The men are back!

Scott is highly motivated to do things that matter; especially things that matter for the kingdom of God.  Over Memorial Day, he decided to make a major investment into several men.

Some months ago, these guys all watched the movie, “Courageous,” participated in a 15-week “Resolution” study, followed up by a full-scale formal, public “Resolution” ceremony.  It was a BIG deal for those guys and their families.

One of the items in the “Resolution” involves calling out the man in your son and helping him transition from boyhood to manhood.  Scott felt it was time to invite the guys from the “Resolution” study to do that very thing, so he planned an overnight backpacking camping trip to the Falls at Hercules Glades.

They left Sunday after church – five 12 to 15 year-olds and their dads or surrogates – drove to the area, packed all their stuff some two and-a-half miles in 90 degree heat, and set up camp.  Over the next twenty-four hours, they swam, played, ate, and slept AND studied and discussed things like dating and marriage, responsibility, sex, pornography, and other topics related to manhood.

Evidently it was a very productive trip.  Scott summarized it by saying, “We took five boys and brought back five men.”

Fracture, no. Freedom, yes.

We’re pleased to know that Our Llama simply has a badly sprained left right ankle, as opposed to the fractured left right ankle he was concerned about.  He hied his own manly self to the Urgent Care today, dealing with insurance, forms, payment, etc.

I think it’s really nice to have younger mammals about who can handle all that stuff without needing a legal guardian present.  It’s the same feeling I had when Katie finally turned 12 and could take the younger kids to ride the balloons at SDC.  It was so wonderful that they could have fun without my having to be nauseous.  It’s also similar to the feeling I had when I first drove away from the house during the day, leaving all four kids at home.  I’m pretty sure  you call that sensation, “freedom!”

What I told Anna

Anna used to babysit our kids when they were. . . well, we lived in Little Rock then, so they were less than and up to six, four, and two.  Her brother is getting married this week, and she and I were e-reminiscing over times past.  Her and Dan’s kids are now about six (or maybe seven?) and two.  We chatted back and forth, and when she asked if Katie would be returning to Missouri after graduation, I wrote:

“Katie has taken a job with a small non-profit corporation that works with ministries to help them arrange funding through payroll deductions.  It’s based in Virginia, near D.C., about 30 minutes from her college.  Please note that she will continue to live some 1000 miles (18 hours’ drive) from Walnut Shade!  Yes, I am warning you now.  This is what those adorable, brilliant, highly motivated first graders do 15 years later.  Love every minute with them now – even those minutes, hours, days, weeks, and months when they make you want to scream and pull your hair out.  And when YOU are 51, I will send you a funny note and say, “I told you so!”   Not to mention the fact that Josiah will be starting college at the same school in August. . . EIGHT YEARS of kids in college 1000 miles away – and one on the other side of the world – and the me home alone with the most challenging one in the bunch!

“But God has been SO AMAZINGLY GOOD to us, and I am so proud of all of them, and I have very few regrets.”

Got another voter

Josiah’s voter ID card came in the mail yesterday.  I guess that makes it official.  One more young man will vote (absentee) this fall for the first time, and it will be a presidential election.  Wow!  Well, I may be wrong about that. . . maybe there’s some other special election in August. . . I can’t remember.

In any case, through Christ who gives us strength, we have successfully brought THREE people to adulthood.  This is a major accomplishment, and we are thrilled.

Funny old stories

Tonight we had a couple of families over for a Memorial Day cookout.  In the spirit of our camping trip earlier this month, it rained, so the cooking was done on the porch, the playing was done throughout the house and yard, and the eating was done in the dining room.

I think a good time was had by all.  The D family with their four children (11, 13, 15, and 19) and the W family with their two children (5 months and 3) plus us and our children (9, 15, 17, and 19) all seemed to hit it off well.  The three moms sat around talking about various parenting experiences because the mom of the youngest two was asking us “old ladies” some questions.

We shared such memories as:

> Jessica being the Director in Perpetuity of all the big kids’ plays and plans when they were young

> One child disrobing its mom while being fed at the net of a volleyball tournament

> The way baby gear has progressed in the past 15-20 years

> The agonizing process of Josiah learning to read

> Katie teaching herself to read and then reading the entire NIV Bible within the next14 months

> Projectile vomiting, nursing Andrew, and goat’s milk

> Scott making Katie do neck-ups on his lunch breaks

There were many laughs.  Good memories.

The new deadline

For some time now, Andrew has been – shall we say – less than diligent to get his chores and academics done in a timely manner.  Of course, this is not a new problem, but it has been becoming more severe as of late.

Food being the primary motivator for our youngest young man, we have had a standing rule since somewhere around the beginning of time that he couldn’t eat lunch until his chores and academics were done.  This works pretty well except on Sundays (when we are gone all morning), Tuesdays and Thursdays (when going without lunch is unacceptable, because he has gymnastics 4:30 – 6:30, and without lunch is too weak to get through his workout), and Wednesdays (when we are gone to piano lessons and/or the grocery most of the morning).

A plan that at best works only 43% of the time is not a good plan, so at my whining urging, Scott decided to make a change.  A radical change.  A change that all the “breakfast is the most important meal of the day” folks may find abhorrent, but a change that has actually worked for two days, and in our family, two in a row is a definite trend!

Andrew now has to finish his academics (not his chores, just his academics) before breakfast.  Yes, that’s right.  Before breakfast.  Now before anyone flies off the handle and calls DFS, please realize that he is  permitted to eat breakfast any time up until 12:30 PM (lunch time), and he is more than welcome to do Tuesday’s academics on Monday afternoon, but he cannot eat breakfast on Tuesday until Tuesday’s academics have been completed.  Of course, Andrew’s academics take probably two hours to  complete, and this morning, after quite a bit of whining, he had them done at 9:00 AM and was eating breakfast only one hour late.  Not too shabby.

I am not sure what we will do on Wednesday, when I absolutely cannot send him to Mrs. W. for his piano lesson on an empty stomach (I like her way too much!), but if we can get this plan working 6/7 of the time, we will have improved the situation by 100%, right?

I’m trying to decide now if I should mention to him – on this lovely, spring Monday afternoon – that he might want to start tomorrow’s academics now, or if I should just keep my mouth shut and listen to it all tomorrow morning.

Hmmm. . . . ?

We have a new driver

And that’s not some program that lets my computer access the printer.

Yes, Josiah has obtained his learner’s permit, and so far, in two days he’s spent an hour-and-a-half chauffeuring us around three counties.  He’s doing quite well and will prove a capable and responsible driver one of these days.  I am now facing my third year of relegation to the passenger seat (there are some distinct similarities to pregnancy), and I think I’m starting to get the hang of this driver’s ed thing.  Basically, I breathe deeply (I told you it was like pregnancy, didn’t I?), grip the door handle firmly, and calmly repeat mantras like, “shoulder. . .  anticipate the curve. . .  left turn signal. . . shoulder. . .  check your mirror – do I get a point for that one?. . .  shoulder. . .  watch that guy on the entrance ramp,” while occasionally throwing in a “SLOW DOWN, FOR CRYING OUT LOUD!  Did you SEE those brake lights?!?” for variety.

Yes, it could be a long year, but the day I send Josiah to town alone I’ll be 75% of the way toward retirement as a driving instructor, right?

I think what went around has come around.  My dad taught me to drive in our green Dodge Dart on the Northeast High School parking lot.  Before we headed out for a lesson, he always pulled on his “crash helmet” (a favorite golf cap). I thought about getting myself a crash helmet this time around, but decided it would flatten my ‘do, and at my height, I need all the additional altitude I can get.

Been here before

Andrew just defied me – for the umpteenth time.  It had to do with dishes; specifically improperly washed dishes.  Our policy is that if the person emptying the dish drainer finds dishes that aren’t really clean, he sets them on the stove and the person who didn’t wash them right the first time has to re-wash them.

Andrew was doing the lunch clean-up, which means he was putting away the dry dishes from breakfast.  There were a couple of casserole dishes that had been set aside for some minor speck of crud that someone had missed.  Since Andrew had done the supper dishes, and since we only use casserole dishes at supper, in all likelihood Andrew was the guilty party.  However, that could not be proven without consulting the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security.

So Andrew informed no one in particular that he would not be washing those extra dishes.   And I informed him that he would.  And he replied that he wouldn’t.  And I told him he would.  Etc.

I finally told him that I didn’t care WHO had left them dirty; HE was doing the clean up and I wanted it ALL cleaned up.  Period.  And he said, “I’m telling you that I’m NOT going to wash those dishes, and that’s all I’m going to say.”

Now, when I was growing up, a kid simply didn’t talk to an adult that way without getting his block knocked off.  Although I am strongly tempted to knock off his block and a few other items of his anatomy, so far I am resisting the temptation.  Instead, I walked away, because I knew that if I stayed in proximity to him, I would hit him – very, very hard.

When I calm down, I will probably go wash the stupid dishes.  I have been here before.  I think I have worked for pay in about five different jobs in my life, and I have only been fired once.  It was when I was unable to force those I was managing to do what they were supposed to do.  No one will fire me from this parenting job, and resigning is not an option.  However, I GREATLY resent the fact while I DO what an authority tells me to do because I was told to do it, other people don’t.  It is one of the many things about life that is simply not fair.

Proof that I’ve lost my mind = )

Being of partially sound mind and relatively sound body, I have officially given my permission and blessing for both Jessica AND Josiah to go on an AIM mission trip – at the same time.  In early October, they will leave the house and be gone for about five weeks.

What was I thinking?  I will have to go back to being a real homemaker.  I’ll have to do all the ironing, make bread, do a lot of the dishes, vacuum the second floor, sweep the porch and walk, mount the bike rack, keep score at Scott’s ball games, do the sheets and towels laundry, and make Scott’s lunches.  Not only that, I will be home alone with Andrew for many, many days.

Actually, I am very happy for the big kids, and I think they will be able to give a lot and learn a lot that will positively impact the adults they are becoming.  It’s a superb opportunity for each of them to push harder and fly higher to reach their unique potentials.

I’m also looking forward to deepening my relationship with Andrew and getting into some new academics with him.  However, I’m NOT looking forward to being his one-woman entertainment committee.  I will get some breaks while he’s at gymnastics, so that will help me maintain my sanity.

The strangest thing is that after having the kids with us all these years, you’d think I’d be thrilled to have a little time off from fulltime momhood.  Instead, I miss them.  I miss Katie now and I’m already missing Jessica and Josiah in advance!

Judgment and mercy

I’ve been having a very hard time getting Andrew to do his piano work this summer.  Don’t get me wrong; he loves to play the piano.  That’s not the problem.  He just doesn’t want to practice what Mrs. W wants him to practice, and he flat out refuses to do his Music Tree activity book.  Instead, he plays only his favorite tunes over and over and over and over.

Jessica and Andrew have their lessons on Wednesday mornings, and mine are generally every other Wednesday afternoon.  Mrs. W called me after the kids’ lessons to ask me if she could cancel mine.  She was feeling really cruddy and had a terribly sore throat and hoped she could sleep some before her afternoon students arrived (I’m her first).

That was fine with me and (mercifully) gave me some additional time to practice.  Of course I didn’t want her to be sick, but I also want to be ready for my lesson!  While on the phone, I asked her how Andrew’s lesson had gone.  “Fair.”  He hadn’t really prepared for the lesson, so he didn’t get as many “dollars” to spend as Jessica did, and during her lesson, when he was supposed to be doing his theory, he was just staring into space!  She finally told him that if he wouldn’t do his theory work – work that she KNEW he could do – then she’d have to call Mom and have me come to his lessons.  Ugh for both of us.

I wanted her to know that with all the challenges we face in parenting Andrew, I have chosen to let HER be the brick wall he comes up against in piano – instead of me.  I didn’t want her to think I was being a bad mom who didn’t care if her son progressed on the piano.  Far from it!  Mrs. W is fine with that and she’s capable of doing a really admirable brick wall imitation.  She urged me to just leave him alone where piano is concerned and let the chips (or points or “dollars”) fall where they may.  She and I both recognize that he has uncommon piano potential, and we both think it will be good for him to be forced to work hard for someone who is not his parent.

He got judgment and I got mercy.  We’ll see who maximizes his opportunities now.