Family Holidays

April Fools' Day: This morning I was greeted by an ominous email from the judge entitled, "Clerk Responsibilities." I opened it to find a request for ideas for April Fools' Day pranks he could play on his kids. You know you've got it good when you've got a boss like that.

First Day of Reading: When I came home, I found some pieces of paper on the table with short sentences. Each word in the sentence was separately underlined, and all of the silent letters had a red line lightly drawn through them. I asked my wife what it was, and she invited my four-year old son to come up and read the sentences to me. He did. No problem. My jaw dropped. I'd never seen him read that much so quickly before on his own. I couldn't stop smiling. We celebrated by having freshly baked chocolate-chip cookies after dinner. I still can't believe it.

Dinner Conversation

A close friend told me of a sign that used to hang in their dining room that said, "Sit long, talk much, laugh often." That is how she grew up, and it has shaped her personality. Whenever we had dinner with them, that's what we did. Since then, that is also something I've looked forward to doing with my family. Tonight, we got it. Yes, a four-year old, a two-year old, and a one-year old (kind of) were conversing about what judges do, why we call people Judge or Mr. or Mrs., etc., what our son did at school, what our super hero names would be, or we were just goofing off and making faces to try and get the kids to laugh. I've heard of a study concluding that the greatest contributor to the emotional development in children is having family dinner. I'm sure that is true. If tonight is any indication, I'm certain that we can only become closer as a family and better friends and that our time together sitting, talking, and laughing will build our children's confidence in themselves and in their ability to interact with others.

Active Imaginations

There is nothing I love more than coming home and seeing my son dressed up in his cowboy clothes and sheriff's badge swinging around a lasso and explaining to me his discussion with grandpa about when he was a cowboy and telling me about the cowboy books he picked up at the library. Also, seeing my daughter in her booster seat bonding with her baby dolls that she placed in the highchair. And of course, though it doesn't really have anything to do with having an imagination, I love having my baby girl crawl toward me in anticipation of getting picked up by Daddy and carried around for a few minutes. Maybe it does have something to do with imagination, because I imagine that I am her favorite parent. But that only lasts until she sees her mother.

You Are Supposed to Feel Bad

Making mistakes is embarrassing. I know this well, having experienced it once myself (a day). Often, I try to make a joke out of it or somehow excuse it to make it okay. This may send a mixed message to kids who are still figuring out the difference between a mistake, as in an accident, and a mistake, as in doing something they know is wrong. My son, for example, curious and excited/"in the moment" slid a plastic lid under the oven. Of course, the laughing stopped when I called his name. It was actually the second time I called his name. The first was when I saw what he was about to do. But after the second time I called his name, he looked at me and knew that he had done something he knew was wrong. Instead of saying sorry, he tried to explain it away: "It's okay, 'cause we can just get another one." I'm sure he felt embarrassed because this was all happening in front of his mother and sisters. I told him, "It's not okay, and we can't just get another one." Seeing that he was feeling bad about it, I said, "You are supposed to feel bad when you do something wrong. It helps us to never want to do it again." Then he apologized and I quickly forgave him and gave him a hug. Then, just before bed he said, "Daddy, I'm sorry I didn't listen and put that thing under the oven." I didn't realize he really felt bad all night, although I'm not surprised. He has always been sensitive to right and wrong. Having gotten frustrated tonight with his sister, I told him, "I forgive you. I made a mistake tonight too getting frustrated with your sister. You did the right thing saying sorry. I told your sister I was sorry too. Now we need to try harder tomorrow." He agreed. We also decided that we need to invent something to get that lid out from under the oven. He's already hatched a plan involving a flashlight and toy sword. So, after I laid him down, I put the flashlight and sword in the kitchen for him. I am proud of him, especially because he gleans good messages from what I say, even when I have no idea what I'm saying (as long as I told talk too much). Ironically, when I made my mistake of getting frustrated with his sister tonight, guess who called me out? Yep, my son. He reminded me, "Daddy, she's just a baby and doesn't understand." Worse still, I also tried to explain away my mistake: "Well, she's old enough to understand that she needs to listen to me and that she can't throw books around." I felt just as embarrassed as I'm sure he did only about a half an hour earlier. Right now, I'm being haunted by my own words.

Sundays and Suit Coats

There is no hope for my suit coat. Every Sunday I wear it hoping that the kids won't leave slobber, cracker crumbs, or a combination of the two on my suit. Every week I'm proven wrong. Why do I continue to wear it? I'm faced with the struggle of giving up a habit with which I am comfortable and that I feel is appropriate for someone my age at church for something that would be more practical and honestly more comfortable physically. I always come down on the side of wearing the coat. Being an Eagle Scout, I've started to develop a solution to the problem: designate a "Sunday suit" (i.e. the same suit for every Sunday) and steal wet wipes from the diaper bag throughout the day to wipe of the child residue. So far it works, though I inevitably find out later that I missed some spots. I may invest in dry cleaning sheets. Since our youngest is one, and we'll probably have more, I'll probably get my dollar's worth.

Home Again, Home Again

It appears that evening flights into DC are as bad of an idea as evening flights out of DC. Delayed again for three hours, home again at 3 am. I am very thankful to M & O, who insisted on picking me up without compensation anyway. Ironically, I had a hard time falling asleep. It may have been the fact that AZ and DC are three hours apart and that my internal clock was messed up. Either way, children do not let you sleep in, and neither do family-day plans. Usually, when I am this tired, I am a super grump, but thinking about spending the day with my family after 3 days apart made me feel the way Elf does about Christmas. You know that part in the movie where Elf excitedly explains that he got 3 whole hours of sleep and even made a rocking horse? Well, I got about 4 hours of sleep and still made a kite, some train tracks, took down our toddler's old bed and set-up the new one, made dinner, bathed the two girls, and changed the sheets. More importantly, I couldn't stop wrestling with and otherwise squeezing and kissing my three kids and spending time with my wife. My sweet wife let me nap in the afternoon, then we had family movie night. An eventful day to say the least. It was also fun to see our daughter's reaction to her twin bed. She definitely feels like a big girl even though from head to toe she only reaches the middle of the bed.

Trip to AZ Day 3: Preschool Visits

My wife and I have heavily researched the schools in AZ, but while I was there we scheduled a few visits. Boy am I glad we did. It is difficult as a parent not to get personal about teachers and education, in fact, it's probably a good thing to some extent. It may start to get ridiculous when, like me, a parent gets a little competitive about preschools. We have constantly worried about public schools and felt really good about certain private or charter schools. On personal inspection there were some surprises. One particular public school blew me away with its incredible facilities and passionate, structured, caring, and qualified teachers. One private school disappointed me with its "free for all" environment, though the teachers were great and imagination seems to be heavily encouraged. Another private preschool (the rest of the school is charter) impressed me as far as facilities, academics, and attention to the children, but although I met with incredibly kind and helpful people, there was a sense of elitism from some others--a quality I don't want my kids to pick up on. Thankfully, there was a charter school that had no surprises. It starts in kindergarten, so we still need to make some decisions about pre-k, but they were just a qualified, passionate, value-driven, and supported as we'd read about. We don't gamble, but I hope that some of these charter school lotteries work in our favor. It's actually a bit stressful as a parent. Luckily, there are some good public schools too. So, that allows us to concentrate the majority of our stress on finding a home.

Trip to AZ Day 2: House Hunting

Not too long ago we asked our oldest what he wants in our new home. He drew his list of things like a pool, a fireplace, a couch with no cushions, etc. Well, in AZ almost all houses have pools. We also have a beat-up couch that we'd be happy to donate to the kids to do whatever they want with it. (As a side note, my wife and I drew all over it with pens to relieve stress one day). It happened that as the Realtor was taking me around one particular house there was a bedroom (not the master) with a fireplace in it. I may be crazy, but my first thought was, "This would be a great room for our oldest." I recognize now that I have stepped away from the temptation that choosing a home based on our children's wishes, especially if they could produce dangerous results, may not be a great idea. I also learned that my children have me wrapped around their fingers. Next time we come to look at more homes, I'm going to rely heavily on my wife to remind me to be practical too.

Trip to AZ Day 1: Redeye Flight

After getting to work late so that I could spend some extra time with the kids, I worked a full day, then rushed off to the train, then to another train, then to a shuttle bus, to get to the airport. As I arrived, clouds circled the skies, releasing lighting galore. The result was a three-hour delay on my flight. I wasn't going to get to my hotel in AZ until 3 am. I was already missing my family--I never enjoy being away from them for any period longer than a workday--and now I spent the entire evening and night thinking about how nice it would be to be in bed with my wife and how peacefully my kids were sleeping in their beds while I was struggling to sleep in my airplane seat. They say that you really appreciate something when you're separated from it, but I would add that you appreciate it even more when the separation results in extreme discomfort.

Teaching Moment

Running in the door from work, I quickly went upstairs to take off my shirt and tie and change into more comfortable clothes. As we were playing with the kids after dinner, my wife teased me because my clothes didn't match. My son was standing next to me waiting for my reaction. I thought for a moment about what I could say in response and hoped it wouldn't teach my son something bad. I looked at my son and said, "Here is the first lesson about being a man: matching smatching." He's lucky to have such a wise father.

Domestic Pride

As the past few posts have indicated, my wife does so many things better than I do. There is one thing, however, that I can say I do better: loading the dishwasher. In fact, my wife comments in mock frustration every time I rearrange the dishes she's loaded throughout the day in preparation to load the dinner dishes. She jokes, but I know deep inside she's jealous, and it gives me a sick sense of pride.

Doing My Daughter's Hair

Having observed many many Sunday mornings of doing our daughters' hair and being slightly behind this morning, I decided to do our baby girl's hair while my wife did our older girl's hair. I sprayed a little bit of water on her head and started brushing. Feeling satisfied, I picked her up and finished getting her ready for church. Scarcely had I done so when my wife gasped. She looked as if she'd just seen Frankenstein's monster and remarked, "What did you do to her hair?" Then, to pour salt in the wound, she started laughing at me. In fact, whenever she looked over at our baby girl throughout the morning at church, she would snicker. That certainly drove the message home that I am incompetent when it comes to girls' hair. So much for trying to be helpful.

The Hot Seat

There is a seat in our car that you never want to sit in. I call it "the hot seat." It is the passenger side bucket seat in our minivan and the only seat behind the front row that has no car seat. Keeping that seat in particular empty was a strategic choice, for the purpose of the seat is for its patron to serve the patrons of the car seats. Because I work most days when the kids and my wife run errand, the hot seat remains empty. Often when I go with them, the trip is short so there is no serving necessary. When the trip is long, I'm often able to convince my wife to sit back there. In short, I've been able to avoid the hot seat in most cases. It has become more difficult, however, as my wife gets car sick on longer trips when she is not driving. To be honest, I don't like driving on long trips anyway. Forgetting how much bending, turning, reaching, contorting, sorting, serving, collecting, cleaning, entertaining, counseling, disciplining, etc. goes into sitting in the hot seat, I agreed to sit there on the way home from a long and wonderful day at the aquarium, at dinner time. Needless to say, I am sore in lots of places.

Bringing Your Wife Cookies

I always feel bad having to leave my wife in the evening for a meeting of some sort, usually a church meeting. I'm already gone all day, and she's usually pretty tired in the evening. Although she is super mom, I know it's tough to put three kids to bed alone, especially on bath nights. To mitigate the stress, I try to come home early on those nights. Sometimes I can't though. However, there were girl scout cookies at my meeting tonight, so I wrapped a bunch in a napkin and brought them home to her. She was on the phone when I gave them to her, but when she got off the phone and opened the napkin I heard her call out to me in excitement, "Girl Scout cookies!" It's a small consolation prize for all of her sacrifice, I know, but I don't want to make it any harder on her by coming home empty handed after gorging myself on goodies all night.

Don't Let Daddy Near the Food Coloring!

Due to a doctor's appointment for our daughter my wife was going to get home after me. Being St. Patrick's Day we were going to color our food green, and my wife put me in charge of it. The German pancakes turned out well, but the scrambled eggs turned out dark blue. You see, eggs are yellow, so I needed blue to make them green. But, we only had blue coloring gel (used for coloring frosting). Clueless as I was, I put a small scoop of blue gel in the scrambled eggs. My wife later told me that all I needed was a small drop. I thought I could fix it by adding the same amount of green, but it only made the eggs darker. It looked like play dough, but the kids still ate it. Next time we'll know better than to let me color the food.

Stay Calm!

Of the things that could make me go crazy, I think I would rank putting the kids to bed by myself on bath nights as number one. First, bath: three kids, screaming, splashing, resisting, drinking the bath water, clambering for toys, taking toys from each other, bending over, kneeling on the tile floor, etc. Second, bedtime: dressing the kids, keeping the kids together, being ignored during scriptures and prayer, keeping the baby from crawling off the bed, monitoring wrestling, putting one child to bed at a time while worrying about what the others are up to, the after bed time clean-up by myself, etc. I'm happy to report my sanity. All went well tonight. The key was the constant repetition in my mind of a simple phrase, "Stay Calm!" Now, if I could only get that twitch to go away!

Funny Dinner

Our little plan worked, and our son was finally motivated to eat his dinner quickly. Of course, having plans after dinner means that my wife and I tend to forget to enjoy our family dinner and start to worry about getting on with our plans, how late we'll be out, whether the baby will break down, whether we'll get the kids to bed before "Biggest Loser" starts, etc. In order to refocus on enjoying the moments, I made a goal in my mind to try and improve my conversations with my kids tonight. I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard during dinner. I hope that I haven't been missing out on how funny and clever these kids are by worrying about things all the time.

"Stop Talking and Eat!"

Yes, I did just say this to my four-year old at dinner tonight. His brains can be a blessing and a curse, a blessing mostly. At dinner time, however, it's become a bit of a curse. We have one rule: at least one bite of everything. But, this clever boy makes up more excuses for not trying something he doesn't want to try than I thought could ever be made. It only makes things worse to try and reason with him, because it guarantees that dinner will consist of split hairs--he already knows how to argue around everything. I've only been out of law school one year, so I am not willing to take the blame for that. Needless to say, dinner took so long tonight that we decided to postpone the fun plans we had until another night. I hope this will help him decide to approach dinner differently tomorrow night.

Divinely Stubborn

Such and such teenager doesn't think the rules apply to her. Another teenager is chasing a girl who is two years older and wants to date her even though he is only thirteen. And many more examples were discussed between some of the leaders of my congregation today as they prepared to give a "Standards Night" presentation to the youth later in the evening. Immediately I thought of my kids. Will they have to go through the same difficult stage that my wife and I had to go through because we too were stubborn? I hope not, but given that our kids inherited stubborn genes from both parents, I think we're doomed. Quite frankly, sometimes we worry and sometimes we get frustrated. We are not hopeless however. Maybe our kids are stubborn for a reason. The negative influences of society are getting stronger and stronger, and I feel that Heavenly Father may have sent our kids here with the gift of an extra stubborn heart in order to stand up against those influences, even when it's not popular. I recognize that being stubborn might result in our children spending some time on the wrong side of the line as their way of "standing up" to their parents, but I'm confident that at some point the principles of truth we've tried to teach them from the time they came to us will sink deep into their hearts, that they will be converted, and that they will be just as stubborn in standing up for what is right and good.

Comic Books

I'm not ready for this. We thought it would be fun to go the book store this morning to look at some books and let the older kids pick one out. We passed a stand full of comic books full of heroes fighting their enemies. My four-year old surprised me by saying, "I want a comic book." Not knowing what to say but knowing that I didn't want him reading those at this point, I used a trusty parental tactic, "Maybe when you're older." It seemed to work, though he kept talking about them until we got to the kids' section. There we pointed out a stand with some good books on it about cowboys, animals, planes, popular Disney characters, and other stories that teach good things. Somehow, our son found some Batman books in there and asked for one of those. My wife and I weren't sure what to say. The Batman villains aren't just bad, they're pretty evil. Not only that, there are guns, girls in skimpy clothes, etc. Not a lot of good message teaching there. One of them was all right, I guess. It didn't have any shooting or immodesty, etc. It was more about Batman's clever use of tools to find and capture Joker. I was pretty reluctant and offered reasons for not wanting to buy it, but our son was clever enough to have an explanation for everything, "There aren't any guns in this one," "I'm not scared of these bad guys," etc. My take-away from this experience is that we need to know where our line is and make it clear to our son before-hand. The bottom line is that I don't think it's okay to be entertained by things we believe are wrong. I think it is simple enough to say we will not get books with swearing, killing or guns, immodest women, or senseless violence. I hope so anyway.

You Lost?

I forgot about a conversation I had with my son at the grocery store yesterday. While at the pharmacy he noticed a bunch of products for ears, including medicine for swimmer's ear. He saw the swimmer on the package and began asking about the medicine. Then he asked about the cap on his head. I told him that it helped make swimmers faster. I told him I wore one when I used to race. His eyes got big and he immediately asked if I won and got a trophy. I told him I did win a lot of races and that I did get a trophies, medals, ribbons, etc. I have a little bit of a fear of my son thinking that I'm the strongest man in the world, so I confessed that even though I won races, I lost races too. His eyes got even bigger. But his face did not express pride as before. This time he looked a little perplexed. I wondered just how hard he was taking this in light of a little boy at our church who once bragged to another little boy that his daddy flew a bigger plane than the other boy's daddy. The other boy, of course, responded that his daddy's plane was bigger. Finally, the first boy's father explained to him, "It's true. The other boy's daddy flied a bigger plane," and his little boy broke down in tears. From watching our son with his former next door neighbor, I also know that even little kids don't like losing and always like winning. In fact, my son asked, "You lost? But you won most of the time, right?" It seemed he was still in denial that his daddy could lose or that losing was okay. So, I wanted to get this explanation right. I explained that everyone loses sometimes, even if they are really good at something, but it's no big deal. Short and sweet--not my usual style, but I'm realizing more and more that my style isn't naturally effective. At the end of our discussion, the perplexed expression turned into a pensive one--a success in my book.

Out With Friends

Lately we've had to run to the pharmacy a lot. Our baby girl now has an ear infection too. Our schedules worked out such that I arrived home shortly before dinner, which would also give my wife a break from the action. We also needed to pick up a prescription for our baby girl. The problem was that if my wife went dinner would be really late, which is a very bad thing on bath night. Or, if I went, I would have to take the older two kids with me. Me and shopping is already a bad combination, and adding kids to that pushes my stress levels. But, for the sake of having dinner ready on time -- always a big motivation for me -- I took the two oldest kids to the store to pick up the prescription. I'm glad I did. Rarely do I get time alone with the two of them to just talk, joke, and enjoy. I sometimes see my kids just chatting away with my wife as I'm walking out the door to work, and I get jealous. We just don't get that much unstructured time together. What I loved about this trip to the store was how much we were able to talk about anything that popped into our heads. Even our toddler, who is getting better at talking each day, was active in our conversations. I was reminded just how bright, funny, and wonderful they are and how grateful I am for their friendship. That's how I felt when we walked back in the door of our house and sat down for dinner, that I was just out with two of my best friends.

Dinner Anxiety

I left work early today so that my daughter could see the doctor for her recurring ear infection. When I came home my wife handed me instructions for dinner. Suddenly, my eyes widened, my collar seemed to tighten, I began to feel warm, and I started to stutter a little as I spoke. My wife knew right away what the problem was: there was more than two steps to making the dinner tonight and I felt overwhelmed. After expressing her confidence in me, my wife took our daughter to her appointment. My wife suggested I wait to start dinner until 5 pm. It was 3:45 pm, and I started anyway and put it in the fridge until it was time to cook just so that I could leave myself enough time to mess up or have to deal with some other scenario that I might not be prepared for because I am never home at this time of the day. That was the right choice. As soon as our baby girl got up from her nap, it was interruption after interruption, and it would have been impossible to make dinner. It's now certain, my wife does the impossible every day. But I will always savor my wife's reaction upon returning from the appointment to see the table set with a perfectly prepared dinner.

*Thank you to my son for setting the table.

The Hard Way

Sometimes it's just necessary. When your son won't get out of the car because he wants Mommy to carry him, but she can't, so he screams at the top of his lungs. When your daughter stands on the sidewalk outside your front door for the same reason, Mommy still can't, same result. They both did this today because they were so tired after visiting and playing with their cousins. We couldn't leave them outside screaming, so the choice had to be, "Do it on your own or with Daddy's 'help.'" In both cases, I had to pick them up and try to bring them inside. But my son struggled against me so much that I had to put him down about where our daughter had thrown her fit. Since he's older, I figured I could head on inside and he would eventually follow after crying it out a little. Not so! Before I could look back, he was screaming and banging ferociously on the glass outside door. He was inconsolable, and I had no choice but to pull him inside as quickly as I could before he broke the glass and take him straight up to his room with the threat that if he tried to leave the room before he calmed down I'd lock him in. I gave him three seconds to decide. He got onto his bed, and I left. When I came back up a few minutes later, he was a different kid. I invited him down for dinner, and we enjoyed a pleasant evening. My two-year old daughter took a lot longer to calm down, which required letting her snuggle on my lap while we ate dinner and dealing with food spilling on my lap a little. I felt a little bit bad forcing the kids to come inside tonight, but I wasn't mad. They were just tired beyond reason and we couldn't leave them outside. I wish I could explain to them that this whole thing could have been avoided if they would just let Daddy help sometimes when they are tired.

You Never Know . . .

One of the most memorable poems to me is Emily Dickenson's classic, "You never know how high you are until you're called to rise." Every now and again we get so swamped that we agree that I will bath and put the kids to bed while my wife goes shopping some evening. Those are usually the nights when I'm called to rise. I don't know how yet, but somehow I am less stressed on those nights. It might have something to do with a saying I used to throw at people in jest when they had dating troubles in college, "Expectations lead to disappointment. Keep your expectations low, and you'll always be pleasantly surprised." Although it was mostly a joke, in this case there is some truth to that. I think that on the nights my wife needs to go out and I am left to get the kids ready, I expect the worst. Ironically, that automatically raises my tolerance level. In addition, things usually turn out better than I expect, and I tend to enjoy my time. As usual, things were better than expected tonight. My wife hung around a little longer and played and wrestled with us for a while. Then she helped me get the kids ready for bed, and even read to the oldest kids while I laid the baby down. Once she left, the older kids were angelic. They snuggled up to me while I read to them and went to bed perfectly. After almost six years of marriage and almost 5 years of parenting, I don't know why I haven't figured this out yet--I should anticipate that every day will provide hidden challenges and try to rise to the occasion.

Too Many Rules

I've realized today that I've backed myself into a corner many times. I've always felt its important not to make idle promises. I keep my word. But, what happens when you say too much? Well, you have to enforce too much. I end up spending all of my time enforcing and disciplining and none of my time really enjoying being a dad. So, when the game of bumper strollers--a game where my kids run through the house with the toy strollers and their dolly passengers--started turning into full-speed head-on crashing, a voice inside my head--I'm sure it was my wife's--said, "It's not life or death," and I decided to let it go. When it turned violent, I provided a gentle reminder, but did not issue any firm threat. That first decision helped set the tone for the rest of the day. I kept having to remind myself, "Not life or death. Not life or death," but I made it through the day without overloading myself with rules I didn't have to make but now have to enforce. It was actually quite a relief to have gone through the day without committing myself to any disciplining. It was also eye-opening for me to see two things: first, that I didn't always have to issue an "either you A or I'll B" statement when some gentle reminders and persuasion would do just as much good; second, that nothing very serious happened when I let my kids make a mistake. Hopefully gone are the days when I make too many rules.

Bridging the Gap

I didn't really think of this at the time. It is the English major in me. Over the past week we've lost a lot of the friendship we've always enjoyed with our kids. Begin sick for some time and too tired to really play, our poor kids have been boxed up for a week without any real opportunity to get all of their energy out. Finally, today, we felt well and had energy. We took advantage of the beautiful weather and went for a walk, climbed some hills, had a sword fight inside, and built a bridge of cushions to run across and wrestle on. To be honest, I still had to talk myself into playing around so much at first, but it was pretty easy after that. It's still amazing to me how much can be communicated between adults and their children through playing. When we were sick, all we could do was talk and watch TV. It was clear, though, that the kids didn't feel like their needs were really met. When we play, however, they light back up and we always feel closer. Maybe English is still their second language, and playing is their first. Maybe it's the same for adults too, we're just out of practice in playing and over-practiced in speaking.

I'm Being Watched

As we sat watching "Robin Hood" (the Disney version) for movie night, I briefly caught my wife's glance. Her eyes directed me down to my son's legs, which were crossed exactly like mine. After the kids were in bed, my wife told me that he pays very close attention to what I do and think. When she asked him about his favorite part of the movie, he told her about a silly part. My wife reminded me that that is also the part where he asked me why I was laughing. When my wife told me all of this, I was gripped with a little bit of panic and guilt. Strange thoughts started rushing through my mind like, "I need to play more sports," "I need to read more books," "I need to fix more things around the house," etc. My wife has always thought that I am a lot like my dad, and she thinks her brothers are either exactly like her dad or exactly the opposite. To be honest, I worry. I know my faults all to well, and I'm especially sensitive of my know-it-all attitude. Whether my son turns out to be exactly like me or exactly the opposite of me, neither is a good option. I keep thinking, "once we get into a house with a yard next year and settled into our community then I will start doing all of these things." But that's probably not true if I can't do them now. One thing I have improved on quite a bit is my reaction to "honey-do's." Believe it or not, a year or so ago I used to groan, roll my eyes, or make other pathetic visible or audible reactions to indicate to my wife that I was not a fan. I felt justified in doing this because I have always been very helpful at home, but I enjoyed just doing it because I wanted to. When it finally hit me what a horrible example I was setting, I quickly converted to "sure, Dear!" I don't think my example is scarring my son. After all, he loves learning; he's very helpful around the house; he's very thoughtful and polite; he's very honest; etc. I'm not trying to take credit. I know he came to us with many of those qualities already a part of him. I'm just relieved I haven't ruined his natural goodness. In fact, just after my wife directed my attention to the way he was sitting during the movie, she whispered, "you two are so much alike." I replied, "I take that as a compliment to be like him." My goal is that he can one day say the same about me.

A Father's Prayer

As I reflect on my day, this poem comes to mind:

Dear Father in Heaven,

Work today was hard and long,

And now my energy is gone.

But Father, I also know,

There's a greater work for me at home.

So now I humbly pray,

For extra strength to wrestle and play.

As I was riding the bus home I prayed for strength to wrestle with my kids. Because my wife and I have been so sick, our kids have had few opportunities to get their wiggles out. Earlier today my wife noticed that our son looked sad and asked him about it.

"Why do you think I'm sad?" he responded.

"You look sad."

"Well, I'm bored. Can I go play [next door]?"

Luckily, our neighbor didn't have too many kids at day care today, and she eagerly agreed to have our son over to play with her kids. But I saw the sadness return when I went to pick him up just before dinner. He'd only been there less than an hour. I think he and the other kids felt better when I dressed up in a funny costume and chased them around for a while. But, they are stir crazy and anxious for Mommy and Daddy to get out of the rut they're in. Hopefully, we will be back in business by Saturday, so that we can go out and have some fun together. My wife and I are broken-hearted that they have to deal with this without good friends available close by, or at least good weather or a fenced-in yard. Their stuck with us in our little town home.

"No, It's Not"

Though she's in the middle, our toddler is generally always last to pick what she wants. After my delayed birthday party tonight (we've been sick for several days), I had two figurines that my wife put on my cake: a combo Timon and Pumba and a young Simba, from my favorite movie "The Lion King." Feeling for my little girl, I gave her first choice of which figurine she could have. She chose Simba. My oldest got the other one. I told my son that when I was a little boy my mom gave me a Pumba toy too. My wife then whispered, "Honey, Simba is his favorite." I felt bad. Being older and having actually seen the movie, he arguably should have gotten it. It didn't help that my wife suggested our girl may have wanted it because she knew our son wanted it. In my calmest and wisest voice, I explained my reason for giving it to my daughter, fully expecting my son to understand. Throughout the night he kept trying to trade with her, but she didn't want to. He may have understood, but he did not have the same compassion for his sister's plight that I did. Then I reminded him, "She may want to trade at some point, but she may not, and that's okay." To my surprise, my son mumbled almost under his breath, "No, it's not." We tried other strategies too, like, "You have allowance and your sister doesn't, so you can buy one." He didn't seem satisfied. I think he went to sleep with the hope that his little sister would give it up to him at some point. I'm learning that I cannot make all lessons sink in. He is usually very good about giving. But perhaps this will provide my son with an experience that will teach him one of the toughest lessons in giving: not coveting what your giving, but letting someone have the best thing for a change and feeling happy because they are happy. It's a tough one, but I'm confident all of our kids will get it at some point.

Transitioning From Sick to Well

All of us awoke this morning in good spirits because we were finally starting to feel better. I stayed home another day because I'm not quite in working condition. However, I was able to do some work from home, and the kids were playing like they used to. I wish I could say that this story had a happy ending. I re-discovered the hard way -- I don't know why I forget every single time -- that when we are in-between sick and well we tend to recoup all the good while still retaining all the bad. For example, our kids were back to their happy playful selves, and I was back to giving my wife and kids some personal attention. But, the kids retained the whining, demanding, and addiction to TV they developed while sick. And I retained my fatigue and impatience -- although it is debatable whether my impatience was developed while sick. Our poor kids were especially rambunctious at the end of the night, just when I was especially worn out. They are probably sick of being stuck inside, and I wish I'd been able to eek out just a little more patience. I felt pretty bad that I was impatient, but my wonderful wife reminded me that there won't be any lasting damage. Maybe getting this written down will help me remember the next time this happens.