Pioneer Day Failure

It was just after 4am this morning when LittleFoot came into our room.

“Mom. What am I going to wear for Pioneer Day?” he asked trying hard to keep in check his emotions about the situation. His concern was certainly justifiable seeing that neither CrazyMom nor I knew that today was Pioneer Day.

To understand how two Type-A parents with electronically synced calendars could fail the Pioneer Day test, it helps to understand the slightly dysfunctional relationship that CrazyMom and I have.

The first month CrazyMom and I were married we decided that it would be more efficient to have a division of labor in our home. I took taxes and all financial concerns that extend beyond day to day operations and CrazyMom got everything else. It was a sweet deal. Sixteen years and seven kids later, I am still doing taxes and financial stuff and CrazyMom is still doing everything else. Well, that is not totally true . . . I also do the blog. :-)

Anyway, part of “everything else” is managing the kids’ school life – valentine cards, cupcakes for birthdays, and, pertinent to this discussion, Pioneer Day. CrazyMom did a great job with our first three kids who have gone through Pioneer Day at school. She took in food, had their outfits all lined up a week in advance, and other stuff that I am not even aware of, I am sure.

This year, there was a switch in the way communications came home from school. Being environmentally correct, they send emails rather than paper notes in the backpack. CrazyMom is great at keeping up with her email, but, unfortunately, the emails were coming to me. I had in my head that CrazyMom was also on the distribution list, so every time an email showed up about Pioneer Day – what to wear, food to bring, and who knows what else – I was pleased that it was an email that I could delete without reading. I have a very literal understanding about this whole division of labor thing.

Well, fifteen deleted emails later, it is 4am in the morning with a concerned child. CrazyMom was able to soothe LittleFoot enough so that he could go back to sleep and then she was restless the rest of the night wondering how she could have missed that it was Pioneer Day and what she was going to have do quickly in the morning. Meanwhile, I slept soundly.


When morning came, CrazyMom and I figured out what had happened and that all of the emails were gone. CrazyMom then went in to rouse LittleFoot from bed. A few moments later CrazyMom had LittleFoot sitting on the wooden folding chair in our bathroom intently saying, “LittleFoot, I need you to tell me everything that you can remember about Pioneer Day.” I slipped away. It did not seem like a safe environment for me.

CrazyMom pulled together an outfit for LittleFoot and sent off a happy child to school. Of course, we are not sure what other duties we shirked by not reading any of those emails, but it seems that Pioneer Day went off without a hitch. As my favorite pioneer – Pa from the Little House on the Prairie books – always says, “All’s well that ends well.”

Precious Photos

A full year after our second trip to Ethiopia, CrazyMom and I finally put together a photo album of the trip. It has been wonderful to live the trip again through the pictures that we were able to capture. All of our kids have been pouring over the albums with so much delight that it is hard not to feel guilty that we did not complete this project earlier. I will refrain from sharing the 600 photos that made the album right now, but I thought that I would occasionally share a few here and there.


While in Ethiopia, we had the opportunity to make a long trek south to the town where our children were from and meet some of the family members. Whenever we were shown photos of our children, I would lay the photos on the ground and take a picture. This photo of a photo shows K.D. sharing his third birthday with his little sister Anna. The three candles, three bottles of Pepsi, a traditional bread/cake, and newspapers on the wall all tell a story of K.D.’s past that we would not have been able to imagine without this precious photo.

The Good and Bad of Family T-Shirts

(Editor’s Note: This is part of an occasional series titled “Things I was Going to Post About a Year Ago”)

Miss Bookworm recently wrote an article for “Earthen Vessels,” a small self-published magazine out of Canada. As I was reading it, the line “I can hold my head high whenever somebody looks in awe, amazement, or disdain at our colorful family” caught my eye. It is true that when our family is in public we often attract a variety of looks from other people. While I feel somewhat indifferent to the attention we attract, I know that our children are more impressionable.

Prior to our summer travels last year, I was reflecting on all of the places we would be going, the looks/comments/questions we would receive, and what effect it would have on our children. I wanted to do something to help foster a sense of family pride for these public times so that our kids could “hold their heads high.” This led us to making family t-shirts. The front of our t-shirts had a drawing related to each person in our family while the backs declared that big families rock.


Now, heading out to an amusement park or some other public venue with the nine of us dressed in the exact same shirt happens to be on the edge of my comfort zone, but the kids loved it. There were several positive impressions that I had from wearing the t-shirts for a summer.

• A sense of togetherness. It is hard to explain, but I felt like we were closer together when we all had the same shirt on. It was like we were a team ready to take on the world.
  
• A Conversation Starter. We talked to far more people than we would have otherwise. Almost all of the conversations were uplifting. While large families are rare, they are not as rare as we thought. Many people would come up to us to tell us about how many siblings or children they had.
  
• Easy Kid Tracking. I am often stressed in busy public places about possibly losing track of a child. The shirts significantly reduced my level of stress because I could locate every child in a quick glance.
  
• Promotion of Large Families. We were a walking billboard. I list this here as a positive, but I am not one to live in a fish bowl. At one point I was walking along with Miss Bookworm and people were yelling, “Hey, Big Crazy Family!” and waving to us as they passed overhead on a sky lift.
  
• Being the Envy of Young Children. Multiple times I heard kids asking their parents why they did not have family t-shirts. Then parents would ask us where they could get these t-shirts, not knowing that we had them made.
  

There were a few things that I did not like about wearing the t-shirts, chief of which was that I could not go covert as a parent. If you are a parent I am sure you have been in a situation where your child behaves badly and everyone is looking around to see who the parent is. Then you look around too, like you don’t know. Of course, it never works very well when the kid looks like you. Adoptive parents have a leg up on going covert, but there is not a chance in the world when the kid is wearing the same shirt as you. Bummer.

Overall it was a positive experience and drew us closer together as a family while at the same time allowing us to reach out more to others. The only thing I would do differently would be to include the phrase “We are a family, not a daycare” right on the shirt to save us from answering that question all of the time. And maybe if it was printed on the shirts, our girls would have been able to convince the girl they met in the petting zoo that we actually were a family.

The Revered Sonlight Eastern Hemisphere Yields Family Luau

(Editor’s Note: This is part of an occasional series titled “Things I was Going to Post About a Year Ago”)

We have children in several different schooling situations – some in a private school, one in a public school, and some are home schooled. For our homeschooled kids, we use the Sonlight curriculum for some of the disciplines. This year our two oldest girls are working through the very popular Sonlight Eastern Hemisphere curriculum.

Each eastern region studied has a “Pick Your Adventure” component which is basically a project. In case you don’t know, projects are often a lot of work – for the parents. We were tempted to skip the projects because they are a lot of work – for the parents, but the buzz in the Sonlight community was, "Although the projects are a lot of work - for the parents - don't skip them! They are the things memories are made of." Well, they were right.

So back in the fall Ed, a potential future cruise line activities coordinator, chose to have a luau for her first project while Miss Bookworm, a potential future engineer, designed an island theme park.

The luau was a lot more work – for the parents, but it was a lot of fun for the whole family. The event was kicked off with a Polynesian style meal.



After the meal we cracked open a coconut for desert and then started the festivities.





The following video clip is not overly captivating, but it caused a stir due to the segment where CrazyMom is hulaing. I am turning a deaf ear to calls to not post this video, but hey, I think our marriage is strong enough to survive this.

Boo!

Ha! Scared you. It has been nearly a month since I posted, so I know you were not expecting anything. Just wait - this is going to be a bumper crop of a week . . .

Ed plays The Tempest

It had been awhile since I had posted anything about the music in our home so I shot this video of Ed playing The Tempest tonight. I enjoyed prepping the video for the blog but also going back and seeing clips from the last two years.

Here is a clip from a year ago and here is a clip from two years ago.

One of the things that I love about blogging is that it creates a readily accessible family history. If I were not blogging I may have never shot these videos and even if I had, I would be hard pressed to find them. Now, with just a click or two, there they are. It is wonderful.

I will also have to catch Miss Bookworm on the violin soon so you can hear what a wonderful job she is doing. We also have two brand new piano players in our home - F.G. and Buddy. I assume you have heard enough renditions of Mary Had a Little Lamb, so I will hold off on posting a sample of their work for a little while.

Infectious Thoughts

Anna has been on a baby doll kick lately. She can get absorbed for an hour or more caring for one of these dolls. At first, I thought this was a good thing. Now I know better.

One can’t underestimate the power of thoughts. There is not a single thing we do that we don’t first have the thought of doing it – whether it is a day or a millisecond in advance. Some thoughts even have the power to spread from person to person like an infectious disease. This is why Anna’s doll phase is a bad thing; she is spreading thoughts of babies around our home.

A few weeks ago I came home and found mom down in the school room. When I sat down to talk with her, she was rocking one of Anna’s dolls and Anna was helping. CrazyMom told me that Anna likes to act as if CrazyMom is the mom and Anna is mom’s helper. I did not think much of it until Anna wandered off in the house. As CrazyMom and I continued talking, I noticed that she was still rocking the baby.

“Um, Hun. Anna is gone you know.”

“Yeah, so?”

“Well, I just noticed that you are still rocking the baby doll.”

“Yeah,” she said and did not stop.

A few days later I came down for breakfast and CrazyMom was feeding a baby doll a bottle. I quickly glanced around and did not see Anna.


“Um, Hun.”

“Anna was just right here!” CrazyMom protested before I had a chance to say what I was thinking.


I let it go. But then I saw the shopping list on the fridge. Notice what it says on the top right. When I asked CrazyMom about it she assured me it was just something for Anna's dolls.


And it is not just CrazyMom, either. I found K.D., who is particularly sensitive about gender roles, feeding a baby doll the other day. I knew then that I had an epidemic on my hands.

I have been working hard to eliminate these infectious thoughts and I thought I was making good progress for awhile. But CrazyMom keeps making these comments despite my disapproving looks. “Oh, look at these cute shoes,” she says as we pass a clearance rack at Meijer. “Now all I need is a little boy to put them on.” And last night when CrazyMom and I were discussing sleeping arrangements in our home I said, “We could always put another bed in Anna’s room.”

“Or a crib,” she replied.

Real World Math: Biblical Equations and Downed Trees

The other day I was sitting in a small group with some college students answering questions about the book of James. Being more inclined towards math than English, we started discussing which mathematical expression best answered the questions.

“What does James 1:19 tell us about the relationship between listening and speaking?”

Note: James 1:19 says, “This you know, my beloved brethren. But everyone must be quick to hear, slow to speak and slow to anger.”

Our group debated the merits of:

Listening > Speaking (We should definitely listen more than we speak.)
Listening = 2 x Speaking (God gave us two ears and one mouth.)
Listening >> Speaking (Maybe our listening should be much greater than our speaking.)

Then on Thursday CrazyMom called me at work to let me know two trees fell over in the yard. The thought I had was:

high winds + soggy soil + evergreens = lots of work staking up trees



When I got home, GrandpaR and I walked out to survey the situation.

“We ought to just get out the chain saw,” GrandpaR said.

“Yeah, probably,” I replied.

But we spent the next hour trying to set the trees back up and stake them. Surveying the pathetic results on the first tree, I headed for the garage to get the chain saw. Turns out the real math equation was:

high winds + soggy soil + evergreens = firewood

A Night without Me

“Blah blah blah,” was all CrazyMom was hearing, I am sure. I had been gone all day and did not get home until 10pm after a day of school and parent conferences. When I arrived home, I found CrazyMom lying on the floor in front of the gas fireplace with a stuffed tiger for a pillow, a green blanket, and a book.

I was still a little fired up from my day and had no trouble filling the airwaves. CrazyMom patiently laid her book on her chest as she listened for awhile.

“I got three haircuts done after dinner,” she finally interjected.

“Great!” I replied and then started back in with my captivating stories – “blah blah blah.”

“I also was able to get quizzing practice done with both Ed and Buddy before dinner,” she said interrupting again.

Abrupt topic changes don’t faze me since they happen all of the time. CrazyMom will even say, “Did you know she just brought home another child?” referring to some online friend of hers where the “she” is a completely different “she” from the last sentence she said to me.

Undaunted, I moved from stories about parent conferences to how I solved a software glitch with a robot the robotics club had built.

“Not only did I get quizzing practice done, I also read with F.G. before I had to cook dinner,” said CrazyMom.

“Hmmm. Seems like you got a lot done tonight.”

“Yeah. It was like I had all of this extra time.”

Finally, the dam broke and a wave of understanding washed over me.

“Oh, I see. You had all of this extra time because I wasn’t home,” I said feeling a little dejected.

“Well, it was interesting to observe how much more time I had this evening without you,” she said as she laughed and smiled.

Now it may be true that CrazyMom had more time that evening, but I am sure it is clear to all of us that it was not nearly as exciting without me around.

If I die, will you . . .

“If I die, will you cut the kids’ toenails?” CrazyMom asked me this morning when I came down from taking my shower. She was on the floor huddled over Buddy’s feet wielding a silver pair of toe clippers.

“Of course,” I said to reassure her. “They will probably be crawling all over me and cut me with their nails. Then I will line them up in the shop and cut all their toenails with some power tool,” I then said to un-assure her.

CrazyMom is not overly prone to worrying about the future, but occasionally when she is doing some task that she thinks I would never remember to do, she worries that if she were gone it would never get done. It is at these times that she says, "If I die, will you . . ." I wish that I had been writing down all of these critical items over the years.

Now if it is something that CrazyMom is particularly concerned about me doing if she were gone, she instead makes me promise.

“CrazyD, promise me that if I die you will check on the kids every night before you go to bed,” she says with a serious look.


You see, the last thing CrazyMom does every night is to go into all of the kids’ rooms and check on every sleeping child. With an arbitrary adjustment of the covers here or a moving of a stuffed animal there, no child is really down for the night unless he/she has had a final check by mom. Of course, I think she just does this because she has to see their faces one last time before bed. Being wired a little differently, I think their cute little faces look pretty much the same as they did two hours earlier when they were put to bed, so the imperativeness of the activity is lost on me. But that is precisely why she makes me promise. It is important to her that the final check is done and she is afraid I won’t do it.

“I will,” I say and although I am an honest and reliable individual, there still seems to be some doubt in CrazyMom’s eyes. Or maybe she is just thinking how it won’t be the same if she is not there to do it.