25T18:58:00.000-04:00

This morning was a little hectic.

Actually, mornings here are always a little wild. Between 7:00 AM, when the boys wake up, and 8:00 AM, when they leave for school, no two days are the same. On four days of the week, my wife drives morning carpool. On another four days of the week, she has somewhere else to be immediately after carpool. Those days are not a one-to-one match. On some days Sam (4) goes with my wife. On some days he goes to his friend Anna's (3) house.

The only common factor is that on all five days of the week the Big Three boys go to school. But even in this there are subtle and challenging variations. Timothy (9) goes to school all day, and so gets a full lunch. Stephen (8) and Jonah (6) go half-days and only get a snack. Because of this schedule, they also take different carpools home. But that only makes the afternoons crazy.

This morning was worse than normal, though. Timothy had strep throat and was staying home. Sam had woken up in the night and stayed up for a few hours. Because of this he spent the morning either a) asleep in bed, b) crying about wanting to be back in bed, or c) crying about not wanting to go back to bed.

In the midst of Sam's crying and explaining to Stephen and Jonah why Timothy was still in his pajamas, my wife dropped a bomb: "Did you check the boy's homework?"

"No. Didn't you?"

"I took Timothy to the doctor yesterday afternoon, and then took Stephen to karate. I thought you checked it."

"Let me look."

Both of them had worksheets. So while Jonah sipped hot chocolate, he circled words like "the," "and," "to," and "green." While Stephen pouted about not having a chocolate Pop Tart, he raced through a math worksheet. Timothy just sat there and smiled.

While I presided over the homework, my wife took a shower. As she neared the end of hers, she yelled at me to come take mine. We high-fived each other as we passed, and the water never even got turned off.

When I got done, I dressed and came downstairs. My wife was looking through the boys' backpacks. She collected Jonah's worksheet and homework folder from the table and dining room floor, respectively, and then assembled his snack. Putting them all into the backpack, she placed it into the staging area. But Stephen's backpack was already there, zipped up and ready to go.

Suspicious, my wife picked it up and investigated the contents. Inside was his homework folder, with the worksheets in the proper place. She pulled out his signature sheet, which listed the assignments for each day of that week, and which usually required a parent's initials to ensure that each day's work is done. On Monday and Tuesday was a small, neat, set of initials in black pen. Under Wednesday was a slightly larger, but perfectly copied, set of my wife's initials in green magic marker.

She held it up for me to see. "Nice work," I said. "I suppose that's technically illegal. Why don't you go ahead and initial it yourself, and I'll go talk with our little forger."

Before I could make it out of the kitchen, she called out, "He packed his own snack."

I turned around to see her holding two cookies. No bag, not gummies, not a granola bar. Two cookies, shoved into his backpack.

"He's a pretty independent guy," she said.

I agreed, and nodded. "You'd think he'd use those powers for good, and remember to do his own homework."

She laughed. "Maybe someday."

Introverted, With A Blog

2007-10-25T18:00:00.000-04:00

I wouldn't believe it myself, but it tracks with the "real" personality tests I took in high school and pre-marital counseling.

I can't explain it, either.

Selling Popcorn

2007-10-17T14:33:00.000-04:00

It was a big dog, and it was barking.

We were going up to our very first house, and this dog was standing at the chain-link fence barking fiercely at us.

Timothy (9) had already reached his goal for the year by walking solo in another neighborhood and via phone. For this street, Stephen (8) and Jonah (6) were going to tag-team the sales. It was Jonah's first time ever selling popcorn door-to-door. Stephen had done this last year. But last year, it had been Timothy as the lead seller as Stephen tagged along. Now Stephen was the lead with Jonah in tow.

Jonah walked past the dog and gave it a little wave. Spittle flew from the dog's mouth as it barked, just a few feet from Jonah's face. Jonah, clipboard in hand, kept walking to the door.

Fearless.

Not seeing Stephen on the walkway with us, I turned to look for him. He was standing far out on the driveway, looking at the big, barking dog.

I yelled across the yard, "It can't get out of the fence. Are you scared of the dog?"

Stephen looked at me with huge eyes and nodded.

"Okay," I said. "You can stay there." The original plan was for the boys to alternate, with one of them ringing doorbells and pitching until he got a sale, and then the other one would have a turn. Stephen was supposed to go first in order to show Jonah how it was done (we had practiced in the car on the drive over). This was supposed to be Stephen's house. Completely, utterly, and totally in a non-judgmentalor pressured way, I called out to Stephen, "Jonah will do this house, and you can have the next one."

By the time we got to the door, Stephen was right there beside us. "Jonah needs me to show him how it's done."

Brave.

Nobody was home. When we walked back past the fence, the dog was gone. I kept waiting for it to jump back out at us, but it never did.

I'm not the kind of person to generalize from a single incident (actually, I am), but I kept seeing this behavior the rest of the two hours we spent walking.

Jonah was oblivious, in a kind of manic state. Someone could have shown up at the door with a bloody chainsaw in hand and Jonah would have said, simply, "Hi, my name is Jonah and this is my brother Stephen. We're selling popcorn to support our Cub Scout Pack. Would you like to help?"

(Actually, whenever Jonah said the spiel, there was a massive pause between the opening of the door and the first sentence, and between each phrase thereafter. And his voice got sillier, higher, and faster as he went along, so that at the end of "help?" he was pretty unintelligible. People were nice, though.)

Stephen, on the other hand, was not enjoying himself (he didn't join us yesterday when we went back out). But when the time came and it was his turn, he smiled, looked the people in the eye and said, "Hello. My name is Stephen and this is my brother Jonah . . ."

People were nicer in this neighborhood. Maybe it was because of the demographics, maybe it was because we had younger and cuter kids with us. But nobody said no to Stephen and Jonah. Over half of the houses had nobody home. But everyone who was home bought something.

It was different with Timothy. On the street he did (on the same days of the week and at the same times of day), we had similar proportions of people not home. But of the ones who were home, over half said "No." Most at least said, "No thank you." But at least a few said, "I don't want to."

Now, I'm not one of those folks who sees anti-male bias everywhere I turn (actually, I am). But this really startled me. I'll try it again next year and switch neighborhoods.

Anyway, Jonah and Timothy have reached their $200 goal and will be able to throw a pie (actually, a paper plate piled with whipped cream) into the face of "a den leader." This will most likely be me, as I'm the Tiger Den Leader this year.

Stephen is still about $60 off this goal, but he and I will be going to our own neighborhood on Thursday. If you have a massive hankering for Cub Scout/Boy Scout popcorn, let me know. But do it quickly, because we turn in the sheets on Sunday.

(P.S. This is not a beg for money. Stephen will make his goal. But if you love CS/BS popcorn and haven't been able to get your fix this year, we will be happy to provide this service for you. Seriously.)

Wrist update:

Still broken.

Seriously, though. I was supposed to go back to the Dr. next Thursday, but he called and moved it back another week. It doesn't hurt, except when I type.

Popcorn (pre-blog)

2007-10-12T10:57:00.000-04:00

I still can't type worth a darn in this cast-type thing. And recent experiences (typing an application and essay, washing the cast after camping) have taught me not to take it off. So, blogging will be light.

Not that anyone will notice.

But, I did take Stephen (8) and Jonah (6) out to sell popcorn last night. Short version: Stephen is brave and Jonah is fearless. There is a difference.

I'll try to type it up, or I may try to get the 4boymom to type it. I wonder if there's a way that someone could record my voice, and then play it back while typing?

It turns out there is.

Sam In The Morning

2007-10-04T08:28:00.000-04:00

This morning Sam (4) was getting dressed to go to a friend's house. I had picked out his clothes, with one pair of underwear, two choices of shorts, and two choices of striped shirts. The shirts must have stripes, preferably horizontal, but vertical will do in an emergency.

He was singing a little song to himself as he walked in and saw his clothes on his bed. Still humming merrily, he picked his shirt by slapping his hand down and then chose his shorts using the same method. He climbed up on his bed, and I held his hand while he kicked off his pull-up and pajama shorts. Then he sat down to take off his shirt (I have no idea why), and I left the room to see to some other issue.

When I walked back in, he was singing again. The tune was the same, but the words had now become, "Underwear first, then shorts. Underwear first, then shorts . . ."

Then he burped.

I'm back . . . kinda

2007-10-02T22:20:00.000-04:00

Well, no sooner do I get my law school application in, than I break my wrist.

Hm? Yes, I said I broke my wrist. Technically, it's a "fracture." But I've never broken a bone before and . . .

Oh that? Yeah. I applied to law school. To be specific, I've applied to Georgia State University College of Law. That's one of the reasons I haven't been writing much here. In March I decided to give it a shot, so from March to June I was studying for the LSAT. From June until yesterday I was writing my 2-page Personal Statement.

Ugh. Personal Statement writing is not blog writing. I can't make fun of myself. I can't write about poop or boogers. Nobody on the GSU Law admissions board smiles knowingly when they read the word "Jonah." It's hard, hard stuff to write.

So for the past 3 months or so I've either been writing my statement (5 format changes, scores of different versions), or else been so sick of the keyboard that I couldn't stand to type another word.

I also had a month-long writer's block.

And I was all set to start blogging again, and with such great stories, what with the boys all in high school now (just kidding). Then I broke my wrist. And my typing speed went from 70+ wpm down to 7. I type with one hand, while the other rests angrily on the desktop.

Hunt . . . peck . . . hunt . . . peck . . . aaaarrrrgggghhhh!

Four to six weeks.

Pennies

2007-08-31T12:53:00.000-04:00

. . . from a trailer, actually. And a jar. And not just pennies, but a 2-cent Euro coin. And now it's not just a cute little opening phrase, but an annotated mess. So I'll just tell the dang story.

We brought a piano home on a trailer. (How's that? Three hours of toil and an ulcer all reduced to a single sentence. That's quality writing.) It was my in-laws' piano, and it's my parents' trailer, and they were sitting entwined in my garage.

Sam (4), who had not been able to attend to the loading of the piano, wanted to see inside "Gaga's trailer." So I picked him up and, instead of looking at the piano, his eyes immediately shot to the penny sitting on the ground.

"Ooh! A penny! Can I have it?"

"Sure," said my Dad.

So I picked the penny up and handed it to Sam, who crawled out of my grasp and ran into the house, forgetting the piano and the trailer.

Not less than 5 minutes later, Sam was crying. "I want my special penny!" he wailed as I walked into the house. Jonah (6) was standing there next to him, holding a penny.

And so I asked, "Jonah, where did you get that penny?"

(Sheepishly) "On the ground."

"Sam, did you leave your penny on the ground?"

(Tearfully) "Yes."

"Alright. Jonah, that is Sam's special penny that he just found. Please give it back to him and I'll give you a penny from the Penny Jar."

Jonah hung his head and slumped his shoulders as he handed the penny back to Sam. I took Jonah into the kitchen and pulled down from the shelf a jar, filled with pennies, labeled "Stephen's Savings." Opening the top, I spotted among the normal pennies a 2-cent Euro coin. I explained what it was to Jonah, and gave it to him saying, "There, now you have a special penny too."

Then I looked up and saw Stephen (8), thumb in his mouth, staring at me with the best doe eyes I'd ever seen him do.

I asked, "Do you want a special penny?"

Without taking his thumb from his mouth, he nodded. So I took a regular penny out and handed it to him. He smiled from behind his thumb and walked away.

By now, Jonah was crying. Starting to get a little angry, I asked him what the problem was.

"I wanted to find it on the ground," he cried.

I'd had enough. 70% angry and 30% just wanting to see if it would work, I took the coin out of Jonah's hand and dropped it on the ground.

He looked at me, looked at the coin on floor, looked at me again, and then bent down and picked it up. He stopped crying, said, "Thanks," and walked away.

It All Starts With Ice

2007-08-09T09:33:00.000-04:00

I don't remember much about my early childhood because I'm old (" You're halfway to 72," one of my sons recently reminded me; I can't remember which one).

One thing I do remember is being in some preschool classroom and looking outside at some water we had put in cups on the outer windowsill. It was a cold day, and they had turned to ice, and I thought that was just the coolest thing in the world.

(Just for future reference, this may have been at Olgethorpe, which used to stand where the Publix is now at the intersection of Johnson Ferry and Ashford Dunwoody.)

Ice is cool, because it's water, but it's not. And any kid can make it.

So it was with no surprise that I heard Sam (4) open the freezer door last night during dinner (Sam does not stay at the table; he wanders) and exclaim, "I did it!" Then he came stomping into the dining room roaring a Frankensteinian laugh, "Ha! Ha! Ha! Ha!"

Sure enough, he had an old sippy cup, filled solid with ice. It had frozen downward, puckering out the bottom of the cup so that it couldn't sit straight. But it was massive, heavy, and cold. And Sam loved it. "Dad! Look! I made ice!"

I admired it for a minute, remembering my own excitement with Magical Ice. I congratulated Sam and handed back his wonder, which he then showed to his brothers. Jonah (6), who had taught Sam this particular trick, was very happy. Stephen (7) was somewhat less so, since Sam had interrupted his dinnertime reading. But once he realized what was going on he was equally congratulatory.

Sam then returned his ice to the freezer. It was there this morning, along with a half-frozen Moe's cup that Jonah must have put in last night.

This winter, I'll get some clear plastic cups and put them outside the back window, so that we can see if we can make outside ice.

If I can remember.

Toothless Jonah

2007-07-18T09:30:00.001-04:00

Jonah lost his first tooth a few weeks ago. True to Jonah form, he named it Mr. Toothy.

You see, everything in the house, nay, everything in the universe to which Jonah feels some attachment has a name, and that name is usually "Something-y." Chairy, Lampy, Beddy, the immortal Bikey. Some exceptions exist, such as Dragadote, a little stuffed dragon (stuffed as in plush, not as in taxidermy; wouldn't that be cool?). Another interestingly named item is Clip, Jonah's blanket (or night-night). The blanket has been named Clip for about 3 years now, and we have no idea where the name came from, or what it's supposed to signify.

It's like naming a cat Sparkles. Let this serve as a warning to all you folks who think letting kids name stuff is a good idea. It's not. Whenever I hear of parents letting their older children help name the new baby, I get nervous. "Thank you for seeing me Mr. President. I'd like to talk with you about this new environmental regulation . . . Yes sir. My name is Clip Sparkles McDonald's Jameson. Yes sir, that's my real name. Well, my parents let my older brothers name me. Please sir, if we could get back to the agenda . . . Yes sir, it is a ridiculous name. Is that . . . okay. Have a nice day sir."

Back to Mr. Toothy. The method of his (arrival? departure? independence? release?) removal was unique in 4boydom. There was no crying, no wincing, no running away from well-meaning parents. Neither Timothy nor Stephen would let us near their mouths after the first 2 weeks of a tooth beginning to wiggle. Jonah would walk around and order us, "Feel my tooth! Cool huh?"

Then he pulled it out. He held it up and grinned bloodily, like a barbarian who'd just pulled a trophy bone out of a still-breathing animal.

He ran around the house, making sure that everyone (including himself in a mirror) saw both the tooth and the raw hole in his mouth where Mr. Toothy used to dwell. Pure Jonah.

Also, true to form, when the time came to put it under the pillow for the Tooth Fairy, he couldn't let it go. "I don't want her to take Mr. Toothy. Will you make sure she doesn't take him?"

We agreed that we would pass along the information.

Mr. Toothy stayed with us for a few days, still hanging out with his pal Jonah, like a newly minted sailor, home on leave before shipping out. There were the usual scares of "Where's Mr. Toothy?" We'd ask, "Where did you leave it?" and Jonah would say "Oh," and then run upstairs to the bookshelf where Mr. Toothy slept.

Finally, however Jonah's love for Bionicles overcame his love for human dental detritus. He needed money for the new Toa, and the First Tooth payout of $1 was just too large to resist (it's 50 cents for each tooth after the first one).

Under the pillow it went, and true to 4boydad and 4boymom form, we forgot all about it. "Mr. Toothy's still here! Where's my dollar?" Oops. "Make your bed, Jonah, and see if the Tooth Fairy stops by later today.

She did.

At least all the lemonade is gone

2007-07-09T10:21:00.000-04:00

Yesterday we had 34 people over at the house, with adults (defined in the usual way) barely outnumbering children, 18 to 16. That's a lot of kids, especially considering that our son Timothy, at 9, was the oldest kid in the house. As Jonah (6) said at one point, "It's raining babies!"

The event was, ostensibly, Sams' fourth birthday party. But you invite some family, and then some others, and then a friend or two, and before you know it you've got kids everywhere, lovingly disassembling your DVD collection, changing the incoming voice message on your phone, leaving cans of Sprite and lemonade with only one sip taken from them on every horizontal surface . . .

In a word, utter chaos.

And I loved it. Thanks to all who came.

Here's the recipe for the fish rub, for those who asked. It's from this month's Blueprint magazine:

2 lbs fish fillet. - I used tilapia, but any whitefish will do. The original recipe recommended striped bass or red snapper (very tasty!)
1 tsp ground cumin
1 Tbsp dried oregano - I didn't have any dried stuff, so I used about 2 Tbsp of fresh stuff from our "herb garden" (actually a galvanized tub on our front porch
1 Tbsp chili powder
2 tsp coarse salt - Shhh. Don't tell, but I used regular salt and nobody died.
4 Tbsp (1/4 cup) extra-virgin olive oil - Um. I used whatever Olive Oil my wife brought home from the store last time. Again, nobody died.
1/4 cup finely chopped cilantro - I used less, but I hate too much cilantro

Mix the spices, add the cilantro and olive oil to make a paste, then rub onto both sides of the fish. I didn't rub it in with my hands (fish hands! oh no!) and used a brush instead. If you're grilling the fish, leave the skin on one side. We baked it and used skinless fillets.

Refrigerate for 30 mintues to 2 hours. I didn't time ours yesterday, but we left the fish in the fridge while I put the rub on the chicken, sliced a cabbage, hollered at my kids, started the chimney starter on the grill, drank a Coke, diced 2 or 3 tomatoes, and yelled "Hello!" out the front door as the first guests arrived. Let's call it an hour and a half.

To cook the fish, you can grill it (5 minutes per side) or broil it in the oven. We broiled it, and I have no idea for how long. When I can smell what's in the oven, I check it. I keep checking it until it's done, then I take it out. Sorry, not to be able to help much there.

Let the fish cool, and then flake it off for tacos. I had a good-sized third of a fillet yesterday on its own and it was excellent. Enjoy.

Fear

2007-07-06T06:54:00.000-04:00

We were reading Treasure Island last night when the cat meowed.

Sparkles is not a chatty cat. He doesn't walk into the room like a Vegas entertainer and start greeting everyone, "Hey Rocco! Good to see ya. Valerie! How's the family?" etc.

Appropriately (for a cat) he usually confines his vocalizations to serious situations. "Hey! That's my leg!" Or, "Dog! There's a dog coming and I'm stuck outside!" Also, "Other cat! There's another cat out here and I need to be let in now!" And let's not forget, "OPEN THIS DOOR RIGHT NOW OR I'M GONNA POOP ON THE CARPET!"

That kind of thing.

Last night, his meowing meant, "Some kid shut me up in the bathroom." Now, this happens occasionally. I've accidentally shut the cat in our closet before. He's gotten stuck in the coat closet a couple of times on accident. The key word here is accident. But not last night.

I looked up from the book. "Is the cat in the bathroom?" Over on the couch, three of the boys gave blank stares. But one looked sheepish.

Stephen (7) answered, "Yes."

"Did you shut Sparkles into the bathroom?"

Eyes downcast, "Yes."

"Let him out."

"But he'll scratch me or bite me." Then he started to cry.

Well, crap. First, it was bees. Stephen hasn't been outside in weeks (except for the pool) because he's afraid of bees. Actually, according to him, it's "bees and wasps and mosquitos."

And now he's afraid to be inside with the cat.

"The cat won't attack you," I said, trying to calm Stephen down.

Jonah (6) piped in, "Yes he will. He attacked me yesterday and scratched my leg." Blue eyes sparkling, he grinned. Thanks Jonah.

I turned my attention back to Stephen. "Would you like it if I shut you in the bathroom?" He shook his head. "And neither does Sparkles. Please go let him out."

As Stephen left, crying, Timothy (9) looked a little guilty.

So I said out loud to no-one in particular, "You know, the only reason the cat attacks you guys is when there's no food in his bowl." Pause for guilt. "Timothy, did you feed the cat today?"

"I can't remember." Great. A Clinton.

"Timothy. Go feed the cat so he won't attack your brothers."

As he got up, grumbling, I heard the bathroom door open and then Stephen ran back into the living room and jumped onto the couch with me. He was still crying, so I held him a little while. Timothy returned, and we finished the chapter, said prayers, and they went off to bed.

After the boys were asleep, I let the cat out. In the Summer, he prefers to spend the night outside rather than in my office.

On my way upstairs, I looked into Stephen and Sam's room. Sam (4) was asleep, but Stephen was looking up at me. "Where's Sparkles?"

"Outside."

"For all night?"

"Yes. Good night."

"Good night Dad."

He closed his eyes and was asleep before I could even turn the light on in my room.

Update:

This morning, I waited 5 minutes to water my plants. You see, there was a bee in the flowery bushy thing between me and the water valve, and turning on the water would have meant leaning over an area of high bee probability.

What's worse: it was a male carpenter bee, and they don't sting. Still, I waited. But I didn't cry. Much.

What The Heart Wants

2007-07-05T08:50:00.000-04:00

It's summertime here at 4boyhouse, and that can only mean one thing: forced reading. Yes, our particular Bridge on the River Kwai is being built from books off of the school reading lists of not one, not two, but three boys. And I thought paying for school was rough.

At least Stephen (7 and a rising 2nd grader) and Jonah (6 and a rising 1st grader) have the same list. It's huge at 3 pages long and has some nice features. For example, we can apparently count towards the reading list any of the books on the list that we've read within the past year. We're halfway home right there. Also, having gone through this list twice with Timothy (9) and once before with Stephen, we already have lots of these books and already know which ones are winners and which ones are snoozers. (That was not an intentional pun, but I'll leave it there, just to bother you, gentle reader).

So there's no doubt about the 1st & 2nd grade reading lists getting done.

The 4th grade list, for Timothy, is a different matter. First off, Timothy and fiction are not the best of friends. He likes "fact" books, especially ones about animals. Encyclopedias, Eyewitness-type books, even the gross-out books from the book fair all thrive in stacks in every room in our house, lest the boy be unable to quench his thirst for animal facts at a moment's notice.

He's been this way for years, much to the consternation of his mother and me. He's an avid and voracious reader, but fiction did not fly, in spite of our best efforts. The Hobbit? Yawn. Narnia? Nope.

Then along came Harry Potter. At 7 (a year earlier than I had planned), we read our oldest boy the first Harry Potter book: The Sorcerer's Stone (apologies to overseas readers and book snobs). Timothy loved it. He enjoyed it so much that we went ahead and read him the second book in the series a year early. He had to wait until he was 8 to read the third and fourth book, and until he was 9 to read the rest (which he read on his own; I cried just a little). He and my wife are waiting rather impatiently for this month's release of the seventh and final book.

But he's semi-hooked now. I read The Hobbit at bedtime this Spring, and he listened. We're reading Treasure Island at bedtime, and he's enjoying it. He read The Magician's Nephew without telling us.

But he still prefers, when reading on his own and on a day -to-day basis, to read animal books, which remain scattered throughout the house. And the absence from his Summer reading list of books about the grossest eating habits of African lizards has put the fate of that list in doubt.

It's a short list of longer books, and he has to read 4 of them. He can pick any 3 to fill out the list, but there was one mandatory book. That one book took weeks, and only got finished because of a couple of back-to-back car trips in which we took away his GameBoy. Read two chapters, play until the next stop. Read two more, play until the next stop, etc.

It didn't help that the mandatory book is one of my wife's favorites, so her patience and understanding were a little tested. But he finished it. The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe took a little less time and a little less prodding, and Timothy finished it with a smile on his face.

Now he's reading Mrs. Frisby and the Rats of NIMH. And he can't put it down. He sits on the couch in the living room, reading intently. "The movie is good, but the book is better," I heard him tell his brother when asked why he didn't just watch the movie instead.

So that's three books down and one to go. It may be an uphill battle again, though, since most of the rest of the books on the list are "girl books," as Timothy so gently put it after reading the descriptions.

But he's reading, and reading fiction, and that's a good thing. Now I just have to convince his mother to let us read Lord of the Rings.

En Espanol.

2007-06-14T15:36:00.000-04:00

In the car.

Timothy (9): My name in Spanish is Tim-o-te-o.

Jonah (6): You have a different name in Spanish? That's cool!

Stephen (7): What's my name in Spanish?

Me (35): Esteban.

Stephen: Huh?

Me: Es-te-ban.

Stephen: Wow. Coooool.

Sam (3): What's my name in Spanish?

Me: Diego

My wife (29ish): That's James.

Me: No it's not. Diego is Samuel. It's also German for . . .

My wife: Stop right there. And you're wrong. It's James.

Me: I'm so totally looking that up when I get home. What did you take? 4 years of French . . .

Various boys: French? Awesome! Say something in French! That's so cool! What's my name in French?

My wife, calmly: Go ahead and look it up. It's James.

Jonah: What's my name in Spanish?

Me: Um, . . . Chonah.

My wife: Yonah.

Jonah: That's it? Spanish is a horrible language.

Me: Nice work. You've got a Tancredo supporter back there.

My wife laughed.

I Forgot About This One

2007-06-14T15:08:00.000-04:00

From memory, with apologies where they apply.

Me: So how did Jonah's last day of Kindergarten go?

My Wife: Pretty well. But there was a problem at lunch.

Me: Really? What happened?

My Wife: Well, they went outside to have a picnic, and they were all playing around near the trees. Then they found a praying mantis . . .

Me (interrupting): Wow! That's great. Jonah loves praying mantises [he really does. He makes them out of LEGO's, he draws them, he looks through the yard for them, etc.].

My Wife: . . . and then [name withheld] killed it.

Me: What!?!

My Wife: With a stick. While Jonah was standing there.

Me: That kid's a [expletive].

My Wife: He killed the whole nest. Jonah cried quite a bit ['tis true. I've got pictures].

Me: Did Jonah recover?

My Wife: Not while we were outside. But once we went back in, he got better.

Me: So that's why he asked if we could go to the zoo to see a praying mantis?

My Wife: Probably. We can't have one in the house.

Me: You're preaching to the choir. I don't like their bug books, even if they're turned over. He's got a gentle spirit.

My Wife: Who? Jonah? Yes. Yes he does.

Actual Conversation, um IV?

2007-06-05T08:02:00.000-04:00

Me, as the boys were running directly into the TV room from their bedrooms at 8:02 AM: "No TV until you've eaten your breakfast."

Jonah, jumping off the couch and running to the dining room: "Oh kizzay."

Me: "Jonah. Where did you hear that?"

Jonah, looking alarmed and stunned: "Is it a bad word?"

Me: "Not necessarily."

So much to unpack here, so little time . . .

Three Things

2007-05-31T22:29:00.000-04:00

Well, I've learned three things today (that I can remember; I probably learned and promptly forgot much, much more). The first two are related. The third is funny.

First thing: If you want to sell a car, do it on Craigslist. Yes, we sold a car, again. Yes, it's that car. Why did I sell it? Well, the short answer is that I love my wife, and she did not love that car. It was green (which she did not like), and kinda rattle-y (which made her nervous), and had a serious paint issue on the hood (which was embarrassing, yea, even unto myself). So I sold it, and am buying my brother-in-law's slightly newer, non-green, non-embarrassing-hood-desecration Honda Accord.

(Sticklers will point out that the husband of my wife's sister is not technically my brother-in-law. To these people, I say two things. First, language is a method of communication. If I say that a fellow is my brother-in-law, most people will recognize that as an indication of a relationship within a particular orbit: not quite immediate family, but closer than extended family. Second, ppphhhhtttt.)

Back to Craigslist. I put up the ad on Saturday afternoon before we went to the park. I got my first call while we were at the park, and met the guy in the Wal-Mart parking lot that night. He did not buy it, but I got at least two phone calls, plus at least one email each day after that. Having used other means to sell cars before, I can tell you that that is a lot of activity (certainly, selling a very popular car at slightly below Kelly Blue Book price also helps).

Yesterday, a lady, her son, and his daughter came by to look at the car. They test drove it, and he said he liked it. I told him that yet another fella was coming up from Dublin, Georgia (a 3-hour drive) to look at it later that night, and this first guy told me that he would call me back by 3:30 that day. He didn't.

He called at 9:00 instead (the Dublin guy neither showed up nor called; this happened a lot). Man-With-Daughter said, over the phone, that he would come by at 11 or 12 this morning to pick up the car. He didn't show up.

At about 1:00 today, I got a call from a DeKalb County police officer (eek). He asked if the car was still available. As MWD had not shown up or called, I said that it was. He asked where we lived, and that he would be over in 15 minutes. He showed up in 12. He opened the car, started it, turned on the AC, and looked under the hood. That's all. He explained that the car was for his girlfriend, who had been looking for about 2 weeks for a Honda Accord like this. He was going to tell her to come over and look at this one.

About 20 minutes later I got a call from the girlfriend. She asked where we lived and said that she would be over in about 15 minutes. She showed up in 14 (they're going to have a very happy life together). She took the car for a test drive, and called from the test drive to say that her boyfriend, Officer On-Time, would be by in a few minutes with half of the payment (he was), and that she would be by with the rest of the payment and to sign papers as soon as she could find her way back (she did). Signed, sealed, delivered, etc.

6 days to sell a car. Craigslist rocks, if you have the time & patience to put up with the process. And the emails. I got an email on Saturday (about an hour after I had put the ad up) that said simply, "800 cash." I didn't respond, and got a second email on Sunday from the same address that said, "500 cash." Someone needs to read up on economics. And etiquette.

And now for the second thing. I had a pile of cash on the dining room table, when Timothy (9) and Stephen (7) walk in the room. They just about fainted, and begged to hold the $100 and $20 bills. So we looked at watermarks and the plastic embedded strips in both bills.

Then I pointed out some of the newer and nifty-neato features on the new 20's. I asked the boys to point out some differences. Timothy liked the new shiny parts on the bill, and Stephen liked the portrait. But I waited for someone to point out the different colors on the $20 note. When nobody did, I asked them, "What about the colors?" Then my wife said, "Remember who you're talking to."

So I had a V-8 moment, but stopped just short of the head slap, saying, "What about Stephen?" But he couldn't see the colors either (bluish on the ends and red in the middle). So . . . off to the computer for the colorblindness test. No dice.

Stephen is colorblind.

Moderate panic attack this time. Can doctors be colorblind? I called my sister, whose husband is a doctor. She said he was traveling but she'd ask and call me back in an hour. She did, and the answer is yes, doctors can be colorblind. Or, rather, colorblind folks can be doctors. Whew.

At first, Stephen was a little upset. This lasted for exactly 27 seconds, until I told him that Timothy was colorblind, too, and that they could be colorblind buddies. He practically skipped out of the room. No worries there, and it really explains the past 4 years of wardrobe decisions.

Okay, finishing up. Third thing: Jonah (6) is an entrepreneur. The invisible hand is strong with that one.

My mom dropped by today on her weekly trip down to Macon, and she and my wife decided that it would be a wonderful thing if Jonah and Sam (3) went with her. So down they drove (in her new van), to visit my sister and her children, including Aaron who is also 3, and is Sam's "bestest friend and cousin, and also friend." As my brother-in-law is out of town, they all went to Chuck-E-Cheese's.

About midway through the meal, and after a while of playing games, a boy walked up to the table and asked, "Where's Jonah?" My third son peeked around the corner, spotted his new friend (or should I say partner?), and smiled. Then, under the table, Jonah passed the boy some tokens, and the boy passed Jonah some tickets.

Apparently, they had worked out a mutually beneficial relationship. To wit: Jonah gave this older boy tokens; the older boy played the games at a higher level of skill; then the boy gave the tickets to Jonah. The boy got to play more games than he would have on his own, and Jonah got more tickets than he would have on his own.

If there are small plastic lizards involved, I'm sure that Jonah will find a way to game the system. Adam Smith would be proud; I know that I am.

Tuesdays With Jonah

2007-05-22T08:54:00.001-04:00

And Wednesdays too.

This week is the last week of Kindergarten for Jonah. It's been a fun year. He's learned a lot and so have we. Despite our initial fears, we've found out that Jonah can actually pay attention in class, that he can learn to behave properly in certain settings, that he can actually absorb the knowledge being given to him by his loving teachers.

Seriously, before this year began, we were wondering if Jonah could do any of those things. Last Summer all we had in mind was the 4- and 5-year-old Jonah, the one who cried when we gave him 5 crackers instead of 4, the one who could barely sit through a reading of Give A Pig A Pancake without jumping up and doing a dance at least once.

But he did it. We were shocked when, at our first Parent-Teacher conference his wonderful teacher told us that Jonah was progressing nicely, was well-behaved in class, and was doing well in school.

"Really?" I asked. "We have a history here." (She had taught both Timothy and Stephen.) "You can tell us the truth."

She laughed and said that yes, really, Jonah was doing well. That he was certainly more active and vocal than his older brothers, but that he was doing a good job of controlling himself at school.

"Really?" I repeated.

"Yes, really." She said, smiling. "You'll start to see it at home about midway through the year."

And we did, although he's still Jonah.

He's reading now, too, on his own. Just like Timothy and Stephen did, he'll ride along in the car, looking at road signs, calling out the ones he can read (Ice! Chick-fil-a! Ham!) and asking for help with the ones he can't read yet. He has his own set of books in the back of the car, alongside the books of the older boys. So sometimes when we drive around, I'll hear him sounding out words, or just reading out loud to himself. Wow.

With the end of this school year comes the end of a peculiar blessing of timing. Jonah goes to a different school than the older two boys, whose day begins an hour earlier. Plus, my wife has "activities" on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. So on those days I get to be home with Jonah for an hour each morning, just my boy and me.

At about 8:15 I'll go downstairs and make sure he's started getting dressed. At 8:30 I'll yell down to remind him to put on his socks and shoes. At 8:45 I'll go sit on the stairs (if it's cold) or outside on the front step while we wait for his best friend's Mom to come pick him up. While we wait, we'll talk, play games, look at the world exhibited in our front yard . . .

But no more. Today was the last Tuesday With Jonah. The Wednesdays ended already, a couple of weeks ago. And next year he'll start 1st grade and go to school with the big boys and I'll be at home all by myself on Tuesday and Wednesday mornings, which isn't as nice as it sounds.

Sam starts Kindergarten in two more years, and we haven't yet decided if he'll go or not. I for one am pushing for him to go, for a variety of reasons. But somewhere in the top 5 reasons is the possibility of Tuesdays with Sam, which would be very beneficial. I'm sure he'll enjoy them too.

You Win!

2007-05-21T20:52:00.000-04:00

Timothy is colorblind.

We first suspected it earlier this Spring. A few years ago we had loaned out my wife's copy of Super Puzzle Fighter II Turbo (literally, the only video game she will play) to her sister and brother. It took about 5 years, but my wife started jonesing to play it again (and yet she scoffs at my WoW addiction). So we borrowed it back.

The boys loved it, and Timothy quickly became very good. The first game I played against him, I won by a lot. The second game we played I won just barely. He killed me on the third. I haven't won a match against him since.

As I watched him play, though, I noticed something. The game is basically "battle tetris" with square blocks falling down in sets of two. The blocks are red, blue, green, and yellow, and you try to build larger gems out of the smaller squares. Then, occasionally, a "swirly" will fall. The swirly will be one of the four colors, and if you place it next to a square of the same color, they both will explode. If other squares of the same color are touching the first one, you can get a chain reaction. Then all the squares that blew up on your side will fall en masse onto your opponent's side. Very nice.

Back to Timothy, who all the while is cleaning our clocks. I would see him drop yellow swirlies on green blocks, and vice versa. And I never heard him complain. So I asked him one time "Why did you put that green swirly on the yellow gem?"

"I don't know."

As we played more and more, I came to realize that he couldn't really tell the difference between yellow and green in the game. He could build red and blue gems from the blocks, but his yellows and greens were always mixed together haphazardly. But it didn't bother him at all. He kept playing, kept winning, kept unlocking new characters and songs that I'd never seen ("I wonder if Mr. Mark has unlocked this before?" This became a constant refrain, an ode to my friend, the uber-gamer).

And somewhere, deep inside me, it hurt to know that I was getting beaten, not only by my own son, but by my probably colorblind son in a game where colors were so very important. Then I got over it and was proud of my boy for kicking this game's butt with essentially one optic nerve cell cluster (possibly two) tied behind his back.

Then we kind of forgot about it (that's our family specialty). Until yesterday, when we played not one, but two games of Risk. And Timothy kept taking Egypt away from me. I owned Africa, he owned Asia, and he kept insisting that he needed Egypt.

You see, in our edition of the game, Africa is various shades of brown, Asia is various shades of green, and Egypt is a very light brown that Timothy interpreted as being a very light green. So he kept taking it away from me.

Exasperated, I cried out, "Egypt is part of Africa. Leave it alone. Don't you have some younger brothers to terrorize, you Asia-wielding horde?"

He laughed and said, "Sorry Dad. It looks like part of Asia to me."

I looked at him for a second, checking for self-pity. Seeing none, I told him, "You know, you're probably color blind."

"Probably. Now I want Africa for real." Then he took it away from me. I should never have taught him to attack his enemy's weakness and avoid his strengths. I can still beat him in Syphon Filter, but mostly because I won't let him play that yet.

So tonight, after the haircuts (Summer buzzes, yay!), I looked up those color blindness tests online. You know, the ones with the circles made up of lots of dots. They have numbers in them in different colored dots. He couldn't see the numbers on any of them, poor guy.

We'll get him checked out over the summer and verify how bad and what kind of color blindness it is. And I'll be on the lookout for rotten kids who'll suggest two completely different shades of purple to wear together. Just like I suggested for a buddy of mine when we were in middle school. Sorry Matt.

After tucking him into bed, I asked if he was upset, and he said that he was a little. I think it mostly has to do with the idea that something is demonstrably "not right" with himself. Also the fact that he'll never be a pilot. But he asked one time while playing SPF2T if being color blind would keep him from doing what he wanted to do when he grew up. Since he wants to be a lawyer and then become a missionary (admittedly, an odd combination), I told him that he could still do those things.

He smiled, dropped 99 squares on me, and then laughed. He'll be fine.

Forecast: Shoes

2007-04-11T08:30:00.000-04:00

Part the First
At 6:30 on Monday morning, I was at Home Depot. The thermostat in my office had died over the weekend, and I needed to get a replacement.

Normally, a dead thermostat wouldn't be too much of a problem; I'd just keep my windows closed. But my wife was using my office to apply coats of polyurethane to a canvas "rug" that she is making, and the fumes made my nose sting and my head hurt. So I had to have the windows open.

Also normally, in April, it wouldn't be a problem to have the windows open (and the fan on, did I mention the constant fan?), but this past week has seen record low temperatures. On Monday morning it was below freezing outside and below 50 in my office. And that's way too cold to type anything.

And so, up at 5-ish, read & pray, off to Home Depot. (I hate Home Depot. It's like Kroger: nothing is where it's supposed to be, there's nobody there to help you, but the prices are so low that you have a hard time justifying not shopping there.) The thermostats were not in with the other electrical items (switches, outlets, lights, etc.). They were in plumbing. I walked the entire length of the store twice looking for a) a sign that said "Thermostats", or b) an orange-aproned employee, 1) of whom I could ask "Where are the thermostats" and 2) to whom I could convey my utter disgust for his or her store and chosen profession.

I finally found someone in electrical itself, and he was so helpful with 1 that I decided not to proceed to 2. So I went to plumbing, found a thermostat, and headed to the checkout line.

Part the Second
In the checkout line, I discovered that my check card was gone.

I rifled through the entire contents of my wallet (it didn't take long, I work at home, you know) and did not find it. So I used my business credit card, which means that I have to write a check to my business and then, next January, remember why there's a $31 charge from Home Depot on my business card.

That's right. I'm the financial records keeper for my business. We're doing fine, why do you ask?

Back at the car, I call my wife, "Have you seen my blue card?"

"No."

"Because it's gone."

"What do you mean it's gone?"

"It's not in my wallet."

I'll skip the discussion of where I might have left it, and the lengthy list of places previously visited, as well as the even more lengthy list of my organizational faults that came to light during the conversation.

By now I was halfway home. I said, "I'll call the bank."

"Ok. Don't get breakfast while you're out."

"I won't. I couldn't pay for it if I did."

"You could use your business card."

"True. But I'm worried about a $3 charge from Chick-fil-a on the business card. They're getting strict about this stuff. Look what they did to Martha."

Dial tone.

I got home, called the bank, and told them that I lost my card. They said, "Ok," canceled the card, and issued me a new one. Seven to ten business days. There will be a long stretch in our bank statement this month that does not have Chick-fil-a anywhere on it. I'm hurtin'.

As a confirmation, the nice bank guy asked me to list the last places I used the card. I did, and he said, "Ok," and that was that. Very quick, 5 minutes, very professional.

Then he called me back. "Did you spend $75 at [name of a common gas station]?"

"No."

"Ok. There's also a $35 charge at the same [place] on the same day."

"Ah, yes. That's my wife. She bought gas there on the way home from church."

"And she wouldn't have spent an additional $75 there?"

"She'd have had a heart attack first."

"And you didn't spend $75 there?"

"I didn't go to that station yesterday, and if I had spent $75 at a [place that sells only gas and junk food], we would not be speaking and my wife would have made sure it looked very much like a heart attack."

"Ok. I'll contact Fraud Services."

"Thank you very much."

We checked the rest of the processed and pending charges, and they all checked out. So my old card is dead. Long live the new bank card!

Part the Third
By now, it's after 8 AM, and I'm at work. In my cold office. With the windows open and the fan on, pulling in 30-something degree air. It's a nice, brisk breeze. I'm wearing a t-shirt, a long-sleeve thermal shirt, a polartec jacket, wool socks, thick cargo pants, and at least one hat.

No gloves, though, because of the teeny tiny wires and screws and screwdrivers. My hands are freezing.

With my work phone close at hand, I get to work on the new thermostat. As I'm disconnecting the old one, I remember that I'm supposed to label the wires. But they're a mess, and there are no letters printed on the thermostat itself.

"Bah, they're colored wires. Red is red, right?"

As I disconnect, I notice a larger than normal number of both jumpers and wires. And there's a new color. But I hate electricity, so I'm rushing through this to get away from the naked wires.

After I'm done, I start cataloging the wires and looking at the diagram. Red, check; Yellow, check; Green, check; White, check; Blue, check; um, what the [naughty word] is that? Purple? Orange? Puce?

So I look at the old thermostat, and examine which screws are higher than the others, meaning that they used to have wires in them. That's when I notice the letters, printed under the wires. (Robertshaw. Great choral conductor, lousy thermostat UI.)

I run through the letters: W, yep; Y, yep; G, yep; B, yep; um, W2, huh? Oh yeah, jumpers. Despite the fact that my plan is now completely shot, I continue. R2, yep? E? [another naughty word]! There's no E in the new thermostat.

I'm ready to start throwing thermostats (two of them just happen to be close at hand), when I notice the little line at the bottom of the instructions: "If your wires do not match any of the diagrams above, please call Ritetemp for assistance."

So, I walk over to the computer to look up their phone number. Which is good, because I was at my computer, and away from the naked, live wires when the power went out. And something exploded.

Part the Fourth
It took about a second to realize that the explosion was outside, and not inside at my thermostat or downstairs at the heat pump. So I looked out my window just in time to see a glowing, filamentous strand falling lazily down from the sky.

Whew. Transformer blew. Not my fault.

In the dark - the cold, cold dark - I walked downstairs to make sure that everyone was okay. I double-checked the fuse box to make sure that it wasn't really us, but everything was fine. The kids were not really afraid, but the loss of power and the huge explosion did have them in a minor frenzy.

I checked outside, and the mess at the top of the power pole looked a little more messy than usual. And then I saw the squirrel. A big squirrel. A big, dead squirrel. Contrary to previous reports by power-liney guys, he was neither charred black nor smoking. He just lay there, looking up at me accusingly.

So I called the power company, had a nice push-button conversation with their computer, and settled to wait for the power to come back on. Because I couldn't work, and I couldn't call Ritetemp (remember the thermostat?).

I grabbed a book, sat on the couch, and decided to wait for another shoe to drop. None did.

Epilogue
The power guy came within an hour to turn the power back on. I sent the squirrel on his way to the great oak tree in the sky (actually, I flung him into the bushes across the creek, to hope that his decomposition would be well on its way before my boys found him). I called Ritetemp and talked to a friendly helper lady who told me that I had the wrong kind of thermostat (I bought the right one and installed it yesterday). And the $75 charge disappeared from my bank statement.

Now all I need is a Coke.

Update: 1:51 PM
I got a Coke.

Nose Goblins

2007-04-05T15:52:00.000-04:00

This past Sunday, I noticed something while on my way down the stairs to head out the door for church (It was Palm Sunday, which for Presbyterians is the one Sunday of the year when things get "rowdy." The children look at the proffered palm frond, then to their parents, and look up with thinly disguised glee. "You mean we get to wave these?" Yes. "In church." Yes. But only during specified times. "Aww.").

Anyway, as I was walking down the stairs I noticed two small, brownish objects stuck to the wall, about 1 foot off the ground. Having been a parent for quite a few years (and having been a guy for even longer), I instantly recognized what they were.

I walked into the kitchen and confronted the likely suspect, who was sitting on the floor attempting to put on his shoes.

"Sam," I said, "Are you picking your nose and wiping it on the wall."

"No," he said.

Now, a normal person would be satisfied with this response. But two things clued me off. First, while he was saying this he had his forefinger and thumb inside his right nostril (he's a pincher, not a digger). Second, he was looking right at me. This meant he was lying.

Sam is a masterful liar. I don't know if it's his young age, or some sort of perfect storm of genetics and personality, but he has an almost Clintonian ability to believe that whatever he says is the truth. Even Stephen was not this good (thankfully, Stephen has discovered Guilt, and he has really gone off his game, lying-wise; he still sneaks food like a pro).

Armed with certainty that I was correct, I asked again, "Sam. Do not lie to Daddy. Did you pick your nose and wipe it on the wall."

"Yes," he replied, still pinching and picking away. "Sorry Daddy" (which actually came out "sawee dadee").

End of story, right?

But then Jonah . . .

Now, this has got to be good, right? Anything, any sentence, paragraph, story, anecdote, medical study, whatever, that begins with "But then Jonah . . ." has got to be good. This is no disappointment.

But then Jonah said, "Daddy, I do that too sometimes." Jonah looked and sounded very guilty.

I turned to him and said, "Okay, but please don't do that anymore."

"Okay Daddy, I will. But sometimes my nose gets full and I have to clean it out."

Actual Prayer 1

2007-03-25T20:27:00.000-04:00

As a companion to our Actual Conversation Series, I offer up Sam's bedtime prayer in its entirety:

Dear God, help everyone to feel better, and help me go poop when I'm done praying.

Sorry

2007-03-24T23:15:00.000-04:00

I've been working over here.

This having 2 blogs is a little weird. I'll try to work it out better. Until then . . .

The More Things Change . . .

2007-03-15T13:41:00.000-04:00

. . . the more proof there is that you have children.

For the past few weeks, Jonah has been sleeping in the top bunk, by himself. He started out slowly, trying it once and then moving back down when Sam pitched a fit.

For a while Jonah would lay down (lie down?) in the bottom bunk until Sam went to sleep, and then move up to the top bunk. Because Jonah would also fall asleep, this led to interesting events at 3 AM. One morning, when I went in to get the big boys up for school, Jonah woke up and began crying because he hadn't woken up and climbed up top before the morning.

Then Lottie came over, and she and Jonah took turns sleeping solo in the top bunk. Then Jonah alternated, one night on the bottom bunk with Sam, the other night on the top bunk alone. It helped that on the night Jonah slept up top (which Sam hates), Sam got to pray first (which he loves).

But now Jonah just sleeps up there every night. Sam has gotten somewhat used to it, in that he no longer cries at bedtime, pleading with Jonah, or Stephen, or Timothy to come sleep with him. That was a rough week, because both Timothy and Stephen are such tender-hearted guys that we had to hold them back from Sam's siren song. Plus, one of them bunking with Sam would leave the other one alone in their own bed (we draw the line at 2 per twin mattress), and neither of the big boys is too keen on solo sleeping.

And so, for the past couple of weeks, it's been Timothy and Stephen in their own double bed, Jonah on the top bunk alone, and Sam on the bottom bunk alone.

(Jonah still leans over the edge and talks to Sam, and they manage to keep each other awake just as effectively as when they shared the bottom bunk. Kids.)

One side effect has been that Sam, when he wakes in the night, now wakes up by himself. And so, as 3-year-olds are wont to do, he cries. (Please note: this was my original purpose for doubling up the kids in beds, to prevent nighttime crying. It was not a cost-saving measure, as has been posited by some folks. Ahem.)

And when Sam cries, I do what I always did with Timothy. I go climb in bed with him until a) he stops crying (i.e., falls asleep) and I can go back to my own bed or b) I fall asleep and wake up the next morning in the bottom of a twin bunk, which is not a comfy at 35 as it was at 29, and is in no way as cool as it was when I was 8.

But the other night, it was Jonah who woke up after having a bad dream. And because he was alone (a real-life example of sleeping in the bed you have made for yourself) he was scared. So he came into our room and climbed in bed with us. I know this because I woke up with his elbow in my ribs and with his feet kicking places that heretofore had remained unkicked since my last bout of bunking with Stephen (he's a kicker, that one).

After a discussion with my wife the next day (after my voice had reduced to a somewhat more commanding tone), it was decided that Jonah would no longer be allowed to come hop in bed with us after bad dreams. We could go comfort him and pray with him, but he would stay in his bed and we would stay in ours.

This new system was put to the test the very next night (what had he been watching?), when I got up at about 4 to go calm him down and pray with him. After the crying stopped, and after the praying, he said, "I should have taken 3 drinks of water."

It being 4 AM, I let that pass.

The next day I asked Jonah what he meant by 3 drinks of water, and he said that Stephen had told him that if he took 3 drinks of water he would not have bad dreams. Stephen says stuff like this pretty frequently, and we're trying to decide whether he's playing tricks on other people, or whether he thinks these things are true and is just trying to pass along helpful information.

Regardless, the next night as I was putting Jonah to bed he jumped down after prayers and said, "I need to take my 3 drinks of water so that I don't have nightmares." I said, "But we've prayed about your nightmares," to which he replied, "I know, but Stephen said to drink 3 drinks of water so that you won't have nightmares."

He drank, and there were no nightmares.

Syncretism ahoy!

Sending The Wrong Message

2007-03-02T13:58:00.000-05:00

At the rec center where the boys take karate (and possibly gymnastics), there's a sign that reads, simply:

Yoga!

Can't Bear It

2007-03-01T12:19:00.000-05:00

Last night we started reading The Hobbit to the big boys. The results were interesting.

We had finished Harry Potter 2 (COS) the night before, and Stephen wanted to watch that movie right away, since family tradition says they can't watch the HP movies until after they've read the book.

His mother had already told him that we would be watching it Friday night. But he pestered me all through cooking dinner yesterday, asking if we could watch the movie that night. I said no, that it was already too late to begin such a long movie, that it was a school night, that he couldn't watch it while the little guys were awake, etc.

So he got grumpy.

Now, here's the thing. When Stephen gets corrected, disciplined, or denied in any way, he gets grumpy. He pouts, puts on a sour face, hangs his head, and stomps around the house. When he talks to you, if he'll talk at all, he uses a very low voice with the shortest possible answers. Aside from all this, when he's in a grump he'll often do things to make his situation much, much worse. He'll kick things, yell at his brothers, or snap at one of us, and this only gets him in more trouble.

Time usually wears this out, although there have been times where doing one of his favorite things will also make him snap out of it. One time he was throwing a very serious, multi-hour grump about something, only to come skipping and smiling in when we started to play Crash Team Racing.

So, last night, informed at dinner for the last time that we would not be watching the movie nor beginning Harry Potter 3 (POA), he put on a show for the whole family.

Because last night's reading of the first chapter of The Hobbit turned into a full-family event. We read in the living room, Jonah on the couch with me and Sparkles, my wife in the chair, Timothy at the dining room table, finishing up dinner (a combination of a late Karate class and his own naturally slow eating had him finish up around an hour after the rest of us), and Sam bouncing around the room. Stephen, in full grumpitude, lay on another couch, facing away from us all, fingers in his ears.

As I read, he would occasionally mutter, just loud enough to hear but certainly intended for our ears, an angry "Hmph." After several of these, and some physical grumpery involving Sam, I asked Stephen to go upstairs and go to bed. By all appearances, he was not listening to the story at all, and was taking active measures to avoid it.

He stood up, face downcast at the floor, brows furrowed, lips pursed, and stomped out of the room. He even dropped his night-night on the floor in a grand gesture, but immediately thought better of it and whisked it up.

After he had left, we resumed reading. A few minutes later, I noticed Sam standing at the bottom of the stairs, his eyes fixed on about the second step up. Stephen was sitting there, listening to the story, whispering urgently for Sam to go away and not give up his secret.

Being a blunt instrument, I said, loudly, "Stephen, if you want to listen you can come back." There was a loud "Hmph!" from the stairs, and then the sound of a stomping 7-year-old going up to his room.

A few minutes later, my wife whispered to me, "Don't look at the kitchen." Of course I looked, and there was Stephen, standing in the doorway, drawn back to the story. This time, I didn't say a thing, but my wife motioned for him to come over. He did, and he stayed for the rest of the night's reading.

Of note, Timothy listened quietly at the table and Sam didn't listen at all, practicing living room gymnastics for the entire half-chapter. Jonah on the other hand, sat next to me, quietly and repeatedly whispering all the odd words to himself, playing them around each other. "Baggins, baggins, baggins, thorin, thorin, bifur, bofur, bifur, bofur."

We'll finish chapter 1 tonight, and then get on our way to trolls, elves, orcs, eagles, bear-men, spiders, and then, a few weeks from now, the dragon himself.

House and Home III

2007-02-28T09:28:00.000-05:00

I was doing the checkbook the other day, because, you know, it's February. And February is the time to pull out the January statement, print out the February interim statement (laugh mockingly at the August-December statements), find Quicken 2003 on the computer, and start a new file. Suffice it to say that I'm not a good money manager.

So in the process of entering almost 2 months worth of deposits and charges, I came across some entries that sparked some recent memories.

To wit:

1/30/07 McDonald's 12.91

This should have been about $20, but it was the day after the new McDonald's opened up and they were running a 99-cent special on kids' meals.

This particular McDonald's had been closed and had slipped its Dec 06 re-opening date. I had stopped paying attention to it, but my wife drives by the location with some frequency, usually with Jonah in the car.

So on that day (a Tuesday, if memory serves), she came home and said, "I have to clean the house. Take the boys to McDonald's after work. Then go somewhere else, maybe the grocery store. You like the grocery store, right? Go and don't come home for at least 2 hours."

And I said, "Ok."

So I took the boys to the new McDonald's and a good time was had by all. Jonah got his cheeseburger Happy Meal, I got a Coke, and they all got to run around kicking and screaming in the new PlayPlace. One of the ladies from our babysitting co-op was there, and true to form I didn't recognize her at all. Jonah talked with her similarly aged son for about 10 minutes before she turned around and introduced herself.

Sitting behind me was a poor girl trying to do her Accounting homework. I apologized for the noise (4 boys + new McDonald's PlayPlace + friends = lots and lots of noise), but she pointed out that she had brought her son here so that he could play while she did her homework. Good for her.

It was on this trip in particular that I noticed Jonah's new eating habits. He eats a lot, and does so all the time. There's a growth spurt coming soon. That night, he ate his entire cheeseburger, all of his fries, 3 of Sam's chicken nuggets, the remaining half of Sam's fries, 2 of my chicken nuggets, and a handful if my fries. It's at this point that I'm thanking God for the produce co-op with its big box of apples and bananas, and for the inspiration for the "any fruit, any time" rule.

That night is also worth remembering because it was the last time Timothy got a kid's meal. For a few months now, the portions of the kids' meals just haven't been enough. Mama Fu's, McDonald's, Chick-fil-a, none of them give enough food for my 9-year-old. And so, in the checkbook, the very next McDonald's entry is this:

02/15/07 McDonald's $17.34

That's pretty high, especially considering that there's only 4 of us. But now, instead of Timothy getting a $3 Happy Meal, he's getting his first adult combo. He likes those Chick-fil-a knockoff sandwiches they have (southern style?) and so I got him the combo meal with that in it. He loved it, and ate the whole thing.

What does this bode? Well, it portends us eating out a little less often, unless I strike it rich. If Timothy is eating adult-sized portions, then it's only about a year or two before Stephen does the same, then Jonah a year after that, then Sam a few years later. And then my $20 night out at McDonald's becomes $30-$40. Mama Fu's goes from $30 to $50, etc.

And no more entries like this in the checkbook:

1/17/07 Chick-fil-a $17.75
1/19/07 Chick-fil-a $ 4.68
1/20/07 Chick-fil-a $ 7.31

Still, I'd rather have children than money. And as a very wise woman once asked me, "Do you really think God would give you all those children and then not provide for them?" I agree, and hope that said provision also covers a bi-weekly McDonald's run. I don't want to be the one to break the news to Jonah if it doesn't.

Lottieland

2007-02-22T14:56:00.000-05:00

It's just . . . different. She's great, I love her, I wish she could stay for a lot longer. But . . .

She's polite. All the time. Yes ma'am, no ma'am. Yes sir. Please may I?

Last night we had tacos, and she ate over her plate without us having to ask. Sam couldn't find his plate and dropped taco innards all over his lap for the entire meal. Jonah wasn't much better, and Stephen and Timothy can eat tacos without shattering them.

She's changed clothes 3 times today already. I have to cajole and plead with my boys to convince them that they can't wear the same shirt 3 days in a row. Changing underwear usually requires threats.

Today, when my wife got back from her morning carpool run/child switchoff, Lottie walked in from the garage and yelled, "Hello! We're back!" It took me a second to realize that she was talking to me (my guys usually just run in and head straight for the TV or their toys). She wouldn't stop yelling hello until I responded.

Then she told me about who had come home with her, where they had gone, etc. I sat there amazed. Never, ever, had so much information been offered to me voluntarily.

She heads out tomorrow to stay with another aunt, then her grandparents (she's a popular girl).

I'm going to miss her terribly.

matthew18five

2007-02-22T14:53:00.000-05:00

A new blog. Scroll to the first post for the full story.

There's A Girl In The House!

2007-02-21T08:46:00.000-05:00

My wife's sister and her husband have gone to Australia (a.k.a. The Promised Land) for a week or so, and we have been blessed to keep their middle daughter Charlotte (yes, that Charlotte) for a few days. It has certainly been a different experience.

Two quick stories.

Like our Sam, Charlotte is the only person in her family with a nickname: Lottie. Now, having been told explicitly not to call her younger sister Maggie, I was unsure exactly what the proper protocols were. So, in the car on the way out last night, I asked her whether she preferred Charlotte or Lottie.

"Either one is fine," she said, "or you can call me Jewelry" (she pronounced it joolery). Then she smiled.

"Jewelry?" I said, "Like the pretty stuff you wear?" She blushed and nodded, then said, "You can call me that if you want to."

Then, when my wife was walking out to the car (she had been on the phone, natch), Lottie gasped and said, "She is so beautiful!"

As these words had never, ever been spoken in that car, it took me a second or two to figure out what she was talking about. I said "You mean Auntie?"

Lottie said, wide-eyed, "Yeah!" I agreed, and in the back seat, oblivious to all, the boys continued playing their gameboys.

When my wife got in the car and I told her what Charlotte had said, she blushed and said, "You're putting that in the blog, right?"

Right.

Cards

2007-02-19T09:09:00.000-05:00

It was a full-blown argument before I even noticed, with Stephen yelling, "I am not a cheater!"

Timothy, embarrassed that his private argument was now public, raised his voice just a little and accused again, "You looked at my cards."

We were playing Spoons, Timothy Variation 1:

X number of players (or "teams" for those brief moments when Sam was playing cards as opposed to jumping on the couch)
X-1 spoons, laid in a row on the table
7 cards per player, player to the right of the dealer starts
On each turn, the player takes one card from his hand and passes it to his neighbor on the right
Once a player has 7 cards of one color, he can grab a spoon
Once the first person has grabbed a spoon, all other players may grab a spoon, regardless of the cards in his hand
The player without a spoon is the loser

The game is fast, and the cards seem to be a mere pretense and prelude for a mad dash of spoon-grabbing. With a group of 4 people, it is very likely that the game is at most 3 rounds from calamitous spoonery.

(I'm not fond of the single-loser aspect. It's a very elementary school game, very exclusionary. "We're the group and you're not in it," etc. Stephen lost every round as he watched us gobble up the spoons, and would have been very upset -- he doesn't like to lose at all -- except that Sam, who was on Stephen's "team", was walking around with a permanent spoon that they as a team claimed was their just reward.)

Then the fight broke out. Crap. What to do? Cheating is pretty serious, but so is a false charge of cheating. After getting the volume level dropped, Occam's Parental Razor came into effect.

"Stephen, did you look at his cards?"

"No."

"Timothy, this is a serious accusation. Did you see him look at your cards?"

"No."

"Then why do you think he saw your cards?"

"Because he kept giving me reds when he knew I was going for blacks! He kept smiling every time he gave me a card," and here Timothy gave a very good imitation of Stephen's triumphant evil genius face.

Without waiting for me, Stephen leapt to his own defense, "I gave you a red, and you looked all upset like this," and here Stephen made a pretty good imitation of Timothy's disappointed face, upping the ante with sound effects, "and so I knew you were going for black so I kept giving you red . . ."

Timothy blushed and looked embarrassed, and then apologized to Stephen, who accepted gracefully. Meanwhile, my wife and I stared at each other for a few seconds, until she said, "Well, I'm not going to play poker with him."

Spoons soon became tiresome, so we switched to Kings In The Corner. Timothy won 2 out of 3 hands of this game, and had the most spectacular plays. Then Kings also became tiresome (Sam, on my wife's "team", kept grabbing her cards and calling out the numbers).

So my wife taught them Blackjack. Unfortunately, the terminology of the game (which I prefer to call 21) was not properly suited for small boys. Phrases like "hit me" and "bust" elicited sound effects, running around the table to hit brothers, and explosions of cards. We ended the game when three of us hit 20 on the same hand.

So the boys like cards (except Jonah, who really liked his apple and this month's copy of Boys Life). I think this is good. I approve of pretty much any activity that involves sitting around a table and talking to real people. And so human interaction games are becoming more and more popular, especially when my "nothing with screens" rule comes into play.

We'll need to find our Uno set or buy another one. But I at least am looking forward to teaching the boys to play Spades, Hearts, Up And Down The River, Euker, Rummy, Phase 10, and lots of others. Probably even Poker, but I'm not playing against Stephen for real money.

Morning Ritual, Jan 2007

2007-01-23T11:28:00.000-05:00

Having started this blog with a description of the everyday routine here in 4boyhouse, I thought it might be good to update it from time to time. To wit:

3:37 AM
Woke up, looked at clock. It's still too early. Back to sleep.

4:24 AM
Ok, that's better, but my wife is awake. I'll stay here. Back to sleep.

5:15 AM
I'm awake, she's asleep, it's after 4, so I can get up. Read Bible (John 14 this morning), pray, and go check on my WoW auctions.

6:00 AM
Server goes down for weekly maintenance, so I read my daily comics and blogs.

6:20 AM
Bored, and my book is upstairs.

6:22 AM
I switch my USB hub from my PC to my Mac, since that's where all the peripherals go anyway.

Load my iPod with lectures for this afternoon's walk, and discover two weeks worth of Hugh Hewitt podcasts. So I listen to all the Lileks and Steyn interviews, plus a Victor Davis Hanson one that I missed. Excellent.

7:00 AM
Time to wake the bigs. Timothy first (he's easiest), "Timothy, it's time to get up." A whine, a stretch, and he's out of bed.

Stephen's next, "Stephen, it's time to get up." Nothing. I remove the covers and he curls into a ball. I rub his back, talking the whole time. He opens his eyes, and I ask, "Are you getting up?" "Mm-hm," combined with nodding convinces me that he is. Besides, I can come get him.

Jonah and Sam usually sleep through all this, but today Sam woke up and stood at the top of the stairs while I got the big boys out of bed. Then Sam let me carry him downstairs.

7:04 AM
Breakfast begins with the first course: Pop Tarts. Timothy and Stephen eschew the usual Chocolate Fudge in favor of the weekly special of Hot Fudge Sundae. In a rare move, Jonah also bypasses his favorite Smores Pop Tart for the Publix brand Cinnamon Sugar. It is quite possibly the grossest thing I have ever seen, being two slightly different shades of light brown. Jonah, also taken back by its appearance, asks for it to be heated. It doesn't help.

After the Pop Tart course comes the second course: Anything But Pop Tarts. This is the wild-card portion of Breakfast, and can include anything from oatmeal to nothing. Usually it's cereal, as it is today, which makes me glad that I went to the grocery store yesterday and replenished our Corn Bran. The "yellow cereal," as Sam puts it, is an odd favorite here, and has the double benefit of being Not Horrible For You as well as cheap.

After 3 minutes in discussion with Sam, we settle on yellow cereal in a bowl, which is exactly what he's had every morning for the past few weeks. Still, the play's the thing, so I thank him for his efforts in the decision-making process, pour the cereal in the bowl, and put it in front of him.

He sees what Jonah has and decides he'd rather have the tan-on-tan knockoff. Also heated. (It must be noted here that the boys generally eat their Pop Tarts untoasted, for reasons that are unknown to me).

Everyone gets hot chocolate this morning, instead of the usual juice, juice, chocolate milk, chocolate milk. Also unusually, I get to stir.

7:20 AM
Send the big two to get dressed, their cups of cereal still half-full (they eat the "blue cereal:" Quaker Oat-something-or-other Squares). Wife descends the staircase.

7:27 AM
Go upstairs to check on bigs and get clothes for Sam, ascending to the celebratory whirring of electric toothbrushes (thanks Mom & Dad!). I get Sam's clothes, and as I pass Timothy and Stephen's room I notice Stephen playing with his LEGO's. This is discussed, quietly and calmly, and an agreement is reached wherein he does not play with LEGO's in the morning until fully ready for school and I will not throw them all away.

I dress Sam while he watches Clifford (who's the new voice?), which is a difficult thing to do since I forgot to sit with my back to the TV and so he keeps throwing his head back and around to see that the big red dog is up to.

7:36
General chaos ensues, and details are unclear. Lunches are packed (not by me), straggling children are scolded (usually by me), questions answered, papers signed, backpacks and jackets searched for and found.

7:49
I pour myself a bowl of cereal: granola (yay) with raisins (ew) and milk (a risky gamble). Before I take the first bite, I am engaged with putting children 1, 2, and 4 into the car. Number 3 goes to a different school, and will be spending the next hour basically with the entire house to himself. It's Jonahland writ large, and he spends the majority of his time watching the new Bionicle commercial (they call it a "short movie") on the computer.

7:58
In my office, I power up my computer and get ready for the day.

8:25
Having returned emails, I go check on Jonah and remind him to put his shoes on.

8:36
Jonah comes up to my office to ask me to read him the name of his Rakshi. He still does not have shoes on, a fact of which I remind him, gently.

8:40
I come down from my office to do a final check on Jonah. Socks & shoes? Check. Jacket? Check. Backpack? Check.

We sit on the stairs and make funny faces at each other. Then he shows me the new Bionicle commercial. Then we discuss a game that he and his best friend Justin are playing wherein they are going to grow up and own a factory together. It's a long running game (dream? career goal?), and it has an acronym that I can't remember. This is serious stuff. Jonah wants a store as well, but Justin doesn't. So Justin says that he'll be okay with a store if they can have a fair. As told by Jonah, this seems to be a point of agreement, although the alliance is still fragile. Time will tell.

We make more faces at each other.

8:55
Jonah is gone to school, and the house is mine. I celebrate by drinking no Coke whatsoever.

Chili

2007-01-17T08:34:00.000-05:00

We've been entertaining a lot recently. Why? Because we're sick, of course. Nothing attracts invitations and calls, from family and friends alike, like the sleepless cough of a spouse or the oozing eye of a child.

To make things easier, we've had chili. But not just any old chili; we've had what I call German Chili. Why's that? Because the lady who taught it to me was German, silly person. And it has corn in it.

Apparently Germans think of corn as the quintessential American ingredient, like we associate tomatoes with Italian food, peanuts with Thai, or cumin with Mexican. How do I know? Well, a friend of mine went to Germany a while back (okay, like 10 years ago) and the Pizza Hut there had an American Pizza that featured corn. And a German friend is the only person I've ever seen put corn in chili.

Is there a hole in my logic? Yes. Moving on.

As crazy as it sounds, people like this chili. In fact, they ask for the recipe, hence this blog, despite the fact that TBC came out yesterday (my server is down, FYI). So, as long as I'm writing this up, I may as well post it here for both of you who still read this thing.

I'll post the basic recipe first, in all its Teutonic glory, and then I'll add a little something about variations.

German Chili
1 medium Onion
1lb Ground Beef
1 can Corn
1 can Red Beans
1 can Chili Beans
1 can diced or crushed Tomatoes

Brown the onion in a little oil. Brown the beef. Add all 4 cans and cook for about 15 minutes over medium-low heat.

Serves 4-6.

That's it. Very easy. The spices from the beans work in, and cooking longer over low heat blends everything nicely. This goes really well with cornbread or muffins, in spite of the obvious double-dipping into the Maize family.

And so, since I like to mess around with my food, I've come up with some variations.

More beef - sure, why not.
2 cans of tomatoes - makes it more chili-like, in my opinion. Also, an increase in tomato content is an increase in the likelihood that Jonah will eat it.
Spices: 1/4 tsp of each of the following: chili powder, chili flakes, cayenne, paprika (for color), and cumin- this makes the above recipe kind of hot. As in none-of-my-kids-will-eat-it hot. Add more or less to your taste.
Sugar - I don't, but have at it if you like your chili more Hormel than "my nose is running"

Enjoy. More recipes as events warrant.

Bronchitis

2007-01-08T09:22:00.000-05:00

The verdict is in, folks, and I have Bronchitis.

Yes, I actually went to the doctor this past Saturday, which makes for twice in less than 30 days. I don't think I've been to the doctor twice in a year since I got to middle school. A year in which I don't go to the doctor at all is a good year, and now I've already blown it for 2007.

And so, after taking the boys to Toys 'R Us Saturday morning to get the new Bionicles (LEGO released the new bad guys ONE WEEK before Christmas; I'm still composing my scathing letter to them), and after heading over to Target to pick up the Flovent & Albuterol refills that we so desperately need, I grabbed a book and headed over to my local doc in a box.

Not bad. Only one person in the waiting room when I got there. So I only waited 45 minutes, but I had a good book (Post Captain, by Patrick O'Brian) and I got to turn down the TV to reasonable levels. So it ws like a little mini-vacation.

Then it was my turn. The doctor asked a bunch of questions, listened to me breathe a bit, listened and said that I had Bronchitis. Perhaps Pneumonia, and he could order a chest x-ray if I wanted one, but the prescription would be the same.

I said thanks, that I would keep the Bronchitis and leave whatever was behind curtain #2. And that was it. Zithromax, 5 days, and lots of rest.

So I'm finally getting to read those books I got for Christmas, which makes me very happy.

Changes

2007-01-05T08:45:00.000-05:00

The Seismic Sam Shift continues.

Everybody changes, right? Subtle differences, here and there, although Stephen is pretty much the same Stephen as 4 years ago. He has different capabilities, different surface desires, but his core reactions and drives are the same. Timothy too.

Jonah changed the most, and the most rapidly. From birth to 18 months he was smiley, happy, huggy; he was the easiest baby we ever had. Then, one day, he became Jonah.

Sam, on the other hand, was the hardest baby we had. He cried pretty much constantly as a baby, unless he was being held by my wife. Even if he held her, he would sometimes cry, only to cry louder if she put him down. All boys are Mama's Boys; but Sam was an Only Mama's Boy.

Then, at about 2 years, he began to change. He started to laugh, to play, to walk around and see and do things. But not when my wife was around. If she was in the house, he was attached to her leg. Just like old times.

So for the past year or more I've gotten to know a Sam that his mother has never seen. He would go with me to the grocery store (every time) and we would have a blast. Publix would have french bread samples, and we'd get one as soon as we entered the store. Because he eats so slow, he'd still be working on that little, inch-thick round of bread halfway across the store. We'd laugh, he'd help pick out food. He still wouldn't smile at or speak to any other person, but Sam and I would have a good time.

Then we'd get home to Mommy, and he'd be on her leg again, crying.

But now he's starting to change. He still whines when she's around, and he still climbs up on her while she's reading on the couch. But he plays up there a lot. And it seems that once he's established that she's going to stay there, he'll go roam around the house and play.

So her Sam is slowly becoming my Sam. Kids are bizarre, but wonderful.

Sick

2007-01-04T16:18:00.000-05:00

Thanksgiving. Disney World. Flu. Sinus infection. Doctor's office. Amoxicillin. Recovery. Christmas. Flu. Cold. Sinus infection. New Year's. Cold/flu fusion (clu? fold?).

Happy Holidays, my fat foot.

And that's just me. Other people in the house have been sick, too.

In the week before Christmas, only my wife did not go to the doctor. At one point, 4 of us were on Amoxicillin. For the past week, all 4 boys have been on Flovent and Albuterol.

Buy stock in Motrin.

Meaningless But Interesting

2006-12-15T14:22:00.000-05:00

I was going through some old college notebooks today, and I found some neat stuff.

Okay, a) yes, I still have my old college notebooks. I don't know why. And b) I was only going through them because I'm cleaning up my office. We're having friends over on Sunday, and we're trying to fool them into thinking we're clean, organized people.

So, at the beginning of each notebook was one of these:

It's a schedule of my classes (and work) for the quarter, and I apparently made one for each quarter.

Note the white space. I recall this as being a particularly hectic quarter. (Let me know when you're done laughing, and we'll move on.)

My wife and I had an observation about this a few years back, when people would see us looking harried with our two small children (two really is the hardest), and they would say, "Enjoy it while you can. It only gets harder."

And we would stare in disbelief. "Harder than this? How can that be?"

And then one day we sat down and looked back. Remember High School? Remember how difficult it seemed at the time? Compare that to now. Oodles of free time. College seemed harder still. Then we got married and wondered where our free time went. Then we had one kid. Then two. Oh, my.

Look at that schedule again, and have a gander at Saturday. Nothing there. A free Saturday. I haven't had a free Saturday in about 5 years.

Still, I might just keep one of those notebooks to show to the kids one day. I'll say, "Look here, I used to be pretty smart." And maybe it'll help. I remember one time finding out that my Dad had read Chaucer or something in college, lo those many years ago. And it upped him a little in my murky teenage heirarchy.

Delays

2006-12-15T10:48:00.000-05:00

Sorry for the light posting. We went to Disney World a couple of weeks ago and then I had the flu.
"Why should this affect blogging?" you might ask. And it's a good question.

Not that I have an answer. The main problem is that when you take your kids to Disney World, you come back with thousands of stories. Good ones, like:

Timothy and Stephen like roller coasters, except the inside ones, which Stephen doesn't like. Jonah does not like roller coasters at all, which means it is a good thing we tried him out on the little Goofy one instead of Space Mountain as was originally planned.
When Jonah says he has to go to the potty (#2, FYI), he usually means he has to go. Unless . . . it is 8:00 PM, he's been walking all day, and he's already sat on the potty 3 times in the past 20 minutes and nothing has come out. At that point, the next time he tells you he has to go, he probably doesn't. Probably.
Timothy got the flu on the first day. This could have been bad, but a) he responds well to Motrin, and b) Disney has free Children's Motrin in their first aid stations.
If your parents are nice enough to take you to Disney World, you should let them ride the roller coasters first. Sorry Dad; sorry Mom.
Fast Pass is awesome, except when you don't use it. Then you stand in line for a very, very long time.
Jonah loves Tigger, and apparently believes that the characters are real. He said "See you tomorrow" several times to characters in the parks. Sweet boy.
Stephen's love for Donald Duck continues unabated, even though he tries to hide it. He also loves Pooh.
Timothy's not a fan of the characters anymore, but he really loves the roller coasters. This is going to be a fun time.

The problem with coming back from Disney World is that all these stories should get told. But I caught Timothy's flu and was out of commission for a week. So then I had all these Disney stories backed up, and new stuff kept happening. But you can't blog about Christmas decorations or shows or Sam's new facial expression when DISNEY WORLD STORIES have yet to be told.

So I'm working on it. Sorry.

Jonah's Wardrobe

2006-11-29T08:27:00.000-05:00

That's a misleading title. I'm talking about the clothes Jonah wears, not the place he stores his clothes.

But he does have a wardrobe-like storage thingy, more like an armoire, according to my wife. It was built by her father and is plain but very well built, especially considering that Jonah literally climbs inside twice a day to get clothes. I'll sometimes peek into his room looking for him and see pants or socks come rocketing out of the armoire doors to hit the far wall. He's got a good arm.

Anyway, what Jonah wears. Well, like the other boys, he pretty much wears whatever he wants to. Timothy is pretty good (for a guy) at picking out outfits that match. Think young urban professional just out of law school. Stephen is a little worse, along the lines of a college sophomore who doesn't live near a laudromat or a Gap.

Jonah is the guy Weird Al imitates.

Striped shirt and camouflage shorts. All red outfits, with each piece a glaringly different shade. Orange and red. My wife and I wait breathless at the bottom of the stairs most mornings to see what he's put together. His most consistent pattern is red socks. He is now on his second year of wearing only red socks.

One of these days someone will say something to him, and he'll have enough self-awareness to feel embarrassed about it. Then he'll stop, and a little piece of his Jonah-ness will be lost, and I'll probably cry. But until then I'm taking pictures and giving big hugs. Because what 5 year old needs to be concerned with what he's wearing? No sweatpants or pants with holes to school, that's my only concern.

One last thing. Jonah has this black, long-sleeve shirt with a skeleton embroidered on it. It's his Halloween Shirt, and he loves it. He wore it to school back-to-back on October 30th and 31st.

And then he wore it to school yesterday, November 28.

Memelicious

2006-11-27T14:51:00.000-05:00

Speaking of cars, there's a great discussion going on at "On Considering Inconveniences," a friend's blog. The author, Fiorinda (not her real name) asks 3 questions about the cars we've had, have, and love. Lots of fun.

It's what I'll call an In-Place Meme, since you need to post your answers on her blog (which I find super-convenient). You can comment anonymously if you want.

Be sure to bookmark the blog, since she'll be doing more of these, and they're bound to be interesting.

Kings, etc.

2006-11-27T10:13:00.000-05:00

We learned a new card game this weekend.

Thanksgiving was good. We went to my wife's parents' house (someone please double-check the grammar of those possessives there) and had a grand old time. I may have mentioned it before.

Friday was calmer. My wife went shopping and got some Christmas stuff for the boys, including their annual Christmas Eve Pajamas from the Disney Store (we wouldn't think of getting them anywhere else, dear Expatriate).

After she got back, a friend took me up to the Gwinnett Varsity for lunch and to pick up the new (to us) car.

On Saturday an old friend came by with his kids for the afternoon (he's not old, we've been friends a long time and I can't think of a simple phrase that says that; long friend? sounds Kerry-esque; longtime friend? sounds Prairie Home Companion-ish; anyway 28 years and counting). His wife was out of town and our kids hadn't played together in a while, so he came over.

The kids played video games. Okay, we played too. Then we left the kids and went and sat for awhile in another room. Man, what fun. It's another milestone, like letting the kids sit at their own table at a restaurant. They were in one place, we were in another. Any moment now, they'll all hop in a car and head off somewhere, leaving us old folks to sit around and wish they would stay. Not now, though.

So we played cards, and my friend taught us a new game called Kings In The Corner (I think). We had never played it before, and my friend dealt the cards and said "It's like solitaire." At that point, my wife said, "Ah," and didn't need more explanation. I, who don't know how to play solitaire, did need more, so he explained. Lots of fun.

Here's how it goes:

Shuffle the cards. Deal 7 cards to each player.
Place remaining cards face-down on the table and lay out the top 4 in a cross around the deck. These start your "lines" (that's what we called them; I'm sure there are official names but I'm not looking them up; so there)
The player to the left of the dealer goes first. Cards are laid out of his hand onto the lines in descending order, alternating colors. So if a red 8 was laid down, the next card would have to be a black 7, then a red 6, etc. Aces are low.
If the player's hand has a King, it can be put at a 45-degree angle between two existing lines and becomes its own, new line.
Lines can be picked up en masse and placed onto another line (so long as the combined line continues the proper order). This clears up a new space for the player to create another line from their own hand.
At the end of their turn, if he has any cards remaining, the player draws the top card from the central deck.
The player on his left begins their turn.
The first person to lay down all of his cards wins.

My friend said that his two boys like to play, so I tried to teach it to my guys last night. They got it very quickly (except Jonah, who doesn't like cards, and Sam, who doesn't like to sit at the table). We played several hands. Timothy won twice; my wife, Stephen, and I each won once.

We'll probably add this to the game repertoire, but with Chess, Stratego, and Battleship coming for Christmas, King In The Corner will most likely become a camping game.

On The Day After Thanksgiving . . .

2006-11-25T07:12:00.000-05:00

We bought a car.

Nothing fancy. It's 13 years old, has 177k miles on it, the clearcoat on the hood is coming up, various lights et al. have issues.

But it's an Accord, with no wrecks and less than 200k miles on it (given how much I drive, it'll probably never make it that far in the 5 years we'll end up keeping it). And it came at a price that allows us to replace at least one garage door opener.

Our house has a 2-car garage. But instead of one big opening with one large door, we have two smaller openings with two small doors, each with its own opener. And by small, I mean that there are about 3 inches on either side of the van mirrors when we go through the opening. Pulling into the garage is like docking a supertanker. But if I mess up, I don't kill lots of sea birds, I scratch my wife's car. You decide which is worse.

Of the two garage door openers that we inherited with the new house, one has a light that doesn't come on, while the other opener refuses to work at all. I unplugged it when it died because the motor sounded like it was running even though the door wasn't opening. So now the plug hangs down in the garage like a barnacle from Half-Life. I have issues about walking around on that side, and every time I get near it, my subconscious starts scanning for a crowbar.

But with only one car, we had nothing to park on the other side, so it didn't matter that the door wouldn't open. Now it does. I may just get them both replaced, so that a) they'll match, and b) we can get remote openers that work on both of them. Now we have one remote that works just on the working door. It's about the size of cell phone from 1985, and I'm worried that the radiation from it is leaking into the children. The other remote is a 2-button model, one for each door, and is the only way to open the second, now broken door (there is no doorbell thingy for that one). We kept that remote in a safe when it wasn't in use.

All this is to say, the car was inexpensive. Which is good, and it will allow us to return the far half of our garage to the car-storage function for which it was created, instead of a repository for as-yet unrecycled plastic milk jugs, spare child safety seats, and tools that I'm too lazy to put back in the shed.

It's probably a good car, although my mechanic will have a final say on that on Monday morning. It passed through all my filters, but nothing compares to having someone pop the hood, pull the tires, and jack it up and look underneath. Especially if that person knows what he's doing and isn't afraid to tell you the truth.

The boys, of course, love it. It's green, which is in the top five favorite colors of all of them. And, as Stephen said after inspecting the car inside and out, "Good. Now we have two Hondas again."

The Force is strong in that one.

Actual Conversation 3: Words On Thanksgiving

2006-11-24T07:44:00.000-05:00

Okay, there were 2 of these yesterday that were true signposts pointing to the crazy world in which we live. Let's begin with Jonah.

As per 4BoyMom request, the boys were to dress yesterday in jeans and a collared shirt. This is a mullet of an outfit, and was explained to the boys as "school pants and a church shirt." Timothy and Stephen grasped this just fine, and we got out Sam's clothes for him anyway. I figured Jonah might have a little trouble, as this was a clothes-picking that was outside of any normal routine.

He did just fine, though, and brought me a pair of brown khakis.

Jonah: "Dad, can I wear these pants? They're Thanksgiving pants."

Me: "Sure, Jonah. Why are they Thanksgiving pants?"

Jonah: "Because they look like a turkey." As he says this, he's flipping them back and forth to show me the resemblance.

Me: "Go check with Mom."

Jonah walks into the bathroom where my wife is getting ready.

Jonah: "Mom, can I wear these Thanksgiving pants? They're the color of a turkey with all its feathers pulled out."

My wife, chuckling: "Sure Jonah. Those are good pants for Thanksgiving."

Jonah: "Thanks Mom."

As per 4BoyHome tradition, we spent Thanksgiving Day with my in-laws. Lots of folks were able to make it this year, and the count was 10 adults, 3 teenagers, and 10 kids. Not bad.

We left around 8 to come home, having already put the kids into their pajamas. My wife and I normally bet on how many kids will fall asleep on the way home, so it's a habit of hers to check and see who's asleep when we get off the Interstate near our house. We were in the front, Timothy and Sam sat in the middle row, and Stephen and Jonah sat in the back.

4BoyMom: [turning around] "I think they're all asleep."

Timothy: "I'm not."

4BoyMom: "Stephen, are you asleep?"

No reply.

4BoyMom: "Jonah?"

Jonah: "I'm not asleep."

Timothy: "Sam's asleep."

4BoyMom: "No he's not. His eyes are open."

Sam: "No. I'm asleep."

Keeping A Promise

2006-11-21T08:41:00.000-05:00

I bought the boys a BB gun last night.

Yesterday was Car Day. I spent my lunch hour checking out Hondas and Acuras in the used car lots on Lawrenceville Highway near our house. I literally walked from one lot to another, getting VIN's, mileage and prices. Then I came home and made a spreadsheet (I love Excel), checking the harvested VIN's in Carfax.

It turned out that several of the cars had wrong odometer readings. And by wrong, I mean exactly 100,000 miles. Some coincidence, that. When I called the dealers to let them know, they were of course shocked, shocked to learn of it. Not that it would have much of an impact. The price difference between a 93 Honda Accord with 140k miles and one with 240k miles is just a couple of hundred bucks. But those are my couple of hundred bucks, so I printed out the Carfax reports just in case.

And so, after work I went and did a few test drives (after calling my Dad to find out what I should be looking for in a test drive; thanks Dad!). I drove a 93 Accord with 240,000 miles on it (the odometer read 140,000), and it drove like a 13-year-old Accord with 200k+ miles on it. In a word, nice. Very Honda-y, some roughness in the engine, no wobbles, even when stopping at high speed. Man, I love Hondas.

I also drove 2 Acura Legends. Big cars, both out of our price range originally. But my Carfax findings (1 was missing 100k miles, one had been in a major wreck) dropped the prices into view. One drove superfine but looked like bears had overwintered in the interior for more than a few years. The other was a year newer, with the familiar mid-90's Honda interior appointments, and had no sign of ursine inhabitants. But it drove like crap. Bumpy, grindy, loud. This was obviously the major wreck car, and it showed.

Then I came home, quickly inhaled a quesadilla, and then drove to Discover Mills to meet a kid with another 93 Accord, this time with only 177k miles. Nice kid, nice car. Good ride, no wobbles or bumpies. I'll probably buy this one if a) nothing comes in on the Auctions today, and b) if my mechanic says this car is alright.

But enough about cars. We're here to talk about guns. BB Guns, actually, or, more accurately, Air Rifles.

Both Timothy and Stephen are in Cub Scouts, and at the beginning of this year the three of us went to Adventure Camp, a.k.a. the BB Gun camp. It was an overnight camping trip on Friday and a variety of outdoor activities on Saturday. We actually didn't camp, since that Friday was the day we found out that Timothy is allergic to some heavy-duty antibiotic. I forget the name . . . But we drove down early Saturday morning for the activities,which included shooting BB Guns, Archery, seeing live animals, and an odd environmental game that had hundreds of Scouts and Dads running around an open field.

Timothy loved the animals best, but he also enjoyed the BB Guns. He shot pretty well, especially considering it was only his second time out. Stephen, though, shot a bullseye. But it was on Timothy's target. Regardless, that was the target he was aiming at, so I'm counting the bullseye.

Both loved the shooting, so I figured a BB Gun would be a good Christmas gift. So I stopped into Bass Pro Shops and got one. Just one air rifle, two pairs of shooting glasses, and 1200 BB's. I'll get some targets and set up a range in the backyard, and we'll shoot.

And, just like when I was a kid, if I ever see or hear of them horsing around with it, shooting people or animals or houses, it will become my gun for ever and ever, amen. But they won't be using it unsupervised for many years to come, so I'm not going to worry about it now.

Until then, and until Christmas morning, there is, in my office, in the bookcase behind all the paperback novels, a Daisy Red Ryder Air Rifle. And no, there is no compass in the stock, and no "thing which tells time".

Quote of The Day

2006-11-17T15:06:00.000-05:00

Who said this, and where:

Restrictions are great, because they make you more imaginative. They make you rethink things. They make you not do the obvious.

It's a great quote, and is universally applicable. From video games to theology, it's a great point.

Alright, you have until Monday morning, 8 AM EST. That's . . . a lot of hours.

First one with the full correct answer gets something. A bagel. With shmear. With or without me, your choice. If nobody gets it right, I'll take myself out for two bagels.

Note: this is not an ongoing feature. I ran across this quote purely by random.

Actual Conversation, 2

2006-11-17T08:36:00.000-05:00

Me [hoisting Jonah up off the floor as he drags himself out of bed]: Good morning my happy monkey!

Jonah [in the 10 second funk along the path between Sleeping Jonah and Full-on Jonah]: Good morning Dad.

Me: I made hot chocolate. Do you want some?

Jonah: Is it snowing?

Me: No, sorry.

[5 second pause]

Jonah: Ok.

Trending Epicurean

2006-11-15T10:30:00.000-05:00

My wife's book club met here last night, so she spent pretty much the whole day cleaning the house.

[Alright, in the interest of truth, I'll point out that this is only one of my wife's two book clubs. The one last night was the one from church. The one that met the night before that (!) was a new neighborhood club, at which my wife and her friend Kelly are by far the junior members. By something along the lines of 30 years.]

Anyway, as part of her tornado of cleanliness my wife put new sheets on everyone's bed. This included the new flannel sheets for Timothy and Stephen's bed, which had been purchased a week or so before, and about which Timothy had asked approximately 30 times. So he was happy when they got put on.

So happy, in fact, that when he got home from school he pulled the covers back, got in and read. Then he played his new Gameboy. Then he read some more. All snug and secure in his new flannel sheets.

Of course, this meant that the bed that my wife had carefully made up hours in advance of her friends coming over was now messed up. So she let him have it.

Jonah had messed up his bed, too, by getting into it after it had been made up. But he was sick, so he didn't get hollered at.

Nonetheless, this did not dampen Timothy's enthusiasm for his new sheets. When we got home (my wife made me take the boys out to dinner; please don't throw me in the brier patch!) and the time came to put them to bed, he very excitedly pointed out how warm and comfy they are. I was very happy for him.

Please note: my wife also put flannel sheets on our bed, so all is now right with the world.

Crowing For Now

2006-11-14T08:42:00.000-05:00

We just bought our third iPod.

We got our first one about 3-4 years ago. It was one of the big, non-color, non-video ones built on a hard drive. It worked great and did what it was supposed to do (i.e., replace the neverending stream of craptacular portable cassette players that I used when cutting the grass).

It worked for 2 years and then died, probably of a hard drive failure, probably because my wife used it when jogging. "That's right kids, in my day digifrombulators (we called them MP3 players) were as big as the palm of your hand and worked using rapidly spinning magneticized metal disks. And when they failed we cussed and threw them at things. Very heavy, and good for killing squirrels."

When it died, we were left iPod-less for a few months. We really couldn't afford to replace it. Then Apple came out with the Shuffle, and then they apparently got some back and put them up for sale as refurbished units. We rejoiced and bought the cheapest iPod that was available. Under $100 for 1 GB of flash memory goodness.

Not being an audiophile, I can compress the songs to get several days of music on there. And I can fit two decades of talk.

But it didn't have a screen. This didn't matter to me, since during my use of it both of my hands are usually on a lawnmower or a rake and my eyes are watching out for toys or vermin. So for a solid year, all of my Mars Hill listening, all of my 5000 Years of Chinese History listening, podcasts of Hugh Hewitt, etc., have flown from a little plastic stick into my head without hiccup or wrinkle.

But my wife wanted a screen. Her iPod use is different from mine. She likes to put gazillions of songs on the thing and then fidget with it while walking, jogging, driving, or especially while riding in the car while I drive. Very American spirit-ish, not content to just take what is thrown her way. Admirable, of course, but not consistent with the use of a screen-less iPod.

So I sold a car and bought her a Nano.

Just kidding, although we did use a small amount of the money from the sale of a car to buy the cheapest iPod with a screen. She loves it, and now she'll keep Country music off of mine, and I'll keep History of Ancient Egypt, Rome, Byzantium, whatever off of hers.

Now, this was actually a prelude, to establish us fully in the Apple camp. When we first bought an iPod (and, now that you mention it, a Mac), folks asked us why we'd pay so much for one, when decidedly cheaper models were available.

Here's why: I work on Windows computers all day.

Check this out for a better description: these guys tried to install the software that came with the new Microsoft Zune. Please read the whole thing.

For posterity (in case the link gets gone), and because it's at the end, here's the money quote. They're trying to uninstall the Zune software because something wasn't working right (raise your hands; yeah, I've been there too):

Icing on the cake: restart after uninstall. No, sorry, the icing on the cake is the crash our computer took after we hit this, causing our RAID 5 array to crap out and spend a few hours rebuilding.

For the record, I installed iTunes on a computer yesterday and it took 10 minutes, including download time.

Update:
I forgot about this from last year. It's what Microsoft would do with the iPod box. It's a video, very funny.

This reminded me that I still have my original iPod box on a bookshelf in my office. I'm not quite sure why, but it looks awesome.

Walking with Mr. Ludd

2006-11-13T08:09:00.000-05:00

Last week was a bad week for me, computer-wise.

On Tuesday, I discovered that my cat has a new walking path in my office. I don't know what it is with animals, but (just like my kids) they have inexplicable favorite places to be and inexplicable favorite ways to get there. My parents used to have a cattle farm behind their house, and the cows used to walk, en masse, along the fence every so often. Many mornings when we were visiting we would gather on the back porch and watch the "Cow Parade". Then some neighbors got a yappy dog and the cows stopped coming by my parents' fence. Now they've clear-cut the pasture and wooded hill and are building a new neighborhood. Ah, progress.

Anyway, my cat now walks behind my desk several times a day. He stays in my office most days, presumably because I'm there, but also possibly because none of the kids are there. But on Tuesday, for the first time, he did not steer clear of my power strip, the one that plugs in both computers and monitors. He stepped on the switch, and then, while I was yelling at him, climbed up on my desk to stare at me. Bad move. I picked him up while bizarrely mumbling "bad kitty" and the like, and then put him in the garage for a while.

Neither of us learned our lesson, because he did it again a couple of hours later. So I moved the power strip. It now resides on the bottom rung of my computers' rack mount (actually a short, metal towel rack that my wife didn't want anymore).

On Wednesday, my mouse finally died. It was a 5 year old optical (i.e. ball-less) mouse and had given good service for a long time. But it had been skipping and refusing to move just a little for a few weeks. By Wednesday, I couldn't move it at all (by this I mean that I could move the mouse itself, but it had absolutely no effect on the cursor on the screen; just so we're clear).

I switched mice (mouses?) with another computer to see if it was the computer or the mouse, and, thankfully, it wasn't the computer. So I had to buy a new mouse, which might have been a pain, but Microsoft has kept the form factor the same. So I just have to get used to a new color. Yay.

On Friday, my monitor died. It was even older than the mouse, being a 7+ year old Gateway CRT (big, heavy and hot). Its demise was very inconvenient, because I had work to do on both computers. A little juggling, lots of shutting down and restarting, and I was able to finish the day. But by Friday afternoon, I never wanted to see another computer again.

But yesterday I got my new monitor, a 19" LCD. Very nice. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have dozens of sticky notes to transfer.

Rained Out and Flushed Away

2006-11-12T21:57:00.000-05:00

Well, we were going to play putt-putt.

Yesterday, a little over a week late, was the Friends Party for Timothy's 9th birthday. As previously described, our kids get about 4 birthday celebrations each year. First, on the Day itself, each gets to open presents from us (and, I suppose for the future, from his brothers). Second, at some point within a couple of weeks before or after, we'll have dinner of some sort with my parents (and possibly my sister's family). Third, there's also a monthly celebration with my wife's huge family, where the whole clan will get together and (in passing) celebrate the birthdays from that month.

Fourth and finally, there's the Friends party, where the boy chooses a few friends (historically, between 1 and 12) and we'll do something. Stephen's birthday is in the summer, so we've had a sprinkler party for him (I think that was the one with 12 friends). Jonah's is three days after Christmas, so we usually grab whomever is still in town and still has some celebration left in them for a quiet get-together. Sam is 3, and hasn't really been old enough for a friends-only party yet.

But Timothy's birthday sits squarely at the beginning of the Holiday Movie Season. So he has seen several movies as his party, including The Incredibles (highly recommended for all occasions) and Zathura (not recommended at all; as Stephen said after seeing it, "Dad, promise me we'll never buy that movie." I did so promise).

As the oldest, Timothy's birthday requests are the most extravagant. He's asked to go to the new Georgia Aquarium, but at twenty-something dollars a head, we had to say no. He's also asked to go to that Medieval Times jousting restaurant, but the tickets are even more expensive, so we had to say no to that, too. Sometimes it sucks to be a Dad.

This year, he wanted to go play putt-putt. Supposing this to be cheaper than an aquarium or turkey-leg trip, we agreed.

Then the complications began. First, I was going to be out of town for the weekend of his actual birthday. So we picked the next weekend, but 2 of his friends couldn't make it (he had picked 4). We finally agreed on a weekend when 3 of the 4 could come, and he decided to add another friend to the list.

The day of the party arrived, cloudy and cold. We dithered. I checked the weather, but it said only 10% chance of rain. My wife wanted to plan something else, but when I asked Timothy, he still wanted to go putt-putt. So we raked leaves.

Later in the day, still cloudy, now 20% chance of rain, still putt-putt on the agenda. Friends arrived, 30% chance, coudy and windy now, still putt-putt. So we pack 4 third graders, 1 first grader (Stephen wanted to go), and a worried Dad into the car and headed off to Stone Mountain.

When we arrived, it started to sprinkle. No biggie, I had seen the radar and it was a very thin line of showers. Then we saw the signs: DeKalb County Family Cookout. The place was packed. There was nowhere to park near the putt-putt course. So I drove to another set of parking lots, thinking we could walk. After all, my wife had told me not to come home for 2 hours (the boys had gotten into the creek before we could leave, and it had frazzled her a little). But the rain kept falling.

So I called my wife, and she said, "What about a movie?"

"Fine by me. What's playing?"

She checked the local dollar theater, "Nothing."

"What about Regal 24?" This is the mega theater built on top of the old 85 Drive In, where I first saw Star Wars. Good memories there.

She looked, "Well, Flushed Away is playing, but not until 4." It was barely 3:00. This was unacceptable.

"What about North DeKalb?"

"Bingo, 3:20. Come get Jonah."

I did, and we all piled in. I normally get a kick out of the stares I get whenever I take 4 boys somewhere, so I was loving walking around the mall with 6 hyperactive boys. We "stood" in line, got our tickets, and got into the theater just as the ads came on. Perfect timing.

The movie was great. No cussing. One poop joke, one fart joke, and two burp jokes. That's all, and not too bad for a Dreamworks related movie (I think Shrek surpassed all of that in the opening credits). It's a very funny movie nonetheless, and very pro-big-family. The singing slugs were great, as were the ninja frogs. My guys laughed throughout, and then talked about it all the way home.

Oh yeah, when we got out of the movie, it was pouring down rain. It seems I had read the radar wrong (actually, I neglected to look at the loop). It wasn't a thin line of clouds, it was a thin column of clouds, followed by another, and another. It hadn't stopped raining since we had left Stone Mountain park, and it rained on through presents, pizza, and cake.

I think it stopped as my wife was taking everyone home.

On Manual Labor

2006-11-11T11:04:00.000-05:00

Okay, Fall is back in favor.

I'm coming to admit that my recent aversion to Autumn had to do primarily with the trees I was dealt. The big oak in front of our house was the main culprit, with its tiny, brown, flat leaves that fell to carpet the lawn for 4 months straight and were impossible to blow.

But now, in the new house, we have an amazing variety of trees and leaves. Out front is a deep red Japanese Maple that is still mostly intact after slow weeks of color change. Just over the border to our neighbor's yard is a vibrant orange maple of some sort (Sugar Maple?). It has glowed like a neon sign for almost a full month, coloring the afternoon light in my office a bizarre shade.

In the backyard is an even bigger Japanese Maple, this one a rich purple with jagged leaves. There are also several other maples and some River Birches that long ago dropped their yearly burden into our creek. Our back deck and postage-stamp back lawn are adrift in gold and red.

So I'm liking Fall, from a visual standpoint.

I'm also liking it from a work standpoint, since all of these crumply leaves are easier to blow, rake, and pick up than the graphite sheets of oak leaves from years past. A few Saturday morning hours of blowing, a little raking, and the help of 3 boys cleared the entire front yard today; a job that used to take dawn to dusk.

When we began this morning, my wife took the three younger boys for their Thanksgiving haircuts while Timothy and I got started. He raked all the leaves that were in the driveway (a considerable amount) while I blew the lawn. As we finished that, the haircut expidition returned and Stephen came out to help. They loaded several bags with leaves while I did clean-up work with the rake.

Then we took a football break. Timothy can really throw and is even getting good at catching. Stephen tries really hard, but is still at the place where looking impressive while throwing is more important than getting the ball to the receiver. In the midst of the break, Stephen had to leave for a birthday party and Jonah came out to take his place. Timothy and I continued to throw while Jonah blocked with the rake, and I considered it good QB practice.

Finally we finished loading the bags (Sam came out and picked up a single handful), and I sent the boys in to start cleaning their rooms (later today is Timothy's 9th Birthday Party; we're going to play putt-putt) while I collected the tools. That's when I noticed the side yard.

It's a small area, but it was already a couple of inches deep in purple leaves (again with the maples), so I figured I'd rescue the grass underneath. Not wanting to get bored, I went inside and grabbed the iPod, vowing just to listen to whatever was on there (most likely Country music left on by my wife).

But it turned out to be Audition, a 30-minute podcast from Mars Hill Audio. First came some snippets from some recent bioethics interviews (Leon Kass, et al.); good stuff, if a little weighty for a Saturday morning. Then they finished out the podcast with a reading from an article called "Shop Class as Soulcraft."

Wow. It's about craftsmanship, working with your hands, and it is great stuff. If you have ever worked with your hands to make stuff, either for work, hobby, or leisure, it's a great read. Here's a brief snippet:

I began working as an electrician’s helper at age fourteen, and started a small electrical contracting business after college, in Santa Barbara. In those years I never ceased to take pleasure in the moment, at the end of a job, when I would flip the switch. “And there was light.” It was an experience of agency and competence. The effects of my work were visible for all to see, so my competence was real for others as well; it had a social currency. The well-founded pride of the tradesman is far from the gratuitous “self-esteem” that educators would impart to students, as though by magic.

I was sometimes quieted at the sight of a gang of conduit entering a large panel in a commercial setting, bent into nestled, flowing curves, with varying offsets, that somehow all terminated in the same plane. This was a skill so far beyond my abilities that I felt I was in the presence of some genius, and the man who bent that conduit surely imagined this moment of recognition as he worked. As a residential electrician, most of my work got covered up inside walls. Yet even so, there is pride in meeting the aesthetic demands of a workmanlike installation. Maybe another electrician will see it someday. Even if not, one feels responsible to one’s better self. Or rather, to the thing itself—craftsmanship might be defined simply as the desire to do something well, for its own sake.

So you should probably go read it. And here I'm specifically instructing you: Dad, Steve, Brian, Al, and Gary. All of these folks are master builders or fixers, whom I hold in awe (I myself am a very minor fixer, and haven't built anything of consequence since grade school). I'll probably read this article a few more times and continue to wish I knew how to make something real.

And if one day one of my boys tells me that he doesn't want to go to college, that he'd like to be a mechanic, or a plumber, or a welder, then that will be fine with me. Anything but an actor.

The article is here for free.

The 55 minute reading is here for download for $3.

The 30 minute Audition podcast from Mars Hill Audio is available from iTunes. And, of course, more Mars Hill stuff, including a subscription, can be found on their website.

Enjoy.

Discriminating Taste

2006-11-10T15:25:00.000-05:00

Every time we drive by the McDonald's in Tucker, Sam says, "Jonah is sad." You see, there's no McDonald's there anymore. They tore it down.

Micky D's is Jonah's favorite restaurant in the entire universe. I have driven the full length and breadth of many small southern cities, eyes scanning between the sky and horizon for the golden arches. We have eaten very early and very late while on the road to take advantage of a disadvantageously placed McDonald's. We have also made two stops on occasion, picking up a golden-wrapped Precious in advance and taking it in with us wherever we go.

It's the cheeseburgers, you see. Jonah will only eat McDonald's cheeseburgers. Not the Varsity (it's brown on top and smushed!), not Wendy's (it's square!), not Burger King (the cheese is melted!), nor even Chili's (also melted). We have searched far and wide to find another cheeseburger to please the palate of my third child, the blue-eyed fast food tyrant. If we do go somewhere else, he will eat something else (following much wailing and gnashing of teeth).

If we leave the house after I get off from work, and if the word "dinner" has been mentioned even in passing, Jonah will start begging to go to McDonald's as soon as we get in the car. "Are we going to McDonald's?" "Can we go to McDonald's?" "Why aren't we turning in to McDonald'?" "Dad! YOU DROVE PAST MCDONALD'S!?!"

So you can probably imagine the scene within the car when my wife, Jonah, and Sam drove past the Tucker McDonald's, only to see it gone. The building was missing, only a muddy rubble remained.

Sam still talks about it whenever we drive by.

They are rebuilding (although they took a horribly long time to put up a notice saying when they planned to re-open). And so there will be a McDonald's in Tucker again, starting in December.

We will of course be there on opening day.

Risk

2006-10-13T21:32:00.000-04:00

My boys received a major introduction into nerd-dom today by playing their first game of Risk.

Ah, yes, the perennial favorite of high school- and college-aged guys with nothing better to do on a Friday night, Risk is a gateway game. Sure, at first you're just playing on Friday nights for a couple of hours. But then you're using the extra rules that came in the game. Then you're using some "more real" rules that someone else made up. Then you're making up your own rules to add realism. Then you're playing Axis & Allies. Then you're a mess, playing anything Avalon Hill puts out (even Korean War games; snap out if it, man).

That's right. You know who you are. Don't you look down your nose at us D&D'ers just because your games are "based in fact". We all know a Panzer III Ausf J/1 couldn't really pull of the move you tried last Saturday night, and I have the Jane's stats to prove it!

Ahem.

Anyway, my wife was out of the house on a babysitting gig for the co-op (simplified: we sit for them, they sit for us; no money changes hands). I had promised the boys that if they cleaned their rooms before dinner then we would play a board game. They did, and so I had to pony up.

When I made the promise, I was thinking along the lines of Sorry!. But it turns out that Timothy left Sorry! at school. And so, upon surveying the game shelf, I discovered that our entire stash consisted of Risk, Clue (Simpson's version, oh yes), Monopoly, and half a chess set.

Chess was obviously out, Monopoly would take far too long (counting out the money takes half an hour, choosing pieces - actually, fighting over pieces - takes another 15 mintues), Clue would be way too complex for Jonah and Sam. That left Risk, but I had to kiddify the rules some.

Here's what I came up with:

4 teams: Timothy, Stephen, Jonah, Sam & Daddy (that's me)
Each player/team got the same number of cards
All pieces were 1 army (cannons were popular)
To start, each player placed 1 army in each of the countries on their cards (wild cards traded with Daddy)
At the beginning of each turn, each team got 1 new army no matter what. If he had a continent under his dominion, he got an extra piece for each continent. If he wanted to move pieces from one country to another, he could do so.
On his turn, each player could attack one country. We followed the regular Risk dice rolling convention, which took some explanation, but less than I thought (see below).
If the attacker cleared the defender out of the country, then the attacker could put a new army from his box into his new country and his turn was over. He could also move armies at the end of his turn.
The attacker was allowed to fight to the last army. If he lost, the defender could put a new army out of his box into the attacker's newly emptied country (my only nod to realism, I promise).

Originally, we were going to play until someone took over the world. But as the clock passed 8:30, the crying got to be a little too much and we stopped it. The winner was the person with the most countries. Timothy had 17, Stephen had 14, I had 10 or so. Maybe less.

How did it go? Great, actually. In spite of several injuries (all Stephen) and lots of crying (everyone except me), the loudest crying was when they had to stop. Jonah announced at 8:15 that he was done. So we divvied up his countries, moved his pieces off the board, and started to go upstairs. About halfway up the steps he started crying and saying he wanted to go back and play. Sam, who had been crying for the previous 25 minutes straight (missing Elmo, spilling the armies, having to go potty, not getting to roll the dice while he was in the potty, etc.), began crying again.

After prayers (Sam: "Dear God, help me feel better. Help everybody else feel better. Help all the brothers to feel better. Amen.") and hugs & kisses (Sam: "I didn't want a kiss! Suck it off!") both Sam and Jonah settled into their usual nighttime routine of not going to sleep, the game forgotten.

Timothy and Stephen had a really good time and both asked to play again and thanked God in their prayers for the new game.

The rules worked out well. It seemed to plod along at first, but after continents came into play the older two boys began to get a better idea of strategy. Jonah was the first one with a continent (South America). Stephen quickly took Australia and I took Africa. But all three of us lost our continents at one point or another. But Timothy took Asia and held it. He was about 15 minutes away from owning the board when we called time.

Even more important than strategy (to me) was sportsmanship. Everyone cried at some point or another, usually out of disappointment in losing a country. Timothy (sweet, tender, kind-hearted Timothy) was the only one to make an obvious decision not to attack a recently saddened brother. Stephen had just lost a bid to take back Australia, and Timothy had enough armies there to wipe his younger brother off the map. But Stephen was still sniffling, so Timothy looked at me, looked at the board, saw my lone army in Kamchatka, and moved 5 armies out of Austrialia and into neighboring China (or something-istan) to clean my clock. He left Australia alone for the rest of the game, and instead took Africa away from me. Good boy.

Die-rolling was difficult for them to comprehend initially. In Risk, the attacker rolls one die for each army, up to 3 dice total per turn, and the defender rolls one die for each of his armies in the battle, up to 2 dice. In the real rules (and in our family rules), the top die roll for each player is compared and a winner declared. Then the second rolls are compared, etc. So it's possible for both players to lose an army in a battle.

My guys didn't get this at first. They kept wanting to add up all the dice and pick a winner overall for each battle. After several explanations, Timothy got it. Stephen got it quickly thereafter. Jonah was content to be told who won and who lost (unless he lost, at which point he pouted mightily). Sam just wanted to roll the dice.

Overall, a fun time. We'll try it again next week, I hope. But we're also planning on getting some more games this Christmas. Battleship, Stratego, and a replacement Sorry are all on the list. But we'll keep Risk in rotation. And maybe Axis & Allies when they're older. And does anyone know if Avalon Hill is still in business?

Takebacks

2006-10-01T14:19:00.000-04:00

Since the move, the sleeping arrangements have changed, and Jonah and Sam now share the bottom twin of a bunk bed. (It's a better arrangement than the previous one, which had Jonah and Sam sharing a double bed and Timothy and Stephen in the twin.)

Having the younger two boys together makes bedtime a recurring adventure, as every night they make up excuses for getting out of bed, fight over blankets or pillows, run into the big boys' room to bother them, or simply get up and play with their LEGO's.

My favorite nighttime incident found Sam sneaking up to the big boys' door, then jumping into their room and yelling, "SHUT UP!" at the top of his lungs. This is the Queen Mother of bad words in our house (as far as the children are concerned), and the boys call it the "s-word". As soon as Sam did it, he saw me. His eyes got huge, and he ran into his room, jumped in his bed, all the while shouting, "I don't want a spanking! I don't want a spanking!"

He got a spanking. Then I walked downstairs, told my wife, and we rolled around laughing for a few minutes. I'm gonna miss this age.

At bedtime, Jonah is the master of routine, surpassing even Timothy in his rut-philia. For two years after Stephen was in the hospital for pneumonia, Jonah's nightly prayer consisted only of "Dear God, please help Stephen get better. Amen." It drove Stephen (who slept with Jonah for most of those 2 years) to distraction. "Make him stop," he would plead. "I can't," I replied, "It's Jonah."

The current Jonah pattern is to read a favorite book (which is just recently changing, after a year of "If You Give A Pig A Pancake"), to pray, and then give hugs and kisses. Jonah gets a Small Hug and a kiss each time. (A Small Hug is a hug during which you say the words, "Small Hug." Seriously. One-armed, two-armed, tight squeeze, light squeeze, it doesn't matter. But you have to say, "Small Hug."). If you miss part of the hug/kiss routine, you have to do it over.

Sam has been doing variations on this theme, starting with Medium Hugs (one-arm, tight squeeze) and going to Small Hugs (as per the Jonah standard). Sam also started out getting a kiss, but recently stopped accepting them. If I mistakenly give Sam a kiss, I have to "take it back." This means making a sucking noise with obvoiusly pursed lips and then kissing the same place.

Knowing Sam, I don't think this is a ruse to get another kiss. I think he believes that I am removing the kiss. Ah, 3.

But last night, after a fine dinner and playtime with some cousins, Sam was a wreck. He was tired, not having had his 4 o'clock Blues Clues nap (Put on the Blues Clues Safari video, put Sam on couch, go get a Coke. When you return, Sam is asleep on the couch.), and it was over an hour past his bedtime. So, after an emotion-filled reading of "Piggies", I finally got Jonah and Sam into bed.

Jonah prayed, Sam didn't. I gave Jonah his Small Hug and kiss, and then got to Sam. I remembered that he didn't want the kiss, but when I hugged him and walked out of the room, he started crying. I let him cry for a few minutes (he does this sometimes and falls asleep anyway), but he didn't stop. So I walked back in and asked him what was the matter. He said he didn't want the hug.

I asked him if he wanted me to take the hug back, figuring it was such a ridiculous question that he would either a) see the foolishness of his ways and stop, or b) laugh and stop. He said yes. Now I was stuck. How do you take back a hug? Make a sucking sound as you hug him again?

So I put my arms behind my back, bumped Sam lightly on the chest with my chest, and said, "There. I took the hug back. Is that okay?"

"Yes," came the reply, and then he stopped crying, closed his eyes, and went to sleep.

A New Hat

2006-09-30T14:56:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I was in Eckerd picking up some pictures my wife had gotten developed. While standing at the counter, trying to figure out what in the world could consume 7 rolls of film, my eyes wandered to a new (to me) rack standing in front of the electronics. It was filled with Tucker stuff: bumper stickers, signs, t-shirts, and baseball caps.

Now, a) I love baseball caps. I wear them whenever I can, which, since my wife does not like baseball caps (on me at least), means I wear them whenever my wife lets me. This comes out to about once every two days or so. And b) we've lived in Tucker for about 8 years now. We're in our third house here, and I thought it might be time to show a little civic pride. So I bought the hat.

It's maroon, with "Tucker, GA" in gold lettering. Not my colors, but apparently they are the colors for Tucker High School (more on that later). Nonetheless, I bought the hat and wore it home.

I was about due for a new hat. My old everyday hat was a navy blue one with a small, tasteful Walt Disney World patch on the front. Very nice, but repeated washing has begun to fray the front edge of the bill, lending a certain Abercrombie & Fitch/redneck quality to it.

My "nicer" hat was (and remains) another navy blue one with a red embroidered crawfish on the front. My wife bought it for me the last time we were in New Orleans (about two years ago and pre-Katrina).

Before each of these, my everyday hat was a navy blue American Eagle fitted cap (L/XL) that I "borrowed" from my brother-in-law a few years ago when I was stranded, hatless, up at my inlaws one weekend.

Sense a pattern here? This must be my blue period. Before this, I had several tan/khaki caps, including a tan American Eagle cap with a little American flag that I wore to all 4 boys' births.

I can remember all of these because they are all on my office floor right now, awaiting a tasteful set of hooks (except The Birth Hat, which is awaiting a shadow box). I love my hats.

Including my Tucker hat, which is actually across the house, in my bedroom, in a sort of limbo status after the second disturbing episode. You see, this hat has been to Mississippi, Alabama, and Florida in the short while since it was purchased. Thousands of miles traveled with no incident whatsoever.

But the first week I bought it I was in our local hardware store (the Handy Ace, where people actually answer your questions and help you find stuff), and a nice man was showing me around the pocket knives (Timothy is a Bear Cub this year, and whittling is one of his tasks). In the middle of a discussion about locking blade knives vs. non-locking, he looked at my head and said, out of the blue, "Them boys was lucky."

Huh? Is this some sort of hardware store code? Was there a major Cub Scouting knife accident that I had missed? Since he was no longer looking at me, I muttered something non-committal. I literally may have said, "hmlfm." I was lost.

Then he said, in what I later learned was a question, "How do you think they'll do this year?" Then it hit. He was talking about football, specifically Tucker High football. I had no idea. Had they even started playing yet? I supposed they had, and I quickly inferred that they had recently squeaked out a victory. Processing this new information, I said something along the lines of, "Oh, I don't know. I haven't gotten to a game yet." Which was a true statement, although the implication of football awareness may have been misleading. I didn't care, I wanted to browse pocket knives without looking like a total fool.

So my hat is a Tucker High School hat, and it seems to broadcast awareness of, interest in, and support for the Tucker High School football team. This can be bad. Not that I don't like the team. Or support my town. But I have no idea what's going on over there. My kids are in grade school. I'd like to take them to see a game or two (especially Stephen, who seems to like football and would probably love to watch a live game). But I don't want to be party to false advertising.

The second disquieting incident came just the other day at Home Depot. While we were on vacation, someone (maybe me, maybe one of the boys, I don't want to point fingers) left one of the doors to my car open, and the battery died. When we returned home, we discovered that we did not own a set of jumper cables. At least not a pair that we could find in either the garage, the cars, the shed, the attic, my office, the kitchen cabinets, or the boys' closets. So I went to buy some early Thursday morning.

While in Home Depot, a very nice guy actually helped me find the jumper cables. It may have been because I was the only customer in the store. Regardless, as I was leaving the guy asked, "Are you with Tucker High?" Great. Now people think I work there. Please don't ask me about sports. I said, "No, sorry. It's just a hat."

So now I have this hat, which I like, and that I can wear safely anywhere else but in my own town. At least in the hardware stores. But hardware stores are pretty much the only places I go when I leave the house (okay, I go to church, but I don't wear hats there; okay, not to Sunday morning worship).

So I may need a new hat. Preferably a non-affiliated one.

For A Moment

2006-09-27T18:04:00.000-04:00

So I'm standing in my kitchen, reading the trial issue of Cook's Illustrated that they send me about twice a year to tempt me (I haven't given in yet, but oh man! is it difficult to resist). In the background I'm half listening to the new John Mayer CD while making hamburgers, tater tots and broccoli for dinner. And I'm so happy.

More than happy, I'm content. I've been this way for a while now, so long that I've stopped waiting for the other shoe to drop. Changes will come, some good, some bad, but I hope I can keep this attitude.

That's all.

Whew

2006-09-11T09:33:00.000-04:00

Update:
Ha. My wife got a 4.

Jonah On The Road

2006-09-06T11:09:00.000-04:00

This past weekend we took a trip to Mississippi. My wife’s grandparents live in Picayune, which is a few miles from the Louisiana border, and we went to visit them. Also, one of my wife’s best friends recently moved to Memphis, but her parents live in Hattiesburg, Mississippi, about an hour north of Picayune, and so we got to see them over the weekend as well.

Lots of fun, lots of driving. We logged about a thousand miles on this trip.

It’s good to see family, it’s fun to see friends, it’s interesting to drive through hurricane-ravaged southern states, etc. But my favorite part of the trip was listening to Jonah. Timothy and Stephen had their GameBoys and books. Sam slept or just stared. But Jonah talked, and played, and sang, and chatted . . .

As we listened to music, he would inform us loudly which songs were his favorites and which ones he did not like so much. At one point he provided a one-hour running commentary on the farmlands of east-central Mississippi (“Hello cows, hello trees, hello dead trees . . .”). He would enthusiastically try to engage his brothers to take part in the games he was inventing inside his head, even though they would have none of it.

And he would participate in our conversations. Like ice cubes in a hot drink, his comments were pleasantly surprising. And so here, in chronological order, are my three favorite Jonah quotes of the trip.

1. Jonah on crime and punishment
Before we had even left Atlanta, as we were passing the jail on Cynthia McKinney Parkway (I refer to it at the Cynthia McKinney Jail in a vain attempt at wish-fulfillment). In an effort to steer the boys onto the right path, I pointed out the jail to them, “Look boys, there’s the jail. If you don’t obey the law you’ll go there.” Yes, I’m a blunt instrument.

Stephen asked, “Which building is the jail? The one without any windows?”

I replied, “Yes, it has no windows and is filled with lots of mean people. You don’t want to go there.” Subtlety, that’s the ticket to good parenting.

Jonah wanted to know what would cause him to end up in jail, and I listed the kid-friendly description of offences that they would know were jail-worthy: killing someone, taking money, stealing cars. This was a semi-familiar discussion, and so conversation ended at that point.

Five minutes of silence. Then Jonah piped up, “What if I just borrow the car?”

2. Jonah on pain and happiness
On crossing the state line into Alabama, we stopped at the Rest Area for, you know, some rest. I parked the car as far from the restroom building as I could while still being on the same side of the parking lot. This was, in my mind, a good way to get the boys walk a little. Jonah ran.

Having done our duties, both biological, nerdly (got a map), and sacrilegious (climbing on the granite carving with the Alabama state motto, something along the lines of “Never give up, never surrender” or some such), we were on our way back when Jonah fell and skinned his knee pretty badly. There was flowing blood, albeit briefly, and we cleaned him up, held him, and then put him back in the car with the other boys, who were by that time deep into their personal distractions (book, gameboy, and sullen staring).

Once we got back on the road, Jonah continued to cry, mostly because it was the only thing for him to do (we’re taking lots of LEGO’s on the next trip). His mother and I tried to calm him down, and I finally told him to think about things that make him happy. He sniffled a bit more and then stopped.

Two minutes of silence. Then Jonah: “You mean raccoons?”

3. Jonah on death
At some point, while driving through the wilds of Mississippi (so much fun to type), we hit a stride in our conversations. The big boys would ask a question about a phenomenon, I would explain said phenomenon, and Jonah would comment in his own special way. A few examples might help.

Timothy began, “What happens when a car drives into the water.”

I responded, “It stops running.”

Stephen continued, “Why?”

“Well, because a car’s engine burns gasoline and air, and if it drives into the water there’s no air left to burn. So the engine turns off.” Yes, this is a normal conversation.

Jonah pipes up, “I don’t want to drive the car into the water. I’ll die.”

Later, Timothy continued the questioning, “Dad, how does a black hole kill you?”

I replied, aiming way over their heads, “Well, it can either rip you apart or crush you, depending on how big it is and how you fly into it.”

Stephen: “Cool.”

Jonah: “I don’t want to go into a black hole and die.”

And so on. The swamps on the side of the road? “I don’t want to get eaten by an alligator.” The hurricane? “I don’t want to get killed by a hurricane.”

Now, lest you believe that I’m raising a little goth kid here, except for the 10 seconds in which he’s telling us that he doesn’t want to die, he is as happy and chipper (if not moreso) than any one else I’ve ever met.

He is a child of extremes, my singing, death-obsessed, cheerful, raccoon-loving, Jonah.

Creativity

2006-09-01T16:12:00.000-04:00

Timothy's homework last night was to write out full sentences using his spelling words, which, for this week, are the words twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, and sixteen. Maybe all the way to nineteen, who knows?

Regardless, he started last night after my parents left from our family birthday party for Stephen, and so it was late and he was in a hurry.

His first sentence? "Look, twelve cakes!"

I live in a house full of evil geniuses.

Jump

2006-08-31T13:05:00.000-04:00

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

2006-08-22T11:30:00.000-04:00

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

2006-08-15T13:05:00.000-04:00

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

2006-08-08T08:44:00.000-04:00

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

2006-08-03T08:38:00.000-04:00

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.

Sold!

2006-07-17T13:44:00.000-04:00

We just got from our selling closing, and we are now officially homeless. Ten months of prayer, cleaning, more prayer, and more cleaning are now officially successful. I might actually sleep tonight.

We have a medium-sized check in our figurative pockets. I wanted to go to a nice lunch, but 4BoyMom said no. She's making me a sandwich.

In about 2 hours, we'll go to our buying closing, hand over the check, and be no longer homeless.

Thank you all for your prayers.

Warmth

2006-07-14T22:19:00.000-04:00

Tonight we ate at Fellini's on our way to the big VBS finale.

For those of you not from the South, or who for some other reason have never had kids in Vacation Bible School, the last night is a big closing number for the week. VBS usually has a theme, and the finale has a brief sketch to tie up the loose ends of whatever story arc was being used for that week, usually done by teenagers.

It's short, because lots of kids are in the audience, and the teenagers are more nervous than usual, because there are also adults in the audience for the first time. Then all of the kids get up and sing their songs. And I swear, it's just like the the end of The Music Man. Objectively, it must sound horrible. But there's over a hundred adults in the room, and half again as many kids, and not a single one of them is objective. We all love it.

Timothy hammed it up with his friends; he knows the words and motions but doesn't care, because he's ON STAGE, WITH HIS FRIENDS! Heaven help us all.

Stephen put in an earnest and excellent performance, singing every word, doing every hand motion. (He has more than made up for the 4-year old Kindergarten Christmas Concert where he spent the entire time with his hands over his ears, scowling at the audience during the song and then at his classmates during the frequent applause.)

Jonah was Jonah. Every face was a Silly Face, every remembered word was shouted or shrieked (thankfully, these were few). LIke a stopped clock, he would, during his gyrations, hit upon the same hand motions as everyone else. Imagine an early 80's Robin Williams routine where, instead of jokes, he spent 15 frantic minutes singing gospel versions of Harry Belafonte tunes. I laughed out loud for 5 straight songs.

Sam sat in my wife's lap and would sing the occassional line, which he had learned from his brothers. The lines Sam sang coincided nicely with the ones Jonah yelled.

Then we all went upstairs and ate ice cream. In one big room. Tthe kids ran around and screamed, while parents, grandparents, and neighbors stood or sat in little groups and yelled, "What? Say that again, please," at one another. Families filed out as kids fell down, fell asleep, threw up, or whenever parents or grandparents alike decided they've had enough. Collecting the children was hard, though, because all 400 of them were wearing the exact same shirt.

Anyway, that's a VBS finale. Chaos. With songs and sugar.

But on the way to the VBS finale, we had dinner at Fellini's. The boys must have been under an air vent, because they complained of being cold and tucked their arms and legs up into their shirts. Then the food came, and everyone forgot about being cold.

Except for Jonah. Halfway through dinner, my wife noticed a large shiny spot on his leg. She's a bright one, my wife, and she asked, "Did you put your pizza on your leg?"

To which Jonah replied, "But it warmed my leg up."

Packing

2006-07-11T09:04:00.000-04:00

We close next Monday on both houses, selling at 11 and buying at 3. Two different attorneys, with two different firms, both in the same building here in Tucker. We like to keep our lawyers packed in tight, where we can watch 'em closely.

We move boxes next Tuesday, loading them into the back of the van and (hopefully) a pickup truck, and then driving them downhill and 150 yards or so down the street (I measured it on Google maps, yes I did).

We move more boxes next Wednesday morning, hopefully clearing them all out before we move furniture that evening. The goal is to get out of the way everything that can be handled by a weakling and his wife, and then have over some burly men (who will work for pizza) to move the rest.

Until then, we pack. Our artsy neighbor had redone just about every room in the house, and had brought over lots and lots of things to help: vases, mirrors, wall art, etc. All of that has been returned. Books are done, using up all of the boxes my parents gave us, all of the ones my wife's sister gave us, and even some we got from the wife of our new RUF campus minister. Our own wall hangings are packed, using the remaining boxes and leaving lots of little picture hooks on the wall that catch in my peripheral vision and get interpreted as a cockroach invasion. Next comes the kitchen. After that, who knows?

Sunday night, as we were packing one of the last of our existing freebie boxes, our next-door neighbor began taking stacks of broken-down moving boxes to the curb. He's got a new job in West Virginia, and they're moving next month (3/2 ranch in nice neighborhood, possible rental!) and his new company is providing moving services. So they were throwing out all their reserved boxes from the last move. We asked politely and got them all. God provides, even boxes.

A story or two, to liven things up a bit? Okay.

After we move, we're getting rid of cable (actually, we're getting rid of Dish Network, which we've had for 4 pleasant years now; excellent customer service). Our one-sentence explanation of why were moving has been "so that we can turn off the TV." We haven't broken the news to the boys yet, but we have been training them by turning off the TV in the afternoons and on weekends. This past Saturday was the first full Saturday of TV-less-ness.

By 11 AM Timothy, Stephen, and Jonah had been banned from the computer for the rest of the day.

Stephen and Jonah received their bans for rather pedestrian fighting. Timothy's ban was for being a little too cunning. He and Stephen had been playing an online Bionicle game all morning and not letting Jonah play. When the biggest two left the computer to play with their Game Boys on the couch, Jonah leapt (leaped?) at the chance (and the computer) and started his own game. Timothy complained loudly that Jonah had restarted the game (thereby losing Timothy's place in the game). Jonah played on, secure in his place as the occupier of the computer seat.

As Jonah played the game, he progressed further (farther?) than ever before and asked Timothy for guidance. Timothy guided him . . . into a hole that ended the game. Jonah, quick on the uptake, realized the betrayal and pitched a Jonah Fit (emotions are new and strong in a 5 year old). Jonah was calmed and reminded that the volume and intensity of his fit were inappropriate. Timothy was banned from video games for the rest of the day.

About 30 minutes later Stephen and Jonah got into a shouting and slapping match over a Power Ranger game and received their bans from the computer. Sam had a thoroughly enjoyable time playing Miffy games for the rest of the day.

Ok. Just one story. I have to pack.

Love That House!

2006-06-28T10:26:00.000-04:00

In keeping with the recent list theme, and in accordance with the impending move, I've decided to launch a feel-good meme. I fully expect that, like all such minor-league blog launched innovation, this particulare meme will drop like a lead BB in the vast ocean of the Internet. But, it's fun.

So . . .

List 5 things you like most about your house. (Very exciting, I know, but it's on my mind.)

Old house:

History - Sam was born while we lived here. Timothy and Stephen started school while we lived here and learned to ride a bike in the dead end out front. A million other things that make up a rich life happened in this house.
Shade - We have a huge oak tree on the south-facing side of the house, along with several other, taller trees across the street. Our air conditioner stays on 76 during the day, and still doesn't come on until about 3 PM. Nice.
Light - Despite the fact that the house faces south, and that most of the windows therefore face north and south, we do have a few windows that face east (to catch the rising sun) and west (to catch it setting). Those rooms that do have east/west windows are my favorite.
The Dead End - In front of our house is about a hundred feet or so of two lane road that services only our driveway. It's flat, pretty well kept up, and the only time there are cars on it is when someone is coming to visit. The kids ride bikes there, play tag, soccer, & football; it's been the site of block parties for years on end; it's shady; it's all ours. And parking, wow. Despite the fact that our kids don't drive (yet), we do occasionally have large family gatherings and parties with friends. Here in the dead end, we have "anyone can leave anytime" parking for 9-10 cars. If we really pack them in, we could easily handle 20 or more. The new house has ACLA parking for 4 cars and packs in 6.
Dry - This house is on a hill, and the nearest creek is several hundred feet away and dozens of feet down. If this house ever floods, gopher wood will be involved. The new house, while not technically in a flood plane, does have a creek running through the back yard.

Now, because I'm moving (and because it's my blog), I get to list my 5 favorite things about the new house.

The Office - This is why we're moving. There's a 400 square foot office above the garage in the new house that shares zero walls, hallways, doors, etc. with any other room in the house. And it has its own HVAC. And two windows. Since I'm out of the way, the boys can run around and be boys in their own house; my wife can relax and not have to ride herd on them all day; everyone will be happy. Probably.
Light - The new house faces east, and my bedroom, the living room, and my office all catch the morning sunrise. Very nice. The kitchen and dining room (and my office) catch the evening sunset. My own little Palace of Light.
The Creek - There's a creek in the backyard, leading into a forest. Boy heaven.
The Tub - There's a jacuzzi tub in the master bathroom. Our existing house has one tub, the new house has three. I like baths.
Trees - Lots of new trees, including a couple of Japanese Maples and some of the largest, oldest River Birches I have ever seen. (And the lawn is tiny.)

What makes a list a meme? Passing it along. Specifically:
My Wife, 'cause she's awesome
Splitcat & Fiorinda, who live in the same house (they're married, so it's all on the up & up)
Dignan and posse
Circusfrog
Both Mom and Dad, cause . . . you know
My sister, who just moved to her first house (and probably needs reminding that the moneyhole called home ownership is still much, much better than an apartement.)

But anyone else is welcome to leave a comment. Enjoy.

Reading Lists

2006-06-26T10:23:00.000-04:00

I was downstairs earlier today looking for some of the chocolate I had purchased on my bachelor weekend, and was talking to my wife in an effort to distract her from my search. She hadn't mentioned (i.e., yelled at me about) the chocolate yet, so it was possible that she hadn't seen it.

(To distract her, I use lists; any list, about anything, with more than a few items, and her eyes glaze over and it's like I'm not in the room. Very handy. Talking about computers also works.)

A few mentions of my ideas for furniture placement in the new house, and I basically had the kitchen to myself, so long as I didn't mention money or make sudden movements. I checked the usual places (none of which I will divulge in such a public forum as this) and found the box. Success!

Sitting next to the box, though was a reading list from my son's school. I looked at it and started scanning the titles.

"Timothy's already read most of these," I said out loud (I had already re-hid the chocolate, so stealth was no longer required). In my mind, I was rejoicing that we could just mark these books off the list. Nothing kills a good book like having to read it.

"That's the 1st and 2nd grade list," came the reply. There was a hint, an insinuation, a subtext in her voice. As usual, I didn't get it.

My face must have shown it, because she tried again. "Timothy's list is underneath."

I looked. Sure enough: 3rd grade reading list. (Oh, yeah, Timothy's going into 3rd grade. Eek.)

"Then why did they send this other one?"

She looked at me with the Are-You-Really-This-Dumb look?

Then it hit me: Stephen. He starts 1st grade this year. This was Stephen's reading list.

A). Wow.
B). Stephen starts 1st grade this year.

Ok. This could be my new, all-purpose phrase, along the lines of "snakes on a plane," or "c'est la vie," or "it is what it is," or "shikata ga na." Stephen starts 1st grade this year.

It can be stoic: "What're you gonna do? Stephen starts 1st grade this year."

It can be epicurean: "Woohoo! Party! Stephen starts 1st grade this year."

It can be Christian: "God is in His heaven. Stephen starts 1st grade this year."

It also means is that Stephen, my quiet one, Mr. Do It Myself (Usually Without Asking), the eater, the sleeper, the charmer, little Papa, etc., is actually starting 1st grade this year. His exposure to the world is getting wider and deeper, and I do not doubt that the world will be better for it.

But for us, it means less and less of Stephen here, in our lives, until one day he goes away to college and never calls. So I'm a mess; and hence the chocolate.

When Working On A Toilet

2006-06-24T13:52:00.000-04:00

To get water out of the tank, turn off the water supply underneath the tank, flush the toilet a couple of times, and then use a disposable diaper to absorb the remaining water in the tank. Just turn the diaper inside-out, lay it in the bottom of the tank, and then go eat lunch (or play a level of Star Wars: Battlefront). When you get back, all the water should be absorbed. Throw the diaper away.
Buy two wax rings. If you buy one, you will mess up and need a second one. If you buy two, nothing at all will go wrong (with re-seating the bowl, that is) and you will only need one. In either case, you'll be going back to Home Depot. (Every home improvement project in the history of mankind has required at least two trips to Home Depot; it's a natural law by now.) But if you buy one wax ring you'll be going back mad and having to spend more money; if you buy two you'll be going back with your task completed and someone will hand you cash at the end of your visit.
Do not unscrew the bolts holding the tank to the bowl unless it is absolutely necessary to remove the tank from the bowl. For example, don't unscrew 30-year old tank bolts just out of habit. It will leak, because the bolts will never go back in place the exact same way.
If you're at Home Depot, and the possibility of toilet work looms on the near horizon (say, in the next 5 years), buy tank bolts. Because you might, out of habit, unscrew the old ones. As a matter of fact, keep a spare set of tank bolts in a drawer somewhere. I do.
Remember where you put your spare set of tank bolts.
Do not try to work on tank bolts while there is water in the tank. Unless you like lots and lots of water all over the bathroom floor. If that's the case, have at it.
Do not use the good towels when working on the toilet. Remember the towels you picked out before your wedding? The ones where your bride-to-be looked at you strangely and then said, "Sure honey"? Use those, if you can find them.
Remember where you bought the good towels. You know, just in case.
Do not over-tighten anything. As my Dad always says, "Hand tight, then a quarter turn. More plumbing leaks are caused by over-tightening than by under-tightening." If you over-tighten, you run the risk of cracking and destroying your vintage, 1975, hi-flow toilet, and you'll have to shell out a couple of hundred bucks for a crappy, new, Al Gore Special that, frankly, can't handle the load.

Ok. Now to get to work on the disposer.

Things You Can Do When You're Home Alone

2006-06-22T18:37:00.000-04:00

Eat whatever you want, so long as you're willing to cook it yourself, eat by yourself, and clean it up when you're done.
Watch 5 (or more) episodes of Lost. Per day.
Blog, but only if your daily to-do list is done (mine currently run to three Post-It notes long, in roughly 9 point Arial)
Realize that the couch your wife bought on Craigslist.com, while not something you would ever have considered (or even looked at twice), is actually very nice and a good deal.
Not talk for hours. Then talk to yourself (or to the TV, it's perfectly normal), realize that you're not too fond of the sound of your own voice, and so not talk again for hours.
Make and eat too many french fries. Excellent.
Wash your own clothes, fold them, and put them away.
Play the video games that you can't play when the kids are home (Syphon Filter, Star Wars: Battlefront).
Wonder what games your kids are playing, and realize you'd rather play those.
Drink way more Cokes than usual. Don't ask how many.
Go shopping for unmentionables and nail clippers. Look at a really cool messenger bag, and then realize you're too old. Same with hats.
Set the alarm clock to wake you up at 5 AM with Smashing Pumkins (Siamese Dream, ftw).
Eat ice cream at night, and complain all you want with the cramps that inevitably come.
Eat yogurt the next night.
Call your wife, every hour, on the hour.
Remember to never, ever, miss being single.

Lots of Fun

2006-06-16T13:17:00.000-04:00

As anticipated, the boys loved this: http://www.devilducky.com/media/46502/ (no devils or ducks actually involved).

Make sure to have the sound on, because the music makes the piece. This is very finely crafted and well done.

Now, if you'll excuse me, apparently I have to go build some stuff in the back yard . . .

[Warning: I cannot vouch for any of the links from that page, so don't click through to anything else unless you're ready for a potentially big surprise.]

Update: Upon closer review, at 2:30 in, hitting the plane, those are snakes. That's right.

Rumble

2006-06-16T08:27:00.000-04:00

Sam stands up on the couch, and yells across the room, "I'm Miffy!"

Jonah, playing on the computer, turns around to watch Sam, who by this time has jumped off the couch and is stomping his foot on the floor. "I'm Miffy! I'm Miffy!"

Challenged in this manner, Jonah hops off the computer chair, runs over to Sam, and says, "I'm the Blue Power Ranger!"

Sam growls at Jonah, "Bing ahhn! [Bring it on!]"

Requiescat In Pace

2006-06-16T06:35:00.000-04:00

Forboda of Suramar
06/23/05 - 09/26/05
11/17/05 - 02/21/06
03/14/06 - 06/17/06

Does anyone have any chewing gum?

3, 2, 1,

2006-06-08T09:31:00.000-04:00

Contract!

That's right, we have a contract on our house. As noted previously, someone came by, saw the house, came by again, and made an offer. It was a good and fair offer, which our Realtor (TM) pointed out was a bit of a rarity. There was one stipulation (a $5000 carpet allowance) that was simply not feasible, so we countered with a polite "no, thank you," on the carpet and an enthusiastic "YES!" on everything else, and the counter offer was accepted.

Signed, sealed, delivered, etc.

There's still a lot of work to do (including convincing someone to lend us ridiculously large amounts of money), but it's all things that can be done, instead of 10 months of Clean & Wait (TM).

Thank you for all of your prayers (for those of you who prayed). Party at our new house, sometime in late July.

Oh Be Careful Little Boys Where You Pee

2006-06-06T08:00:00.000-04:00

It would appear that our cat, the mighty Sparkles, is not doing his job. How do I know this? Well, we have varmints living in tunnels in our side yard.

This was an issue before we got the cat, but in his first year here he cleaned them up. In the pre-Sparkles era, there were long mounds, devoid of grass, criss-crossing the area between our house and the woods. Then the hunter arrived and they were gone.

Now the tunnels are back, and they are apparently inhabited. We thought at first that this was a momentary glitch in the small-animal slaughterhouse that had been our yard. Perhaps he was concentrating on bird killing. But then several fledglings survived in our neighbor's yard across the street.

Plus, I carried the cat downstairs last night, and he's huge. He's a big, fat lazy cat, which normally would be fine, but there are consequences . . .

Yesterday, everyone was outside playing, and Sam decided that he needed to pee. My wife urged him to go inside, but he wanted to pee on the tree. Because this is somewhat common, we have an out-of-the-way tree that is used specifically for this purpose (it's a healthy tree now, by the way). On the way to the tree, Sam spied a hole and decided to pee in that. Fine, said my wife.

So he drops his pants, begins peeing, and out of the hole pops a little gray head. The animal was not happy, and neither was Sam, who spent the next 20 minutes pointing to the side yard and saying "Don't peepee thayuh."

Sparkles is going to half-rations starting today.

. . . and Outcome

2006-06-03T21:08:00.000-04:00

So, how did it all go? It went very well, but not at all as expected.

Dinner was very good. We ate at Taquiera Del Sol in Decatur, which is a great little restaurant. I had a brisket enchilada that was an interesting pairing (the brisket was like butter, but was overpowered by the chili sauce; once I stopped letting that bother me, it was very good). We waited in line for 20 minutes (which is apparently par for the course on a Friday night), but it was raining outside so the line snaked around inside like a ride line at Six Flags (although nobody with a mullet was making out in the next row over, so it wasn't exactly like Six Flags). As good as the food was (and it was good), it couldn't compare to the floor show. A line of thunderstorms moved through, more slowly than usual, so the entire time we were eating, in a dining room that was really more of a breezeway, the rain took turns falling hard and very hard, and lightning and thunder alternated closely on either side of us. I also had rice.

The movie was good. We saw X-Men 3, or whatever it's called. It was good, lots of fun. But I had a giganormous Coke (for 50 cents more, you get another Liter, for crying out loud; what a deal!) and drank it during the first half of the movie (okay, during the trailers) so that I spent the last half of the movie in rather serious pain. Stories of Tycho Brahe swirled through my mind, ruining the climax, and I missed the after-credits "surprise." Thank heavens for the Internet, so now I can look it up.

Another thing that bothered me was that Wolverine spent so much time bothered with Jean Gray when the whole time Halle Berry is standing next to him! It's just . . . I can't . . . aw, forget it. At some point, you know it's just fiction.

I watched another episode of Lost tonight, and it continues to amaze (Confidence Man, by the way). I grew up on TV, and one of the reasons I don't watch much anymore is that I can see a lot of stuff coming miles and miles away. And with a show like Lost, you know a twist is coming, but you never know just what it is. Thankfully, good TV is now being written by folks who also grew up watching TV, and who can see stuff coming a mile away, and can avoid showing their hand so easily.

As for the house, we had given up trying to sell it. I've been looking up garage plans on the Internet, and have found a couple I really like that will let me put an office in the attic space. It's not our number one choice, but it's getting to the point where I can't stay in the house any more. It's not fair to my family. And if the house won't sell . . . well, there isn't anything else to be done.

But today, not two but three people came to see the house (one more is scheduled for tomorrow). At one point, according to our realtor, all three groups were in the house at the same time. Two of those folks have seen the house before, and were back for their second view.

And now one of them has made an offer. It's a good offer, and we'll probably take it, unless one of the other folks comes forward with something better.

So, all in all, not a bad 24 hours.

Anticipation

2006-06-02T14:25:00.000-04:00

I love surprises.

I love to surprise others. Hiding Christmas and Birthday gifts is one of my favorite pastimes. Tricking my wife into not expecting her surprise 30th Birthday party (when she had explicitly asked for one) is one of the high points of this career.

I love being pleasantly surprised. A new facet of my children, a new book, a new movie, a new episode of a good TV program, a new restaurant recommended by friends, these things pull me along and outward.

This is from Kim Stanley Robinson's Red Mars, where after a year's flight they're about to go down onto the planet's surface for the first time:

. . . it suddenly occurred to her that everyone was happy -- they were in the last moment of their anticipation, an anticipation that had lain in their hearts for half a lifetime, or ever since childhood -- and now it had blossomed beneath them like a child's crayon drawing . . . it loomed before them in all its immense potential: tabula rasa, blank slate. . . . Anything was possible, anything could happen. . . . It occurred to her that they might never be so happy again. Beauty was the promise of happiness, not happiness itself; and the anticipated world was often more rich than anything real.

And, as it turns out, what I really love is anticipation. The thought of how that food is going to taste at the new restaurant, what new talent one of the boys will display, the look on their face when they open the present, the new twist on a good story. I love it all.

So today is a good day. I'm 6 episodes in to the first season of Lost, and it's awesome. Why didn't someone say something? Just kidding. (Note that comments are disabled; no spoilers, please.) It's killing me to just watch one episode per night. But that keeps the anticipation very high, and it's working. (Here's a meme: when did you first realize that Lost was not only very good, but different? Want mine? 3rd episode, at the end, when Sawyer is crying.)

We're going out tonight for dinner and a movie, either X-Men 3 or M:I 3. I've avoided reading too much about either, so the anticipation is high. And we're going to a new restaurant. Well, new for me at least; my wife has been before and likes it. She says I'll like it, and she knows me best, so she's probably right. I can't wait.

And today, less than 30 days away from the end of our third realtor contract (we're not renewing after this one; it's too hard), today we get 3 calls. Three different people are coming to look at the house this weekend. At least two have seen it before. One could make an offer (our first in 10 months). There could be a bidding war.

Anything is possible, anything could happen.

. . . Just Like Me

2006-05-26T22:43:00.000-04:00

Timothy gets really upset when he gets corrected, . . .

Stephen wants to do everything by himself, . . .

Jonah has a hair-trigger temper, and a hair-trigger laugh, . . .

Sam sighs heavily through his nose, . . .

Things Not To Do When Working At Home . . .

2006-05-26T15:47:00.002-04:00

1. Drink alcohol - someone will make you mad, you will challenge them to fight, and you will give them your home address.

2. Clip your nails while talking on the phone - the person on the other end will hear you.

3. Eat ice cream - it melts during a call.

Guess which two of these three things I have done? Guess which one I'm doing right now? Mmmmm. Vermonty Python.

Vespers

2006-05-25T21:06:00.000-04:00

It is hard say night-time prayers with little boys.

It is harder still to say night-time prayers with two boys who are in the same bed.

It is even harder still to say night-time prayers when one of those boys is . . . well . . . making a "joyful noise."

But it is hardest of all when the one who is praying is the one who is pooting.

. . . As A Bee

2006-05-22T16:13:00.000-04:00

Not that I expect anyone to read this (except you, Mom; glad to have you), but I feel that I must apologize for the non-existent posting. Sure, lots of things have happened, two camping trips, several trips to Macon, a minor car wreck, a fun and kid-free birthday party, etc.

But all the fun, story-spawning things that have happened over the past few weeks mean less time for me to be here, at my desk, typing away. In order to write, I need to be bored and highly caffeinated. And while I have been packing away the Cokes, I haven't had time to sleep properly in about a month, much less to tell you at length about the time Stephen explained to me that if the driver I had just yelled at had been in the car with us, he would have been sad at the name I had called him.

Any hope for future stories? Not likely. I've got to buy another van for my wife, my boss is out of the country and for some crazy reason he left me in charge, plus other issues.

So I probably won't tell you about how Timothy and Stephen got into a biting, kicking, rolling around roughhouse match in the middle of a 3-year-old's birthday party. Or how an earlier fight that day had involved our first ever spitting-on-a-person incident.

Or about how my wife and I were enobled with the title "The Baby Whisperers."

Or about Timothy's first round of putt-putt golf (he did really well).

Maybe someday, but not right now. Sorry.

House and Home II

2006-05-10T18:55:00.000-04:00

One pound of tilapia filets, gone. Clamoring for more. I'll try 2 pounds next time. Does anyone know where to get fish cheap?

Anyway, here's the recipe:

1. Put tilapia filets in a bowl. Drizzle with sesame oil. Sprinkle with salt, pepper, minced garlic (one small clove per pound of fish?) and Italian seasoning (I used dried basil and oregano that I bought at the farmer's market a couple of years ago; it was like $1 per cup of the stuff; that's crazy prices).

2. Gently stir contents of bowl to coat filets with oil and seasonings. Cover bowl with plastic wrap and put in fridge for 30 minutes. Preheat oven to 350 F.

3. After 30 minutes, put filets on baking sheet and put in oven. Cook 20-30 minutes until done.

This goes pretty well with anything. We had black beans and Thai soup that I discovered in the pantry at the last minute. 6 big filets, gone. I had to give half of mine away.

Fair and Good

2006-05-10T08:21:00.000-04:00

One of the problems with having quite a few kids (and one of the reasons I think so many people stop with just one) is that it's hard to be fair. I come from a family of two children, so trying to be fair is an issue for me. My wife is from a family of six children, and she recognizes the futility of it.

I come here to write down funny stories and interesting things that happen. And part of me wants to make sure that each one of the boys gets equal time. But it's hard, especially when one of your kids is consistently wacky (nothing personal; 4 and 5 are wacky ages) and another kid is doing important things for the last time.

So, lots of Jonah and Sam stories, not so much Timothy and Stephen. It's not fair, I know, but I didn't have a blog when they were 2 or 5. Such is parenting.

All this is to say that Timothy did two things this week that I'm glad to record and that, frankly, made me very proud to have him as a son.

First, on Sunday, we went to McDonald's for breakfast. Long story short, we had been camping Friday and Saturday, but rain made us come home Saturday night. Sunday was going to be an open house (4 BR, 2.5 BA, priced to sell, call me); my wife drew clean up duty and I drew get-the-boys-out-of-the-house-so-she-can-clean duty. So, into the car the boys and I went and away to McDonald's.

The order: 4 plain biscuits, 4 hash browns, 1 chicken biscuit, 3 chocolate milks, 1 apple juice, 1 large Coke (no, that's no idol worship; it's a proper noun). Except that, because I was ridiculously, zombie-like tired, I only ordered 2 chocolate milks. And I had 26 cents left, which was not enough for another one.

And so, after helping me pass out all the food (Timothy is the official Middle-Seat Helper), he and I realized that we were short one chocolate milk. I asked him, "Could you please give that to Sam, and I'll get you another one in a few minutes?" And he said, without pouting, whining, or any other despondent-type reaction, "Yes."

Now, those of you without kids may think this is no big deal. But this is huge. No crying, no whining, taking one for the team. We call this Sacrifice, and it's fantastic to see in action. I'm proud of my boy.

(Just so you know, Mom, I did stop a few minutes later and got him a humongous chocolate milk at Eckerd.)

Okay, second story. This morning Timothy came downstairs first, while I was on the couch watching the news. We were sitting there talking when a story came on about those #*@^#!&_% who picket soldiers' funerals. On screen, they were showing them with their signs. Not wanting to draw attention to it, I said nothing. The TV showed one sign that said "Thank God for IED's" and another that said "God Hates You."

Timothy saw the last one, got a puzzled look on his face, and said, "That's not right. He does not." And I was so, so very proud of my boy.

(N.B.: have enough Christians denounced these folks yet? C'mon, even our 8-year-olds know these idiots are wrong.)

House and Home

2006-05-04T19:21:00.000-04:00

About six months ago, the boys and I went to Zaxby's for dinner. My wife had gone out for book club or scrapbooking (I always tell the boys that she's gone to a "mommy party") and we were left to fend for ourselves.

We got a 15 pack of chicken fingers (actually one 10 pack and one 5 pack, for you purists out there) and one order of fries. When we were done, each of the boys had fries left on his plate, and there were about 5 chicken fingers left over for my lunch the next day.

Tonight, I got a 20 pack of fingers and two orders of fries (my wife got a salad). The fries ran out early and left both Timothy and Stephen fighting over what I could spare. Timothy, Stephen, and Jonah all asked for seconds (Stephen actually asked for 2 more chicken fingers) and ate it all. There were only three chicken fingers left, due solely to my wife kicking the boys upstairs to get ready for bed.

They are 8, 6, 5, and 2, and they already eat like crazy. We're approaching a box of Pop Tarts or Cereal every day, a bag of chips every two days, and two loaves of bread a week. I can't keep bananas on the counter, because Stephen, Jonah, and Sam will just walk up, take one, and eat it (and leave the peel someplace for a suprise discovery later).

Can you imagine what this is going to be like in 5 or 10 years down the road? What if they bring friends over? I need more jobs.

Inevitability

2006-05-04T13:40:00.000-04:00

It was bound to happen. We have a lot of boys and a lot of LEGO's.

So yesterday I'm downstairs talking with my wife (and perhaps getting a Coke; is that really important?), when, from upstairs, we hear Jonah crying. Loudly. Intensely.

We're trying to figure out what's wrong ("Are you hurt?" "Did you fall?" "What's wrong?"), when he yells out the phrase that every 21st century parent dreads:

"I got a LEGO stuck up my nose!"

This is bad. On most things I'm moderately- to overly-cautious. Wear your shoes outside. Don't jump off the top bunk. Don't eat poo. Maintain a 20 foot perimeter around known anthills. etc.

But with LEGO's I've been a little lenient. Timothy had his first Bionicle set when he was 4. The age on the box said 7+. That was bad enough, but Permissions Creep (you know, that's the thing that lets 10-year-old fourth children watch Halloween 27) set in as well. At first we kept the "big boy LEGO's" in Timothy's room, and told Jonah to stay out. This worked for about a month. That same box is now actually in Jonah and Sam's room, and has grown to a 20 gallon Rubbermaid container. So we have a 2- and a 5-year-old with unlimited access to gazillions of LEGO's marked "8+".

(Please note, this does not include the new Zamor Spheres, a.k.a. the Lime Green Balls of Death, which are all hidden away in my office. I've got to draw the line somewhere.)

All this is to say . . . Jonah has a LEGO in his nose.

Now, I don't know about you, but on hearing this phrase the first thing I do is run through my mental catalog, looking for LEGO + Jonah's nose + worst possible thing. (Actually, this was the second thing. The first thing I did was to say a word that I later had to tell Jonah never to repeat and that I promised him I would never say again.)

As to the worst possible LEGO that could get stuck in Jonah's nose, I came up with this:
According to www.peeron.com (yes, of course I have an account, don't you?), this is a "Brick, 1 x 1 Round with Solid Stud". The "Round" part means that for something that is rather large (preschool nose-wise, anyway), it is of the right shape to perfectly block the nasal passage. That "Solid Stud" bit means that air cannot go through it.

So this is what is going through my mind as I begin to look up Jonah's nose.

And I see . . . nothing. Another not child-friendly word. Another apology.

Here's how my mind works. When I don't see the Brick, 1 x 1 Round with Solid Stud, I don't think, "perhaps it is something else." I think, "Oh, @#$*, that thing is so far up there that I can't see it." Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Instead, it's evidence to me that my son has a LEGO embedded in his brain and that we're going to the emergency room.

So I go to get a flashlight. And while I'm doing this, two things happen. One, I realize that we don't have any Bricks, 1 x 1 Round with Solid Stud. They were discontinued when I was a kid (yes, i actually know this; and regardless of what you think, in LEGO nerd-dom, I am barely a lance corpral). What we do have are Bricks, 1 x 1 Round with Hollow Stud.

See. There's a hole. No death involved.

The second thing that happens is a sneeze. Jonah sneezes.

My wife, in reward for her role in trying to comfort Jonah, shrieks, "Ewww! Where is it?"

And, sure enough, hanging from her knee, embedded in . . . well, you know what, is the LEGO. And it's not a Brick, 1 x 1 Round anything. It's this:
Except that it's black (well, green and black). It's a Technic Axle 2 Notched, of which we have more than a hundred in the uber-bin upstairs.

After resuming normal breathing, I ask Jonah, "Why did you stick a LEGO up your nose?" (Actually, although in the process of calming, I use a milder, although still apology-worthy word in the above sentence.)

His answer: "I don't know." Which means that he had this thing in his hand and thought, "I can stick this up my nose" without any awareness of, or thought toward, any long-term consequences.

This is why we don't let them have guns. Or vote.

2006-04-27T22:12:00.000-04:00

There's always more to it.

You think you're going to give your uncle's invisibility ring to the elves for safe keeping, but no . . .

You think you're going to have a nice reconciliation dinner with your wife at her company Christmas party in Nakatomi Plaza, but no . . .

You think that potty training means training your kid to go in the potty instead of in a diaper. But no. There's always more to it. Let me count the ways.

Find a bathroom . . . in time.
This now means that the downstairs bathroom and the upstairs "Boys' Bathroom" are pretty much off-limits to anyone else except Sam. Because if someone else is in there when Sam has to go, that person has to leave, and fast.

It also means being able to interpret nervous, non-verbal cues (such as The Grab) that signal your child is about to go. Which means you better have located the bathrooms when you walked in the door and identified the least obstructed path to that bathroom in case of an emergency.

Turn on the light.
This was one of Jonah's biggest problems. He wouldn't go into a dark bathroom and was too short to reach the lightswitch, so he would have to find the step-stool (or a sword or lightsaber) for help. And frequently, by the time the light was on, it was too late.

Thankfully, Sam doesn't care about going in the dark. Several times now we've startled each other when I walked into the bathroom and turned on the light. It's a good thing he already was . . . where he was.

Drop trou.
Sam's been working on this one for quite some time, so no problems there. Still, it has to be done, and it takes precious time. Peeing outside is a great way to practice.

Climb on the potty.
This is why there is a step-stool in a bathroom both upstairs and downstairs. Stephen and Jonah wouldn't "get on board" without one. Sam, again, doesn't seem to care; he's a bit of a climber.

The Holy Trinity
Flush. Put the lid down. Wash your hands.

Nobody who's been around my kids will believe me, but we really do try to teach these. Still, boys ages 8, 6, and 5 who've been through this already, we've still got one who doesn't flush, one (or more) who doesn't wash his hands, and one who leaves the lid up but manages to close the bathroom door after he leaves. And no, I'm not telling you who does what.

I have no prediction as to which camp(s) Sam will join. I'd put a sign in each bathroom if my wife would let me.

Get dressed.
The instigator of such famous phrases as "Lines in front, tag in back," this is Sam's hardest task. I'm a big fan of the new tagless clothes, but not for kids. Children's clothes should have giganormous labels that are neon yellow.

Honestly, this is the part that's driving me up the wall. Sure, they're semi-related tasks, but who'd have thought that I'd have to teach a kid how to go potty and dress himself at the same time. He's ready for one (and quite good at it), but not so much for the other. Nonetheless, we soldier on.

You know those folks whose toddlers run around without any pants on? I know why. I don't condone it, but I sympathize.

Alright. Next post, something other than potty training. Probably.