A dream deferred; a dream realized

Cruising down the highway, I looked to my left and saw the perfect country home passing by. The wrap-around porch, the lane lined with trees, and the well-manicured garden caused me to wince. I glanced over at Crazy Mom and we exchanged a knowing glance – this was a dream deferred.

That was a year ago, only a few weeks after we had made the formal commitment to move to Kenya to teach at a school for the children of missionaries. While we were thrilled to be going, we were also experiencing feelings of loss as we were laying aside things once dreamed of.

Then, last November we received a call that our departure date for Africa had been pushed back a year to the summer of 2012. While we were initially disappointed, it did allow for us to lay plans for another dream that we had always talked about but never done – a big camping trip out west.

We are now living that dream. A few days ago our family played along the shore of Lake Superior as we camped in the Upper Peninsula. The days to come should be exciting as they carry us farther and farther west.

The race is on.

Buddy skipping rocks.
 

Enjoying the sunset

Basement Living

by Miss Bookworm

Living in a basement - even a nicely furnished basement - with a family of nine was a squeeze. A tight squeeze. When we decided to rent a basement to live in for a few weeks while attending a conference (about Third Culture Kids) in New York, we knew that it might be tight. But I think we all would agree that the biggest problem was the bathroom. The single bathroom. The one and only bathroom. Every morning when it came time to brush teeth, the result was usually about four people stuffed inside the bathroom brushing their teeth with several more outside of the bathroom door clamoring for the ones inside to hurry up and finish because we had to leave in five minutes.

Aside from the “one bathroom” problem, another struggle was the beds. There were only four, and while we had brought air mattresses in anticipation of this problem, two of them ended up having holes. In Dad’s spare time, he either worked on fixing the air mattresses (to no avail) or he did work on his laptop (to slightly better results). Each night everyone would go to sleep on nicely pressurized beds (freshly pumped up), and each morning at least two would be flattened to the extent that their occupants were essentially lying on the ground.

Now, you can decide which is more uncomfortable - the situation with the beds or the fact that we ate all of our meals at two different tables. One table was pretty normal, but it only seated four. The other was a coffee table and the seating required two people to sit on the couch and three to sit on some tripod lawn chairs that we had (thankfully!) brought along.

Oh well, the point of our stay in NY was not to be living in extreme comfort. On the contrary, we were all too busy widening our perspectives to spend much time in the basement anyway. It was a fun two weeks, and we all learned a bunch.

Bench Captains

Bicker, bicker, bicker. And them some more bickering.

I was getting in the van a couple of Sundays ago and the kids were bickering about who should sit where. For some reason, when we hop in the car with four or fewer kids, there never seems to be a problem. But when all seven are there, things often don’t go well.

Tired of these frequent life-is-unfair-if-I-have-to-sit-here events, I spent that drive trying to come up with a new “system for success.” (One of my favorite things to do as a father of a big family is to try to come up with a “system for success” that makes a problem go away. You may recall the shoe bins, for example.)

After hearing the kids voice their preferences/complaints, the “system for success” struck me – bench captains. Here are the new rules for engagement for child van loading.

The three oldest kids are bench captains who are in charge of the bench that they are currently sitting in. Each bench captain has assigned to them one younger child who is a permanent part of their team. Every time we get into the van, the teams rotate benches. If a younger child has an issue/question about where someone is sitting, they may only talk to their bench captain about it. The bench captains can confer about things as needed, but the only time an issue goes to the car captain (a.k.a. Dad) is when the bench captains can’t agree. (I am happy to report that no appeals have been made to the car captain yet.)

This is the gist of it, although there are several other minor rules such as “If you arrive at the van and think that someone is in your seat, don’t get in the van and tell them. Rather, wait for your bench captain to arrive and make your appeal to them.” Or, on the more technical side, there is this beauty of a rule: “Due to the fact that Anna sits in a car seat in the middle bench making things a little tight, any small child whose current turn is the middle bench can exercise their option to sit in the back bench instead. Exercising this option does not count as their ‘turn’ in the back, and therefore will result in them sitting in the back bench twice in a row.”

Last Sunday we all got in the car and I turned to CrazyMom and said, “Did you notice that?”

“Notice what?” she asked.

“We just got in the car and there was not a single comment about where anybody was sitting.”

Needless to say, I am in love with my bench captains.

P.S. Now, for all of you who think that we are short circuiting the learning process by putting in place rules to follow rather than teaching our kids how to act upon underlying principles such as thinking of others before thinking of yourself, you are right. However, in my defense I would like to point out that with seven kids in my home, I have approximately 253 other opportunities per day to teach principle-based conduct. Besides, I think the only lesson that they were learning from my “teaching” before was “Gee, Dad can get mad really fast when we are getting in the car.”

Camping Memories

The launch to our trip was just as stressful as the "pre-camping memories" with the chainsaw and the blocked traffic.  When we set off, I quickly realized that the trailer brakes were not working.  Stopping on a hot blacktop parking lot, I tried to fix them, but to no avail.  Since we had sturdy brakes on the van, we decided to press on.  About every 20 minutes or so I would have another idea of what could be wrong with the brakes and I would pull over and try something else.  My roadside trouble shooting came to an end, however, when I shorted out the lights on the trailer.  I realized that if I did not stop trying to fix the brakes soon, I was likely to set the thing on fire - possibly on purpose.  Luckily we were close to the campsite by this point and were able to make it there safely.  A trip to Advanced Auto Parts and a new fuse #17 saved the day and the rest of the trip was great. 

Pre-Camping Memories

Camping is a great way to make family memories – both good and bad. I was reminded of that today when I found myself on a break from work wearing a dress shirt and tie in my front yard getting more and more sawdust stuck to my sweaty face because I was standing on my tiptoes swinging a chainsaw above my head trying to cut off the branch that was keeping me from backing my travel trailer up the driveway which was why my van was blocking both directions of traffic on the road in front of my house.

Can’t the memory making start after we get on the road?

I Guess I Do Want to Go!

The younger kids often get dragged to many events for the older kids – particularly soccer games. On Saturday morning KD walked into Ed’s bedroom and asked, “Ed, is there a soccer game today?”

“Yes, there is,” Ed replied.

Overwhelmed with disappointment, Kd groaned, “Oh, man,” and began sinking to the floor.

“But you are not going,” said Ed.

“Really?” asked KD with hope restored.

“Nope. You are going to a wedding instead!” said Ed, dealing the crushing blow with some delight.

“Oh, no!” said KD as he felt a new ginormous weight on his shoulders. “Please, Ed, can’t I go to the soccer game with you?”

Piano Recital

Here are a few excerpts from Ed and Buddy's piano recital from a few weeks back.

Easter

The Joy of Big Family Games

“So what are some of the challenges of having a big family?” the woman on the other end of the phone was asking me. I was surprised that what flooded my mind was the good things about big family life. I stammered around and finally said, “Shoes. They are everywhere.”

Lame. I know.

But it made me wonder what the kids would say about what they did not like about big family life, so the next morning I asked them. They, too, had a similar response and started talking about the good stuff. Every one of them said the same thing for the best thing about having a big family.

So what is the best thing about big family life?

Playing games.

When I probed a little further, what I discovered was that it was not just being able to play any game, but games that require multiple kids – ball freeze tag, four square, dodge ball, soccer, and knockout. These are the types of games that many kids only get to play at recess but big family kids can play all night long.

So, when you are thinking about whether or not to adopt a child (or another child), just remember that the joy of big family games may just be a child away.

The Downer of Having a Downsizing Dad

“Dad! I want to buy these walkie-talkies!” K.D. said excitedly as we walked by a display in our local Home Depot.

“Do you have enough money to buy them?” I asked, hoping that he would not.

“Yes! And I want to buy these,” he said as he longingly looked over the slick packaging. Little Foot was also taken in and started lobbying for K.D. to be able to buy them.

“But I don’t want any more stuff. We are trying to get to Africa and we need to be getting rid of stuff, not buying stuff,” I said with a hint of frustration over the prospect of buying something that was not biodegradable and a hint of guilt about being such a downer of a dad.

“But Dad! F.G. won’t let us play with hers and you won’t let us play with the ones you have,” they started complaining as if playing with walkie-talkies was an inalienable right put forth in our constitution.

Then the idea hit me.

“I’ll tell you what. I will let you boys buy walkie-talkies if you can fill two laundry baskets full of stuff you are willing to get rid of.”

The deal was on. When we got home, they scurried off to their room with the two laundry baskets I gave them. When the baskets were full, I sat down to order a pair online when I had another thought. Why do I want another pair of walkie-talkies in my house?

“Hey K.D.,” I said. “I’ll sell you my walkie-talkies.”

Now, I know that you are thinking I am a bad father. After all, I charged two laundry baskets full of stuff for the right to pay me money for some used walkie-talkies. Maybe you are right, but please don’t tell my kids that this is not how the real world works. Anna is so excited about the program that she filled a laundry basket full of stuff to get rid of and she doesn’t even know what she wants to buy yet.