Yesterday, in one sitting, 22 pound son Foster dranks a cup of milk (8 oz – along with regular solid food). This is not uncommon for him nor is it uncommon for a typical 14 month old, which he is.
If I were to drink a comparable amount of milk, I would have to drink a half gallon plus a pint.
I figured this out comparing my weight to his. Here’s your homework:
1. How much do I weigh?
2. What interesting my-weight-to-Foster’s-weight factor currently exists?
I’m doing something that I haven’t ever done before – reposting something I have previously put up.
I’m doing it for a few reasons:
Firstly, it was a fairly well received post, secondly it makes more sense to have it here at the father blog than my other blog.
But the main reason I’m doing it now is – Earlier this week I commented (with a link to the previous post) over at Stuff Christians Like and lots of people have come from that post. Several of them have written out their divorce and almost divorce stories. They are quite interesting. I recommend you go over and look at it.
Here is the post. But please know that it is not my intention to judge people who have divorces in their history.
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I’ve got a few years before I put this in play, but I am thinking about something I’m going to start telling my kids in their teen-age years (i.e. before they start Dating/Courting).
It would go something like this:
Asking someone to marry you, or saying ‘Yes’ to a proposal is a pretty big step, and a pretty strong commitment, but during your engagement period, even if it’s the day before your wedding, we will support you if you really want to break off marriage plans.
We might encourage you to rethink your decision, and suggest that maybe you are just getting cold feet, but if in the end you don’t want to get married to this person, for whatever reason, we will support this decision.
But (and here is the main point), once you get married, if things go bad, we will not support your decision to divorce your spouse, except for extremely extreme reasons*. We will encourage you in a hard marriage, we will protect you in a dangerous marriage, we might encourage temporary separation, we will pray for your marriage and we will hold you and cry with you. But we will not say that it is okay for you to end the marriage.
So it will not be grounds for divorce (from the perspective of our family) if you feel like your spouse doesn’t love you anymore, or isn’t really a Christian, or is abusive, or is a workaholic, or really bad with finances or lazy or mean or whatever.
(Again, I would tell them this before they find The One, so they don’t think it’s about that person.)
What do you think? Too harsh?
I feel like I want to get them to agree in writing that we are reasonable in saying this. But that may be a little over the top.
*The big question is, what would be the extremely extreme reasons. Severe Physical abuse? Only unfaithfulness? Pastor John wouldn’t even agree to that as a reason for divorce.
(In agreement with Abraham)
Dads, resist the temptation to buy that bigger TV and consider not replacing your current box when it dies.
The next time you’re tearing down an interior wall in your home, hand out hammers to your kids and let them go at it. You’ll be impressed at their willingness and speed.
Taking Down The Wall
Last weekend, very graciously, Debbie’s dad (Keith) came and we worked hard to take out the interior wall of our kitchen for more kitchen space and to open it up to the rest of our upstairs.
First pictures, then explanations.
Before
After
A. This is where the wall used to meet the ceiling. There’s still about two 2X4s of thickness sticking out.
B. Note the light fixture switches. We’re thinking about keeping them up there but fear that having light switches eight feet high might hurt the resale value of our home.
C. Debbie has never been fond of this wallpaper trim and was happy to see half of it be taken out of the home. The remainder will be gone at some point. She’s thinking about steaming it off.
D. This is an outlet that used to be in the wall. It’s handy to have it moveable, but, again, we fear that inspectors might not find this to be up to code.
E. These are the cabinets and counter that used to be in the kitchen.
F. One bad thing about the great room feel is we lose space for hanging photos. This is about all we have in the entire kitchen dining area.
G. Yea! We can see out to the south from our living room!
H. Yes, that is subflooring where the cabinet used to be.
I. We cut off most of this wall, but left some in case we want to put an outlet or light switch there later. PhilTheCarl, any ideas?
J. Yes, that is cut up plastic bags keeping attic insulation from falling into our kitchen.
K This is our temporary island – we’re hoping to use it to help us figure out where to put the real thing.
L. Who wouldn’t want halogen lights in the kitchen? It gives a cool glow reminiscent of lighting used by astronauts while they were on the moon.
M. The microwave. It hasn’t worked since about a month after we moved into the house.
So yes, we have much work to do on pretty much every aspect of the project (any suggestions or tips?). But phase one is done.
We are grateful to Keith for all his help and to God for safety.
Seriously? Enough Quotables From One Sermon? Yep. It was an extremely impressive sermon. I could have made this a two weeker, but decided against it. If you don’t have time for the whole thing, let me recommend skipping down to the last one – It’s my favorite – good content, good family story and funny. And I’ll note again in passing that none of these are in the written transcript.
Everything I Ever Needed To Know About Children, Racial Harmony And The Gospel I Learned From Pastor John’s Sermon Last Week
The US Census Bureau says that by 2042 whites will be a minority and non whites will be a minority and since I’m pretty sure that’s the way its going to be in Heaven, I’m okay with that. Just statistically, what’s happened in history and where it’s going today, we just better be okay with that. *** Children, if you can understand what I’m saying, listen up. Here’s my goal is for your parents. Your parents love you really well, they really love you. You know that. Parents love their kids a lot. But parents are always growing in how to do it well. *** So dads: a special focus in this text, indeed in the Bible. Dads have a special responsibility, a special authority, a special role – Mom’s have their own special <role>, but this is special. And dads have a special responsibility for not angering, but rather bringing up in the discipline and instruction of the Lord and the Lord has a lot to say about racial harmony. *** You can teach your kids about race at one year old. *** Help the children . .. when I say “Help”, “Help”, “Help”, I mean, Model and teach. If you teach but don’t model, you’re a hypocrite. And kids will pick it up really quick. And they’ll be gone, real soon. If you model and think teaching’s not important, you just sacrifice one of the precious means of grace, and that’s not going to go well either. . . . Be what you say . . . I’m assuming that parents have impact when those two come together with authenticity *** Most little children are wonderfully free from fretting about their bodies. *** This starts at age . . . 9 months? You don’t start this at age 11 when the crisis happens. Month and after month after month. He made you. He made you. He made you! He’s wise! He’s good. It is not a self esteem issue, it’s a God issue. *** A one year old can get this. Questions! Where’d I come from? God made you. Whoah, how? Challenges! Join the club. *** If you teach a kid he is the end product of animality, he’ll act like an animal. *** It doesn’t save a kid to teach him the golden rule, but you teach him the golden rule! Law-giving usually precedes gospel-hearing. *** Oh, the gift of parents, who can get this into a little pagan at four years old. *** The issues for our kids are all about God. Everything is about God in these families at Bethlehem. If everything doesn’t relate to God, you don’t get it yet. *** Elbows on the table, No? It relates to God. I could do an exposition of 1 Corinthians 13 – don’t act unseemly – and show you how the Gospel relates to elbows on the table. *** There will come a point when their conscious comes alive, and you need to capture, with great discernment that point. *** Teach the children that their own sin is uglier than anybody they think is physically unattractive. Sin is not a funny blunder. Sin is not a noble flaw. *** If our children are ever to grasp the gospel, they must grasp this about themselves. And we parents must feel it about ourselves first… There will be a flavor. Dad has authority in this family but it is a broken hearted authority. It’s a humble authority. It is a ready-to-admit-wrong authority ,an ask-forgiveness-from-a-five-year-old authority. *** Our children will never cherish the gospel if they aren’t sickened by their own sinfulness. They need to learn they don’t just do bad things, they’re bad. And I know there are a lot of people who say you should never ever say that to a child. “Just tell them they did a bad thing. Don’t say he’s bad.” Sins don’t come out of nowhere. *** . . . I’m corrupt, I’m proud, I’m selfish, I am this way. And until I own this, the Gospel won’t land with power. I will always be healed lightly. *** And then you gently, lovingly help your kid get this. It doesn’t damn them, I promise, you it doesn’t damn them. It frees them to get the gospel. It makes the gospel the sweetest thing in the world. *** So now, we tell them and we tell them a thousand times! When God sent his son into the world, he was demonstrating his infinite love for you! In your sin! In spite of your sin! *** Knowing Christ Jesus for the Christian is more valuable than anything. Teach them that. That is a work of the Holy Spirit in their life. You cannot make that happen. But you can tell them it’s true. And pray night and day.
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Number 8, the last one. Teach the children to love others who are different from them – I’m going to do it this way: Last night, I went into Talitha’s room. She said “Are you going to say that at church?” I said “Probably.” She went, “Ohhh!” She didn’t say no! So she’s not here. She’ll be here tomorrow morning and I’ll ask her tomorrow morning again. So I sat down on the bed like I always do – she’s fourteen – with my hand on her head and I blessed her and sang my little song and I said, “Can I ask you a question? This is the last point in the sermon tomorrow and I want to see if you get this. Okay, finish this sentence for me, Talitha: ‘The Children – you – should love people different from yourselves not in order to be accepted by God, but because. . . ‘ and I stopped, and she said “because . . . I am accepted by God?” I just came out of my chair! Yes! Yes! Yes! She thought that was so funny. Just like you did. I tell you, you could not pay me a million dollars for that moment. That’s the gospel. All Daddy’s do’s – Do this! Do this! What are they? Ways to get God on your side? And she knows: No. . . . He’s on my side because of Jesus.
What if you heard about two brothers who had large homeschooling families and these families decided to make a movie based on the history behind the Arthurian legend?
How good would you expect the resulting film to be? Not as good as “Lord Of The Rings”, certainly. But almost certainly you wouldn’t expect it to be as good as this:
Our whole family (well, the kids between 6 and 12) watched and enjoyed it.
Don’t mistake me, it’s not perfect. But as a person who has been a leader of another artistic project while not being a professional artist, it was inspiring to see what could be done by amateurs.
So don’t buy it looking for Oscar worthy acting. See it for the history, the pretty good special effects, the costumes, sets and the impressive plot.
Also, it comes with a free Soundtrack CD. It’s good music.
Dads, do you have couch time with your wife? Just the two of you talking about your day, or about what’s happening tomorrow? You should. Several times a week.
In any case, if you do this at the end of the day, which my wife and I do, here’s my suggestion. Do it all the way at the end of the day. And by that I mean put your pajamas on, open up your bed, and if you have straightening and other things you’re going to do, do them.
That way, when you sit down with your wife, you can have the blessed feeling that everything else is done, and now it’s just you and her.
. . . At this bittersweet time of their departure.
1. They are second row people, too.
2. Dorothy put a picture of my wife directing the kid’s choir up on her blog.
3. While it makes us sad, their departure plays right into our family’s secret plan to finally get in the top ten biggest families at Bethlehem.
4. Looking over at their family and seeing two of their daughters dancing (this past Easter Sunday – during ‘We Will Dance’) brought happy tears to my eyes.
5. And seeing these daughters regularly run over and embrace a smiling Pastor John right after he gives the benediction cheers the hearts of everyone who sees them.
6. They have given us a serious quantity of Baby Stuff that they no longer needed – including a top quality baby stroller and a leather baby Bjorn, not to mention clothes. We have appreciated it.
7. This one takes a little background – Every Sunday our church puts a rose on the piano for every child born that week. As was pointed out from the pulpit last Sunday, at least one Sunday the Bode family, by adopting a child, has saved Bethlehem from having a bare piano.
8. More than once Dorothy has given Debbie and I no-nonsense advice when we’ve had difficulties with a child and it’s always been encouraging. Her theme: Yes, I’ve experienced that. No, you’re not crazy and/or evil and/or a failure as parents.
9. This week their son James raised his hand as I was leading the K/1 Wednesday night connection class and told us with tears in his eyes that this was going to be his last Wednesday. I didn’t know this and I was so glad he let us all know. It gave us an opportunity to pray that he and his siblings will make new friends soon (not to mention glorify God in a new town, neighborhood and church).
10. One indirect message everywhere they go: Having a large family is a joyful and God-blessed enterprise.
11. Another: Inter-racial Adoption is a joyful and God-blessed enterprise.
Both of these messages Glorify God and Edify People. Really, what more could you ask of a family?
11 Reasons I’m Glad Debbie Is A Part Of Our Family
1. So much of what she does is impressive, but she is never impressed with herself.
2. She trusts God and seeks after his will.
3. She has been willing to cook in a kitchen that is too small for nearly 4 years and is only now demanding that we make it bigger.
4. Teaching a child to read takes much patience. She has done this (or is doing this) with six children.
5. She always working towards a more perfect way of life.
6. She requires very little rest and relaxation during the day.
7. Okay, this one surprised me – when I asked 10 year old Barrett for an idea for this list he said that he appreciated that she was willing to “punish” them.
8. She has been a Fighter-verse-song-recording widow (i.e. I was away from home many nights this past fall), and she bears with it graciously.
9. (From Daniel and Adelyn) She makes good homemade pizza, oven pancakes, spaghetti, and donuts.
10. Also from Barrett: “If I grow up and get married it will be pretty hard to find a lady like Mommy.”
11. I’m in agreement with him – It was only a miraculous act of God’s grace and blessing that I managed to secure such a wise, beautiful, loving and gifted woman’s hand in marriage.
