Warrior Princess

Tonight my oldest daughter Emily had on a tiara and white gloves that her and Clara received as a parting gift at the daddy/daughter dance.  She said "If I had a dress I would look just like a princess".
I replied "Emily, I think you're as pretty as a princess either way."

Then a few minutes later she asked me "How does someone become a princess?"
I said "To be honest, I don't think princesses are really all that great.  I mean, what do they even do?  They walk around smiling everywhere, with people taking pictures of them all of the time.  Big deal.  You know what I think is way cooler?  Let me show you."

Then I showed her (and my other kids) this video: Countdown to UFC 184
Emily said "But she's not a princess".
Me: "No Emily, she's way cooler than a dumb princess - she's a warrior."

Later, as an afterthought, I reminded my kids that there are only three circumstances when it's acceptable to fight:

1. To defend yourself.
2. To defend someone else.
3. If both parties agree on it (when no one is being forced or bullied, or in a competition).

Daddy/Daughter Date to Dairy Queen

On Monday of this week, I took my youngest daughter Clara on a daddy/daughter date to Dairy Queen.  I would rather have done something more extensive and fun, but it's been quite a while since our last time hanging out together, and I didn't have much money to spend anyway.  Besides, who doesn't love their Blizzards :-).  It was sweet time of hanging out, holding her tiny hand to/from the car, and sharing a blizzard while talking together.

I also learned something new about her, that she is completely ambidextrous.  I asked her which hand she writes with in school and she said "both".  She said that neither is her favorite and that she switches between them when one gets tired.

According to internet statistics, 1% of the population is ambidextrous.  I thought it would be much lower than that, since in my 43 years I've never known anyone who has indicated they didn't have a right or left hand preference/dominance.  Unfortunately, one article also said that:

"Children who are ambidextrous, using either hand with the same ease, may be more likely to have mental health, language and academic problems than their peers,"

Time will tell whether there is any truth or relevance to this study for Clara.  So far though she seems very smart to us, but maybe we're just bias as her parents.

It Lives to Suck Again!

The carpet in the house that we moved into has a fuzz problem.  Lots of little balls of carpet fuzz are all over the surface, and keep reappearing after vacuuming.  A little online research indicates that this is common with new carpets  But in the process of preparing to have our neighbors over tonight, our vacuum stopped working.  The sound was probably twice as loud as normal (and it's normally equivalent to a 747), it smelled like it was burning, and it wasn't working at all.

I cleaned out the roller and tried it again, to no avail.  Amanda has owned it since before we were married (over 13 years ago), so we were considering whether to just trash it and look around for a new one.  As a last ditch effort though, and since we have many other things that we need to spend money on, I thought I would take it down to the basement workshop and take it apart to see if I could figure out what's wrong with it.

I requested Lucas' help with it, to which he complained incessantly, until I was at the end of my tolerance and threatened punishment.  Once we started taking it apart though, and I was showing him how it worked he started to gain interest.  Once the major vacuum pieces were separated I realized that the whole suction path from bottom to bag was clogged with compressed carpet fuzz. 

Lucas ended up somewhat enjoying himself, using the needle nose pliers to help pull out what turned out to be a small mountain worth of carpet fuzz.  

Now the old Hoover lives to suck another day!

Book Review - Discipleship in the Home

 The leader/founder of the home group that we attend recommended this book for the men, when we were meeting weekly at Bob Evans at 6am (sick, I know).  It's a fairly short book, but long enough to be effective at relaying the author's ideas.  The basic premise behind it is to relay the deliberate and extensive effort by Mr. Friedman to determine which values and knowledge to teach and instill into his children, and how to actively attempt to accomplish it.  As a parent, it seems to me like it's easy to feel like I'm in survival mode and trying hard enough to take care of the kids, the "stuff", ourselves (if/when possible), and maybe encourage the kids to take some extra-curricular activities.  But this book helped to persuade me how effective it can be in determining which goals to help your children pursue and then being extensive and purposeful in planning their success, as much as possible anyway.

I don't agree with all of the specific items on his list of things to teach/train to his kids (some seemed geared to aggressively push the kids into a position of ministry), but I really like his simple yet brilliant idea of being intentional about being engaged in teaching/learning/guiding.  In addition to these useful ideas, I enjoyed (and am still enjoying) Appendix 2 of the book, which is the "Hidden in the Heart" Catechism.  Here he provides a list of 126 basic, essential theological and family-oriented questions to discuss with your kids to help them commit basic Christian premises to heart/memory.  I'm trying to periodically ask one or two at dinnertime, as a way to not only provide an interesting dinner table discussion, but also to help them grow spiritually/mentally.

This book wasn't the most exciting I've read, nor was it a theological revelation, but I think Mr. Friedeman's ideas have the ability to utilize your children's potential in a way that not much else can.

Is Development of Determination Detrimental?

Amanda and I watched Zero Dark Thirty a couple weeks ago (2/15), which was a great movie.  I was struck by one particular characteristic of both the main character and the NAVY SEALs.  All of these people have the type of personalities that completely refuse to quit, who are ruthless in their pursuit of a goal, who absolutely do not allow anything short of death to discourage them or dissuade them from conquering their foes or accomplishing their mission.

I've had moments in my life where I felt some small semblance of this, but the tenacity and ruthless persistence that it takes to be a SEAL is a whole nutha level (or 3).  I can't help but wonder though if people are just born with that quality and/or if it's a result of experiences they encountered in their lives.

Recently, I was watching the preview video for UFC157, which featured Ronda Rousey vs. Liz Carmouche as the main event.  Ronda told a story about breaking her toe in Judo class when she was young.  She walked over to her mom crying about it, but her mom (who was a Judo Olympian) didn't want to hear it, saying "You still have nine more.  Come to me when you break nine and only have one left."  Then she made her run laps around the gym with her broken toe.

I don't know if Ronda would have naturally been a good fighter on her own, but there is no doubt that her mom had a significant impact on her mental and physical development as a fighter.  And while her parenting style may be a bit extreme, it left me to ponder further not only whether determination and perseverance are innate or inspired, but also what effect I could have in the development of my kids' character.

I want to figure out what the best way to pursue this is though - to be a dad who is loving and encouraging, while also doing what I think should be a better job of instilling strength, toughness, courage, and determination in my children.

New Bathroom Decor

It was Monday evening and Emily had been complaining about her stomach hurting. She is a very slow and minimal eater though, especially for dinner. She has a habit of not only filling her belly up on her cup of milk, but making excuses for why she cannot eat the rest of her food. "I'm cold" (it's 78 degrees in the house). "I'm full" (she only had one bite and will complain about being hungry in another hour). "my boo boo hurts" (it's a 3-day old scratch). ""I have to go potty" (then she reads three books over the course of an hour and only pees). "I don't like this food" (what's not to like about spinach and asparagus souffle with limburger cheese and liver?).

So her complaint was mostly ignored, although we let her sit on the couch for a while. When she said she felt better, I let her come back to the table and encouraged her to eat more. As per our usual routine, I tried to persuade her by offering dessert after a certain goal was met. Well, time ran out and she didn't reach her goal, so I didn't give her dessert. And in hindsight it was certainly for the best.

Amanda had already left to attend a Beth Moore Bible study with other women at church. The kitchen was a mess too, and I had just finished getting Clara down from the table. I had given her a small piece of chocolate cake, which she had eaten hand to mouth (still working on the fork skills). Needless to say, there were cake crumbs all over the kitchen and probably in three adjacent rooms besides. By now it was getting late and the kids still needed to get a bath before going to bed.

I was just finishing cleaning Clara's mess when Emily ran past me and into the bathroom. "I throwed up!" echoed from around the corner of the doorway. "Well, at least she made it to the bathroom" I thought "which means it should mostly be in the toilet, right?" Well, maybe not in the toilet.

How about on, and around, and in the books, and on the carpets, and cabinets, as you can see in the above picture (yes, I took a picture). Emily was sweet in trying to help, but to do so she grabbed a clean towel from the wall-mounted rack and threw it over the puke, hence adding another casualty to the carnage.

After cleaning up the mess and starting a load of laundry, I bathed the kids and got them to bed. It was an hour later than usual, but the end of the evening was never more welcomed.

Newborn Nuisance

This transition from 2 to 3 children has definitely been rough. Before Clara was born, I had just recently reestablished my priorities and had begun making more time for God and exercise. I was even going to bed at a more reasonable hour. Over the last month and a half though (since Clara joined us), it has all gone to pot.

In my head, I knew that this was coming. It was expected, yet it still sucks. We've had to deal with sleepless nights, thrush, acid reflux, bacterial infections, divided attentions, and the utter elimination of free time.

I haven't even had time to blog in a while, and now when I do it's nothing but whining. Things are beginning to improve a little bit though, so hopefully the next post will be better.

As you can see in the picture below, Clara really is a cute little baby- even with her crazy purple slimy alien mouth (due to the thrush medicine). And despite what this blog title may indicate, she really isn't a nuisance.


(Previously mentioned on Facebook): I think I have a great idea for a new weapon for the military is to develop - a super effective psychological one that they could air drop behind enemy lines. Ready for it?... Solar powered speaker boxes with super amplified, constantly looping playbacks of newborn babies crying. I almost guarantee that after about 1-2 hours of their mission it would demoralize the enemy to the point of their surrender.

Computer Kids

Yep, as the above picture demonstrates, my son can use the computer now. First he set up his own Windows login and started playing World of Warcraft after downloading the BitTorrrent. Then he started his own blog, set up a Linux server, and finally hacked into the DMV.

Ok, so maybe navigating around Playhouse Disney and moving Pluto through a musical maze isn't quite the same thing as writing SSIs using Java. But the kid is only 3 1/2, so maybe by the time he starts school...

As for Emily, she's not ready to take control of the mouse just yet, but she enjoys watching her brother and offering her assistance whenever possible.