Sodo - The Best Dog Ever

Over the years people other than my children have tried to convince me to get a dog for our family. They would always tell me how great their dog was and I would always think that I would love to have their dog, but I was not so sure about having any dog.

So when we finally took the plunge and got a dog, who would have known that we would have ended up with the best dog ever. (For those of you who think you have the best dog ever, I guess you are entitled to your own - incorrect - opinions.) One of the many things that makes this dog so great is that she flunked out of a program to be a service dog for children with disabilities. Evidently she was exhibiting some poor behaviors while living in her crate, none of which we have seen in our home. While she may be a service dog flunkie, she is trained at a high level for a house pet.

We have named this dog Sodo after the Ethiopian town that all of our adopted kids are from. Sodo has adjusted beautifully to our home. Everybody is getting along just great - except for the cats. Even though the cats are above Sodo in the pecking order and Sodo keeps her distance from them, they have only warmed up a little to her at this point. We have seen some improvement and are still optimistic that all of the animals will become friends.

It’s a . . . Dog! (Part 2)

I mentioned in the last post that the kids were excited. Here is a video where you get to see their reactions first hand.



And a few shots of the dog that we took of him at the organization that is now caring for him.

It’s a . . . Dog!

Our kids are always asking for a dog. The conversation usually goes like this:

Kid: Dad, can’t we get a . . .

Dad: No!

I don’t even give them a chance to finish their sentence. Over the last decade I have projected nothing but a impenetrable wall on this topic.

But inside, there have always been secret fissures in the wall.

A few years ago we were on a trip to Purina Farms when I came into contact with a small Golden Retriever of the field retriever variety. I knew I could take that dog home on the spot. But that dog was not available, so the NO-DOG wall was still strong.

This year around Thanksgiving CrazyMom starting asking me if we were going to do individual gifts for the kids or if we were going to do a family gift. Always hoping for an easy Christmas shopping season, I am partial to family gifts so I asked her what she thought a good family gift would be.

“Well, we could get a dog,” she said.

As you probably already know, we humans have the amazing ability to rationalize just about anything. It was so easy to convert my top-10-reasons-not-to-get-a-dog list into a top-10-reasons-to-get-a-dog list. So, like the Berlin wall, the unthinkable happened, the NO-DOG wall crumpled.

It turns out that looking for a family dog did not make for the “easy shopping season” that I had hoped for, but in the end, I think we found a real winner. As you can imagine, the kids were quite excited when they found out. But more on that later . . .

The Blind Side

Once a year or so CrazyMom and I go to a movie in a theater to maintain the false pretense that we are connected with modern American culture. A few nights back we went to see The Blind Side, which is the adoption story of Michael Oher.

We loved it . . . but please be advised that you should never take movie recommendations from people who only see a movie a year. Also, as adoptive parents, we might be a little biased.

There were a few themes in the movie that resonated so strongly with me that I was able to overlook any other faults the movie may have.

Consider the following moment in the film (it is in a trailer, so I don’t think I am spoiling anything here). Leigh Anne Tuohy, the mother who took in Michael, was having lunch with her friends.

“I think it is just great what you are doing for that boy. You are changing him,” said a friend.

Softly, almost to herself, Leigh Anne replied, “No, he is changing me.”

That moment drove home a larger theme in the movie - that the adoptive family is blessed just as much as the one who is adopted. So many times people have said similar things to me – “Those kids are so lucky to be a part of your family,” or “How blessed they are to have you guys.” While I think this is true, these comments leave out half of the story. “They have not been blessed as much as we have,” I often reply.

Another theme that resonated with me was captured well in this scene (this one was not in the trailer, but the movie is not a mystery, so I don’t think I am ruining anything here). Leigh Ann and her husband Sean are getting ready in the bathroom. Leigh Ann is pressing Sean to agree to something that he is not ready to agree with.

Leigh Ann: Will you at least think about it?

Sean: Alright.

Leigh Ann: “Alright” you will think about it or “alright” you agree with me?

Sean: Aren’t they the same thing?

Yes, in the end they are the same thing and women like Leigh Ann and CrazyMom do get their way. Of course, this is how the world ought to be since they press forward to do what is right.

Crazy Hat Night

Last Wednesday was "Crazy Hat Night" at our church's AWANA program. Buddy came to me the night before and said he wanted to wear a wheel on his head. If you recall the crazy outfit that he came up with for Halloween, this type of thing should not come as a surprise. So we went to the garage, pulled a wheel off of my beloved scooter, drilled a hole in one of his baseball hats, and mounted the thing.



When we were done, Buddy was proud of the finished product and said, "I think this is the first year that someone from our family will win the hat contest." Well, Buddy did not win, but he was happy with his second place finish. I was happy, too, because I enjoyed seeing Buddy's creative mind at work.

Breakfast Time-Lapse Video

I am obviously on a video kick right now. My place of employment issued me a new MacBook Pro this year and I have been playing around with iMovie, Garage Band, and the like. Here is a time-lapse video of our family having breakfast last Saturday morning.



A special thanks to one of my students, Brad, who tipped me off on how to hack my small Canon Powershot camera so I could program it to automatically take a photo every 5 seconds. This saved me from having to go out and buy an intervalometer.

The Blanket Monster

I tried something new this weekend with the kids. They had a blast.

Something to be Thankful For

“So what would happen if we did not have these antibiotics?” my father asked his doctor as the doctor wrote out a prescription. My father had developed a fever as his body was fighting off of an infection and he was curious which would win – the infection or his body.

“Well, before we had these antibiotics, people died from this,” the doctor replied.

As my father was later relaying this story to me, we were both struck by how much we take for granted the life-saving medicines that are readily available to us.

I reflect on this conversation every time I have a child who would likely die if it were not for modern antibiotics.

Last weekend was one of those times.

Ed developed an internal infection that led to a soaring fever and abdominal pain. After 12 hours of tests and debates among doctors in the emergency room, the root cause was discovered. IV antibiotics were injected into her veins and she was admitted to the hospital for close observation.


Ed responded well to the antibiotics and she is back home with us now, although the sum total of her activity each day has been to move from her bed to the couch in the morning and then move back to her bed at night.

This most recent event has caused me to reflect on how many children I would have lost already without access to medical care. By my count, the number is three. But the divide between “would have lost” and “have lost” is so enormous that the two hardly seem related. I recall reading a news article that had a photo of an Ethiopian mother holding her dying child. Her despondent face clearly conveyed her pain over the hopelessness of the situation. There were no doctors, or enough food for that matter, and her child was going to die.

Naively, I thought it could not be worse for this mother. But I was wrong. She actually had three kids and this was the third time she was holding one as they died. Such pain is too great for me; I cannot come to terms with it.

So this Thanksgiving, as I see Ed moping around the house, I am truly thankful for how access to modern medicine will allow all of my family to be together on Thanksgiving day. As I look at my family, however, I also see beyond them to the families of Ethiopia and I realize that I need to do more for them.

Solving the Rubik’s Cube

“Buddy did a great job today,” a grade school teacher said to me as I walked by her in the hall.

“Oh, yeah? With what?” I asked.

“He solved the Rubik’s cube under the Elmo,” she replied.

We had walked past each other at this point, so even though I had no idea why Buddy would hold his hands under a stuffed Sesame Street character when solving the Rubik’s Cube I said, “That’s great” and continued on my way back to the high school and my own class.

It turns out that the “Elmo” is a document projector and Buddy had solved the Rubik’s cube while it was being projected up on the big screen during an assembly. Pretty cool stuff for a 10 year old.

One of the things that educators love is to see independent learning. One of the “opportunities” that big families offer is a lot of independent learning. Mom and dad often have too much going on to hold the hand of every child in the home.

I had shown Buddy a You-Tube video on how to solve the Rubik’s Cube, but that was it. After that, he was on his own. I did not even know that he had finally got it down until I found out in the hallway conversation above that he not only had it down, he was performing for the school.

Well, when one brother does something sweet like that, another brother wants in on the action. Little Foot got Buddy to show him the You-Tube video and he then learned how to solve the Rubik’s Cube. Pretty cool stuff for an 8 year old.

Beggar's Night Costumes

Little Miss Anna dressed up as a cheerleader.



F.G. as a black Crayola crayon.



Little Foot as a bow hunter.



Miss Bookworm and Ed as injured soccer players. This fit pretty well since Ed could not play in the tournament this weekend since she has pneumonia.


K.D. as a rock star.


Buddy as a headless man walking on his hands. He sure got a lot of comments on his costume as we roamed the neighborhood.



Here are the pumpkins this year. One was designed by Miss Bookworm and the other by Buddy.