Yesterday was Epiphany, marking the end (at least in a liturgical sense) of the Christmas season, and the return of 'Real Life' after the time of celebration and feasting. And oh, yes. . . Real Life is most definitely upon us. . .
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I've written here, and in my previous blog, about my grandchild(ren), 1F's 'birth-daughter' (just recently turned 8 years old) and her adoptive siblings. And of how God, true to His Word, has indeed 'worked everything out for the good'.
You have probably also noticed that, since roughly a year ago or so, the frequency of my posts here has become considerably less. There are a variety of reasons for that, mainly subsumed under the heading of 'Real Life Hath Its Demands'.
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And so it came to pass, late last spring, that one such Demand made itself known. 6F took Jen aside and told her that she, 6F, just barely turned 18, and not yet, at the time, graduated from high school, was pregnant.
(*sigh*)
You want to think that the younger kids, especially the girls, were paying attention when 1F was going through her own pregnancy. But. . . perhaps not. I don't know what it's like for women, exactly, but I know that most guys (and young guys most especially), faced with the immediate availability of sex, aren't so clear-headed as to say, "Wait. . . you could get pregnant. . ." or, "But we aren't married yet. . ." Maybe in my grandmother's day, but not just lately. (And perhaps the size of my own family will attest to my own uh, shortcomings as pertaining to self-control. . .) And, even so, the generation of a new human life loses none of its sacred wonder for the circumstances being, shall we say, somewhat sub-optimal.
6F's boyfriend is, on the whole, a solid kid, responsible, hard-working, etc. (by which I mean he's diligent, frugal and focused; the question of keeping wicks dry is a separate matter). We have thought that, if it should happen that way, we wouldn't have any serious objections to the two of them marrying. In, oh, say, five years, when they're both more, uh, grown up than they are now, and clearer on the distinction between being married and 'going steady' (though I doubt that anyone calls it that anymore). But this puts a whole new twist on timetables and suchlike, and adds pressure to the marriage (and the family) that they hope to form together.
We will see what we will see, of course, but Jen and I are mainly of the mind that, if the two of them can form a stable, loving marriage, that would be best all around, for all three of the principals. So we're basically of the mind that we will do all that we can to help the two of them form such a marriage, if they can. If. . .
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So, our second grandchild (at least in biological terms) is on his way.
We had a couple months to digest 6F's news before 3M came to us with the news that his girlfriend was also pregnant. Again, wonderful - another new human life is arising from our gene pool. But again - carts and horses, and all that. . .
3M and his girlfriend have been together for nearly two years, and we had frankly thought that we'd be hearing wedding bells before too awfully much longer. 3M has been doing well on his job, and getting himself 'established' to the point that being a husband and father is not a crazy idea. The two of them want to get married, and almost certainly will. But their relationship has had some, uh, volatile tendencies in the time they've been together, and I worry just the least bit that this will put pressure on them to marry, possibly over their own nagging doubts.
But, you know, as with 6F, we view our role as helping them get to the best possible place together that they can, both for their sake and their unborn child's. . .
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So, two grandchildren - our second and third - on the way, without any of our kids being married. But, you know, we could console ourselves to a considerable degree that both couples were on their way to marrying, even if (marriage-prep timetables being what they are in our Catholic diocese) the marriages won't happen until some time after the birth of the child. I'm not terribly concerned with appearances, or 'family honor', or anything like that; all I want is what's best for my own children, and their putative spouses, and the children that they've made together.
And then, a few weeks ago, 2F came to us with the news that she, too, was 'in the family way' (well, except for, you know, the whole 'family' bit). Which came to us, how shall I say? - completely out of left field, since 2F hasn't had a boyfriend, that we know of. Nonetheless, there it was. After a week or two had passed, and we'd had time to digest this latest bit of generational news, Jen asked 2F who the father was; she said she didn't know. And that's about all I'm going to say about that. . .
As you might imagine (or, you might not, I suppose), it's been a bit more challenging to find the silver linings to 2F's pregnancy, once you get past, "How wonderful - a new human life has come into being!" But, as they say, it is what it is. . .
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It is an exceedingly fine line that we find ourselves walking, between, "we love you and we support you, and we're here for you," and, "this isn't how we raised you to behave; we're really not 'just-OK-with-it'." There is more than a trivial likelihood that any or all of my children, and their respective children, will have their lives go less well in the long run for being pregnant out-of-wedlock now. I have no desire to engage in an 'I-told-you-so-fest', either now or in the future. But I worry.
And, honestly, it's hard for me not to take it, on some deep, existential level, as an indictment of me as their father. "Train up a child in the way he should go," (Proverbs 22:6) and all that. And I'm well-aware of the correlation between young women getting pregnant out-of-wedlock, and their poor relationships with their own fathers. Not a happy thought for me, as I contemplate my own Judgment Day.
To say nothing of the fact that we still have two young sons not-yet-fully formed, ages 15 and 11, for whom this has become the centerpiece of our family's life these days. How must our admonitions to chastity and moral faithfulness look to them, when their own beloved elder siblings have tacitly demonstrated that Mom-and-Dad's moral teachings are not to be taken seriously?
So, I suppose we could use your prayers. We are genuinely happy, and just as genuinely perplexed. Walking such fine lines can be exhausting. And the fact that such a key component of our parental message to our kids has manifestly gone unheeded, if not outright ignored, is heartbreaking. But then we knew that. . .
Showing posts with label kids. Show all posts
Showing posts with label kids. Show all posts
Tuesday, January 7, 2014
Saturday, June 1, 2013
Eight Is Enough (That's What She Said). . .
Now, don't anyone get too terribly excited to see a fresh post here at The Yard. My 'parameters' really haven't changed since my 'farewell' post a couple months ago. But, I had a few posts 'in the hopper' when I said goodbye, and I've more-or-less decided that the World would benefit from my going ahead and actually, you know, posting them. So, I'll dribble them out over the next few months, and we'll see what the World looks like after that. . .
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8M is just about to finish 5th grade, and thereby, his tutelage under the estimable Mrs. Jackson. Mrs. Jackson holds a unique position in the life of our family. All of our kids have attended the same Catholic parish school, from kindergarten through 8th grade (well, 8M has only gotten to 5th grade so far, but he's a bright lad, and I have every confidence in him).
And Mrs. Jackson has taught them all. In the 25 years of our association with the school, every other teacher has come and gone, some of them more than once. But only Mrs. Jackson has taught all eight of our kids, beginning with 1F's 4th grade year in 1992-93. She was actually a first-grade teacher in 1F's first-grade year, but that year, there were two first-grade classes, and 1F was in the other one. By the time 1F got to 4th grade, Mrs. Jackson had moved to 4th grade, and she taught 4th grade to all of our kids. 7M actually had her for two years, since she moved from 4th grade to 5th the same time he did. And now she's taught 8M, completing the set, the first, and most likely only, member of that club (there is another woman, who has taught middle-school literature to our first seven kids; she wasn't on the staff this past year, but I'm told she would love to return, so that book has not been finally and definitively closed, just yet; we shall see). Not, you know, that it's such a great honor as all that. . .
She hasn't tended to be the most beloved of all the teachers at the school. She has a straightforward, no-nonsense demeanor that can be intimidating or off-putting, until you get to know her. And you can believe me, that, her having taught all eight of our children, we've had no lack of opportunity to get to know her. Even so, it was apparent to Jen and me early on that, whatever the qualities of her personality, she was a teacher of rare ability, who often saw things in our kids that we had only vaguely noticed, and she helped us to deal constructively with some problems we had struggled with. She is a rare gem of a teacher, and we have been fortunate, indeed, to have benefitted from her influence.
Jen asked all our kids to write a single sentence describing their experience of Mrs. Jackson, which we will present to her as a token of our gratitude. I reproduce those brief encomia herewith:
1F - "She was my favorite teacher, because she encouraged creativity and critical thinking."
2F - "When she corrected me, she did it in a way that made me feel better about myself, without softening the correction."
3M - "We disliked each other strongly; yet, after A YEAR together, she still found it in her heart to not only continue teaching, but to go through 5 MORE of my siblings! That is the epitome of dedication to one's craft."
4M - "The first (only?) teacher to connect my Religion grade with my actual behavior - 'Do you behave like a Christian?'"
5M - "She helped immensely with my social development by alerting me to personal hygiene issues."
6F - "She cared about my emotional well-being at a time when our family was going through extreme trauma. But she didn't baby me; I still had to behave."
7M - "She was probably the best teacher I ever had. I just didn't know it at the time. She deserves an award for having to deal with all of us. . ."
8M - "She put up with my ADD, and helped me learn a lot even in spite of it."
So, thank you, Mrs. Jackson. You've been a boon to our family. You're one in a million. . .
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8M is just about to finish 5th grade, and thereby, his tutelage under the estimable Mrs. Jackson. Mrs. Jackson holds a unique position in the life of our family. All of our kids have attended the same Catholic parish school, from kindergarten through 8th grade (well, 8M has only gotten to 5th grade so far, but he's a bright lad, and I have every confidence in him).
And Mrs. Jackson has taught them all. In the 25 years of our association with the school, every other teacher has come and gone, some of them more than once. But only Mrs. Jackson has taught all eight of our kids, beginning with 1F's 4th grade year in 1992-93. She was actually a first-grade teacher in 1F's first-grade year, but that year, there were two first-grade classes, and 1F was in the other one. By the time 1F got to 4th grade, Mrs. Jackson had moved to 4th grade, and she taught 4th grade to all of our kids. 7M actually had her for two years, since she moved from 4th grade to 5th the same time he did. And now she's taught 8M, completing the set, the first, and most likely only, member of that club (there is another woman, who has taught middle-school literature to our first seven kids; she wasn't on the staff this past year, but I'm told she would love to return, so that book has not been finally and definitively closed, just yet; we shall see). Not, you know, that it's such a great honor as all that. . .
She hasn't tended to be the most beloved of all the teachers at the school. She has a straightforward, no-nonsense demeanor that can be intimidating or off-putting, until you get to know her. And you can believe me, that, her having taught all eight of our children, we've had no lack of opportunity to get to know her. Even so, it was apparent to Jen and me early on that, whatever the qualities of her personality, she was a teacher of rare ability, who often saw things in our kids that we had only vaguely noticed, and she helped us to deal constructively with some problems we had struggled with. She is a rare gem of a teacher, and we have been fortunate, indeed, to have benefitted from her influence.
Jen asked all our kids to write a single sentence describing their experience of Mrs. Jackson, which we will present to her as a token of our gratitude. I reproduce those brief encomia herewith:
1F - "She was my favorite teacher, because she encouraged creativity and critical thinking."
2F - "When she corrected me, she did it in a way that made me feel better about myself, without softening the correction."
3M - "We disliked each other strongly; yet, after A YEAR together, she still found it in her heart to not only continue teaching, but to go through 5 MORE of my siblings! That is the epitome of dedication to one's craft."
4M - "The first (only?) teacher to connect my Religion grade with my actual behavior - 'Do you behave like a Christian?'"
5M - "She helped immensely with my social development by alerting me to personal hygiene issues."
6F - "She cared about my emotional well-being at a time when our family was going through extreme trauma. But she didn't baby me; I still had to behave."
7M - "She was probably the best teacher I ever had. I just didn't know it at the time. She deserves an award for having to deal with all of us. . ."
8M - "She put up with my ADD, and helped me learn a lot even in spite of it."
So, thank you, Mrs. Jackson. You've been a boon to our family. You're one in a million. . .
Sunday, April 29, 2012
Here, Boy!
My good blog-friend Bijoux wrote a post a while back about her aversion for dogs, which jogged my memory banks for a story or two or three from my own young life (doesn't everything?). . .
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In theory, I like dogs; I really do - loyalty and obedience, and all that (and, as a father of eight human children, I appreciate obedience where I can get it. . .) But my actual history with those of the canine persuasion is a good deal more, um, checkered.
One of my earliest canine memories goes back to when I was 2 or 3 years old, when a dog bit me on my hand. I remember almost nothing about it (including anything I might or might not have done to provoke the critter), except my crying, and my mom washing my hand in the bathroom sink. After that, I vaguely recall being a bit more fearful of dogs than the average, but thankfully, it hasn't carried through my whole life, by any means.
When I was in high school, my best friend had a dog - a fat little beagle/basset/dachshund whose stubby legs weren't long enough to keep his corpulent belly off the floor, and whom the family had dubbed 'Hippo' (I think his actual name was 'Tiffy', or something like that, but my buddy only ever called him 'Hippo', so Hippo he was, as far as I was concerned). Hippo was one of those 'doorbell dogs' who came running to the door in full threatening bark-mode whenever the doorbell rang. If someone was expected, and coming to their house for the first time, my friend would often say, just before opening the door, "No! Down, Hippo! Don't kill!" thus leaving the arriving guest a second or so to contemplate on the words 'hippo' and 'kill'. Then he'd open the door, and the guest would collapse in laughter (or relief) at the thought of this little sliding ball of pudge inflicting any harm on anything.
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I'd sorta like to be 'dog people', but we really aren't. When 1F was a toddler, we got a little black lab puppy, and I'm pretty sure we ruined the poor thing, just being overly harsh with it, and making him timid. By the time we sent him back to the animal shelter, his snout had broken out in puppy-zits, and we were looking at an amazingly hefty vet bill to get them treated.
We did get one solid benefit from that poor little dog, though - he taught 1F not to go into the street. She had just learned to walk around the time we got the dog, and she was enjoying the independence that bipedal mobility afforded her. So we were training her and the dog to stay out of the street roughly simultaneously. So when the dog would drop his paws over the edge of the curb, we'd swat him with the proverbial rolled-up newspaper. The dog wasn't too bright, and he ended up on the receiving end of quite a few swats. 1F, though, was a clever girl, and she saw what happened to the dog when he went in the street, and she reasoned, plainly enough that, if you go into street, Mom and Dad will whack you; and she wanted no part of that for herself. We never had an issue with our daughter running into the street - she could run on ahead of us by 50 yards, and when she got to the curb, she'd stop on a dime and wait for us. So, you know, there's that. . .
I've spoken frequently about my bicycling hobby, and anyone who rides very many miles at all on a bicycle will sooner or later be chased by a dog. There was one dog, whose house was toward the end of one of my regular rides, so I was usually a bit tired by the time I was riding past his house. This dog was smart. Devious, even. One of the first times he came after me, he was hiding under the porch, and I, having no clue that I should even be concerned about his presence, was riding along, minding my own business, when out of nowhere, this black-brown streak of noise and teeth was sprinting across the lawn, and in no time, he was at my heels, and I was in full-panicked sprint mode. He chased me for a hundred yards or so, then trotted back to his porch, content in his own mind that he'd taken care of such threat as I posed to his master's security, while I waited for my adrenaline levels to return to semi-normal. After that, virtually every time I rode past that house, he'd run on me, coming from a different angle every time. One time, I rode onto his stretch of the road, vigilantly scanning the left side of the road, where his house was, when he ambushed me from the right. Damn thing. . .
A riding buddy eventually showed me how to use my frame-mounted pump to great dog-proofing effect. When I'd be chased by a dog, I'd unclip my pump and just point it at the dog. A few 'hunting-type' dogs would take it for a gun, and immediately back off. If the beast persisted, it looked to him like a two-foot-long stick, and he'd guage his distance to stay just out of range. I'd raise my arm to swing the 'stick' at him, but the pump had another foot or so of length tied up in the pump-stroke. So when I'd swing it, it would get longer as it swung, and often as not, crack the animal across his snout. A few whacks like that, and they didn't chase quite so threateningly anymore. One time, in the fall, I was riding past a house, and the owner was in the yard, raking his leaves, when his dog bolted after me. As I sprinted for the sake of the continued structural integrity of my ankle, the owner yelled at me. "Do me a favor!" he called. "Kick him right in the head!" Well, OK, since you asked nice, and all. . .
Another time, I was out on a ride, and maybe 15 miles from home, or so, when a long-legged dog came loping up alongside me, and just ran along with me, at an easy gait, for mile after mile. When we got to be a few miles from where he'd first joined me, I began to get concerned that he was getting to be quite a ways from home, so I broke into a sprint, to try and lose him, but nothing doing; that dog could simply outrun me, if I put it to the test. So I just kept riding, and the dog loped along, five feet or so off the roadway, as if he thought we were riding buddies, or somesuch. Finally, we got back into the city where I live. I rode up over a steep freeway overpass, and down into the city neighborhood; I had maybe another half-mile to go before I was home, when suddenly, my canine companion peeled off and disappeared into the neighborhood, never to be seen again. I'll never know if he was running away from home, or back to it, but he just buddied-up with me for 15 miles, about an hour's riding.
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When our kids were small, we had several, uh, 'adventures' with neighborhood dogs. At one point, our next-door neighbors 'inherited' a dog from a deceased relative. It turned out that the dog had been rather severely abused by his previous owner, and in the course of it, he developed quite a mean streak. His favorite trick was to hide behind trees (or under porches, or wherever was handy), and then charge after an unsuspecting child, fangs bared, barking loudly and aggressively. One time, he took after 1F when she was maybe 6 or 7, on her way to school in the morning, and scared her to where she had to come back home and change her clothes. I had a talk with my neighbor, and the dog was more effectively constrained after that.
Another time, when 1F was maybe 2 years old, we were visiting friends of ours who lived out in the country, and they had a collie who loved to run in their fields, but was getting on in years, and a little cranky. We had actually ridden our bikes out to their place (towing 1F along in a little trailer), maybe 30 miles or so one way, and we were getting ready to get back on our bikes for the ride home. 1F bent down to pet the doggie good-bye, and the dog gave her a nip full on her face. It wasn't a serious, angry, I-mean-to-tear-you-up bite, it was just an annoyed, 'leave-me-alone-kid' nip. But it left four little puncture wounds, two on each cheek. When I heard her crying, and saw blood on her face, you can well believe that my paternal protective instincts kicked in, and I was all over that dog, kicking it again and again, while our friends' kids cried, "Daddy, he's killing our dog!" Quite a scene. Perhaps amazingly, our friendship survived. Jen got 1F cleaned up, and she was fine, if rather seriously frightened. I think our friends had to have the dog put down not long afterward. . .
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But the story that prompts the title of this post happened a few years later. We were still living in the same house, the one just previous to our present house. The block we lived on, and a block or two in any direction, was pretty dense with school-age children, and in the summer months, there would be any number of games going on in the street, pretty much from one end to the other. Somewhere in there, a family moved in around the corner from us, and they had a rambunctious and aggressive dog that they were either disinclined or incompetent to do much about controlling. In the first couple weeks after they moved in, there were several episodes of the dog breaking loose on a warm, sunny afternoon, when there were a few dozen kids playing in the street. The dog woud go barking and running around, threatening the kids, and throwing our little corner of urban serenity into a tizzy. After the dog had run amok for a few minutes, its owner would saunter around the corner, calling its name, and, when she finally saw her dog, she would exasperatedly try to get the dog to come to her, which, of course, the dog was disinclined to do, and it took several more minutes before the dog could finally be brought to heel, and order restored.
After a few such episodes, a couple other neighborhood dads and I urged our new neighbor to get a better handle on controlling her dog, and we were told, in so many words, to pound sand. So I called the city's Animal Control desk, and informed them of the situation. I also asked what I, as a citizen, was within my rights to do, as far as threats to my own person, or those of my children; I was told that, if the dog attacked any of us on our own property, I could take whatever measures I deemed necessary to stop the dog from attacking. I thanked the person and hung up.
Sure enough, within a couple days, the kids were out playing in the street again, and here came our canine aggressor, right on schedule. I went into my house and got my baseball bat, then stood on my sidewalk whistling, and calling, "Here, boy!" The dog stopped and looked at me, not sure what he should do. For several seconds, he wavered between coming toward me, or resuming his chasing of the neighborhood kids. He took a couple steps in my direction just as his owner came sauntering around the corner, as she always did. When she saw me standing in front of my house with a baseball bat, she began to shriek at her dog to come to her, which only confused the dog even more, but it did give her time to run to her dog and rescue him from evil me and my baseball bat. As she led him back home, she directed some choice words my way. To which I simply said, "Take care of your dog; don't let him chase our kids, or you will lose him."
And you know, things were much better after that. . .
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In theory, I like dogs; I really do - loyalty and obedience, and all that (and, as a father of eight human children, I appreciate obedience where I can get it. . .) But my actual history with those of the canine persuasion is a good deal more, um, checkered.
One of my earliest canine memories goes back to when I was 2 or 3 years old, when a dog bit me on my hand. I remember almost nothing about it (including anything I might or might not have done to provoke the critter), except my crying, and my mom washing my hand in the bathroom sink. After that, I vaguely recall being a bit more fearful of dogs than the average, but thankfully, it hasn't carried through my whole life, by any means.
When I was in high school, my best friend had a dog - a fat little beagle/basset/dachshund whose stubby legs weren't long enough to keep his corpulent belly off the floor, and whom the family had dubbed 'Hippo' (I think his actual name was 'Tiffy', or something like that, but my buddy only ever called him 'Hippo', so Hippo he was, as far as I was concerned). Hippo was one of those 'doorbell dogs' who came running to the door in full threatening bark-mode whenever the doorbell rang. If someone was expected, and coming to their house for the first time, my friend would often say, just before opening the door, "No! Down, Hippo! Don't kill!" thus leaving the arriving guest a second or so to contemplate on the words 'hippo' and 'kill'. Then he'd open the door, and the guest would collapse in laughter (or relief) at the thought of this little sliding ball of pudge inflicting any harm on anything.
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I'd sorta like to be 'dog people', but we really aren't. When 1F was a toddler, we got a little black lab puppy, and I'm pretty sure we ruined the poor thing, just being overly harsh with it, and making him timid. By the time we sent him back to the animal shelter, his snout had broken out in puppy-zits, and we were looking at an amazingly hefty vet bill to get them treated.
We did get one solid benefit from that poor little dog, though - he taught 1F not to go into the street. She had just learned to walk around the time we got the dog, and she was enjoying the independence that bipedal mobility afforded her. So we were training her and the dog to stay out of the street roughly simultaneously. So when the dog would drop his paws over the edge of the curb, we'd swat him with the proverbial rolled-up newspaper. The dog wasn't too bright, and he ended up on the receiving end of quite a few swats. 1F, though, was a clever girl, and she saw what happened to the dog when he went in the street, and she reasoned, plainly enough that, if you go into street, Mom and Dad will whack you; and she wanted no part of that for herself. We never had an issue with our daughter running into the street - she could run on ahead of us by 50 yards, and when she got to the curb, she'd stop on a dime and wait for us. So, you know, there's that. . .
I've spoken frequently about my bicycling hobby, and anyone who rides very many miles at all on a bicycle will sooner or later be chased by a dog. There was one dog, whose house was toward the end of one of my regular rides, so I was usually a bit tired by the time I was riding past his house. This dog was smart. Devious, even. One of the first times he came after me, he was hiding under the porch, and I, having no clue that I should even be concerned about his presence, was riding along, minding my own business, when out of nowhere, this black-brown streak of noise and teeth was sprinting across the lawn, and in no time, he was at my heels, and I was in full-panicked sprint mode. He chased me for a hundred yards or so, then trotted back to his porch, content in his own mind that he'd taken care of such threat as I posed to his master's security, while I waited for my adrenaline levels to return to semi-normal. After that, virtually every time I rode past that house, he'd run on me, coming from a different angle every time. One time, I rode onto his stretch of the road, vigilantly scanning the left side of the road, where his house was, when he ambushed me from the right. Damn thing. . .
A riding buddy eventually showed me how to use my frame-mounted pump to great dog-proofing effect. When I'd be chased by a dog, I'd unclip my pump and just point it at the dog. A few 'hunting-type' dogs would take it for a gun, and immediately back off. If the beast persisted, it looked to him like a two-foot-long stick, and he'd guage his distance to stay just out of range. I'd raise my arm to swing the 'stick' at him, but the pump had another foot or so of length tied up in the pump-stroke. So when I'd swing it, it would get longer as it swung, and often as not, crack the animal across his snout. A few whacks like that, and they didn't chase quite so threateningly anymore. One time, in the fall, I was riding past a house, and the owner was in the yard, raking his leaves, when his dog bolted after me. As I sprinted for the sake of the continued structural integrity of my ankle, the owner yelled at me. "Do me a favor!" he called. "Kick him right in the head!" Well, OK, since you asked nice, and all. . .
Another time, I was out on a ride, and maybe 15 miles from home, or so, when a long-legged dog came loping up alongside me, and just ran along with me, at an easy gait, for mile after mile. When we got to be a few miles from where he'd first joined me, I began to get concerned that he was getting to be quite a ways from home, so I broke into a sprint, to try and lose him, but nothing doing; that dog could simply outrun me, if I put it to the test. So I just kept riding, and the dog loped along, five feet or so off the roadway, as if he thought we were riding buddies, or somesuch. Finally, we got back into the city where I live. I rode up over a steep freeway overpass, and down into the city neighborhood; I had maybe another half-mile to go before I was home, when suddenly, my canine companion peeled off and disappeared into the neighborhood, never to be seen again. I'll never know if he was running away from home, or back to it, but he just buddied-up with me for 15 miles, about an hour's riding.
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When our kids were small, we had several, uh, 'adventures' with neighborhood dogs. At one point, our next-door neighbors 'inherited' a dog from a deceased relative. It turned out that the dog had been rather severely abused by his previous owner, and in the course of it, he developed quite a mean streak. His favorite trick was to hide behind trees (or under porches, or wherever was handy), and then charge after an unsuspecting child, fangs bared, barking loudly and aggressively. One time, he took after 1F when she was maybe 6 or 7, on her way to school in the morning, and scared her to where she had to come back home and change her clothes. I had a talk with my neighbor, and the dog was more effectively constrained after that.
Another time, when 1F was maybe 2 years old, we were visiting friends of ours who lived out in the country, and they had a collie who loved to run in their fields, but was getting on in years, and a little cranky. We had actually ridden our bikes out to their place (towing 1F along in a little trailer), maybe 30 miles or so one way, and we were getting ready to get back on our bikes for the ride home. 1F bent down to pet the doggie good-bye, and the dog gave her a nip full on her face. It wasn't a serious, angry, I-mean-to-tear-you-up bite, it was just an annoyed, 'leave-me-alone-kid' nip. But it left four little puncture wounds, two on each cheek. When I heard her crying, and saw blood on her face, you can well believe that my paternal protective instincts kicked in, and I was all over that dog, kicking it again and again, while our friends' kids cried, "Daddy, he's killing our dog!" Quite a scene. Perhaps amazingly, our friendship survived. Jen got 1F cleaned up, and she was fine, if rather seriously frightened. I think our friends had to have the dog put down not long afterward. . .
-------------------------
But the story that prompts the title of this post happened a few years later. We were still living in the same house, the one just previous to our present house. The block we lived on, and a block or two in any direction, was pretty dense with school-age children, and in the summer months, there would be any number of games going on in the street, pretty much from one end to the other. Somewhere in there, a family moved in around the corner from us, and they had a rambunctious and aggressive dog that they were either disinclined or incompetent to do much about controlling. In the first couple weeks after they moved in, there were several episodes of the dog breaking loose on a warm, sunny afternoon, when there were a few dozen kids playing in the street. The dog woud go barking and running around, threatening the kids, and throwing our little corner of urban serenity into a tizzy. After the dog had run amok for a few minutes, its owner would saunter around the corner, calling its name, and, when she finally saw her dog, she would exasperatedly try to get the dog to come to her, which, of course, the dog was disinclined to do, and it took several more minutes before the dog could finally be brought to heel, and order restored.
After a few such episodes, a couple other neighborhood dads and I urged our new neighbor to get a better handle on controlling her dog, and we were told, in so many words, to pound sand. So I called the city's Animal Control desk, and informed them of the situation. I also asked what I, as a citizen, was within my rights to do, as far as threats to my own person, or those of my children; I was told that, if the dog attacked any of us on our own property, I could take whatever measures I deemed necessary to stop the dog from attacking. I thanked the person and hung up.
Sure enough, within a couple days, the kids were out playing in the street again, and here came our canine aggressor, right on schedule. I went into my house and got my baseball bat, then stood on my sidewalk whistling, and calling, "Here, boy!" The dog stopped and looked at me, not sure what he should do. For several seconds, he wavered between coming toward me, or resuming his chasing of the neighborhood kids. He took a couple steps in my direction just as his owner came sauntering around the corner, as she always did. When she saw me standing in front of my house with a baseball bat, she began to shriek at her dog to come to her, which only confused the dog even more, but it did give her time to run to her dog and rescue him from evil me and my baseball bat. As she led him back home, she directed some choice words my way. To which I simply said, "Take care of your dog; don't let him chase our kids, or you will lose him."
And you know, things were much better after that. . .
Sunday, September 18, 2011
Here, Girl!
OK, this was the post that I originally had up a few weeks ago, then took down when my medical drama, and then my father's death, intervened. Things have finally returned to normal (or at least, normal enough), so we can now return to our regularly-scheduled programming (and Bijoux can have her comment back). . .
I was having a conversation with another blogger recently, and this story, which I originally posted almost five years ago, came to mind. So I decided to re-post it for your edification and enjoyment. . .
-------------------------
All new parents go through a kind of 'break-in' period, during which they slowly figure out the real ways in which being parents is different from how they were before. For Jen and me, this lasted quite a while - even past 1F's first birthday, we were still discovering unanticipated ways in which our lives would never be the same.
Once, the three of us went out to dinner at a restaurant which the childless Jen and me would have counted very 'family friendly', and in fairness, it probably was, as long as none of the children were younger than five or so. 1F was about a year old on the evening in question, though, and by the time we finished our dinner, there was a circle about five feet in diameter, centered on 1F's high chair, littered with an assortment of food fragments, torn napkins, pieces of silverware, and other miscellaneous items. I left a very large tip, and we realized that taking 1F to a 'nice' restaurant with us was not going to be a live option for a while.
I've always been a bit of a gadget buff, but I really like gadgets that have a certain simplicity about them, and Kid-world is rife with elegantly simple, practical gadgets. When 1F was a baby, the little seats that you can sort of hang off the edge of the table were new, and we got one of those right away. Suddenly, we could eat at friends' houses, or church potlucks, or at a picnic table in a park, without having to pack a full-blown high chair with us. A very cool, simple contraption.
Around the same time, we met a couple who were visiting from Germany, whose daughter was just a bit older than 1F. They had a little leather harness that they put on their daughter when they took her to a crowded public place; they would clip a short tether to the harness, and they could keep the child close to them, without all the bad posture that goes along with holding her hand, to say nothing of the struggles that invariably occur when the child in question decides that she doesn't want to have her hand held anymore.
I loved it - so elegant, so simple, so practical. And all the moreso, because the child actually had a lot more freedom of movement - a lot more freedom to go where she wanted to, within a much larger radius, than she would if her hand were being held. We were so taken by this little item that we asked our German friends to send us one, since they hadn't appeared in the US market yet.
A few weeks later, we received a package in the mail from a German address. We opened it eagerly, and put it to use at our first opportunity. It worked really well, and we were pleased - 1F could roam about more freely, engage her curiosity more freely, and we hardly had to exert any effort to keep track of her. In fact, we were so taken with it that we decided to make a modest improvement - in place of the short tether, we used a 25-foot retractable leash, so 1F could have even more freedom of movement.
The Fourth of July was coming up soon, and the harness setup seemed perfect for such an occasion - a large crowd in an open public place. 1F could wander to her heart's content within a 25-foot radius, and, as long as we kept hold of the leash, Jen and I didn't need to worry about where she was.
Our first inkling that this would work out just a bit less than perfectly came as we walked into the park. We were walking alongside another young family like us, with the toddler being carried on his father's shoulders. They were looking intently at the harness/leash setup we had 1F in. I smiled, knowing that they were appreciating the ingenuity, the elegance, the simplicity, the practicality of it, and preparing to tell them how we had friends in Germany, and this was all the rage among European parents, and how they could get one for themselves. Instead, the dad sort of sneered and said, "Kind of a sick joke, man."
What?!? Sick joke? What the heck does he mean by that? Ah, well; obviously a philistine who doesn't appreciate ingenious gadgets when he sees them. We found a spot suitable to our liking at which to settle, and we spread our blanket. Jen and I sat down on the blanket, while 1F wandered around on the end of the leash. When she reached the limit, she would just turn around, and poke around in a different direction, checking for bugs in the grass, or whatever else captured her eye. We were enjoying ourselves immensely, just watching her exploring her expansive little piece of turf.
While we were sitting there, a woman approached us to talk. I smiled in friendly greeting, but 'friendly' wasn't her own personal orientation at that particular moment. Rather, she immediately ripped into us. "How could you?!" she shrieked.
What the hell? I looked at her in utter bewilderment.
"Treating your child like an animal!"
No, wait, you don't understand - see, she's so much more free to roam about. . .
But the woman would have none of it. See, this was a leash, and leashes are for dogs, and that was that. At the very best, in her mind, this was an inappropriate transfer of technology; at worst, it was slam-dunk evidence of depraved child abuse. And nothing I could say would dissuade her.
Before the night was over, and all the fireworks had flashed, two or three other folks wandered by to very helpfully yell at us and call us colorful names.
We were more circumspect about taking the harness out in public after that, and we eventually decided that the elegance, simplicity, and practicality didn't quite outweigh the grief we had to endure from well-meaningidiots fellow-citizens.
So you see, a thing can be wonderfully practical, elegantly designed, and a vast improvement on the existing technology. But, if you don't take account of public reaction, you can still wind up with a marketplace failure. . .
-------------------------
Back here in the present (OK, the near-past), I rode my bike 35 miles yesterday, in glorious fall weather - around 60 degress, with brilliant blue skies and a few puffy white clouds; it's just a bit too early for the fall colors, or it would've been perfect. Yesterday's miles make a total of 1053 for the year, my 5th consecutive year over 1000 miles. I've got two months or so left in the season, so I'm on pace for around 1300-1400. Life is good. . .
And, hey, while I'm thinking of it, my Tigers are American League Central Division champions! Playoff bound! (Maybe even against Suldog's Red Sawx!) I'm sure I'll have some manner of elegiac post at the end of the season, but for now, you'll all share my joy, won't you?
-------------------------
I just put up a sidebar link to 2F's blog; if you want to get an independent, inside perspective on what life in our family is REALLY like. . . (not like anyone's inheritance is riding on the outcome, or anything. . .)
I was having a conversation with another blogger recently, and this story, which I originally posted almost five years ago, came to mind. So I decided to re-post it for your edification and enjoyment. . .
-------------------------
All new parents go through a kind of 'break-in' period, during which they slowly figure out the real ways in which being parents is different from how they were before. For Jen and me, this lasted quite a while - even past 1F's first birthday, we were still discovering unanticipated ways in which our lives would never be the same.
Once, the three of us went out to dinner at a restaurant which the childless Jen and me would have counted very 'family friendly', and in fairness, it probably was, as long as none of the children were younger than five or so. 1F was about a year old on the evening in question, though, and by the time we finished our dinner, there was a circle about five feet in diameter, centered on 1F's high chair, littered with an assortment of food fragments, torn napkins, pieces of silverware, and other miscellaneous items. I left a very large tip, and we realized that taking 1F to a 'nice' restaurant with us was not going to be a live option for a while.
I've always been a bit of a gadget buff, but I really like gadgets that have a certain simplicity about them, and Kid-world is rife with elegantly simple, practical gadgets. When 1F was a baby, the little seats that you can sort of hang off the edge of the table were new, and we got one of those right away. Suddenly, we could eat at friends' houses, or church potlucks, or at a picnic table in a park, without having to pack a full-blown high chair with us. A very cool, simple contraption.
Around the same time, we met a couple who were visiting from Germany, whose daughter was just a bit older than 1F. They had a little leather harness that they put on their daughter when they took her to a crowded public place; they would clip a short tether to the harness, and they could keep the child close to them, without all the bad posture that goes along with holding her hand, to say nothing of the struggles that invariably occur when the child in question decides that she doesn't want to have her hand held anymore.
I loved it - so elegant, so simple, so practical. And all the moreso, because the child actually had a lot more freedom of movement - a lot more freedom to go where she wanted to, within a much larger radius, than she would if her hand were being held. We were so taken by this little item that we asked our German friends to send us one, since they hadn't appeared in the US market yet.
A few weeks later, we received a package in the mail from a German address. We opened it eagerly, and put it to use at our first opportunity. It worked really well, and we were pleased - 1F could roam about more freely, engage her curiosity more freely, and we hardly had to exert any effort to keep track of her. In fact, we were so taken with it that we decided to make a modest improvement - in place of the short tether, we used a 25-foot retractable leash, so 1F could have even more freedom of movement.
The Fourth of July was coming up soon, and the harness setup seemed perfect for such an occasion - a large crowd in an open public place. 1F could wander to her heart's content within a 25-foot radius, and, as long as we kept hold of the leash, Jen and I didn't need to worry about where she was.
Our first inkling that this would work out just a bit less than perfectly came as we walked into the park. We were walking alongside another young family like us, with the toddler being carried on his father's shoulders. They were looking intently at the harness/leash setup we had 1F in. I smiled, knowing that they were appreciating the ingenuity, the elegance, the simplicity, the practicality of it, and preparing to tell them how we had friends in Germany, and this was all the rage among European parents, and how they could get one for themselves. Instead, the dad sort of sneered and said, "Kind of a sick joke, man."
What?!? Sick joke? What the heck does he mean by that? Ah, well; obviously a philistine who doesn't appreciate ingenious gadgets when he sees them. We found a spot suitable to our liking at which to settle, and we spread our blanket. Jen and I sat down on the blanket, while 1F wandered around on the end of the leash. When she reached the limit, she would just turn around, and poke around in a different direction, checking for bugs in the grass, or whatever else captured her eye. We were enjoying ourselves immensely, just watching her exploring her expansive little piece of turf.
While we were sitting there, a woman approached us to talk. I smiled in friendly greeting, but 'friendly' wasn't her own personal orientation at that particular moment. Rather, she immediately ripped into us. "How could you?!" she shrieked.
What the hell? I looked at her in utter bewilderment.
"Treating your child like an animal!"
No, wait, you don't understand - see, she's so much more free to roam about. . .
But the woman would have none of it. See, this was a leash, and leashes are for dogs, and that was that. At the very best, in her mind, this was an inappropriate transfer of technology; at worst, it was slam-dunk evidence of depraved child abuse. And nothing I could say would dissuade her.
Before the night was over, and all the fireworks had flashed, two or three other folks wandered by to very helpfully yell at us and call us colorful names.
We were more circumspect about taking the harness out in public after that, and we eventually decided that the elegance, simplicity, and practicality didn't quite outweigh the grief we had to endure from well-meaning
So you see, a thing can be wonderfully practical, elegantly designed, and a vast improvement on the existing technology. But, if you don't take account of public reaction, you can still wind up with a marketplace failure. . .
-------------------------
Back here in the present (OK, the near-past), I rode my bike 35 miles yesterday, in glorious fall weather - around 60 degress, with brilliant blue skies and a few puffy white clouds; it's just a bit too early for the fall colors, or it would've been perfect. Yesterday's miles make a total of 1053 for the year, my 5th consecutive year over 1000 miles. I've got two months or so left in the season, so I'm on pace for around 1300-1400. Life is good. . .
And, hey, while I'm thinking of it, my Tigers are American League Central Division champions! Playoff bound! (Maybe even against Suldog's Red Sawx!) I'm sure I'll have some manner of elegiac post at the end of the season, but for now, you'll all share my joy, won't you?
-------------------------
I just put up a sidebar link to 2F's blog; if you want to get an independent, inside perspective on what life in our family is REALLY like. . . (not like anyone's inheritance is riding on the outcome, or anything. . .)
Monday, July 18, 2011
Two Girls and a Boy
Our first two children were girls. I wasn't really all fixated on the idea of having a son, but there was that part of me that hoped for one - someone to carry the family name forward from me, and all that. In the mid-80s, though, just as I was passing into my 30s and gearing up my genealogy hobby, it was a matter of some small concern to me to consider the generation of my cousins, the descendants of my paternal grandfather. My grandfather had three sons (ie, bearers of the family name); my Uncle Neville (as I'll call him here) had three daughters, so the name wouldn't be passing on through his kids; Uncle Levi had six kids, four of whom were sons, but none of them had gotten married, much less had kids, as they were passing into their own 30s; and my Dad had seven kids, five sons, of whom I was the only one married, and up to that point, I only had girls. So the survival of our family name was somewhat of an open question at that point.
Of course, I needn't have worried. Within a couple years, I had the first of what would eventually grow to a group of five sons (none of whom is married as I write this, but there's still plenty of time). Three of Uncle Levi's sons married, and each of them had at least one son, and three of my four brothers married, producing one more son between the three of them. So the family name seems reasonably safe for another generation or two (and I wouldn't even be all that concerned about it, but our name is not a common one, and we're kinda proud of it).
Anyway, I hasten to be clear that, 'passing on the name' aside, I love my daughters (and nieces), and cherish their place in my life just as much as I love and cherish my sons. And even where The Name is concerned, what was I gonna do about it, anyway? God gives us the children He gives us, and we bring them all into our family with gratitude and love. Just, you know, for the sake of saying so. . .
-------------------------
My first three children gave me small opportunities to observe certain, shall we say, tendencies, demarcating differences between girls and boys. Which is an interesting idea, all by itself, because neither Jen nor I are very 'stereotypical' in terms of 'gender roles'. She was a pretty tomboy-ish girl who liked playing in the mud, and working with tools, and all that, and I was a pretty bookish, nerdy boy (tea parties and doll-houses never much interested me, though). Even now, I tend to be more emotional than she does; we often joke between ourselves that she's a pretty 'guy-ish' woman, and I'm a more 'chick-ish' guy, at least as far as many of the common stereotypes go.
But, as has been noted on occasion (although it's not such a popular idea just now), stereotypes don't just appear out of thin air; they usually arise out of some basis in 'general' fact, even if it isn't terribly helpful in specific cases.
We have often gotten a chuckle from the disparate responses of our kids to things like weird bugs that they found on the sidewalk. Toddler 1F would spy the strange-looking critter, and run away from it, maybe even crying. Little 2F would most likely squat down for a closer look, maybe even pick it up in the palm of her hand and pet it. But 3M's response was more, um, 'elemental' - he'd stomp on it, usually with a triumphal shout.
So, you know, the contrast was pretty clear. . .
Testosterone - it's a wonderful thing. . .
-------------------------
And estrogen! Estrogen is wonderful, too! If, you know, you happen to rock that way. . .
;)
Of course, I needn't have worried. Within a couple years, I had the first of what would eventually grow to a group of five sons (none of whom is married as I write this, but there's still plenty of time). Three of Uncle Levi's sons married, and each of them had at least one son, and three of my four brothers married, producing one more son between the three of them. So the family name seems reasonably safe for another generation or two (and I wouldn't even be all that concerned about it, but our name is not a common one, and we're kinda proud of it).
Anyway, I hasten to be clear that, 'passing on the name' aside, I love my daughters (and nieces), and cherish their place in my life just as much as I love and cherish my sons. And even where The Name is concerned, what was I gonna do about it, anyway? God gives us the children He gives us, and we bring them all into our family with gratitude and love. Just, you know, for the sake of saying so. . .
-------------------------
My first three children gave me small opportunities to observe certain, shall we say, tendencies, demarcating differences between girls and boys. Which is an interesting idea, all by itself, because neither Jen nor I are very 'stereotypical' in terms of 'gender roles'. She was a pretty tomboy-ish girl who liked playing in the mud, and working with tools, and all that, and I was a pretty bookish, nerdy boy (tea parties and doll-houses never much interested me, though). Even now, I tend to be more emotional than she does; we often joke between ourselves that she's a pretty 'guy-ish' woman, and I'm a more 'chick-ish' guy, at least as far as many of the common stereotypes go.
But, as has been noted on occasion (although it's not such a popular idea just now), stereotypes don't just appear out of thin air; they usually arise out of some basis in 'general' fact, even if it isn't terribly helpful in specific cases.
We have often gotten a chuckle from the disparate responses of our kids to things like weird bugs that they found on the sidewalk. Toddler 1F would spy the strange-looking critter, and run away from it, maybe even crying. Little 2F would most likely squat down for a closer look, maybe even pick it up in the palm of her hand and pet it. But 3M's response was more, um, 'elemental' - he'd stomp on it, usually with a triumphal shout.
So, you know, the contrast was pretty clear. . .
Testosterone - it's a wonderful thing. . .
-------------------------
And estrogen! Estrogen is wonderful, too! If, you know, you happen to rock that way. . .
;)
Wednesday, June 8, 2011
Busy Days in Us-Ville
These are some busy days around here. Truth to tell, for the last few years (and by 'few' I mean 'somewhere between five and ten') June has been Family Psychosis Month, as it seems that the Universe has conspired to use June as its Dumping Ground for Calendric Excess. Just to give a few examples.
- 5M graduated from high school this year. We couldn't be prouder of him; he's a great, solid young man, and he even got a couple of nice scholarships to help get him launched into his college career. But (at least in our local culture, which is considerably different than it was in the days when I was graduating from high school), that also entails the hosting of the Graduation Open House. Jen and I having the meager organizational gifts that we do, we've learned over the years that it behooves us to join forces with one or two other families-of-graduates to throw a combined Open House. But this year, our open-house compadres had some trouble distinguishing between what constitutes a 'Graduation Open House' and what constitutes a 'Wedding Reception'. Detail piled upon detail, and nifty frill upon nifty frill (we had a 'slushie' machine, which required over an hour to get to Full Slushy Freeze Mode, rather than the advertised 15-20 minutes), all of which constitute (a) expenses, and (b) grist for the mill of Murphy's Law; both of which seemed to escape the thinking of our friends (fortunately, we established early on a financial limit which we would not go beyond, and the other families were fine with leaving us to our penuriousness, so the cost overruns mostly missed us). Among the things we learned, was that chicken wings are a really bad idea for open-house fare; at least if you expect to have teenage boys at your open house. 75 minutes into a 3-hour open house, there were no more wings (and this after making an emergency run to the local wing joint, which basically shut down the restaurant until the following Monday); you really need something that the teen boys can't just pile up on their plates, heedless of any guests who might be so unfortunate as to arrive after them. . .
- Pursuant to the whole 'graduation' thing, my birth-mom and her husband came to visit us for nearly a week. Which, I hasten to say, was wonderful, and greatly appreciated. But it was more 'things to do/deal with', and threw the calendar into another Chaotic Order of Magnitude.
- 6F is feverishly preparing for her summer mission trip to Costa Rica, for which she leaves in just over two weeks. Today, for example, Jen is taking her to the Health Department for her Central American Jungle Fever vaccinations. She also had to get a passport, but we wanted to wait until her 16th birthday (in late April) to apply for it, since 16+-year-olds get 10-year passports, but 15-and-unders only get 5-year passports. So, we were sweating, just a little, that her passport would arrive in time (and while I'm thinking of it, I'm not sure if my own passport is current, or if I need to re-up it. . .) Plus all the planning/packing/sundry-getting-ready-to-travel stuff, like collecting a separate suitcase full of shoes to donate to the orphanage where she'll be working. . .
- Jen and I are preparing for a four-day conference a couple weeks hence, which includes listening to four on-line preparatory talks, complete with homework assignments. 6F is flying out on the third day of the conference; we haven't quite figured out how we're gonna work that out, yet.
- It seems that all of the summer youth sports leagues play their games in June; some extend into early July, but for our purposes here, in the midst of the above-delineated calendric chaos, 7M has two baseball games each week, plus two practices for his summer-basketball team, which plays out-of-town tournaments nearly every weekend. We wouldn't normally have him on two teams, but a friend's father offered to pay his registration fee for the basketball team, and drive him to all the tournaments, as an inducement to his own son to play on the team. So that's nice, but we still have to manage 7M's day-to-day schedule, and all the days when basketball practice overlaps with baseball games.
- Also, Jen is running a four-day Day Camp for 5-7-year-olds next week, the planning for which is always stressful, since administrative gifts are not hers in abundance (it's one of those 'somebody's-gotta-do-it' things). Probably more than tending to the 5-7-year-old 'campers', she also has to ride herd on the 12-13-year-old 'counselors'. Please pray for her. At least, this is her last go-round with the Day Camp; after this year, she's retiring, and passing it on to younger moms. . .
On top of these, there are other 'Details of Life' which I'll decline to go into right now (suffice it to say that, just because your older kids are Out of the House and Living On Their Own, doesn't mean that they no longer add to the familial chaos levels; and that's about all I'm gonna say about that). And Laundry still needs to be done, Meals Prepared, etc, etc, etc (and we're still working on the kids doing their own laundry, without prodding from Parental Units). . . So we're kinda in Zombie Mode these days - just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and wait for the calendar to flip to July. . .
-------------------------
On the plus side, we've done a couple of home-maintenance projects. The back roof needed to be replaced, which provided the perfect opportunity to install a pair of skylights in our family room that I've wanted for a while. Which was quite cool - the day they were installed, I came home from work, walked in the back door, and reached for the light switch, because the room was that much brighter than before.
Had some work done on my car the other day. I drive an '06 Chevy Aveo that has 217,000 miles on it, and still running strong. The heater fan had ceased to work, so I was having that fixed. In the course of just checking the car over, the mechanic found a serious problem in my suspension that he fixed by tightening a few bolts on the control arms, for no extra charge. Then, they found a wire that had been chewed by a critter, causing the AC to go out. I'd been driving the car without AC for two years, figuring that was just how things went with econo-cars that have 200,000+ miles on 'em. But for under $200, I got the AC rendered operative again. And not one moment too soon, with the mercury hitting 90F+ both yesterday and today. . .
God is good.
- 5M graduated from high school this year. We couldn't be prouder of him; he's a great, solid young man, and he even got a couple of nice scholarships to help get him launched into his college career. But (at least in our local culture, which is considerably different than it was in the days when I was graduating from high school), that also entails the hosting of the Graduation Open House. Jen and I having the meager organizational gifts that we do, we've learned over the years that it behooves us to join forces with one or two other families-of-graduates to throw a combined Open House. But this year, our open-house compadres had some trouble distinguishing between what constitutes a 'Graduation Open House' and what constitutes a 'Wedding Reception'. Detail piled upon detail, and nifty frill upon nifty frill (we had a 'slushie' machine, which required over an hour to get to Full Slushy Freeze Mode, rather than the advertised 15-20 minutes), all of which constitute (a) expenses, and (b) grist for the mill of Murphy's Law; both of which seemed to escape the thinking of our friends (fortunately, we established early on a financial limit which we would not go beyond, and the other families were fine with leaving us to our penuriousness, so the cost overruns mostly missed us). Among the things we learned, was that chicken wings are a really bad idea for open-house fare; at least if you expect to have teenage boys at your open house. 75 minutes into a 3-hour open house, there were no more wings (and this after making an emergency run to the local wing joint, which basically shut down the restaurant until the following Monday); you really need something that the teen boys can't just pile up on their plates, heedless of any guests who might be so unfortunate as to arrive after them. . .
- Pursuant to the whole 'graduation' thing, my birth-mom and her husband came to visit us for nearly a week. Which, I hasten to say, was wonderful, and greatly appreciated. But it was more 'things to do/deal with', and threw the calendar into another Chaotic Order of Magnitude.
- 6F is feverishly preparing for her summer mission trip to Costa Rica, for which she leaves in just over two weeks. Today, for example, Jen is taking her to the Health Department for her Central American Jungle Fever vaccinations. She also had to get a passport, but we wanted to wait until her 16th birthday (in late April) to apply for it, since 16+-year-olds get 10-year passports, but 15-and-unders only get 5-year passports. So, we were sweating, just a little, that her passport would arrive in time (and while I'm thinking of it, I'm not sure if my own passport is current, or if I need to re-up it. . .) Plus all the planning/packing/sundry-getting-ready-to-travel stuff, like collecting a separate suitcase full of shoes to donate to the orphanage where she'll be working. . .
- Jen and I are preparing for a four-day conference a couple weeks hence, which includes listening to four on-line preparatory talks, complete with homework assignments. 6F is flying out on the third day of the conference; we haven't quite figured out how we're gonna work that out, yet.
- It seems that all of the summer youth sports leagues play their games in June; some extend into early July, but for our purposes here, in the midst of the above-delineated calendric chaos, 7M has two baseball games each week, plus two practices for his summer-basketball team, which plays out-of-town tournaments nearly every weekend. We wouldn't normally have him on two teams, but a friend's father offered to pay his registration fee for the basketball team, and drive him to all the tournaments, as an inducement to his own son to play on the team. So that's nice, but we still have to manage 7M's day-to-day schedule, and all the days when basketball practice overlaps with baseball games.
- Also, Jen is running a four-day Day Camp for 5-7-year-olds next week, the planning for which is always stressful, since administrative gifts are not hers in abundance (it's one of those 'somebody's-gotta-do-it' things). Probably more than tending to the 5-7-year-old 'campers', she also has to ride herd on the 12-13-year-old 'counselors'. Please pray for her. At least, this is her last go-round with the Day Camp; after this year, she's retiring, and passing it on to younger moms. . .
On top of these, there are other 'Details of Life' which I'll decline to go into right now (suffice it to say that, just because your older kids are Out of the House and Living On Their Own, doesn't mean that they no longer add to the familial chaos levels; and that's about all I'm gonna say about that). And Laundry still needs to be done, Meals Prepared, etc, etc, etc (and we're still working on the kids doing their own laundry, without prodding from Parental Units). . . So we're kinda in Zombie Mode these days - just keep putting one foot in front of the other, and wait for the calendar to flip to July. . .
-------------------------
On the plus side, we've done a couple of home-maintenance projects. The back roof needed to be replaced, which provided the perfect opportunity to install a pair of skylights in our family room that I've wanted for a while. Which was quite cool - the day they were installed, I came home from work, walked in the back door, and reached for the light switch, because the room was that much brighter than before.
Had some work done on my car the other day. I drive an '06 Chevy Aveo that has 217,000 miles on it, and still running strong. The heater fan had ceased to work, so I was having that fixed. In the course of just checking the car over, the mechanic found a serious problem in my suspension that he fixed by tightening a few bolts on the control arms, for no extra charge. Then, they found a wire that had been chewed by a critter, causing the AC to go out. I'd been driving the car without AC for two years, figuring that was just how things went with econo-cars that have 200,000+ miles on 'em. But for under $200, I got the AC rendered operative again. And not one moment too soon, with the mercury hitting 90F+ both yesterday and today. . .
God is good.
Monday, March 1, 2010
Methinks Some Folks Doth Protest Too Much. . .
A while ago, I was in the checkout line at the supermarket, when a headline from the cover of one of the tabloid magazines on display there caught my eye. (I hasten to interject here that I am absolutely a commited member of the 'Who-gives-a-rat's-ass?' school of attending to tabloid headlines, but you know, sometimes you just notice stuff, in spite of yourself.)
"HOW MANY IS TOO MANY?" blared the headline. "The Duggars Under Fire" was the sub-heading. Now, Jen and I have had occasion to make a degree of common cause with the Duggars from time to time, so, in spite of my better judgement, I read on. It seems that our good friends Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have recently welcomed their 19th child into this world, four months prematurely, and the health 'issues' of little Josie were the occasion for such soul-searching on the part of the tabloid writers. (Have you noticed how much easier it is to search other people's souls than your own?) (Also, Michelle was 43 years old at the time of Josie's birth; which, just for the sake of saying so, is two-and-a-half years younger than Jen was when 8M was born).
Now, my first reaction whenever I see something in the media pertaining to the Duggars is always, "Well, God Bless 'Em!" It takes an admirable measure of courage and self-sacrifice to raise such a large family in today's world. And my second reaction is usually, especially when the commentator in question adopts a tone of "Those people have got to be stopped!" (which is a distressingly large proportion of them), "What do YOU care how many kids some couple in Arkansas has?" I mean, here we have people, in print, in a nationally-distributed journal, sanctimoniously debating the Morality of Family Size, and at least theoretically prepared to consider invoking some manner of coercive authority, because a couple in Arkansas has Too Many Kids.
And I am thoroughly at a loss to account for the visceral vehemence of that reaction. I mean, really - why do the Duggars seem to bother so many people so much? By all accounts, their kids are well provided for, properly educated, well-behaved, and no burden to the society-at-large, so why all the angst? 'Better Them Than Me', I could understand, and even, to a degree, sympathize with. I mean, if someone feels like nineteen kids is more than they could handle, I can definitely understand that (heck, depending on the day, two kids can be more than I think I can handle); and nobody is forcing anyone, or even proposing to them, to have one child more than what they want to have (and just as an aside, many of the same folks who are so eager to tell the Duggars that they've got 'Too Many Kids' would pitch a monumental bitch if anyone so much as arched an eyebrow at someone else's choice to remain childless; "It's Nobody's Business But Mine!" Unless you're the Duggars, and choose to have 19). It's just out-of-proportion. Exactly what skin is it, off the nose of anyone not named Duggar, if they have as many kids as they want - or, more to the point, as many kids as they believe God is inviting them to have?
Is it because of the southern-accented evangelical Christianity espoused by the Duggars? I know that, in the part of the country where I live, southern accents can evoke a stereotype of 'ignorant and uneducated' with some folks (even so admirable a young man as Tim Tebow, the Heisman-Trophy-winning quarterback from the University of Florida, can evoke a similar visceral reaction, so maybe that does account for some of it). But Jim Bob Duggar (and yeah, that name 'Jim Bob' also evokes stereotypical images of 'hayseed' among many northerners) is hardly uneducated; heck, he's served in the same state legislature over which Bill Clinton, much beloved of the northern elites, once presided as governor. . .
We have eight children, so we've gotten a few comments on the order of 'How could you?', in the course of our parental lives, but nothing like what the Duggars seem to inspire. We are good friends of two families who each have eleven children, and one with thirteen (I will admit that Jen and I do appreciate any opportunities we have, rare as they are, to use the words, 'Only Eight'). Heck, Jen is one of ten kids herself, and I'm one of seven; which has mostly served to greatly increase the esteem in which we hold our parents. Another couple we know has seven children; the mother is one of 14 children, and the father is one of 16 (so maybe they've practiced an admirable restraint, eh?); their kids have 50-some aunts and uncles, including spouses. One can only imagine what their family reunions must be like. . .
But really - why do the Duggars, by their very existence, seem to provoke such extreme agitation in so many people? I understand that they have, to at least some degree, embraced the public spotlight, and a measure of 'celebrity', by agreeing to appear in various TLC and Discovery Health shows (which, I admit, I've never seen; like the Duggars, we don't have cable). And maybe they do mean to promote a certain vision of family life - the Quiverfull Movement, and all that. But again - who is being harmed by their message? A simple 'No Thanks; I'll Pass' ought to suffice (it did for us, when some of our friends embraced Mary Pride's message many years ago), but it seems not to. And why is that?
Just wondering. . .
(Sorry if this is more of a rant than it needs to be. I guess it just struck a nerve. . .)
"HOW MANY IS TOO MANY?" blared the headline. "The Duggars Under Fire" was the sub-heading. Now, Jen and I have had occasion to make a degree of common cause with the Duggars from time to time, so, in spite of my better judgement, I read on. It seems that our good friends Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar have recently welcomed their 19th child into this world, four months prematurely, and the health 'issues' of little Josie were the occasion for such soul-searching on the part of the tabloid writers. (Have you noticed how much easier it is to search other people's souls than your own?) (Also, Michelle was 43 years old at the time of Josie's birth; which, just for the sake of saying so, is two-and-a-half years younger than Jen was when 8M was born).
Now, my first reaction whenever I see something in the media pertaining to the Duggars is always, "Well, God Bless 'Em!" It takes an admirable measure of courage and self-sacrifice to raise such a large family in today's world. And my second reaction is usually, especially when the commentator in question adopts a tone of "Those people have got to be stopped!" (which is a distressingly large proportion of them), "What do YOU care how many kids some couple in Arkansas has?" I mean, here we have people, in print, in a nationally-distributed journal, sanctimoniously debating the Morality of Family Size, and at least theoretically prepared to consider invoking some manner of coercive authority, because a couple in Arkansas has Too Many Kids.
And I am thoroughly at a loss to account for the visceral vehemence of that reaction. I mean, really - why do the Duggars seem to bother so many people so much? By all accounts, their kids are well provided for, properly educated, well-behaved, and no burden to the society-at-large, so why all the angst? 'Better Them Than Me', I could understand, and even, to a degree, sympathize with. I mean, if someone feels like nineteen kids is more than they could handle, I can definitely understand that (heck, depending on the day, two kids can be more than I think I can handle); and nobody is forcing anyone, or even proposing to them, to have one child more than what they want to have (and just as an aside, many of the same folks who are so eager to tell the Duggars that they've got 'Too Many Kids' would pitch a monumental bitch if anyone so much as arched an eyebrow at someone else's choice to remain childless; "It's Nobody's Business But Mine!" Unless you're the Duggars, and choose to have 19). It's just out-of-proportion. Exactly what skin is it, off the nose of anyone not named Duggar, if they have as many kids as they want - or, more to the point, as many kids as they believe God is inviting them to have?
Is it because of the southern-accented evangelical Christianity espoused by the Duggars? I know that, in the part of the country where I live, southern accents can evoke a stereotype of 'ignorant and uneducated' with some folks (even so admirable a young man as Tim Tebow, the Heisman-Trophy-winning quarterback from the University of Florida, can evoke a similar visceral reaction, so maybe that does account for some of it). But Jim Bob Duggar (and yeah, that name 'Jim Bob' also evokes stereotypical images of 'hayseed' among many northerners) is hardly uneducated; heck, he's served in the same state legislature over which Bill Clinton, much beloved of the northern elites, once presided as governor. . .
We have eight children, so we've gotten a few comments on the order of 'How could you?', in the course of our parental lives, but nothing like what the Duggars seem to inspire. We are good friends of two families who each have eleven children, and one with thirteen (I will admit that Jen and I do appreciate any opportunities we have, rare as they are, to use the words, 'Only Eight'). Heck, Jen is one of ten kids herself, and I'm one of seven; which has mostly served to greatly increase the esteem in which we hold our parents. Another couple we know has seven children; the mother is one of 14 children, and the father is one of 16 (so maybe they've practiced an admirable restraint, eh?); their kids have 50-some aunts and uncles, including spouses. One can only imagine what their family reunions must be like. . .
But really - why do the Duggars, by their very existence, seem to provoke such extreme agitation in so many people? I understand that they have, to at least some degree, embraced the public spotlight, and a measure of 'celebrity', by agreeing to appear in various TLC and Discovery Health shows (which, I admit, I've never seen; like the Duggars, we don't have cable). And maybe they do mean to promote a certain vision of family life - the Quiverfull Movement, and all that. But again - who is being harmed by their message? A simple 'No Thanks; I'll Pass' ought to suffice (it did for us, when some of our friends embraced Mary Pride's message many years ago), but it seems not to. And why is that?
Just wondering. . .
(Sorry if this is more of a rant than it needs to be. I guess it just struck a nerve. . .)
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