kara heart art

I think it is official: Kara LOVES her art class! What? You didn't hear? Yeah, Kara is taking art lessons for two weeks this summer. She is one of about six other girls being taught by a middle-school art teacher named Ms. Rita. The class meets in a plantation house in an upstairs room that is altogether art. Ms. Rita has schooled her pupils in landscape, in warm and cool colors, and in the difference between fore-, middle-, and background. I'm sure they've covered more, but it isn't always easy to pull information from Kara by the time I get home. You can already see the effects in the drawing and coloring she is doing at home in her room.

Caleb is screetching. You know that stage that kids go through where they just screetch? Awful, isn't it? L. calls me at work and I can barely hear her over the squeek, shreik, eeek.

L and I sat up last night until midnight. She was scrapbooking and I played guitar for awhile and then just talked. Kara has been listening to an instrumental CD of acoustic Christmas music lately. It seems strange, I guess, but it is really very pretty. Hearing snatches of it gets those advent hymns going in my head, and I was thinking last night about the value of "owned" hymnody.

How many hymns can you sing full out? I can stumble through a few. With the change to the Anglican tradition, the hymn tradition changed as well. Gone are many of the "Would you be free of your burden of sin?" camp-meeting era songs of the second great awakening. They've been replaced by a, frankly, richer fare--some of the hymns going back as far as the Church Fathers. But, though of better quality, it is still a strange soup.

I pulled the guitar out last night just to pick my way through a number of the hymns set aside for use during vespers, and discovered a nice setting of "O Glorious Light." The problem with hymns is, in many cases, they are set in the most boring quarter note common time sort of way. Or they have no time setting or key signature and resemble open-ended medieval plainchant. How does one make sense of that?

Chattanooga girl slow routed to a blue dog

Kara came home today. She's been away with her Grandparents visiting the sights in Chattanooga, TN. She rode the incline to the summit of Lookout Mountain. She wandered the warrens of Rock City. She gazed on the over-hyped-but-yet-still-pretty Ruby Falls. And she did lots of other things, such as the aquarium and the children's museum. She came back buzzing and brown as a nut. She and I sorted through the stack of brochures she brought home, and, at 10:49 p.m., she still isn't sleeping. L. says she's older. "She's been away from Mommy and Daddy. She's seen things we didn't see." She does seem taller, I suppose.

Caleb could watch Blue's Clues every minute of the day. And, strangely enough, he actually learns something from watching. To be honest, I thought that whole thing about children's television being educational was a load of crap to make parents feel better. Yet, Caleb truly picks things up from this show, words and shapes. The other day, he pointed at a circle and said "serkul!" (He talks like his mom: fast!) And now "cookie!" And when he says, "I-doo" when you ask him if he wants something . . . well, its is pretty darn sweet.

L. and I have been fighting the computer wars. First, our e-machines motherboard fried, and it took the power suppply with it. And then our router freaked out. Routers, despite their ubiquity, are still like black boxes. A friend said to me, "They are like printers. When something goes wrong, you don't fix it. You just throw them away and buy another one." (How American.) Determined--and poor--I swore at it for two nights and managed to get the thing working. Turns out, it was working fine, I just hadn't read the manual closely enough. And finally, the laptop started working as if we'd poured Vermont maple syrup in through the UBS ports. The problem has something to do with the router. Yeah, better not get going on that one.

Finally, two changes for me this week: a new pair of glasses, and a gleaming silver iPod Nano. I'm a 24/7 lecture-listening machine now; hear me learn! (I also put some Hendrix, Cash, and Bach on there.) By the way, I saw this cool video on CNet today about mashups, the future is looking cooler than ever. Almost makes me want to learn C++.

Behold, the Caleb of myth and legend

It finally happened. This morning I opened his door to find him standing in the middle of his Little People toys. He was holding something black between his fingers. "What do you have there sweet boy?" I asked him. My glasses have had some serious problems recently. A few weeks ago, Kara asked if she could tighten the little screws that hold it together and, for some "Dad" reason, I said yes. We fished the tiny screwdriver from my toolbox and, after a quick refresher on the "righty-tighty" rule, I set her loose. Thing is, she didn't quite get the rule. Next thing I know, my glasses are in pieces. And, further than that, somehow I lost one of the earpieces. Think of a three-legged stool, or a three-legged cat. That's what my glasses look like now. I kind of stick-slash-balance them on my nose when I'm driving, and otherwise they live in my pocket. Anyway, I certainly didn't have them on this morning when I was squinting to see what Caleb had pinched between his fingers.

It was a spider.

I smacked it down from his hands--he cried, of course, so I picked him up to console him and give him kisses. Then I fished the carcass, its legs folded in on itself, from the carpet and put it in the toilet.

You may remember that Hercules also had a tangle with a nasty when he was a baby. Several snakes--it could have been one, but I think it was several, slithered into the crib of the young hero during the night. He grabbed the snakes and killed them. So I guess that's it, then, my son is a mythical hero. Aaaaawwww.

Pet's-a-Go Go

Papa found it in the filter of his swimming pool. Who knows how it got there. I think a bird dropped it. It could have come from a nearby creek. Either way, L and the kids took one look at it, Caleb said, "Gogo!," and we had a new pet, a chrysemys scripta elegans, a red-eared slider . . . a turtle. It has completely altered the daily habits of our home.

First of all, it gets L. out of bed. Or at least it did. The first few days Gogo was with us, L. was worried he (or she) might die. A few times when Gogo was settling in to sleep submerged safely in the watery corner of his tank, she tapped on the glass until he--annoyed--opened one eye or both. "Whew, he's not dead." she'd say. This anxiety motivated her to get up in the morning and check him. "I see he's okay," she'd say, and then watch him for awhile. That leads to the second change.

We watch Gogo constantly. Gogo's tank is positioned strategically in what amounts to the most-observed square foot plot in our entire apartment, believe it or not right above the kitchen sink (a respectable distance for those of you who think "What if we drop a plate into the tank?" or for those of you with a dark side, "What if Gogo should fall into the garbage disposal?"). What that means is that watching Gogo is an activity that requires merely a flick of the eyes or a turn of the head from almost any position. The result is that you always know what he's doing. He could be swimming on the left. He could be swimming on the right. Gogo might be putting his nose out of the water, exploring his rocky beach head, or even sleeping. Whatever it is, you know it. It is vitally important that you know it. I caught myself getting up out of a chair and turning full around yesterday just to update the Gogo-Twitter in my head.

I should also mention the intense desire to give Gogo things. He hasn't been in his tank a week, and I want to put some live plants in there. L. bought him some different kinds of food. One of these are live meal worms in a little white cup with a lid. We keep it in the fridge. It is only a matter of hours before we purchase a filter and spend a few more hours moving everything around to accomodate it. Our whole world has gone a-go-go. And, you know, it is kind of fun.

Let's call it "outpatient dental"

Unlike most of us who are content with laughing gas and happy dental sedation, Kara always does things in a big way :-) Anybody out there remember the ER-Splinter Visit of 2004? Well, you might recall Kara had a bit of a breathing issue after being sedated for splinter-removal. Thom and I were convinced we lost years off our lives that evening worrying about her. She came through, but the end-result came this year with cavities needing to be filled under the supervision of an anesthesiologist, multiple nurses and a trip to Outpatient Surgery at a local hospital.

This brings you to today! Or what appeared to be today... it was so dark when we had to wake up, I generally refer to that hour as "the middle of the night." At any rate, my parents were wonderful enough to actually show up at our house at this ridiculously early hour and stay with Caleb for the day so that Thom and I could both be with Kara from start to finish through her procedure. We planned ahead and put Kara to sleep clean and fresh in softy-pants and a T-shirt with the plan to pretty much lift her from her bed and put her in the car. To our delighted surprise she was SO SWEET this morning. She woke up sweetly asking about the possibility of using a candy vending machine she had seen last week at her pre-op appointment. With all of her questions answered we thanked Mom & Dad and headed to the hospital.

Once there we quickly passed through registration and followed Kara, toting her Granny Karen blanket like Linus from Peanuts, into a room. According to hospital procedure they had us there, in all likeliness, before the dentist who did her procedure was even out of his bed! So, lots of waiting. To pass the time we alternated between individual trips to the bathroom and pretend naps. At one point Kara was happily draping her blanket over Thom and me as we both caught moments of rest. She was so sweet!

Around 8am they wheeled Kara, in her bed, to the pre-op sedation room. While there Thom enjoyed wheeling around on a doctor's stool and Kara colored a couple of really pretty pictures for the nurses. Everyone there was quite taken by our little girl. And she was quite the sweetheart. We met with an anesthesiologist who was great in addressing our concerns and decided on a plan for Kara. She was given loopy juice! Technically it was oral Versed in a small dose, but in all practicality it transformed her from a cognizant 1st Grader who was charming the ward to the silly urchin we see between dinner and bedtime. Within a few minutes her silliness turned mental and she became fascinated with her own hand and convinced we all had two heads. The drugs were doing their job. At the appropriate level of sleepiness they wheeled her away and ushered us back to the waiting room.


Her procedure started around 9:40 and lasted a little over an hour. When she awoke the dentist reported back to us that all was well with her teeth and gave us some instructions for her recovery. Shortly thereafter we were able to go back and sit with her as she came out of the sedation. This part went a lot differently than I had expected.

The last time Kara was sedated like this she was three and came to very slowly and without many words and without much difficulty. Today it was clear that Kara was experiencing a lot of pain from the tube that had provided her air during the procedure. In fact, she was convinced that the tube was still down her throat. She looked tired and pitiful. Her eyes were dark and her lips looked dry and the corners of her mouth looked red from being stretched by the work the dentist had done. Poor thing! She also still had an IV in her arm and she really didn't like that and I can't say that I blame her. At one point Thom and I were just overcome with the need to be closer to her and we both figured out how to lower the rails on the bed and stand nearer to her. Thom stroked her hair and I sat on a chair and stroked her arm. We both just wanted to give her kisses and make her feel better. The nurse brought her a popsicle, but Kara had a hard time swallowing it and was gagging a lot. She also kept coughing in a way that reminded us of a pterodactyl or some other kind of bird. Poor thing. Eventually we found a children's program on TV and she rested as she woke up. Again she was seeing double, convinced she had two popsicles, there were two TVs and Daddy had two heads. Eventually her vision cleared up and her gagging stopped. Around 12:45 we were able to leave the hospital and head home. We were tired, but pleased. The procedure had finished and Kara was well.

Later when we were actually able to see inside Kara's mouth, we were amazed at the new technology of fillings! They're white, who knew?!

Now if we can just survive braces in a few years...

Easter Egg Hunt #3 Living Room Easter Morning

We had four easter egg hunts this Easter, and even at number four Caleb didn't quite trust that when he put an egg in the bag he was going to actually see it again. The first was at our church, which has a strange tradition. Instead of of hiding the eggs, two rectangular areas are roped off in an open field. One is for older kids, and the other for toddlers. The colored eggs are then scattered openly over the grass in each area. When the pastor says "Go!" the kids wade in and simply begin stuffing their bags. We have never really seen it done like this before. May it is an episcopal thing. This one, number three, was held Easter morning.

We've been doing this Easter morning thing since Kara was a toddler. This year, however, we nearly forgot and I had to keep the kids busy for a little while during which time L hid the contraband. Again, Caleb got so excited he forgot to really look for eggs. Kara made up the difference (and she shared the spoils later like a good big sis.) Kara says that the eggs were harder to find this year--but it didn't seem so to me.

Easter always seems to me like the holiday that needs the most reform. We evangelicals always take a serious stand every year for Christmas--darker days make for sober and serious attitudes. Spring, however, seems to cloud our minds. N. T. Wright, in his book The Meal Jesus Gave Us encourages his readers to live it up. Throw resurrection parties, he says. Be loud and festive until the rest of the world says, "What do these people have to celebrate?" I so want to do that, to make a kind of family liturgy of food, songs, games, habits and other family rituals that reflects the season of the church calendar. We forget, though. We sleep in. And I wind up having to keep the kids busy again while L. makes up the difference.

Caleb gets stuck climbing

So Caleb got stuck climbing the other day; Halfway up his dresser. L heard this whimpering sound. She went in to investigate, and there he was. She apologizes for turning the Camera sideways. (Perhaps someone out there knows how to rotate videos?)

Caleb started climing with gusto a few weeks ago. He climbs on the table. He climbs chairs. He climbs the couch. He will even climb you, if you are sitting still and he gets it in his mind so to do.

left by love seat

It may have been the design show we were watching, but L. and I finally decided to toss the love seat. Oh, it has been broken for weeks--the demise begun seven years ago by sagging beam resulting finally in a full-on break. "But where will we sit?" asked L (I was sitting on said seat at the time). On the floor, I said. And there is quite a bit of floor there, now. As a matter of fact, after our initial cleanup, Kara, L., and I did a ceremonial barrel-role across it. Caleb instantly discovered he could get up a higher head of steam when rushing in to shoot up onto the couch.

In case you missed it, we finally took the plunge into Flickr over the weekend. I've been thinking about using a web-based photo sharing site like Flickr for years, but this sidebar badge hooked me in.

Tonight was the final night for the Lenten book-study Father Chris and I have been coteaching at St. Francis. It was a packed house. The group that was with us the first night and subsequently dwindled decided to make a final show of it. Wright's book, Evil and the Justice of God (IVP, 2006) wasn't the easiest book to teach. It is very abstract, and there is a quality to Wright's prose that is sometimes too prosaic. He did uncover some interesting nuggets of truth, however, and especially in seeing the biblical answer to the problem of evil in the context of God's meta-intervention in the world itself.

We are seriously considering finding Kara some kind of art class for the Summer. Her artistic interests are beyond question. She has an eye for color and design, and is always coloring, cutting, glueing, or drawing things.

weekend away with Wright part two

Before I get going on a sequel to yesterday's interrupted blogpost, I'd like to tell you that, it being Springtime, I have embarked on this year's weight loss program.

Now last year, if you recall, I made a bet with a few other coworkers to lose more than anyone else in three month's time. I lost. This year the goal is much more reasonable. I've decided to lose one pound. That's it. Just one pound. Not even worth noticing. Just cut back a little here, trim a little there, and one pound of me just slides off into--nevermind.

Questions at these conferences were handled in a slipshod manner. We were asked to write our questions on cards and give them to select individuals. At the larger event, these, at least, were reviewed by a panel who knew something about the subject. Saturday's talk was dominated by a young pastor type who read questions of his own choosing from his own personal scrap of paper. Instead of good theological questions, most of them were the standard pastoral bits: "What do you believe about hell?" "Where do you see things going for the Anglican communion?" "Should Christians swear off cremation?" This would have been intolerable had Wright himself not, as Dad said later, made much more of those questions than they deserved. Theology can begin anywhere and end up everywhere, and so Wright made you forget that the initial question was so trite by pulling nuggets of biblical insight from nowhere right before your very eyes. Second, Wright honestly spent loads of time personally with people. Though the line stretched out the door, he took each question seriously, and, indeed, pastorally. Pastors, not pastor types, but pastors do theology better than anyone because they have to. Real faces and situations dog their minds and their pens. They don't speak to their careers but to congregations. That is what makes Wright such a unique scholar. He does well enough to live and die an academic, but submits all of that to the task of Bishop. And that's why I called him "Bishop Wright" when I addressed him this Saturday. Bishop, properly used, is a far-higher standard than "Doctor." I took ten pages of notes, and will need to begin the process of typing them soon before I forget the context of everything.

Dad and I drove back Saturday afternoon. He went on to Chattanooga, while I stopped to see John and Tina, and get two sweet kisses from their darling little girl. One was for Kara, and I passed it on dutifully when I got home.

weekend away with Wright, part one

I went away this last weekend . . . did I mention that? My dad and I have really gotten into biblical theologian and British Bishop N. T. Wright over the last year. I downloaded some mp3 lectures on Jesus from ntwrightpage.com and passed them on. Next thing you know, we are looking up his worldwide itinerary in hopes that he might find himself, knowingly or unknowingly, on the east coast. To our boyish glee, he was. This past weekend. In Roanoke Virginia. For free.

Hearing that I was going to be out of town, L’s well-meaning parents extended the invitation to have L. and family stay at their house for the weekend. Kara was very excited about it, and L and I agreed that it was so nice of them to ask. But then, somehow, my brother and sister-in-law, with their dog, also showed up for the weekend. Recall, if you will, that opening nine-squared montage from the television show “The Brady Bunch”—that’s the image that came to my mind when L told me what was about to happen. And, the Wednesday or Thursday before, Caleb learned how to climb. On Friday morning when I headed for Virginia, I knew I had the better deal.

Dad and I met in Kingsport and drove the rest of the way to Roanoke, chatting about SharePoint, about corporate environments, about health care, my new boss, financial prudence, and the bathroom he and Karen are remodeling. Once you get above Bristol, I-81N enters kind of a middle earth. The hills and valleys stretch and roll away from you on either side, and farms and houses clump and spread out again with no visible pattern. What these people do. Why they elected to live here next to nothing, close to nothing, known by no-one, I do not know, but there are a good many of them. It is like leaving the grid itself in the forty miles or so divided by the Tennessee-Virginia border.

Roanoke exists because eventually some place has to get bigger than a farmyard. Pennsylvania shows up soon enough, so Virginia has to do something before someone driving through mistakes its own soil for that of its even-larger next-in-line. All the usual chain stores and restaurants that make up the faux culture of these United States are represented, and there are lots of churches. Thanks to its being the only town around, Roanoke has a number of hotels too. And Roanoke College is there. A Lutheran institution (though, really, what does that mean these days?) We parked and followed tons of mostly elderly people into a crowded auditorium. Dad and I scored some nice bleacher seats, and had an uninterrupted audience with the right reverend for about two hours. Wright, a genuinely swell chap, shook hands and signed books afterward. His eyes said jet lag, but he smiled and tried his best. He genuinely brightened when I said I’d seen him before at Harvard (years go now), and Dad and I bought a few books from the “we didn’t mark this down a whit” book table. The next day would be even better.

The next day, Wright spoke at brick-and-glass Episcopal church which sat atop a hill overlooking the valley and, beyond that, a giant block of a mountainside. Getting there, the roads were so winding and narrow. Finding a world-class theologian in a place like this, I said, is simply incredible. And getting seats as we did, front row right in front of the podium, was just as incredible. Wright seemed better rested. He answered questions and signed books. This time, I got a smile and an enthusiastic explanation from him when I asked him about the doctrine of theosis. If I’m every trapped in an elevator or sharing a taxi with him, I think we should pick up the conversation, because he seemed pleased I’d asked, but had to address the zillion people in line behind me.

Ooops. I’ve run out of time. Going to have to finish this tomorrow.

Kara’s tap shoes are still in the hall

I stay up too late. That’s the truth. 11:26 p.m. at the end of a day that began with no sleep and I’m up and awake again. And why? I don’t really know. I try to write, and little gets said. I try to read and just fall asleep. I update my computer, check out friends’ blogs, and maybe even their friends’ blogs—revisit in Real Audio a story I caught the end of on NPR during the day’s commute. Tonight, for example, I’m listening to some tracks from Winton Marsalis’s latest release “From the Planatation to the Penitentiary.” Its dissonant title track, mixed straight up against the absolute monochrome vocals of Jennifer Sanon, is perfect.

Tomorrow is a two-and-a-half-hour discussion at work on “the publication process.” A glance a the syllabus says it is to be a team exercise, followed up by a five-minute presentation. And after that: a meeting with my acquisition editors to discuss that curious little borderland between science and faith. Work is a kind of life. It is never your own voice, but God made us social beings. I think we need to work with others, just biologically, and as people mildly acquainted with the Kingdom of God, we want to see human freedom maximized in our working structures.

Yesterday, L and I attended the third installment of a book discussion of N. T. Wright’s book Evil and the Justice of God. Chapter three: the crucified God. My priest, Fr. Chris, is always amazingly patient with me—as L. said later, “When you speak, you always have three points. They are good points, but you never make just one.” We talk for an hour-and-a-half about choice, motivation, and the slippery origin of that kink in each one of us and in the patterns, actions, and templates of life.

I catch myself sleeping in front of something on the Food channel. Have you caught any of those shows about cake decorating. It is crazy what you can do with sugar and a blowtorch! Or, I realize I’m reading cnn.com just to be reading. Kara’s tap shoes are still in the hall. That blown light needs replacing. Windows takes forever to shut down. Dark, I slide into bed. The ceiling creaks from our upstairs neighbors. A car drives by.

Caleb loves the toddler bed

This is a bit dated, but here's some video we took the first day we put the toddler bed in Caleb's room. I think he mistook it for a trampoline, but, nevertheless, he was pretty excited.

blah blah Wednesday

I don't suppose I've written much about this, but about two months ago my publisher decided to reorganize itself around SPU's or "spews" if you like: strategic publishing units. Gone is the comfortable fireside glow of the word "imprint" to be replaced by this term only modernity could love. My imprint, W Publishing Group, was split in two, one side becoming practical theology or "practical living" and the other side systematic theology or "spiritual growth." This term spiritual growth is amusing. We publish Hank Hanegraaff, Brian Maclaren, Mike Erre--authors that investigate spiritual themes (some books, lets face it, are really extended sermons), but rather than call us something like "ideas and issues" we get the postmodern-lite spiritual growth. At first it seemed like, aside from some book shuffling, nothing much was changing. A few added responsibilities. Some new skills. But then my boss turned in his resignation, and now the forces of opportunity and chaos have switched into a much higher gear.

L. is continuing her transformation into a successful freelance writer. She just picked up another gig a week or so ago for wcities.com, and she's probably going to pick up more before Summertime. This is what she went to school for, and I'm glad to see her doing it. When we were dating, she wrote editorial pieces for The Elizabethton Star, and shortly after we moved to Massachusetts she wrote for a Christian rag based in the North Shore. Words make you aware of things. You start writing, you start coming aware. Our conversations around the house are made that much more interesting with every new piece she's doing. I like it.

God gave Kara a math brain. She's bringing home tests--yes they test you in first grade now because, you know, life is so urgent for us here in the twenty-first century--of eighty or so math problems and she's doing well on them. The other night for fun I substituted an x for a number in an equation and gave it to her. So, I said, what do you think the x stands for? She barely looked over from her coloring: five. What about this? Two. Her spelling is getting better also. Really, whatever funk Kara was in last year, she seems to be pulling out of it now.

Caleb finally sleeps in the truck

Shhhhh! Caleb is sleeping in his toddler bed for the first time! Don't wake him. L. found him curled up with blankets around his little people airport. She would have taken his photograph, flash and everything, if the batteries hadn't run out. As it was, I took some night-vision Hi8 video of the sleeping lad--who knows if that will ever be converted into something available to the twenty-first century.

But wait . . . did you know about the recent addition of the toddler bed? Have I mentioned it in all of its amazingly adorable fire-engine sweetness? Did I say something about the real working light on top of the plastic cab?

I'm on day three of a neck cramp. I got these a few times in Junior High, and then again when I was writing my thesis, and then suddenly Friday morning I woke up with it. Not a thing you can do, really, just find a place to put your head and wait it out. I have taken a zillion milligrams of Ibuprofen in the last 52 hours, applied that marvelous chemical substance Icy Hot quite liberally to my neck and shoulders, and alternated cold and hot presses. Nothing really works. See, it is exciting things like this that keep you coming back to this blog.

Several large organizational projects have been put into the past tense in recent weeks. We got rid of a lot of stuff. The Pampered Chef stuff has been weeded like tares at the last judgment. Caleb's clothes were picked through, and my bookshelves migrated into the living room. (It is not commonly known, but bookshelves do slowly move around a house in the manner of subject-specific ents.) Besides completing household projects, L is also between writing assignments, though she has picked up a travel-writing gig. We'll blog more on that later. The resulting hiatus means that L is scrapbooking again.

I always like it when she does this. People really love the scrapbooks she has made over the years--we have a whole shelf of them. People love flipping through them, and their thematic quality provides a lot more narrative shape to what they are looking at than if we'd just thrust a pack of four-by-sixes at them. Plus it is always interesting to see the crafty stuff that she adds to it. Like just now she is scrapping our visit to the aquarium in Gatlinburg last summer. Funky scissors and multicolored paper come together and next thing you know she's made all this interesting coral with fish swimming around it as a frame for the lower portion of each page.

Finally, I've been reading the final draft of a new book coming out by Bible Answer Man Hank Hanegraaff (my neck was stuck in a downward position, may as well put that to good use.) It is amazing to me that dispensationalism even exists. Once you expose the silliness that God has a separate soteriological track for Jews and Gentiles--an error patently obvious for anyone even casually reading the New Testament without reference to eisegetical "here's how to think" notes--the whole of its nineteenth century architecture crumbles.

stuff we got for cheap and some Greek

Some of you may remember that I have often mentioned doing this. Well, it is done. I was just going to by the wireless card ($40), but the router was there, and you know that bit about how it is better to ask forgiveness than permission? I haven’t installed the router yet, and for those of you who don’t know what a router is: a router takes the internet connection that is in a cable and broadcasts it like a radio station. You password encrypt your station broadcast, your router, and then you tune your wireless receivers—in this case the wireless card plugged into the laptop—to your personal router’s signal. The rush of internet- available freedom was palpable. Even L had to admit the real benefits. See, our computer is in Kara’s room, so unless Kara is at school it is off limits. If you are on the computer while Kara is at home, give it up, because she’ll want to play solitaire or go to the Barbie website or something, and will bug you the whole time until you give in. Now, however, L can research her essays from the comfort of the living room couch. She was able to get a jump on her essay-crunch right away after the kids were in bed. And I was able to work on my Greek without the annoyance of the TV being on. I’m hoping now that we have Internet access from the living room that we will see a lot less mindless TV and a lot more other things like reading, flipping vocab cards, and even, who knows, talking. Maybe we will even blog (gasp!)

Yeah, I worked on Greek for about two hours last night and discovered, much to my surprise, that I may only be one hundred to one hundred fifty words away from Basics of Biblical Greek vocabulary wholeness. From years of just splashing around in it, making sorties here and there, I know a great deal more Greek than I thought. Where I lose it is in the ability to quickly parse verbal forms and in truly understanding how participles are operating in the syntax of a given pericope. Anyway, here’s to a new horizon for intellectual pursuits.

In other news,

This weekend, L discovered that we had a slow leak coming from the dining room wall that was beginning to soak the carpet padding—that was Saturday night. An hour later, the maintenance guy had carved a six-by-six inch hole in the drywall. You could feel droplets of water spit-raining down from the floor above inside the wall. Turned out to be a busted washing machine valve upstairs. Thank God L caught it early, because it could have been worse than it was. As it is, we have this gigantic blower drying out the carpet next to the dining room wall. This thing is loud, but not annoying with a smooth, rushing sound. You could sleep to it, but it drowns out other noises like phone calls and such. And why not make it louder?

Sunday afternoon, for example, we were trying to watch the football game, and Kara and Caleb were in full-on scream mode, playing hard together in Caleb’s room. I couldn’t hear what L was saying to me from one couch to the other. L called this afternoon and told me they had taken away the blower, but the hole is going to remain another day or so.

Because of potential flooding, we transported my bookshelves into the living room, and, you know, they actually look better there. We re-sorted so that (as L says) “pretty books” are on the outside and paperbacks and cheap dented stuff is on the inside. It really looks good, and adds a great deal of comfort to the space. I feel better just lounging next to my bookshelves—there’s something about it that just jazzes the mind. Who cares where the remote is when you can pick up Aquinas, Moltmann, Pannenberg, or Barth simply by extending your arm!

Finally, we were selling some things at a consignment shop this weekend and discovered Caleb’s toddler bed. I connected the minute I saw it: there it is! Sure, he’s a little young, but this thing is perfect. It is a big, plastic, red fire engine with a real fire engine light on the top. I pretty much wanted to throw it in the truck the minute I saw it, but we restrained ourselves until L could take her mom to the shop this morning. Now all three of us just want to throw it in the truck—and, here’s the best part, thanks to our selling stuff to the shop, the bed is pretty much free. You know, maybe Caleb would like our bed and I, um, we can have the fire engine. Kara’s going to stick to that thing like a six-year-old, gangly barnacle. “Kara, it is time to go to bed. L, hon, can you get the pry-bar?”

sweet arrogance

Listening this afternoon to the BBC4's The Daily Service (I'm quite partial to Anglican services in streaming audio) it occurs to me that apologies are in order. I am sorry for the absolute lack of anything here for long periods of time. Blogging may seem like something you do in your pajamas with coffee, but it actually take a lot of work--and time. And I heard someone say today, "Blogging is arrogant. Like everyone wants to hear what you think." Well, actually, I want to hear what my friends think far more than I care what, say, Tom Cruise or Channel 4 news thinks. My father-in-law is always fond of saying, "Soldiers don't fight because of the cause. They fight because of their buddy. They fight because they don't want to let their buddy down. They fight to defend those next to them." Exactly.

As you can see, L. and I have begun experimenting with some streaming video. And, you can also see that Caleb can walk on walls. It is a little something he picked up over the holiday season. Actually, we took some video of him carting around his forty-eight hour heart monitor. He didn't even seem to notice it. Until, of course, we took if off of him. When we lifted his shirt up to reveal all those sensors stuck to his chest, his expression was the picture of stunned. We have some photos; perhaps L. will post them soon.

Two kids keep us very, very busy. Looking around, I think this is one of the busiest times of life, raising kids. There are quiet moments too. Last night, near midnight, Caleb woke up for one reason or another. He was standing up against the side of his crib, holding on, and jumping up and down. We went in to check on him, fearing he'd be cold, and he wasn't as much cold as lonely. I picked him up and, handing him a sippy cup, put him on my lap. I turned on the TV--we like to watch those educational shows about engineering and big machines--and he settled his head against my shoulder, and we just sat together for a good fifteeen minutes. I've had months go by which couldn't boast that much intense satisfaction.

Caleb Playing in his Room

Here's a video of Caleb playing in his room while he was still wearing his heart monitor. He was having such a good time. He loves to jump up and down!

Trial video of Caleb

This should be some video of Caleb on the day of his birth taken by L's mom on her phone. We'll see.

Mama Got a New Camera! Thanks Dad & Karen!! 

Kara and some friends on a tire at the park