oh those moronic Etruscans!

We are lucky to have in the Court a little knight who is trilingual -- Elijah is fluent in English, baby talk (he converses with Jael at great length sometimes in it, to her great delight), and Klingon.  Well, maybe he isn't fluent in Klingon.  Although, as you will see, there are times when it'd be easier to understand him if he was speaking Klingon.

We were driving to church one Sunday when our fearless driver (that's Rachel) smirked suddenly and almost crashed into the car ahead of us as we stopped for a red light.  "What was that about?" I asked from the passenger seat. "Better ask Elijah," she said. 

"hey Elijah,"  she said.

"Yeah?"

"Do you remember what car you are going to get this week?"

"Of course, Mom.  I'm getting the idiot car." he said.  I (Micah) was cracking up by this point.

I should at this point briefly interject that we weary regals bribe our offspring.  You can judge us; you can call it healthy incentive; but at its core, we give Elijah a little miniature car from the movie Cars every week that he behaves appropriately with no major outbursts. Bribery, pure and simple. 

"The idiot car?"  Rachel clearly was cracking up herself-- she knew what was coming; I didn't.

"you know, Mom-- the one who lives in the little shop and sells tires and talks with a funny voice.  I know you know, Mom."

"The Italian car? I-TAL-YAN??"

"No, the idiot car.  I call it the idiot car."

I was laughing so hard I could barely speak.  "Most people call it the Italian car.  It might be better that way for--"

Elijah cut me off with the weary tone of a child whose parents chastise too much.  "I know.  I know. You can say it both ways, Dad.  But I'm going to say 'IH-DEE-OT car' because it's easier to say and it sounds better."  Conversation over.

He looked up two seconds later, indignant.  "Why are you and Mom laughing so hard???

Heart Healing

The littler Knights, the Princess and I (Rachel) just got back from an amazing week at the beach with my incredible family. We spent the week swimming in the ocean, jumping in the sand hole Auntie Laura graciously made each day, riding the waves, kayaking, breakfasts on the pouch and dinners in the gazebo. Really - it couldn't have been any better (well maybe if Micah had been able to come-- but probably not as he doesn't like the beach at all).

We had a similar trip last year (although the weather was pretty horrible and we didn't get to swim at all), and as I was sitting at dinner one night feeding my nine month old who loves (LOVES!) food but can't actually feed herself due to her arthrogryposis, I was reflecting on where I was last year and what I thought life would be like this year. Last year I sat in the same spot, seven months pregnant, thinking and dreaming about what the next year would be like at the beach. I had visions of a nine month old crawler being chased as he or she explored all around, trying to keep sand out of his or her mouth, watching my sister's little guy, three months older, fight for toys with my baby. I was excited and looked forward in anticipation about what our life would be like with three little ones.

(The littler Knights and I on our trip last year)

But then, life doesn't always meet our expectations. 

It makes sense really- how often does one dream of or expect heartache, pain, failures, and difficulties. I spent most of last summer taking my boys to parks, pools, beaches, and cookouts, excitedly envisioning what life was going be like once our third child joined our family-- and then she came. Many of those visions and expectations had been wrong, and it was (is!) hard. It hurts.

Shortly after we had Jael, while we were still in the crazy time of meeting so many doctors and trying to get to know our sweet little girl and about her arthrogryposis, I was really struggling with the unknown of her future. I was (and am) working through the process of letting go of the dreams and expectations I had had for my life, her life, and my family's life. It was during that time that Micah ordered the album by Aaron Shust called "Morning Rises." Shust created the album after his third son  was born unexpectedly with down syndrome. In it, one of the things he wrote in the cover letter was this: "We were in shock, grieving the death of lost dreams in order to make room to dream up entirely new dreams for our son." At the time, while I agreed with this, I didn't really understand the process that would be. But now, this summer, I get it.

Each place I go this summer, each park, pool, beach, and cookout, I find myself remembering last year and  grieving what will not be the way I envisioned it. I am sort of reclaiming each of these places, taking the time to reflect where I was a year ago, grieving the unmet expectations and learning to thank God for what we will do instead. I'm learning that this heart healing is a process.

So our week at the beach this year was a mix of things I had expected and many more that I hadn't. Instead of chasing crawling baby, I had an incredible experience at the University of Delaware setting Jael up to be part of a research program to help immobile children lift their arms. Instead of keeping sand out of her mouth, I was SO excited to see her play tug of war with my skirt because it required her to bend her arms a teeny tiny bit. She and her cousin did play together but with much less 'fighting' haha. And it was good. Better then good really. It was healing.

in the great stories...

Through a set of circumstances which will be omitted herein not for privacy but rather for length, I was feeling rather discouraged about (among other things, the stupid fridge) life and how especially the last year --- starting give or take around August 2013 -- just seemed like a repeating cycle of this :  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OThQNJF_wq8 ...  Just keep getting up, right?



  Most times, it felt like the prize for getting up was yet another smash in the face/groin (mostly figurative, although Judah is good for a couple literal ones a day.. mostly accidental), and I ending up putting out so many crises daily that I should hang up the insurance spikes and change careers to firefighting.

 As is so often the case, a quiet voice led to a change in perspective.  I was finishing putting Judah to bed when Rach walked by with Jael slung on her hip. Jael promptly threw out her arms at me as she went by, nearly giving herself a free fall in the process.  Rach looked at me with compassion (maybe she could tell I was having a rough week) and said quietly, "She loves you, you know.  She loves you because you put the time in with her."

      "Well, not really," I argued. "I barely see her at all during the day."  Which is true-- especially recently, with job training keeping me up 'til all hours of the night.  Even as I disputed it, though, there was a deeper, softer voice speaking truth in my head. "It's not only during the day that the battles of life are fought," it whispered.  "You're up all night with her.  That's where she gets to spend her time with you."

     Truthfully, I don't mind the night shift with the kids.  I don't like to sleep, and with most of them, it's been a free pass to sleep a Rachel-approved four hours a night.  (And if you can get a lady who would voluntarily sleep ten hours a night to do that, you've hatched a pretty ingenious plan!) It got me thinking somewhat more seriously, though, about just when I've bonded with my kids.  And I realized-- it's always been in the rough times.  When I remember loving my children more than anything else is in the shadow.

     I remember the second night Elijah was home (that's him at maybe 6 days old) and he just stopped breathing at 2am for 25 seconds until I totally panicked and whacked him on his back and he sputtered and started breathing again (apparently, this isn't as uncommon as you would think, and he may have simply started again on his own in the next 30 seconds).  I remember laying on the floor in his room under his crib for two nights after that, completely unable to sleep, convinced that if I did, I would awake to find him dead; finally, Rachel and I broke down and did one of the things we had vowed NEVER to do-- moved him into our room in a bassinet for a couple of months.  Even now, I'll go into the boys' room from time to time and just make sure they're alive. I remember staying up with him from 11:30 to 1:30 every night that week and watching U2 roll out their new album on Letterman (dating myself, I know) and being so mad at him that he wouldn't stop screaming for just a little bit so I could actually hear anything.

   I remember how Judah was a model baby for the first six weeks of his little life and I really resented him because I didn't know just how much of a change he was going to be to the routine I had finally settled into with Elijah.  You know when I finally started liking him and rooting for him?  When he smashed up our little lives and pulled a GIANT nursing strike (he essentially stopped eating for four days at 45 days old; imagine how you'd do if you stopped eating for one-tenth or you life) and converted himself to a formula baby, complete with a supplementary trip to the hospital when he spiked a really high fever at 7 weeks old, right on the end of said nursing strike.  It's always fun when you're in a hospital, your child won't nurse, and no matter what kind of formula they give him, he just spits it back.  Converting to formula --yet another thing that I, in my all-knowing wisdom pre-parenthood, had declared would never happen.  Perhaps a better title for this column would be "Things that I was a jackass about to parents until I had kids of my own." I think I owe a giant apology to all those capable parents to whom I was a donkey pre-children.

    Jael?  Another story, another time.  (well, you can read about it in all the other bits I've written about her dramatic entrance).  We do get to spend a lot of time together at night still at 9 months old, perhaps in part because Rach and I have a soft spot for her and all that she's been through and haven't really sleep-trained her yet.  It's coming, little princess, it's coming.


                                           




   In every case, though, the circumstance that reared its head has actually deepened the bond between my children and I, in some cases perhaps even creating one not yet in existence.  I love the fact that our knights and princess are fighters (Save when the knights turn on each other -- a (ahem!) rare occurrence I'm sure), and I love that they will fight for each other just as easily as for themselves.  Tonight, I think that J.R.R. Tolkien sums up my thoughts on perilous and dark circumstances best, in the voice of Sam Gamgee:

“It's like in the great stories, Mr. Frodo. The ones that really mattered. Full of darkness and danger they were. And sometimes you didn't want to know the end… because how could the end be happy? How could the world go back to the way it was when so much bad had happened? But in the end, it’s only a passing thing… this shadow. Even darkness must pass.” 
― J.R.R. Tolkien, The Two Towers

When you hear a buzzing in the wall...

you should call me, I've got experience!

 There weren't any bees in the walls when I built the deck 4 years ago (5?), but I just added this picture because it's a fun reminder of a time when people didn't say to me at work, "You look twenty, except your hair's so gray..."

    This particular adventure happened yesterday, and I'm sad to say that I had no adventurous knights alongside, because they would have been invaluable.  Super helpful.  Screaming hysterically. At best, they might have looked like this below. In retrospect, I'm glad I did it alone.

   It all started so peacefully. My five days in the office job officially punched out, I was ready to move on to my weekend job.  (Incidentally, this occasionally works for some fun in the office when, mid-morning on Friday, everyone gathers around the coffee machine wishing each other "Happy Friday!" -- which I have learned in the office world means something like "Glory Hallelujah!" -- and asking me what my plans are for the weekend.  Inevitably, I say, "oh working..." and I get the most puzzled looks.  I guess me and my six-day workweek  really should move back to the 1800s, as someone commented at me online recently.) That digression complete, the Saturday stretched blissfully before me as I unloaded my tools and started  opening up a rotten wall and window to restore the beauty to what had been a lovely home before shade, moisture, and a little neglect took over.  As can be the case, the more I opened up, the more decay I found, but eventually, a little ingenuity and hard work turned the tide and order started to be restored.  I was just cleaning up the far corner under the window when I tapped on the wall to ascertain its soundness-- and it buzzed back at me, ever so lightly.

   So I tapped again.  It buzzed back at me , ever so lightly.

   One more time for good measure.  A little louder now.

   This is where my ADHD (completely undiagnosed) brain did me no favors.  I feel like a normal human would have thought, somewhat straightforwardly, "um, dude, walls don't buzz."  Not this brain.  This brain said, "Remember that Aqua song about bumblebees?" https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0GR6z5x55Lo&list=RD0GR6z5x55Lo (FYI: Aqua was the band that sang Barbie Girl.  If it gives you any idea just how insane my kids are, I love that song. )

  With that in mind, I ripped open the last tiny bit of wall -- and let between 200-500 bumblebees out into the open.  I haven't run that fast since I tried to chase down the old lady that outsprinted me to the finish of my last half marathon. Thankfully, I carry a Big Wheel for such emergencies...

 
  In all seriousness, I was pretty lucky.  The bees didn't figure out it was me until I was almost back to my truck.  The trip to the lumberyard  came a little early that day... and when I went Rambo on them an hour later, I'm pleased to say they never saw it coming. So that's the life lesson for the day.  When the wall buzzes back at you, it may be time for you to buzz off!

Of elephants and men...

          In this household, one of the highlights of the day (at least for us!) is the start of the bedtime routine, where everything mellows out; (unless the rockstar Jaelster puts in an appearance, in which case the boys start pummeling each other to be the first to give her a kiss... with the almost inevitable result that Jael gets accidentally trampled, no one gets kissed, and someone ends up doing 30 seconds of time in the slammer) Life, which has been racing at me since 4am most days, starts slowing its pace down to an easy trot. We all pile together on the couch-- Elijah to the left, myself anchoring the center with Judah to the right.  Once we are all settled comfortably, Judah will start burrowing, digging his little feet and elbows into me until I bark something sharply at him and he looks at me with sleepy eyes like "Geez, Dad, I do this every night.  Get used to it!"  I apologize (most nights) and we finally are at equilibrium between bustle and rest, a perfect harmony of mental engagement and soulful contemplation, something like this below.



      Well -- that's most nights until I start reading.  After I start reading it can go seven ways to Sunday.  Some nights it's the question barrage, which I have written about previously http://lifeonkingarthurscourt.blogspot.com/2014/06/bonus-what-its-actually-like-to-read-to.html; some nights it's that they just can't quite stay still for five minutes (I'm not going to judge; sometimes the hardest part of life in the cube farm I now call my 8-to-5 home is staying put at my desk), and sometimes it's because the managing editor of the nightly literary expedition needs to get his act together.

     Repeat after me, kids:  If a book was written before WWII, they aren't going to be nearly as squeamish about "real life" (which, curiously, always seems to mean something bad) as you or I have been brought up to be.  People used to die without life insurance; catastrophes and natural disasters weren't federally insured, and bad people did bad things to others without DNA evidence to convict them.  Anyways, I have you repeat this because I didn't repeat it to myself and thus this happened.

    I read the kids that wonderful classic The Story of Babar, which is a French classic written between the world wars about an elephant raised in the jungles of Africa (sounds a little like Curious George, right?) until poachers shoot his mother and attempt to kidnap him.  Oops!  The funny part isn't that LJ and Judah couldn't handle it; it's that they were fascinated by it. Judah especially.  Our little thespian put on his 'elephant face' and said, "Oh no.  Bad man kill mama of Babar.  Oh no!"  (Think Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone).  The other part of great interest?  When the king of the elephants ate a bad mushroom, and promptly took ill and died.  The book was very matter-of-fact about it.  It's just what happens when reigning pachyderms eat a rotten fungus.  But oh, the questions on that!  "Dad, are we going to die when we eat mushrooms?"  (Humorously enough, we of course had mushrooms on our steak tonight!)  " Dad, why does he turn green when he dies?"

          And when Babar gets married:  "Is Celeste his cousin or his wife?"  (Both.)  Judah: "Can you just get married in a car like they did?"  (They actually got engaged in the car, not married, but I suppose you could get married in a car.)  Elijah knew the answer to that: "You can get married anywhere.  I asked the girl on the playground if she would marry me, and she said 'Sure.' "  (True story, that. Not going to touch it here, though, except to say that my follow-up question to him may have been 'What was her name?' and he might have said 'I don't remember. Does it matter?'.   Firstborns... especially swashbuckling ones! )

                                                                                 
     

         All the above, though, is why this old-fashioned relic thinks you should read old books.  Stretch your thinking.  Who knows... maybe you DO turn green when you die, elephant or not.

   I wouldn't care if I did.

The straw that breaks the camel's back...

So if you have been following along over the past couple weeks, you've met the brave ladies who live with Elijah, Judah and I as we propel ourselves ever deeper into maudlin mayhem.  I'm pretty sure that you knew how tough they were beforehand, but if you didn't... there you go.  I'm married to someone that could live in Antarctica for months without a fur coat, and Jael's perpetual joy amidst overwhelming circumstances give me a perspective that goes beyond mere physical toughness.

           Having said all that... our family had a MASSIVE freak-out today.  Why??  you ask. What might make a family that has survived-- and even thrived -- through some of the stuff aforementioned in these virtual pages cower and whimper?  I'll tell you.  We knights might be training to be tough, but when our fridge dies, we snivel like simpering canines.

          I  have passed my licensing exam and been in actual hands-on training at my new job (Rachel: Did he mention he was unemployed for a couple months this winter? We are REALLY thankful for this new job, even with the two weeks of constant studying at home at night it brought with it), of which the early majority of what I will be doing involves processing insurance claims about delivery people and the destruction that they create when they drag huge stoves, fridges and the like through the homes of unsuspecting people like you or I.  Amidst this background, I received a text about 2:00pm saying "I think our fridge died-- arrgh!"  Two things went through my head, both equally dumb.  The first : "who makes pirate jokes in the afternoon?"  The second: "It's really cute that on my first day of systems training she's trying to make me laugh!"  It actually brought a brief smile to my face until the only worthwhile thought (we'll call it number three) ran through, shouting something like: "She has no idea what they're training you to do!  Your fridge is really broken!"  And so it was.

  It's such a little thing in the big picture, but a night-ruiner for sure.  The only upside I can think of -- I'll probably lose weight this week.  It's a little bit of a downer for this knight's appetite when the midnight snack you sneak is badly curdled yogurt!

       Tomorrow, what happens when I read Elijah and Judah classic literature and why I might be banned from reading them anything pre-WWII ... tune in then, same time, same place!