Latrine

My freshman year of college, I majored in Theater. One of my required classes was Phonetics. One of the many things Professor Caldwell said that I remember to this day was how funny the dichotomy is between a word's sound and its meaning. For instance, the word 'church' is generally thought to bring to mind a place of harmony and worship, yet the word itself is quite brutish on the tongue. Conversely, the word 'latrine' flows out of the mouth and yet it means a military toilet; conjuring images and odors not so pleasant!

I present to you a visual example of this thinking. I took these pictures several weeks back on a camping trip. I am pleased at how they turned out. They make me happy when I look at them.





However, after taking several shots of the older three boys, Chad informed me that he'd been emptying the pee bucket by throwing its contents into that same patch of grass.

Thanksgiving Traditions

Here's the step by step guide to Thanksgiving at my parents' house:

1. Keep OUT of mom's way as she prepares huge Thanksgiving feast. Seriously, walking into the kitchen is an invitation to certain death. I once watched my mom simultaneously stir green beans and disembowel my cousin for asking when dinner would be ready. The giblet gravy tasted funny that year...

2. Risk life to walk into kitchen to ask Mom if she's making plenty sweet potato casserole. It must be done.

3. Sit down at table and eat oneself into oblivion (multiple helpings of said sweet potato casserole to blame).

4. Clean up table - realize the dinner rolls are still in the freezer. I don't think we've had dinner rolls a single Thanksgiving in my lifetime. Mom buys them...they just don't make it to the table.

5. Scream at the Dallas Cowboys and referees as though they can hear you for first half of game. Recently, a new tradition has developed of explaining to grandchildren that such language cannot be used by anyone under 18.

6. Sleep open-mouthed through second half of game.

7. Wake up and descend on pies (or another helping of sweet potato casserole in my case).

8. Take football outside and throw it around talking about how we are better than (enter name of Cowboys quarterback depending on the year). Well, except for Staubach. No one defames Staubach in my family.

9. Eat leftovers and argue over who ate the piece of pie that you put a toothpick in. Why can't people respect the toothpick rule???

Good times.

Finger Sweep

In an earlier post, I wrote about Cade's quirkiness. It's hard to capture mannerisms on film, but last night while we were eating hamburgers, I finally remembered to pull out the camera while he was displaying one of his strange habits.

THIS is why we finger sweep multiple times a day. I'm a bit surprised we didn't also find a Lego Obi Wan Kenobi head. It's one of Cade's favorites. Don't judge me! You try keeping tiny Lego products off the floor with four boys running around. Tiny toys just seem to apparate.









Apparate - it's a Harry Potter word.

Preparing to be amazed

Cade just came into the office whining. In order to pacify him, I hand him one of the thousands of catalogs that have been filling our mailbox this week. He smiles at me and takes the catalog in both hands. He walks purposefully into the living room and finds just the right spot to sit down with the catalog. He sits and curiously regards the cover. I'm thinking to myself, "That baby's going to open the catalog and peruse." Just as I'm preparing to be amazed, he looks at me, grins, and thrusts the corner of the catalog into his slobbery baby mouth.

Facebook Faux Pas

Before I get into the meat of this, let me tell you a little about my personality style. I have always cared WAY too much about what people think about me. If you gave me a choice on being 'right' or 'liked', I would definitely choose 'liked'. It's been the bane of my existence in many situations. It's hard to lead a project in the corporate world worrying too much about what people think of you. This personality trait has caused me much anxiety over the years.

Ok, background set (and if you know me, you know I haven't gone deeply enough into just how true this is).

The other night, I attended a hayride party at my friends' house. This is a favorite annual party of mine and my kids. It's our first time to get dressed up for Halloween and the hosts always go all out. Over the last few years, I've met many of their neighborhood friends. There are even a few I've become acquainted with enough to look forward to seeing them again.

As I'm catching up with one woman about what's going on in my life, she asks me how my photography business is coming. I'm surprised because we just talked about how it had been a year since we've seen each other and I didn't start this business until recently. I ask her how she knew and she responds, "I read it on your Facebook page."

Here, a smarter woman would have said, "Of course!" I, on the other hand, responded by asking, "Are we Facebook friends?" Now, go back and imagine me saying that in slow motion. Go ahead and laugh, it didn't happen to you.

Luckily, this particular woman is either WAY TOO nice, or she has a firm grasp on the divinely ridiculous. I fessed up to being an idiot, asked her her last name, made the connection, and told her she was the subject of my next blog post.

There's more to the story - like how we became friends in the context of Mafia Wars instead of under the true umbrella of friendship, but I'll not sully the story by giving myself too good an excuse.

When you respond to someone with the sentence, "Are we Facebook friends?" you probably have too many Facebook friends.

Multiplicity

You know, I've always watched Funniest Home Videos with a mixed sense of smug satisfaction and veiled disappointment. I never had a kid who ran around the house banging into things with a bucket on his head. Or a kid who hides 18 frogs in her pull-up. Or a brother who paints his entire younger sibling with chocolate syrup. Obviously, I have funny kids. That comes with the territory of parenthood. But I've never had THAT kid. The one who leaves you responding with slack-jawed head- shaking. Until now.

I'm sad to say I have no video evidence of this, but I have good character witnesses who will back up my claims.

1. At 14 months old, Cade doesn't have a single word in his repertoire except "Uh." Uh means more, that, cat, no, yes, yummy, and pick me up.

2. He eats soap. He puts it in his mouth, makes a horrendous face, takes it out and looks at it, then puts it right back in his mouth to make sure it tastes that bad.

3. He likes to stick his hand RIGHT in the middle of a dirty diaper. It's impossible to change him anymore. I'd need three hands. One to lift his legs, one to do the diaper/wipe stuff, and one to keep his hands out of the action (this usually results in a bath - see #2).

4. He has discovered the joy of crawling with his forehead on the ground. He is still shocked each time he goes from rug to hardwood or over a threshold. He cries, looks at us like we put it there on purpose to torture him, and goes right back to it. He has constant rugburn on his head.

5. He hoards food. In his mouth. For hours. We fed him olives the other night and discovered olive pulp inside his cheek right before bedtime. Actually, this also applies to bugs, mud, Legos, and cat hair.

So, we have ourselves a living case of Multiplicity where my precious Cade is the tongue-shaving #4.

Don't count your chickens

I handed Stone a camera this weekend to keep him occupied while I photographed sisters at the Botanical Gardens in Ft. Worth. The pictures he got were pretty awesome. I thought I might have had an artistic genius on my hands. I made a web album, sent it to his grandparents, bragged, you get the drift.

Here are some shots from the first batch:





Pay close attention to the rear view mirror in this one...

After all that, he asked for the camera while I was working in the office and I gave it to him. Who am I to deny his growth as a future savant? Here are some of the second batch:








There's a certain simplistic beauty in the consistency, right?

Metamorphosis

I'm writing this mostly to process. For cathartic purposes. It's finally happened and I guess I should have seen it coming, but I honestly didn't. My oldest child has been body-snatched.

I lived the creepy sci-fi moment two weeks ago and I'm still waiting for it to make sense. Let me backtrack a moment. We started seeing notes in Pearce's daily planner from teachers. This was not a shock. He's always been a bit of a talker. Dratted DNA. Those notes were joined by an amassment of failing grades, an email from the Math teacher, a phone call from the Science teacher, and finally detention.

Detention? By the time this word rolls around, we're on our fourth 'enough is enough' talk with Pearce. It's time to take it to DEFCON 3.

DEFCON 5 - everything is normal
DEFCON 4 - each parent handles discussions and maintains radio communication with the other (Pearce's dad and I are divorced).
DEFCON 3 - parents schedule a formal face-to-face talk with child. Punishment is decided by both parents, set at both houses, and communicated to child. Teachers are informed.
DEFCON 2 -
DEFCON 1 -

You might notice that DEFCONs 1&2 aren't defined. Yet.

During this face-to-face with Pearce, he finally blew a gasket and dramatically informed us that if he did what he's supposed to do, he'd 'just become another slave in the school'. That he didn't understand why he had to respect adults if they didn't respect him.

It's like my kid is living his own pre-pubescent Breakfast Club and he chose Judd Nelson's 'I'm-a-disrespectful-clown-to-mask-the-pain' character. He's much more of Emilio Estevez's 'I'm-a-jockish-follower-who-taped-a-guy's-butt-cheeks-together-to-fit-in-with-my-football-buddies' character. Not that I'm condoning that behavior.

He finished his tearful diatribe and I was officially lost. Up to that moment, I always thought Pearce and I were alike. I was the kid who celebrated an 'S' (satisfactory) in conduct. Mostly, I stuck with the 'N' (needs improvement) and irregular 'U' (use your imagination). But, I NEVER bucked under the saddle of authority. I knew that point where my teacher had had enough.

At any rate, Pearce stunned me into silence. I'd been handling most of the conversation to that point because Frank had a wisdom tooth removed earlier in the day, but he stepped in after seeing the horror on my face. It was the highlight of the conversation for me because the anesthesia and cotton in his mouth gave him a Marlon Brando effect that was awesome to behold. In his best Godfather imitation, he told Pearce that he understood him because they were so much alike.

What? Wait. Hard-headedness...defiance...flippancy...

That's when I had my epiphany. It's not my fault!!! I wanted to shout it from a mountain! Pearce isn't in trouble because of my genes! It's Frank's fault. Oh happy day! If Frank had switched from Marlon Brando to open-mouthed Donald Sutherland, I wouldn't have been surprised.

Humor aside, I actually left that conversation feeling confused and defeated. Pearce was struggling and I had no tools, wisdom, or frame of reference to help him. It was my first parental roadblock. Like writer's block of the heart.

That was two weeks ago and things are better - not perfect - but better. Pearce and I have had good talks since then about how he's a funny kid, but part of being funny is learning timing. And how in the middle of class is bad timing (i.e. NOT funny). We had the heart-to-heart about how he feared I was on his teachers' sides and I had the chance to explain to him that we were all on HIS side. Which probably sounded like that 'This hurts me worse than it hurts you' mumbo-jumbo my dad pulled on me when I was a kid (which makes total sense to me now).

I just thought boogers, slobber, dirty diapers, and throw up was the messy part of parenting. We hadn't hit 5th grade yet. Sheesh.

Because potty humor is funny

This one is long overdue. I've been on blog hiatus for most of the summer. I actually thought I posted this, but it must've been that I told the story so many times.

On our trip to Colorado, we had a chance to talk to the boys about taking responsibility for their actions. It came about after a disagreement between Chad and me. I kept smelling a paper factory and he swore to me that the smell was emanating from the back seat. For two days we disagreed. Finally, The Culprit making the smell accidentally made a sound that went with it. We entered into a family discussion about how even saying, "I didn't toot!!!" was like fibbing if you did, in fact, toot. We told them it was important to take responsibility for yourself, your actions, and the truth.

We should have thrown in that it's not polite to pass wind in a closed car. Chad was opening the back windows constantly and instead of lying about it, the boys just laughed and claimed it. Proudly. Don't worry, the manners discussion happened too (although I had a hard time keeping a straight face during it), it's just not as funny as the rest of this post.

So, we get to Colorado and there's a beautiful meadow of bluebonnets in front of a mountain. I ask Chad to stop the rented Jeep for picture time. I tell the boys I want a nice shot this time - meaning no funny faces, rabbit ears, gang signs, or tongues.


Here's the first one. Please notice Cole's grin. There's a Cheshire Cat-ness about it, no???



Pearce is the first one to figure out what the grin is all about. Reaction follows:






Mom stops shooting and admonishes the boys. "This time, no funny faces, rabbit ears, gang signs, tongues, or GAS!"

Promises are made. Promises are broken.








I give up. I'll just take pictures of landscape without humans.

Meanwhile, back in the Jeep...




*sigh* Someday, I'm going to get a GREAT shot of MY OWN KIDS!!! And when that day happens, you will be the first to know!

Bad Parenting 101

Parents are always looking for that perfect moment captured on film. The first careful steps...the first baby giggle...the first date, etc. I agree that firsts are important. I just think that other firsts are given less priority than warranted. In a house with four boys, a dare-devil dad, and a tomboy mom, we like to capture other momentous occasions. The first bruise...the first abrasion...the first contusion...(if only there were a way to capture a concussion).

I grew up in a family that bragged about cuts, scrapes, and broken bones. My mom and I have been in a friendly competition for decades. I take pictures of my newest injury and send them to her and she calls to tell me she's had worse scratches in her eyeball.

Chad, on the other hand, grew up as an only child. I'm pretty sure his ouchies were treated with more parental decorum.

This diametric is evident in our household. When the kids get hurt, Chad is quick to console and give kisses to boo-boos. I am grabbing the camera and yelling, "That was AWESOME!" There are many a dirty look thrown my direction from Chad. And many an eye-roll from me. It works, though. Chad soothes and cuddles while I make light so as not to scare.

The first birthday brings us to an interesting crossroads. In my family, there is a tradition (a twisted rite-of-passage thing) to let the baby reach for the birthday candle's flame. You may be getting some insight to why my mom is called "Scary Mom." And we'll just call Dad "Camera Co-Conspirator."

Chad and I have come to a compromise (after a rather nasty disagreement caused by Stone's charred little baby finger). I lay in wait for the shot and RIGHT as the the baby gets to the flame, he blows it out. This year was the last year to get it right. And boy, did we!



I'm proud to say no babies were injured in the making of this blog posting. There were, however, heavy cupcake casualties...

Year One

In two days, Baby Cade will celebrate his first birthday. I'm not much on retrospectives. I prefer the future or even right now. However, I was looking back at pictures (which keeps me grounded to my history) and I have to say - he's come a long way.

I admit now - please don't tell Chad I ever said this (no, I'm pretty sure he doesn't read this blog) - that I was shocked the first time I saw Cade. He didn't look like the other three. He didn't look like me. He didn't even look like Chad. He looked weird. I remember thinking, "Oh my, he's got NO LIPS! How can my baby have no lips?" And his face was too puffy. And he already had a man-sized nose. He was just so... Picasso-esqe. I was afraid that having three of the world's most ridiculously spectacular-looking siblings was going to cause him future trouble.

However, he was soon rigged up to Tube City in the NICU, which magically transformed him into the world's most beautiful tragic hero. The anxiety of those days has softened, but not gone away completely. It's almost laughable to think that there was once a day that his appetite was cause for concern. Now, he's like having a tiny black hole in the house.

Let's take a look back.

Ahhhhhh...no lips!

Too small to finish 2 ounces.



World's largest pacifier?

Ah...the beginning of the turmoil between Stone and Cade started at the first meeting. Daddy got onto Stone for poking the new baby right in the eyeball.



Meeting Pearce and Cole



First captured cute moment (and maybe the last) between Stone and Cade.



Personality emerging!!!



First time I noticed Cade ruining a group shot (would not be the last)



Scary monster face!



Sneeze.



Cade ruining another group shot.

Ok, so there might have been ONE MORE cute moment between Stone and Cade.



Personality emerging-ing.



Personality emerging-ing-ing.



Maybe this kid is going to be crazy.

Definitely looking like crazy is coming out.

Houston, we have personality.

Needless to say, my helpless little NICU baby has turned into a ridiculously good-looking, crazy, fearless, hilarious sibling warrior. I cannot wait to see the bruises, scrapes, tears, and knots in the coming year. Oh, not on Cade - the ones he's going to inflict on his big brothers.

To whom much is given...

I intended this to be a post devoid of sarcasm. This is all about sharing a 'God moment' with you. I should reign in the sarcasm, banish it, ignore the temptation to use it. However, without it, you won't fully comprehend the glory of the God moment. Today, sarcasm serves a purpose.

A few days ago, I took all four boys to the tax assessor's office. I'll pause to give you time to laugh. Ok, collect yourself. Really, stop laughing. Now you're just being rude.

Anyway, they behaved as expected. Less like four boys and more like monkeys. I have yet to teach Stone that just because he crawls all over my furniture doesn't mean he can do the same to the county's. The poor woman at the window waited as I said 4-5 words to her followed by, "Will you excuse me?" followed by, "Pearce! Keep Stone from going through that lady's purse!" or "Cole, don't teach Stone to make the revolving door go that fast!" Then it was back to the lady at the window. Lather, rinse, repeat.

Finally, FINALLY, I'd tagged two cars, a boat, and the boat trailer and we were almost home free (read: restrained with seat belts). ALMOST. As we exit the building, my kids look like mercury from a broken thermometer - randomly going in all different directions. I'm scrambling to keep Cole from jumping off a wall in front of a Constable's car and yelling at Pearce to stop Stone from running into the parking lot. I'm losing my patience at this point and I'm ready to Gibbs-slap ALL of them. Even the cute ones, you know - the ones not going through an 'awkward teeth phase.'

Just then, a man walks by with a combined look of sympathy and amusement and says, "To whom much is given, much is required."

Steven Covey talks about paradigm shifts in his motivational speeches.
He was traveling in a subway, a man gets in with his two sons, the sons are running all over the place bothering the people, this continues, so he finally gets irritated enough to ask the father why he doesn't do something to control his kids. The father replies, "We just got back from the hospital where their mother died. I don't know how to handle it and I guess they don't either."

8 words caused a paradigm shift in me. To whom much is given, much is required. It's paraphrased from Luke 12:48. I like this translation - The man to whom much is given, will have to give much; if much is given into his care, of him more will be requested.
Mostly, this verse describes giving to the less fortunate in your community - if you have much, give much. But on this day, the words from the stranger's mouth made me look at the verse anew. And my children.

I wish I could tell you that the boys magically transformed into little angels at that moment - that I saw their little devil horns turn into halos. But, in fact, they piled into the van screaming at each other about who got to sit in front and who was stepping on who's toes as they tried to get in ahead of the the other two. Cade, who had been in my arms the entire time looked at them like they were the funniest cartoon ever.

And I was filled with peace.

You can't always get what you want.

I have loftier ideas than my reality is willing to comply with. Today, I went to the zoo and as we were going through the Texas part, I saw this G-R-E-A-T background. I was really excited and I began to formulate how the kids would look all together.

What I had in my favor:
Great camera
Great-looking kids
...uhm. Yep, that about does it.

What I had against me:
August afternoon in Texas
Cranky, sleepy infant and 3-year-old
Kids with attention spans the size of fire ants
Candy store in close proximity
Passersby

However, I have never been a fan of pro and con lists - they seem so negative. So, I'm looking at this background and I'm internally cheerleading the possibilities. Reality is having a good laugh at me.

Let's break the cons down into picture format.

Exhibit 1 (August afternoon in Texas):
In this picture, Cole is whining about how hot he is and asking if we can skip the pictures and go to the water area.



Exhibit 2 (Cranky, sleepy infant and toddler):
You can see that I chose two pictures. Look at how oblivious Stone is to Cade's tantrum.



Exhibit 3 (kids with short attention spans and nearby candy store):
After only four or five attempts, Cole decides (without my input) that it's time to go on to funner activities, like said candy store. I like the randomness of this one. It's sort of a snapshot of our life.


Exhibit 4 (passersby):
I FINALLY get Stone to look at me only to have Pearce and Cole looking off at different passersby. Not to mention Pearce has finally given up on holding Cade.


After 30 attempts (according to my camera roll), this is the best I got:


So, obviously, my kids weren't going to give me the cherished moment I was after. I decide to switch subjects and put Stone's friend in the game. You know, fresh players.

This is the first picture that I took:

It didn't get much better from that point.


And at last, with much coaxing from me and my friend Megan, we got them to give us brilliant fake smiles.

Lesson for the day: Don't expect portrait quality family pictures after a day's walk around the zoo. In August. In Texas. With toddlers. Or infants.

So, you can't always get what you want. But if you try real hard you just might get what you can blog.