Big Trouble

Anna is a perceptive little girl and she has picked up on how we call a child by their first name if we are happy with them, by their first and last name if they are in trouble, and by their first, middle, and last name if they are in big trouble.

The other day I was teasing CrazyMom a little and getting myself into trouble. Anna was there and knew I was in a little bit of trouble and so she said, “Daddy Smith!” with the perfect intonation that CrazyMom would use with a child in trouble. We all burst out laughing and Anna indignantly put her hands on her hips and playfully stomped off.

Anna on more than one occasion has heard us reprimand Little Foot using his full name – Little Foot Jacob Smith. The other day she was upset with her brother K.D. and exclaimed, “K.D. Jacob Smith!” using the middle name of Little Foot instead since it was more familiar to her.

Using Little Foot’s middle name whenever any of her brothers are in trouble would be funny enough, but she uses it with her sisters as well. Today she was upset with her sister Ed who she thought had cheated her out of some candy. “Ed Jacob Smith!” she exclaimed.

The only person who I have not heard her do this with is CrazyMom. Evidently she is under the incorrect perception that CrazyMom never gets into trouble.

Wintertime Family Dinners

When we sat down to eat the other night, the early setting sun and the changing of the clocks reminded me that my favorite family dinners have now arrived – wintertime family dinners.

While I talk all day as a teacher, (occasionally) write for this blog, and run great family meetings, I am largely a non-vocal presence at our dinner table. At mealtimes I am either lost in thought or quietly observing the rich phenomena of seven children eating dinner. Of course there is a “Put your knees down” here, a “No bathroom talk at the table” there, and the times when the kids ask me to go around the table and give them a math or science question to answer, but my default behavior is non-vocal.

I find that during the part of the year when the sun is up at dinner, I am usually lost in thought and not observing the children. Sitting at the table and being able to see past my children to the uncut lawn often proves to be just too much of a distraction for me to stay engaged in their banter. In addition, the meals are more rushed in order to get to a soccer practice or to some yard work. This creates an atmosphere where my mind is often elsewhere.

How different the experience is for me when the dominant source of light is the fixture above the table and not the windows. The photographer side of me enjoys watching the warm glow of my children’s faces due to the incandescent lighting. I also love that the distracting background is dimmed due to the lack of ambient light. The interestingness of the texture, the color of their skin and their facial features standing out against a darker backdrop causes me to now spend more time observing my children rather than being lost in thought. It is also a time of year when the call to go outside to work or play is quieter and one can linger a few minutes longer at the table. It is a wonderful change of pace for me.

This change of lighting – from the ambient light from outside to the single light above our table – helping to create more focus and intimacy at our dinner table reminds me of my relationship with Christ. How easy it is to be distracted by the competing light of the world. When I change my life back to single source lighting, my perspective changes. It reminds me of a song I use to sing as a child:

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
In the light of His glory and grace.

End of the Soccer Season

As I sit down and look at my calendar for the next week, it is remarkably clear. As I have mentioned before, we had six kids playing on five soccer teams this fall. The last game of the season wrapped up on Saturday ushering in a new era of couch potatoness (or at least no more 10 minute power suppers).

The kids did a great job and had a lot of fun. Miss Bookworm's team, which lost a lot of games during the season, ended on a high note winning the last two games they played both of which were on the same Saturday. Ed's team made it to their championship game, but lost 2-1 (see the special video clips at the end). F.G.'s team won their championship and Buddy's team lost 2-1 in his championship game.

Here is a photo of each kid from the season.







Here Ed scores a goal in her final game.

Ed missed this one, but it was a great effort.

Halloween

Another Halloween comes and goes. Halloween may be over, but at least the candy will last for weeks to come.

Miss Bookworm goes indian.

Ed the cow girl.

F.G. decided to go as a baby.

Every family needs a rock star.

It is kind of hard to see Little Foot under the sheet.

K.D. is in love with Star Wars and went as a storm trooper.


Our little Princess Anna.


Miss Bookworm went to youth group the other night with a friend. They were suppose to dress up in pairs.

“I’m so Happy”

The other morning I walked into Anna’s room to get her up. She stretched her arms above her head nice and slow looking particularly satisfied from her night’s rest.

Anna: Dad, I’m so happy.

CrazyD: You area? Why are you so happy?

Anna: I love my bed.

CrazyD: Good. I am glad you love your bed.

Anna: And I have ice cream in my bed.

CrazyD: You had ice cream in your bed?

Anna: Yes . . . I’m so happy. I love my bed.

It finally dawned on me that she must have had a dream that she could not quite distinguish from reality. And this dream of eating ice cream in her beloved bed moved this normally happy girl to an even higher state of happiness.

Trusting Chariots?

The unprecedented drop in the stock market this week has reminded me of a question I have struggled with in the past – do I genuinely believe something about myself that is not true?

This thought first struck me years ago when I was reflecting on an exchange between Jesus and Peter in John 13. At the last supper Jesus was explaining to His disciples that He would be going away and they could not yet follow Him. Peter responded to this by saying, “Lord, why can I not follow You right now? I will lay down my life for You." (v. 37)

I believe Peter was genuine in this expression of devotion to Christ and honestly believed that he would be willing to lay down his life. And while in the end Peter did indeed come to a place where he was willing to lay down his life for Jesus, Jesus knew Peter better than himself and answered, “Will you lay down your life for Me? Truly, truly, I say to you, a rooster will not crow until you deny Me three times.” (v.38)

Will I do what I think I will do? It is hard to know until the time comes.

Well the time has come for me to see if my belief that I do not put too much confidence in my financial investments is really true or not. This week I have been standing outside of myself watching me watching the market. On the one hand I say, “See, I don’t value our investments too much! I am sleeping fine at night and am not stressed out over it all.” On the other hand, I look at CrazyMom and see what it looks like to really not be emotionally involved in the markets. I see from her that I still have some room to grow.

Some trust in chariots and some in horses,
but we trust in the name of the Lord our God.
Psalm 20:7

Anna Tells a Story

I have not posted about Anna lately, so I grabbed the video camera last night at bedtime and asked her to tell me a story. She happens to be long winded, so don't feel obligated to watch the whole thing. It does give you a great opportunity to observe two things, however. First, one can see the current state of her English skills after starting to learn English about seven months ago. Second, one gets to see how adorable she is. :-)

The Best Wife I’ve Ever Had

CrazyMom is by far the best wife I’ve ever had. Unfortunately, this compliment is lost on her. She is so quick to point out that she is the only wife I have ever had and then she acts all put off and stuff.

Now, this brings up something I just don’t get about women. Women have this intuition thing going that is almost like omniscience. One time I brought a poinsettia into the house and presented it to CrazyMom. “Who gave you that?” she asked. “I got it for you,” I replied. “No really, who gave you that?” she asked again. How did she know that someone at work just gave it to me? I just don’t get how women can do this.

But how can CrazyMom intuitively know everything except that when I say, “You are the best wife I’ve ever had” that I am really complimenting her because of something she just did. I guess women have selective intuition. It must be something like when CrazyMom says I have selective hearing.

Today’s reason that CrazyMom is the best wife I’ve ever had is because of this. I left directly from church to go work at a rental trying to get it ready to rent while CrazyMom took the crew of seven kids home to feed them lunch. While I was chain sawing limbs, painting, and building screen frames CrazyMom was playing soccer in the yard with the kids. I got home 15 minutes before I had to leave again to take two kids to get their team soccer photos taken. Deciding a hot shower would be more rewarding than supper, I headed upstairs. As I was finishing getting dressed, CrazyMom came in the bathroom with a plate of food which I ate as I walked downstairs to get the keys. I grabbed the keys and as I was walking out the door CrazyMom handed me a glass of lemonade to drink on the way. When I emerged from the house I saw both kids dressed in their uniforms standing by the car waiting for me.

I thought, “Man, CrazyMom is the best wife I’ve ever had.”

P.S. On a different note – I should say something about how dumb-smart I am. There was a split tree at the rental and standing on the back of the truck I could not reach quite high enough. So I cut off what I could, but there were still several feet of this good-sized limb hanging from the tree. If I was dumb, I would have just left it hanging there and in a year or two it would have fallen on somebody or something. If I was smart, I would have brought a ladder back with me next time I came to the rental and cut it down. Since I am dumb-smart, I figured if I backed my truck up just right, I could stand on the roof and hold the chainsaw over my head with my left hand while pushing the hanging piece of limb with my right hand so that when it fell it would not land on the truck. It worked great – I did not fall, I did not cut myself, and the limb did not land on the truck. Oh, one more thing. When the one end of the limb fell onto the ground the other end then hit the side of the truck and put a big dent in the door. Now that is what I call dumb-smart.

P.S.S. While I was writing this post, CrazyMom brought me some warm homemade apple crisp with milk poured over it – just like I like it. I’m telling you, she is the best wife I’ve ever had!

And the lights come on

We have been without power for the last three days in our house as a result of the remnants of hurricane Ike passing through town. There is so much I could tell, but here are a few random happenings.

We lost our favorite tree in the front yard and it took out a large section of our second favorite tree on the way down. The sense of loss that I felt over the trees was mixed with a real sense of appreciation that I was 1200 miles from where Ike came ashore. The Ike/Texas photos that I had so quickly passed over in the paper from earlier days I now found myself lingering over and feeling a bit more compassion for those affected by the hurricane.

There is nothing like a day off school for the kids with perfect weather. The kids had a grand time cutting off branches from the downed tree, hauling it all to the back yard, and then making a fort. You can’t plan any better fun than that.




Necessity is the mother of invention. CrazyMom was bummed because the power went off before she could cook the homemade lasagna that she had thawed out. We ended up grilling it. We put it on the grill with a pan beneath it and then regulated the temperature just like an oven. It worked great.

It is hard to wait for the sun to come up to start your day. This morning I got up, retrieved the paper, warmed some coffee on the gas stove, and then settled back into bed to read the paper to try to find out how long it would be until we got power. CrazyMom thought it was pretty funny and took a picture of me with my four candles and lantern. Who knew that those monks who lit a ton of candles in their monasteries actually needed them all to see well enough to read?



So after three days of no power, we returned from a soccer game to find all of our lights on. Now it is back to the same old routine of hollering at the kids all of the time to turn the lights off.

And the numbness fades away . . .

Life is finally settling back down to our normal crazy busy schedule. I like crazy busy. I may be running all of the time, but I can still get all of the important stuff done. I don't like super crazy busy. Super crazy busy is when I am standing in a hallway at work later than I should be with CrazyMom on the cell phone reminding me that I am missing dinner with the family, with someone at the end of the hall waiting to meet with me, and with my own stuff not done. I stand there with a knot in my stomach knowing that it is my privilege today to be a second rate father, a second rate husband, and a second rate employee.

But then Dory from Finding Nemo reminds me what to do. "Just keep swimming."

So I swim, stuff gets done, life improves and the numbness fades away . . .

But in the end I am not sure that it is the busyness of my schedule that leads me into or out of numbness. Rather it seems that is has to do with whether or not I am nurturing my relationship with God who brings my soul to life. When life gets super crazy busy my natural instinct is to burn the candle at both ends to get it all done rather than to rest in God. Maybe next time I will remember that which I have learned so many times in the past.

It is vain for you to rise up early,
To retire late,
To eat the bread of painful labors;
For He gives to His beloved even in his sleep.
(Psalm 127:2, NASB)