Monthly Archives: May 2008

by

Saturdays

Farmer’s MarketFor the past 3 Saturdays, we have visited our local farmer’s market. It was a long, hard winter without the Amish and their perfect cinnamon rolls, pound cake, pecan pie, and sticky buns! The Farmer’s Market gives us something fun to do that gets us out of the house, a bit of exercise, and we can even bring Hoochie.

Today, the babies and I went without Matt (and therefore, without Hoochie) because Matt is on a weekend Man Trip with our church. Matt says they call it the Man Trip instead of a men’s retreat because men don’t retreat. To get more details about what a Man Trip might involve, you’d have to be a man. Being married to one, I can tell you that they camped out last night amidst tornado weather and will be doing manly bonding today and then they camp again tonight. Matt signed me up for our church’s ladies’ retreat in February (apparently women, especially mommies, gladly welcome retreating and yes, Matt, father of 6-month old twins, stayed with them all Friday night and all day Saturday and signed ME up to go escape for over 24 hours… the planners said they have never seen a spouse sign up their wife before, much less one with young babies) and we planned for him to go on the Man Trip for one night. Due to the weather and torrential rain, Matt thought camping without a campfire and just a soggy little tent was not nearly as fun as staying home to prime the ugly paneling in our guest bedroom with me, so he stayed home last night and went to the campground this morning. When I was pregnant, we moved the office into the back porch area to make room for the guest bed to come out of the babies’ room. Now, we need the back porch area as a playroom, so we are moving the office back into the old office/guest bedroom with the guest bed. I should rephrase… I need the back porch area to be a playroom. I can see it from the kitchen, it only has one door to gate off and we can completely babyproof it. And, if we ever find the sanity to host our Bible study again, we’ll have a space to send the kids that won’t be disruptive of the adult conversation.

Matt taping off the trim I did the edging, Matt did the rolling… it looks so much better!

Tonight, we have a babysitter and we are going to Kyle’s amazing birthday party… a personal concert with Bill Mallonee! Bill was part of Vigilantes of Love and said he’d come do a concert for 15 people for a very cheap amount, so Damon set it up, we found a hotel for Bill, we all pitched in to pay expenses and Kyle is going to have the best birthday ever with one of his favorite bands. We are very much blessed to have several people who consider it our gift to them that we would allow them to watch our children! We don’t always have free babysitting and we like to pay people for their great work at caring for our kids, but I will say it is incredibly kind that our adopted grad student from church thought it would be fun to come hang out at our house and put our kids to bed so that we can stay up until midnight, pretending that we are still grad students and don’t have to get up at 5:30am when our children awake tomorrow morning 🙂

And finally, guess which two amazing little people are 9 months old???? Check out their sweet floor skills… they can move pretty quick. It isn’t technically crawling… Rissa slides across using mostly arms and Zach just started popping one knee up to push off of and then the other. He can’t get both going at the same time yet, but the disaster of moving babies is imminent. We need that playroom!

Rissa on the floor Zach on the floor
9 months old and crib traveling Memorial Day outfits for playtime

clean after baths

by

Honest assessment

Jaime has posted in the past few months about how things have been hard around here, and about how she’s been struggling with anger, and how we’re slowly but surely trying to recover. I figure it’s about time for me to honestly talk about my part in all of the hardship and recovery. I have to say that my willingness to talk about this is really only because I’m married to such a beautifully honest woman — she’s taught me well (or at least has been trying to teach me well…)

Change is hard for me. I tend to appreciate a routine — I don’t mean a strict, regimented schedule, but I do enjoy knowing what’s coming next, and being able to plan accordingly. I like short bursts of stress surrounded by large stretches of life where I can peacefully relax in the familiar. This is what I prefer. This is what I would generally choose. But this is not what being a father is about.

There was a certain amount of stress during Jaime’s pregnancy, and it was definitely a difficult time for both of us. We had a lot of stressful things taking place around then, and I made things considerably worse by my poor choices and bad responses to the situation. It wasn’t until months after the babies were born (right around the time of their dedication) that I realized how hard it is for me to face the fact that I can’t control or predict how things are going to turn out. I have no way of knowing whether God will ultimately want my children to live long after I’ve died, or whether He’ll take them home early. And as much as I think I can control things, I can’t determine their fate. Realizing this doesn’t make it any easier to deal with, though, and it’s been a process of repeated breaking for me as I come to grips with my inability to control or know their lives in advance, and it’s really been a spiritual struggle as I’ve tried to figure out how much I’m willing to trust God, and how much I’m willing to give into His control. Ultimately, I don’t need to give up for His sake — He’s in control regardless of my actions and attitudes. But my attitude greatly affects all those around me, and it most deeply impacts Jaime.

As stressful as the pregnancy was, I don’t think I could imagine at the time just how exhausting and stressful being a parent can be. As Jaime mentioned, the best analogy I can come up with is that it’s like being a doctor on call 24/7 for two little patients who could need my urgent care at any second, and often do! I wouldn’t willingly take a job with that kind of stress and pressure, but that’s exactly what being a parent does to us. That’s not to say that I don’t love being their Dad and caring for them — it’s just that being a parent requires a level of commitment and responsibility far exceeding anything else I’ve ever done in life and am ever likely to do! And of course, the lack of sleep as a new parent takes a phenomenal toll on the body and the mind!

Throughout the past year, I’ve grown more and more depressed and bitter. I’ve struggled with anger at God for taking away friends, for taking away my free time, and for not doing things the way I would do them. I’ve been extremely proud and arrogant, and I know this has affected my relationships with Jaime and my co-workers. It’s changed my own self-perception for the worse, and made me a frustrating person to live with.

I’ve also been angry at Jaime for her selfishness and anger, and for the way that it feels like she assumes the worst about my motivations. These things are real, though not as extensive as I experience them at the time, and Jaime is the first to admit her struggles in these areas. If I really sit down and try to think through the reasons for this anger and bitterness in both of us, it’s not difficult to see that one of the largest contributors is exhaustion, followed closely by a lack of energy to actually work on our relationship. We’re still trying to work out our priorities in these areas, and our success thus far is quite limited.

Through many conversations and arguments lately (mostly arguments), I have been confronted with my own selfishness and pride. Over and over again, I haven’t been the kind of husband or father I need to be due to my inward focus on what I think I need or deserve. The most recent example of this is how Jaime graciously offered me the whole workday this Memorial Day as a day to myself to just have fun and do what I wanted to do, with the understanding that I would help out around the same time I usually get home. As the day wore on, I became grouchier and grouchier because I hadn’t yet accomplished what I hoped to do with my free time. Instead of enjoying my free time as the amazing gift it was and thanking Jaime for it, I became bitter and frustrated that the time was almost at an end. By the time Jaime needed my help, I wasn’t a helpful person, and by the time we put the babies in bed, I wasn’t a fun person to be around. My attitude was crap. If I had just stepped outside myself for one minute and taken the time to truly thank Jaime and communicate with her about how grateful I was for the time I had, I could have redeemed the whole day as a beautiful gift. Instead, I made everybody’s time miserable.

But the most startling thing I’ve learned through these conversations is how readily dishonesty comes to me. It’s not usually in the form of outright lying to others, although this has certainly happened. More frequently, I just don’t take an honest look at what I say to myself or other people. I am quick to make excuses or rationalizations rather than admit that I am wrong about something. I think, in part, I was raised to believe that making mistakes and messing up isn’t something you admit, it’s something you explain so that other people can see why you made that mistake and you can feel vindicated in the knowledge that the mistake was explainable and really wasn’t all that bad after all. But by always having an excuse ready (whether valid or not), I’m not honestly admitting that I’ve done something wrong. It takes a great deal of humility to start with an open acknowledgment of failure and follow it with true repentance for what was done.

One thing I’ve come to understand through all of this is that I’m not perfect or even good, and no amount of pride and selfishness and rationalizing can make that true. It’s important that I work on being honest with myself and with everyone around me. It’s especially important that I acknowledge that most of my anger with God and with Jaime flows straight out of my proud and dishonest heart. The path to healing is a painful trail of brokenness, facing my failures honestly each day and seeking to let God work in me to change me.

As God works on these difficult changes, my attitude and perspective becomes hugely important in how far I am willing to let God take me. I need to re-check myself frequently to see where I’m letting bitterness and anger get a foothold, and then deal with it honestly. Why am I bitter? Who can I talk to about it? Instead of viewing my day from the selfish perspective of how much time I get to do what I want to do, why can’t I just step back and realize how much fun it is to care for the babies? Bitterness can turn to joy if I just lay aside my expectations, even just a little bit, and recognize just how much I do have. I have an amazing and patient wife who cares for me and my children, and does her best to keep a good attitude in spite of my bitterness! I have two amazing kids who are doing new things every day, and always have a smile for me! I have a job working at a company that combines my love of computers and my interest in aerospace! I have a lot for which I can be thankful if I’d just quit putting unrealistic expectations on everyone and everything around me.

So suck it, bitterness! I quit you!

by

Interactionfulltivity

These babies have been interacting nonstop around here! With EVERYTHING! As I chose pictures to group together for your baby cuteness booster shot, I realized that our little ones are super-friendly babies! To provide opportunities to use their new skill, we’ve been hanging out with friends quite a bit this month, so there are plenty of people to interact with! (Note to the grandparents and other interested parties… I temporarily switched photo editors and now the online versions are crappy compared to the full files. You don’t really want to print these or any I post after this from the site. I’ll let you know when I go back to my old editor, but for now, just plan to get a file of pictures from me with a link to the full set of things I know you will find interesting).

Playing at Home
So this is what play looks like these days. The babies sit around their toy basket and litter the room with toys. This is great fun. Once every toy they can reach is out of the basket, they either tip the basket over or fight over whatever they can see. They need to taste and hold each toy and then they toss it and move on. They no longer need the Bumbos to help them sit so you can tell this first picture is several weeks old. Our other interactive play activity is book reading. Book reading is intended to foster book sharing and knowledge, but the babies use it as a chance to turn the page before their twin does and to taste every board book we own and have borrowed! Rissa has been a page-turning fiend lately… she is all over it! Zach can’t even try to sneak a hand in… she’ll just push him out of the way and crush his fingers (and her own) between the pages. She wins with books and he often wins with toys since he is willing to squash her face to blind her momentarily while he steals whatever she has. All’s fair in twin friendship and feuding!

8 month olds at play sweet sharing a book and a snuggle moment

Rissa and Zach have been so snuggly! They cuddle us, give us slobbery bites (we call them kisses) and think we are hilarious. We will try to treasure these pictures and memories when their need to be independent later in life collides explosively with our need to be pushy and overbearing because we are afraid we’ve done our job too well and they don’t need us anymore (i.e. the teenage years). The picture with all 4 of us showcases Rissa’s new trick: yelling at cameras. She sees the timer blinking light and starts grunting and yelling in short bursts as if to say, “Hey! I see you looking at me! You won’t get away with it!” We fear we’ll never get a smile out of her in a timed portrait again. This also applies to movie taking… the babies will do something adorable and we pull out the video camera. But as soon as Rissa sees that thing, she starts yelling at it. Whatever cute thing she was doing is certainly lost and forgotten!

Rissa and Daddy Zach and Mommy

Mommy and glowing smilers Backrubs during morning sitting time with Daddy family portrait taken by the evil, blinking camera

Time with Friends
Our friends threw their 5th annual barbecue last weekend and we actually made it this year! Jon and Celina have an adorable little guy named Corban and a second baby on the way! You can see Celina and Corban, me and our two babies, and another little girl who was very interested in having social time with our babies in the first photo! Yesterday, Sara and Nathan invited us over to grill out for Memorial Day with them and their 3-month old twins. I asked Nathan how many people would be there, and he said, “Just the 4 of us… well, 6… actually 8. Eight!!!” It’s crazy how two sets of twins add up so quickly! I think we were both shocked to realize that two couples magically turned into 8 people, just by having a pregnancy each! It was really fun… they have the same “having two kids makes planning events exponentially more difficult than having one or no kids” mentality. We got there when we could, the food was amazing, the company was even better, and the babies were all absolutely adorable. Audrey and Aaron JUST grew into Rissa and Zach’s Dr. Seuss twosies. It’s crazy to think of these four babies as only 6 months apart in in age!

Jon and Celina’s Barbecue Sara with Audrey and Aaron it is possible that Eight IS Enough :)

We have also enjoyed time recently with Erica and her new son, Thane, and withWill turns 2! Andy, Maria and Will, a 2-year-old who amazes me with his growth and progress every time I see him! We had the pleasure of attending Will’s birthday party in April and it was a blast! It is so cool for me to watch one of our almost-nephews develop — from the day after he was born until now when he sees our kids and says with his pudgy finger pointing, “babies!!!!” Right on, Will!

We are borrowing Will’s exersaucer and our babies are BIG fans! So am I… it is the ONE place I can put them that I know they will still be in that location when I come back (from peeing, making lunch, taking a moment by myself, etc.). But we only have one and it is hard to find another safe option for the other baby not located in the exersaucer. Lynn, Ben, and Isaac to the rescue! Lynn called to offer the use of their MEGAsaucer! I went to Bloomington, IL to pick it up on Sunday, combined with a visit to see Laura, another college friend and also the person I described as incredibly courageous last week. This megasaucer is enormous and has alot more gizmos and gadgets. It reminds me of something that our dads would be interested in playing with 🙂 Our babies thank you, Lynn, Ben, and Isaac, but most of all, Matt and I thank you!

mega- and exersaucers stay put! Hurray!

I have a hilarious story about my visit with my Bloomington friends. Isaac is 3.5 years old. When I arrived to borrow his megasaucer, he wanted to know where the babies were. After our last visit, he named one of his toys Baby Zach after the boy baby. I think he was ready to sweetly share his toys with them again! I explained that they were home with their daddy and asked him about this one puzzle that he has that I have been thinking about ever since he showed it to me last time… it has a bunch of rainforest animals that Matt and I saw in Belize. The babies were in Belize too, and while they don’t remember and we were only aware of the existence of one of them at the time, they need this puzzle! Isaac was quick to pull it out and show me how to put it together. As I watched him fly through it like a seasoned pro, I asked how he knew how to do it so well. With absolutely no arrogance and just a 3.5 year old matter-of-factness as if he were explaining to me why he wants milk on his cereal, Isaac said, “That’s because I’m smart.” And he sure is! His parents were dutifully shocked that he said that, but hey, this kid just read a book with me and showed me how to put together a giant puzzle and he has excellent genetics from both sides! The proof is in the pudding. And then… his genius came out again. I wanted a picture of all of us and they said, “Oh, Isaac can take it!” I was planning to just use the timer on my digital camera, but I thought that a picture of Ben’s, Lynn’s, and my feet would be hilarious, so what the heck. I handed Isaac the camera, and he went into concentration mode, pointing it at us. He was ready to take the shot when his parents said, “Wait wait! Can you see all 3 of us in the window? Isaac, scoot back. Make sure you can see all 3 of us!” He scooted back and went to take it again and, “Wait, Isaac! Can you see ALL of us?” He cutely said, “Yeah!!” in a “Geez, let me work, people!” way. Then he took the picture, walked it over to me, flipped the view button on my camera FOR me, and showed me his excellent composition. This kid IS smart! He even managed to get Ben’s birthday sign in the background. We were so impressed.

Isaac’s creative genius!

Interacting with Family
Matt’s parents breezed through for just under 24 hours last week during their vacation. It was great to see them and for them to see how much the babies have grown up! And let’s not forget our least loved family member, or so he would have you believe! Someone is finally showing Hoochie some attention, although gentle ear pulling may not be the posh life of undying devotion he had in mind!

love and snuggles with Granpa and Gramma hanging out

Granpa and Rissa Gramma and Rissa
Granpa and Zach Gramma and Zach

group shot Hooch gets attention

Interacting, the last 2 pictures
Ever since the librarian used bubbles at Baby (or in my case, Babies’) Laptime, I bought some for us and we use them outside once in awhile. Here are our children in the backyard watching me blow bubbles. We don’t go outside without hats… I say it’s for the sun protection, but really, it’s for the cuteness factor. This is one of the cutest pictures I have managed to capture of them! Today at Baby Laptime at the library, she pulled out the bubbles, and my kids were enthralled! This is the life, people. Going outside and bubbles. It does not get any better than this.

fun in the sun! bubble time at the library

by

Random Snippets of my Thoughts

I’ve been thinking alot lately.  I think about healthcare and how I’ve meant to tell you the babies’ birth story from a healthcare perspective.  It was ridiculous and I am now angry on behalf of those who do not receive what few of us get so easily.  I wish I had been angrier about it before it had to happen to me.  I’ll give you the details someday.  It’s a great story, but only because it turned out okay for us in the end.  That doesn’t happen to everyone!

I spent a day last week thinking about and instigating a discussion about race and the role it plays in who a person is and who they become.  My main point was that it is both insensitive and naive to say, “I just see a person, I don’t see color.”  At first, it might sound good and sensitive and kind to say that, but actually it is dehumanizing.  We can notice one another’s differences and even celebrate them!  We just shouldn’t make value judgments of a person based on those differences!  And so, to avoid devaluing a person, we gloss over who they are and devalue them anyway.  God CREATED us within the culture and skin tones that He did for the purpose of His glory.  He wants worship from ALL the nations, not a bunch of look-alike/act-alike/non-individuals.  I don’t want to dismiss part of who God created someone to be by saying, “Oh, you aren’t special.  Your color is meaningless.  So much so, that I don’t even see it; you’re just like everyone else.”  And of course, when someone says they don’t see color, they don’t mean to send this message!  But they do.  Instead, I’d like to celebrate how we are different (and the many more ways we are similar!) and give thanks to God for His creative design in making unique individuals who have equal value who can all be part of the body of Christ without losing the parts of themselves that God placed there for His glory.  Race and gender and ethnicity… these are not classification categories.  They are pieces of God’s careful design and are intended to glorify His name.  We discussed more than that, but I spent alot of time thinking about that part.

I’ve been thinking about marriage.  What kind of marriage do I want to have?  What kind of married person do I want to be?  What kind of marriage would our kids need to experience from us to live in a haven?  And most of all, I’ve thought alot about how I am not being the kind of married person I want to be, therefore, I am not experiencing the marriage I want to have since I’m being Selfish Me and that I doubt Selfish Me is creating much of a haven for anyone at all!  And also, that there isn’t anything simple about marriage… I think that’s what makes it beautiful.  It takes work and effort and lots and lots of grace and the number one most painful thing about it is that sometimes that isn’t enough.  I’ve seen that happen, where one person tries their best, and it isn’t enough.  When only one person works and puts in effort, they can’t cover over for the deficit the other person is creating, and it is HARD.  I’ve seen this scenario happen several times to people I care about, and it is complex and hard and painful.  Matt and I don’t want to start down the road where only one of us (or neither of us) tries.  I’m trying to carry my part and I know that Matt is trying to carry his.  But we work.  We work all day long and our marriage is work too.  It’s one of the most fulfilling types of work we can do and it isn’t JUST work, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t work.  And the best course of action to have a great marriage isn’t always clear.

Finally, today at church, we had a guest pastor and he spoke on something that is so important to us that we named our son with this concept in mind.  Zachary means “The Lord remembers” and we talked about the need to remember what God has done.  He spoke of neuroscience research and the two types of memory building, or how we can remember.  One was where we put something in our long-term memory that we can call up consciously.  The other was learned behavior, where we respond automatically to something because we learned the motor skill to do it and now it is just there without needing to think consciously.  For example, I don’t walk myself through the steps of how to drive my car when I get into it… my brain just knows.  He talked about how we can build memories of who the Lord is and what He has done into ourselves in such a way that even if something is so hard that we can’t consciously remember a concrete example of His faithfulness right then, it will be ingrained in our behavior to listen for His voice and obey and follow because we have trained our brains to be used to doing just that.  It was interesting stuff.

by

Courage

True courage doesn’t pop up everyday.  Sometimes, you can look back on a situation and find it in one of the participants if you look carefully enough.  Sometimes, it slips by unnoticed.  And many times, no one had it.  In a large-scale natural disaster, you hear a bit more about it because the rest of the story’s details are so difficult that we fight to find anything of worth that we can see and hold onto, so courage shows up.  Most rarely of all, you can see courage just before it happens.  These rare glimpses… where someone plans to do something courageous even though it will be hard and painful and wreck parts of themself while restoring other parts… they don’t often appear.  That’s because they are so costly.  Yet there are people who display this sort of bravery because it is the right thing to do and they are moved to do so, even at personal cost.  I know someone who will be very, very brave today.  I’ve only seen one other person have such courage as my friend will need to have today.  I’m telling you, it’s rare.  I’d like to hold up her example and say, “Wow.  You are so brave.  I’m impressed by who you are and I love you.  Most of us don’t have your courage and hopefully, most of us won’t ever need to, but I want to support you since you have it!  I respect you.  I know that it’s hard, but you can do it.  Be who you are, the person the Lord created you to be.  He’s your strength.”