Glow Bracelets, Nanu on Skype, Bugs under glass

Mama Kim and I usually give the kids in our Primary Church candy at the close of our time together and it is one of the things the children have come to expect. Today we did things a little differently and gave them glow bracelets. It was a very big hit, so big in fact that they forgot all about candy. We had to keep turning off the lights so they could see the bracelets in the dark and we had to keep giving demonstrations as the parents came to collect our little wards.
After church today we finally got on Skype and called our friends in the Ukraine. They moved away several months ago and we have not been diligent keeping in touch. (Shame on us.) It was so much fun to see and hear them again, especially the son, Nanu, who is a very special friend of mine. He and I worked and played together since he was little as I repaired a house for his father who was a co-worker and is still a good friend.
Mama asked him if he was having fun and he quickly said, “Not a bit. You’re not here.” He is six years old and so full of energy that it is difficult for the apartment to contain him. His mother, Lana says that with his father visiting in the US right now he is really out of control, but I think he is just in need of some time to run. He was running in circles yelling and dancing for us in front of the computer.
When the sound went out on our computer he was shouting for us to type a message to him. It was impossible for him to understand that neither Mama nor I knew how to type a message, but he was relentless on his end as he watched us on the still working video portion of Skype. We could hear him shouting, “Just type something. See the bottom? You can just type something so we can see it. Why aren’t they typing something? JUST TYPE IN THE BOX!” Meanwhile Mama is shaking her hands in confusion looking for a place to type something. Somewhere along the way Lana figured it out and sent us a message to start the process. Nanu was ecstatic. “They’re typing!! I can see it. You’re doing it! YEAH!!” “Nanu”, she calls him, “calm down.” He never did.
Our associate pastor told a story on his wife tonight. Lately she has been capturing bugs under glass and holding them captive in this way until he gets there to kill them. He asked what the difference was in placing a glass over them and just killing them when she sees them.
“It’s that awful crunching sound.”

Jake in the bathroom, Jake and sugar, Mykenzie’s morning

On one of the mornings of our time in West Virginia, while we were eating breakfast at Suzi’s, Mama had Jake go wash the his sticky fingers but since she was going too they went to the women’s bathroom. Jake discovered while they were in there that he needed to go to the bathroom so Mama left him in there to finish.
She came to me and asked me to watch for him because the door was very difficult to open. So I stationed myself outside the door and waited. I knew he was in there since I could hear him singing as he relieved himself. As usual, he took his time and I kept listening. Next I heard the hand dryer running – twice. Then he tried to open the door. It was a good thing I was standing by because he really did need my help.
We found Mama and she asked him if he had washed his hands. I told her I heard the hand dryer run twice and she looked at Jake and asked, “You were just warming up weren’t you?” “Yea Mama Kim it was really cold in there!”
We have definitely learned to limit his sugar intake. We have noticed a profound effect on him lately and while we were traveling we were a little worried. While he was in the vehicle there it seemed that our worries were unfounded, but I noticed that whenever we were out of the car he was in hyper-drive.
While we were in a Cracker Barrel for a potty break he must have said, “Hey. Mama Kim!”, one hundred and fifty times. I really don’t think Mama noticed but I did. Several other customers were following his movements and dialogue and really enjoying it. Once we were back in the car it was like a switch was turned off and he settled down for the last two hours of the trip. When we got home it was off to the races again. That time Mama noticed.
Our daughter told us that when she got up on a recent morning, Mykenzie was already out of bed and busy coloring. “How long have you been up?” she asked. “Oh, about five seconds.” It had obviously been much longer since the page she was working on was almost complete.
No wonder three-year-olds think a minute takes forever.

Traveling to WVa, Taco Bell toys, Jake and the turtle

We went to West Virginia in what is to be one of the final trips we will need to make to have Chase’s orthodontic work done. The braces are off and the retainers are in. We will have to make one more trip for a routine checkup but it should be the last one for that work. I have lost count of how many trips we made for Chase, but I suppose it has been seven or eight. The end is in sight and in ways we will all miss it.
On the way over we stopped at Taco Bell for lunch. Mama got Jake, who made the trip with us, a kid’s meal – with a toy. This one required a lot of assembly and when he finally asked Chase for help the toy was beyond rescue. So, Mama sent him up to the counter to see if he could get a replacement. We were close so we could hear the conversation.
“That toy was hard to do and I messed it up. Can I have another one?”
“Sure, here you go.”
He skipped over to the table and revealed his new prize. Then he discovered that it was a girl person not a boy person. “Mama Kim, can you believe he gave me a girl one? What am I going to do with a girl one?”
“Well, go up and see if he can find you a boy one.”
So, Jake marches up to the counter and the same young man asks if he can help him. “You accidently gave me a girl one.” Jake says matter-of-factly. (We finally did get it all worked out.)
We stayed with a family from the church we used to attend while we lived in West Virginia and on the way to their house I spotted a turtle, specifically a box turtle. I stopped and Mama went back to collect the turtle. When she gave it to Jake it was fully closed inside its shell. Jake had never seen one and he thought that we were kidding with him. Those who know my relationship with Jake know he would be suspicious of me, but not usually of Mama Kim.
When we got out of the car we set the turtle on the driveway of the house of our host and explained to Jake that the turtle would have to feel safe before he came out. But Jake had been cooped up in a car for over eight hours and he was not in wait-and-see mood so every couple of minutes he would sneek over to see if there was any change. Before long he was knocking on the top of the shell and saying, “Yoo-hoo. Are you in there?” “Are you ever going to come out?”
No amount of explanation was going to discourage his efforts to hurry our captive so I distracted Jake long enough that the turtle was finally sticking his head out to look around as we left the house on our way to church that evening. At least he got to see that there really was a turtle inside that closed up shell. When we got home, it was gone.
Jake was disappointed. We were relieved.

A full house, Pennies in the pool

We had a full house the other day. Fortunately for Mama I was off. There were seven kids in the house to be watched plus our son and a friend he had over. It was busy. I think the hardest part was coordinating nap times, so I ended staying with baby Victoria while Mama and the others went to the pool. It worked for me. I don’t need that much pool time. Besides I needed to catch up on my reading and other studies.
After naptime and before the earlier pickups, we had a second time at the pool. This time I got to go. Since we take plenty of toys, tubes and dive rings to the pool there is always something for everyone to play with. But like we see every Christmas, the containers the toys come in are the most entertaining of the items for play. A good portion of our toys are carried in a bucket and that became the item of focus for the youngest member of our crew, an almost two-year-old, with his swim trunks tightly fitted over his special swim diaper. Of course to play with the bucket, all the contents had to be dumped into the kiddy pool from where there were scavenged by other participants and strewn around the pool.
He was having a ball transporting water from one section of the pool to another across a set of dividers that provide a walkway between the deeper part of the pool and the very shallow part where we were trying to contain him. His older brother was wearing a swim vest and kept running from the shallow part to the deeper part, but on one return trip to the shallows he screamed, “Mama Kim, poop in the pool!”
My wife jumped from where she was and hurried to see what he was seeing, already nauseated at the idea of the cleanup that would be needed. She almost fell over laughing as soon as she got there. “Papa Tim, you have to come see this!” It turned out that part of the contents of the bucket was a collection of pennies that we use for Jake and others to dive after when we toss them in the pool. These pennies just happened to fall in a shape in the shallow water that looked to the three-year-old like poop.
As we laughed and picked them up, he cringed at the process still not believing we knew what we were doing.
Life is rough for Chase. After returning from a month in Costa Rica, he and his friend set up the X-box in the theater room at the apartment complex. Playing Halo on an eight foot screen – now that’s tough.

Vow Renewal, Pool Water complaints

Mama and I have been attending a family conference at our church over the past several nights. Dr. Hand has been teaching out of some material he wrote several years – or decades – ago on husband/wife relationships as well as strategies for maintaining proper family order and consequently, contentment in the home. It has been good information to hear again, especially since we could attend together since it worked out that I was on days this week.
As a closing for the conference he had each couple attending that night to stand together at the front of the auditorium, face each other and repeat an abbreviated rendition of the traditional wedding vows. It was a very nice touch. Mama and I had no trouble facing each other since our faces are turned into one another very frequently. I do have the feeling that there were some couples that struggled with or were embarrassed by the exercise.
My father taught us that there were any number of persons we could choose as a spouse. There was, according to him, no Divine appointment of one person for another; any reasonable male-female union was workable and could be blessed if surrendered to God. I agree intellectually, perhaps even emotionally, but not spiritually. I do not believe there is any part of my life where God says, “Yeah that will do. I can make something of that.” He knows me and he knows my spouse. His plans are always for our good and his Glory.
I am a hopeless romantic. I find it comforting, even inspiring, to think that he made my wife for me and me alone rather than assume he merely took the choice I made and made the best of it. Either way I win and so does my wife, but in my way of thinking, there is never a chance that there could have ever been another right choice for me to make. There is no wondering. There is no guessing. There is no complaining. She is my one.
It is sort of like when John the Baptist, now in prison and about to be executed for his preaching of the Christ, sent one of his disciples to ask Jesus, “Are you the one or do we look for another?” Whenever my faith begins to be tested and I start to doubt (as may have happened in the early years of our marriage) I think of what God did in choosing her for me and I start to praise Him for the love he showed me in that choice. It always turns the table around. There is no one else for me other than Mama. Praise the Lord!
A friend of mine installed a pool for his family last year but there was not too much opportunity to enjoy it until this summer. Since it has been very hot the wife and kids have spent a lot of time in or near the pool. I asked how it was going for him with regards to the pool. He explained that the one problematic issue was the water temperature.
He has a heater for the water so there has been a lot of discussion about water temperature. When the air temperature was eighty degree and the water temperature was eighty five degrees, everyone was ecstatic. When the air temperature was ninety five degrees and higher and the water temperature was still eighty five degrees the wife would put the heater in service to warm the water which now felt cold to her and the kids.
“Why in the world,” he asked me, “would any sane person pay to heat their pool in the heat of summer?”
“What did you tell your wife?”
“Nothing, I just smile while I grit my teeth.”
That is a wise man.

Chase home safe, Mamas and my weakness

Chase and his young traveling companions got home safely last night. I have very few details on the flight either way or on the events of his stay in Costa Rica, but Mama told me the first thing he wanted when he got to the apartment was a bowl of cereal. Since Mama generally keeps fifteen or twenty boxes, I do know he had plenty to choose from.
Last time I drove to Florida I got all the opened boxes of cereal out of the cabinet to take to Cori and the kids. I loaded up twelve boxes, none of which were duplicates one of another. I did not realize how vast a variety she kept on hand. But in her defense, we usually have several younger eaters in the house and their tastes often require a variety of choices. At the very least it makes them happy to have several choices to pick through.
I was also told that Chase likes the fact that our toilets can be flushed without the fear of plugging. That appears to have been a continual worry for him when he was out of the country. I will have to tell him that if his travels had taken him further to the east, flushing toilets would have been the least of his worries.
I asked Mama last night if she and I had a problem, a weakness, in that we were constantly surrounding ourselves with children. I was a little worried that we may not actually be as happy when we are alone together as we think we are. We can be a couple of mildly boring old fogies when there is not a cup to be filled, a snack to be served or an appointment to be kept.
But really I know that is not the case. Our children will tell anyone who might ask that Mama and I enjoy each other’s company very much; they are always telling us to “get a room.” However, I have discovered over the years that it is better to ask than to assume since my way of thinking is incredibly different from hers.
I told some friends of ours many years ago that children add dimension to your life and I stand by that. We have very good friends who were not able to have children and had no interest in adopting. I am sure they are enjoying their life together, but my life with Mama Kim and the children (and grandchildren) we surround ourselves with, is an absolute blast.
So if this is a weakness in our character or relationship, it is one we are willing to suffer with – at least for another thirty or forty years. Her answer, by the way, was very Mama Kim. “We do okay when it’s just the two of us, don’t we?”
I can’t tell you how I responded to that. It would embarrass our children.

Cookie dough sampling, Vegetable “shortener”

Last week Mama had several kids over to make cookies. I say several, it was only three girls and two boys each making a particular type of cookie which, thankfully, they took home as part of the reward for the work involved. Everything turned out very well and all participants were pleased with the cookies and the fun – especially Mama Kim.
The boys were more interested in tasting the batter than in actually baking the cookies. I guess they come by it naturally since that is my favorite part also. I always get in trouble for taking more than what Mama thinks is my fair share of the dough, probably because I eat more than my fair share of the final product also. I have never understood why the dough tastes so good to me. I have never liked bread dough, or brownie dough, or cupcake batter. (One of the great mysteries of life.)
Mama and the girls all liked the cookies fresh out of the oven – never much to my liking. I like my cookies cooled and ready to eat in multiples of three or greater. It seems that the boys were solidly in my court on that one also. Since I was getting up later in the morning after working all night I got off to a slow start but was able to make up ground quickly.
Jake got interested when the snicker doodle cookies were next on the list and he and one of the younger girls shared in mixing the initial ingredients. Jake took as much of the initial mixture as his finger could scoop up and ate it as his mixing partner screamed, “That’s gross Jake!” “Why, I think it tastes great. What’s so gross?” “It’s just butter and sugar. That’s what!” “No wonder it tastes so good!” He went back for more not necessarily out of the fun he was having eating it but rather for the fun he was having grossing out a girl with it.
It only took a moment for the other girls to join in the chorus of pretended offence. “That’s gross. Mama Kim!!” Jake’s face was about to break with the smile it was trying to contain. I suppose that’s the fun in having activities where girls and boys participate together – especially young ones. The girls pretend to be grossed our by the boys and the boys get so carried away in the fun that we adults eventually have to intervene before things gets too out of hand, all the while Mama and I are trying hard to dismiss (at least to the boys and girls present) how hilarious the moment really is. We try not to encourage such behavior! (NOT!)
After it was all done there were three or four kinds of cookies made, separated and bagged for the differing trips home. One batch was made with spelt flour for one of the older girls visiting who is on a gluten-free diet. They were an oatmeal-raisin recipe and they came out pretty well. I only got one so my taste test was inconclusive.
As we were winding down, Jake started reading the recipes - ingredient by ingredient. Most were relatively familiar, but he stumbled over what he read as “vegetable shortener”. So naturally, he asked, “Mama Kim, what vegetables did we use in the cookies?”

The Crayola Factory, Traveling, Naming of sicknesses

A year after we moved to New Jersey my wife found out about the Crayola Factory in Easton, PA. It is only about an hour from where we live so for us it is an easy trip; one my wife has made multiples of times. I have never been so I can only speak from secondhand experience. I do know this, she loves it! I suppose I will have to go before we leave the area so she can show me just how much fun it is – because that is what she loves most about it, sharing the experience with someone.
Those she takes with her enjoy her exuberance almost as much as actually participating in the fun. I always hear the most exciting testimonies of pure enjoyment from everyone she has taken. I almost feel left out…almost.
Today’s trip we no different. She had in her entourage three girls and two boys. Jake has, of course, been several times, since he has been with Mama Kim the longest. I think now he goes just to watch her. Among the newer visitors were two first timers. I have not heard their stories but I know I will soon. Sadly I had to leave just as the party was coming in the door – I had a meeting to go to at work prior to beginning my twelve hour shift. (What fun things they think up for us!)
Since the Crayola Factory is an hour away, it seems a stretch to many people in this area, but we are used to the idea of traveling distances, whether great or small to get to the areas to which we need or want to go, other than work. After all we travel almost five hundred miles each way to go to the orthodontist in West Virginia – but there are extenuating circumstances for that trip.
Growing up in Texas it was not unusual for us to travel over one hundred miles for a day trip and raising our children on a farm in West Virginia, it was necessary to travel over sixty miles just to shop at certain stores when we needed. I am looking at a job in Texas that would again necessitate routinely traveling such distances again. So it is not a difficulty for us when we have the time to make the journey.
It is humbling to realize that we have good friends that travel over an hour each way to get to church three times a week. In Texas that would be common, not so much here. Not something we spend too much time thinking about, it is something we do for our kids regardless of the cost.
I can think of no better reason to be broke.
My daughter tells me that my grandson was diagnosed with “hand, foot and mouth disease”. That is one I have always had trouble understanding and it has not changed over the many years since my own children were likewise diagnosed. I always wanted to get more clarification from a doctor. Why not call it hand and mouth or hand and foot disease? Either of those would make so much more sense.
But far be it from me to figure out the nomenclature of an ancient viral infection. The only question I would like to have answered is, is this a case of athlete’s foot of the mouth or fever blisters on the feet?

Blake is happy, what we want, appreciating mothers

I think my daughter is in the throws of the post-partum blues. We’ve talked about it so I think I am safe to mention it. With the additional demands of two young children besides the newborn, there is a heightened stress that she seems to have avoided in recovery from past pregnancies. But when it got her this time around, it got her good.
She tells me she was deep in the throws of emotional collapse, sitting on the couch feeding the suckling child when my three-year-old granddaughter snuggled in beside her, she was crying, rather is should say weeping and wondering how she could have seen herself as the “mothering” sort.
I am here to swear that if ever any of my children was given the gift of “mothering” it is this child, but I have five daughters and will have two daughter-in-laws, so let me be careful here. My daughter Cori is my oldest female child and was born the middle child with all the classic tendencies of that spot in the birth order. She maintained those nurturing, mothering tendencies after we adopted children years later.
I am only saying that she is well-practiced, well-suited to the task and whole-heartedly committed to it, perhaps to the point of obsession, but she, like all of the rest if us, is no match for hormone overload.
As Mykenzie, who inherited her mother’s gift crowded up to her crying mother, she simply asked “Mommy, why are you crying? Are you sad?” Yes, I’m sad! You are disobeying and Grant is whiney because he is sick. So you are sad because I have to punish you, Grant is sad because I cannot hold him all the time when he is feeling bad. Everybody is sad. That’s why Mommy is crying.”
“But Mommy”, she quickly pointed out, “Blake is not sad.” They both looked down at the baby who had just gotten his fill and he was smiling at his Mommy with the expressive innocence found only on faces that small, which made his mommy cry even more. Mykenzie couldn’t see but the tears were completely different now. I wasn’t told, but knowing my daughter and her mother, I’m sure she got a kiss for her insightful observation.
My daughter wants what she has. She may want it under different circumstances than what she is experiencing right now, but the years will bring that to pass. These little hardships will be so overshadowed by the laughter to come, that if they are not captured in print, there will be no remembrance of them. That is as it should be.
As we were listening to the three kids we had the other day interact we heard one say with obvious sincerity, “My mom is the greatest!” One of the others made a questioning face; it was almost one of those Art Linkletter faces and my wife challenged her to speak up. She did not want to say.
Now we were in an awkward situation. It is not like we could let the unspoken challenge to such a statement stand without some defense or rebuttal being offered. Reluctantly the child confessed, “Well, it’s just that one time I was going to the bathrooms just as you mother was coming out and she really stunk it up.”
“Yeah,” It was acknowledged, “She does that.”

What they hear, almost bilingual, Calling Mama Kim

In another “It’s not what you say, it’s what they hear” segment, one of our friends who works at the church we attend discovered she had misplaced her keys. We live very close to the church so she called us on her way to work there and asked if she could borrow our key so she could get in the building. She told us later that she was explaining to her daughter (eight years old) that she would make a copy of the key so she would not have to keep ours any longer than necessary. This proved confusing to her daughter and she asked her mother, “How is that going to work? A copy is only going to be paper?”
We took JC, Jake and the young girl mentioned above to the pool today; an activity that is nearly as much fun for the kids as it is for Mama Kim, who, by the way, is getting a pretty good tan. The boys and I jumped right in but the girls were a little longer getting up the courage to brave the not-so-warm water. Eventually everybody got wet and started having a good time.
I always finish first – about an hour does me; not so for everyone else that was there, Mama is good for the better part of the day, but she limits the kids to about two hours to keep them from the possibility of burning. Though the water was not exactly warm the temperature was about 95F and the sun was very bright, so it is a good plan.
It is fun to see and hear the silly interactions of three that young, silly games, silly stunts and silly competitions. I usually only half listen to the kids but Jake was especially inventive today and one of the competitions ended up being doing flips underwater. I think he maxed out at eight though there was a suggestion that he could do ten if he could hold his breath long enough. But for some reason he began running along the edge of the pool yelling, “Ola Espanola!” pronounced correctly even though I can’t spell it properly on the keyboard. I probably noticed it more because there was a Spanish speaking family swimming with us today.
On the downside, I tried counting the number of times Mama Kim was called by name in the final minutes we were there. When we announced that it was time to leave the activity level kicked up a couple notches and understandably Mama Kim had to witness every flip, splash, dive and trick being done. I stopped counting at sixty. I suppose that is not too overwhelming when you consider that it is only twenty times per child. That is took place in only fifteen minutes staggers my mind.
She loves it. So do I.

What 28 years together represents

Not too many weeks past a young man we know fairly well told his equally young wife that he thought a monogamous relationship was a waste of a true mans time and a restriction on his potential and virility. To argue against that is a waste of time because such an expression of sinful indulgence and wanton selfishness will prove him wrong with quick and painful clarity. His wife and two young children will recover from the pain long before he is able.
But on the positive side of the argument, what does it mean that I am celebrating twenty-eight years of marriage; twenty-eight years of commitment to one and only one woman, sexually and every other way? It means, for starters, that our relationship is far deeper than using each other to satisfy our physical needs. (As much fun as that is there will always be twenty-three hours and thirty minutes left in the day.) There are times when our love life has been a struggle and our physical intimacy has suffered at the barrage of demands of raising seven children, keeping a home and job, serving in the church and keeping in touch with friends and family.
There have been times of disappointment and discouragement brought about by life in general but also by bad decisions, the consequences of which we have had to live with and work through. But in those times I did not blame her and she did not blame me. We stuck together, struggled together, worked hard together, prayed together and found that the sacrifices of our commitment to each other and to God are continual, uninterrupted, sometimes monotonous, but abounding in the rewards they bring through engendering an intimacy that is far more than physical.
There is such a wealth of memories – good and bad – stored within our two hearts and minds after twenty-eight years together that it would take several volumes to begin to share even some of them. Private jokes, secret smiles, understanding looks and wordless expressiveness are all a part of truly knowing the person with whom you share your life.
Such emotional, spiritual, and physical intimacies come only through trust, which can only come with time; time spent together. It comes from being happy with that person just as they are; thrilled that they love you just the way you are, which, by the way, includes all the extra baggage emotionally, spiritually and physically speaking that come with our unique individual personhood.
I love everything about my wife because I choose to focus almost exclusively on those things that I really do love about her. Ask me for positives and I can spend hours sharing them with you. Ask for a negative and it will make me feel guilty and uncomfortable to even try to think of one. After all, there are so many negative things that I bring to our marriage and I know she overlooks every one of them, why should I violate that sacred trust?
In the past few years our love has grown to a profoundly unexplainable depth rooted in the faithfulness and self-sacrifice characteristic of couples whose commitment has stretched over decades. I have no fear of my needs being met, my wife is occupied with that thought continually and there is no more pressing matter to me than to meet her needs; each of us deferring to the other so consciously that if ever there is a selfish moment where I put my needs ahead of hers, I know that she will go without. Is that love? I think so.
That sad young man will wake up one day and realize he has nothing to show for the path he chose. Sadder yet, he will have no one, either.
For my part, I’ve got my wife right where she wants me and I love it that way.

I think I’m gonna die, Dinner with Mama

On the way home from helping out at the rummage sale our church was having, one of the young ones we watch looked up at me and with a sincerity known only to those of that age stated, “Papa Tim, I think I am gonna to die.” (I admit having to resist the urge to assure him that we are all going to die at some point but it is a little too early for him to focus on that.) “Really, what makes you think so?”
“I have a lot of booboos and if you have a lot of booboos you don’t get to grow up!” “Show me one of your booboos.” He promptly showed me a fresh scrape on his knee. (I had to put on my glasses to see it but it was very significant to him.) I just wanted to clarify that we were talking about physical injuries and not poor judgments. He is only five years old, but you never know what they can be capable of understanding.
“You’ll be fine” I assured him. “I had bigger booboos than that and look at me now.”
“So even with booboos I still get to grow up?”
“Yup.”
“Thanks, Papa Tim.” It is always nice to be able to help.
Mama and I went out for our anniversary dinner last night. The actual date is Sunday but since I am working nights this weekend, we went a little early. It was a delightful evening. We had been talking about places to go out to eat, but had not settled on anything particular until Mama remembered the pastor talking about PF Chang’s; a fancy Chinese restaurant in Princeton. We pass it every time we travel down Route 1 to the airport in Philadelphia and have never eaten there, so we went.
We had been told it was expensive, but it really wasn’t. The food was the best I have ever eaten and it was nothing like I have ever eaten. The egg drop soup was so different from anything I have had that I think I could make a full meal of it and be perfectly satisfied. We asked to be seated on the patio. It was about 84 degrees with a slight breeze, shaded, covered seating, bright enough to enjoy but not too hot.
The meal was not rushed so we had plenty of time to enjoy the evening and the food. It was only forty five dollars for the two of us for soup, appetizer, two entrees and a mini dessert. After the meal we walked to a nearby store that caught our eye and found it was attached to a mall we had no idea was there.
Mama bought some baby cloths and I bought a brass key organizer made in the shape of six little piggy butts with the tails curled to hold key rings. That kind or clever, unusual thing suits us.
Twenty-eight years later, she’s still the one.

Preacher boys, A good night’s sleep, Home?

We got back to New Jersey in time to unload the car and make it to the evening service at church. It was Teen Takeover at Somerset Bible Baptist. Several of the young teenage boys in the church had been asked to prepare a sermon for the event. There were four in all and they each did a good job on the sermon-ette they gave. I am glad we made it even though we were worn out.
The third boy to deliver his thoughts looked at his fellow preacher boys and asked, “Did you guys feel like your heart was about to explode?” But he carried on and read a scripture, asked a couple of piercing question and began to pray. When he lifted his head after the prayer our youth pastor began walking up to the platform thinking he was done. He stopped, quite embarrassed and asked, “You done?” The poor young man at the pulpit froze and stared wide eyes at him. “You’re not done?” our youth pastor asked. The younger preacher-in-practice made only the slightest wiggle of his head from side-to-side to indicate that he was indeed not done. Both were now quite red faced. “Well, then, preach on.” And after the laughter died down he did just that.
I realized when Mama and I got back that I preferred the drive straight through I had made with Seth. It actually seemed like less hours in the car and the trip seemed to be over so fast. I will have to try that with Mama some time to see what she thinks.
I also realized when we got back to our own bed how poorly I had been sleeping at my daughter’s house. There was nothing wrong with the accommodations and my daughter and her husband are always very gracious hosts but I worry that the daybed I usually sleep on is not built for someone my size and may not hold up.
I guess Mama and I just like our own bed. We both slept very soundly and were it not for the fact that we had to get up early to meet Jake and his mom, we probably would have slept much longer. But we got a full six or seven hours of sound sleep; more than on many of the previous nights. That having been said, I would not trade those nights for anything.
As we crossed the state line into New Jersey I realized that we were near our destination, but I did not feel like we were home. It is where we live and work, where we go to church, but a strong sense of disappointment about not being able to move to Hot Springs set in and it has been hard to shake. Going to work on Monday evening only reinforced the overall mood.
God is still blessing us here. There is still work to do. We are needed by the church and many of the families we regularly interact with, but there are still those far away from us who need us also; those for whom we would like to be more available. It is hard to resettle into the daily and weekly grind of our lives here when we were so close to what our hearts longed for. The real blessing and answer to our prayers for direction is that God gave us a very clear answer regarding the job change. It was “No.”
I don’t like that answer any more than my kids do.

Come see my troll, Blake isn’t perfect after all

Grandpa and Victoria related a story to us as told by a man at Gospel Light Church. There was a pastor’s wife that had befriended an old gentleman in their church. He was one of those individuals that needed some special oversight in order to live by themselves. It was her habit to take him several times a week on errands so he could provide for his most basic needs. She made sure he had things like tissues, toilet paper and toothpaste since without her help he probably would not think of these things.
One week she had been very busy with church and family and realized that she had neglected to stop by his house to check on him. Just as she was about to call him, her phone rang. She recognized the number, answered apologetically and was about to explain why she had not been over sooner when he blurted out, “Come see my troll!” and hung up. A little worried and confused, she headed out immediately.
When she got to the house she found the poor man in a state of agitated excitement. All the living room furniture had been piled against the bathroom door on the other side of the room from the entry. Things were a mess to say the least and she began to assume that some significant emotional episode had overwhelmed him and was considering calling for medical help. However, she soon realized that other than his insistence that he had a troll barricaded in the bathroom, he seemed perfectly in control of his faculties.
With much persuasion she convinced him to put the room back in order and helped him relocate all the furniture stacked and shoved into the corner against the closet door. The couch, chairs, lamps and tables were all back I place when they slid a large china cabinet away from the door.
When the door was opened, out walked a midget that had been forced into the bathroom three days earlier.
He explained through his fury that he had been selling books door-to-door when this “kook” had unceremoniously picked him up, tossed him in the bathroom and locked him in. He gathered his merchandise and stormed off. She could not think of anything to say. Her ward simply stated, with some degree of satisfaction, “Told you I had a troll in there.”
After some speculation that we had the perfect grandson, it has been decided that he is, after all, pretty normal. Though he has to be waked to be fed, rarely protests when he is held by his siblings, sleeps well through the nights, and lays comfortably for long stretches in our arms without the slightest expression of irritation, he does not like to have his picture taken by professional photographers – especially when he is unclothed. But at less than two weeks old, he is allowed to protest against whatever he wants.
In my book, he’s still pretty close to perfect…in spite of what those who are around him all the time might think.

Wild fishing, eating too much, Grandpa and Victoria

When my daughter and her husband brought the grandchildren over to meet us in Arkansas, we discovered that Mykenzie really likes fishing. With that in mind we bought her a fishing pole as a birthday present. Naturally we had to put that pole to use when we visited in Florida this past week.
Her daddy and I both got licenses so we could legally fish with grandkids and we picked out a spot close to their home; one that would provide some easy access with a safe approach to casting our lines in the water. My son-in-law knew of a park with access to a backwater area on the Blackwater River.
It was a great spot, part of a park with a playground and a large picnic area. It offered a well-built wooden walk along the river and other than being fairly high above the water without any restraints on the water side of the walk it seemed perfect. We would have to be careful, but otherwise, we could make it work.
We sat down and got the poles ready, a process that took most of the enthusiasm out of the very young fishermen, and finally cast out into the deep to see what surprises may come to us.
We were only there about twenty minutes before the grandchildren lost interest, but the park was nearby and we fished on as they went to play. It was only after about another half hour that we began to question whether what we were seeing in the water straight ahead of was really an alligator; turns out it really was.
That turned out to be a little too wild for the mother’s in our group so daddy will have to find another spot to take his budding anglers.
I asked Mama why it is that we always seem to eat too much when we are on vacation. But it does seem that way. We are anxious – well maybe not – to check our weights when we get back home. That is the unpleasant side of a pleasant vacation.
Grandpa and Victoria are on the way. She managed to get sufficient time off of work to make the visit and Grandpa came as protector and chaperone – of both her and the car: besides there was a brand new great-grandchild to see. I am not sure how long it had been since he held one so very small. I know it has been a long time for me, probably since I held one of the twins we watched so many years ago in Victoria, TX. They are both in their teens now.
I was a pleasure to be able to quiet the baby when he began to fuss. With one that new, it is a walk of discovery every day to find what they need and want from those of us not nursing them.
It’s part of what makes life good.