Responsible Father

From all of us to all of you: Sorry!

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I’ve mentioned before that I have been reading LOTR out loud to our kids these last few months. We started July 16, 2009 and last night – 19 months later – we finished.

<I’d put the last line here, but I don’t want to ruin it for those who haven’t read it yet.>

Knowing that we had only six pages left of the book I wanted to do something special. So we drove over to Panera and the kids listened as they enjoyed Smoothies and Cinnamon rolls. An enjoyable ending.

Other comments:

- Some might be thinking – Aren’t your kids a little young for this book? And sir, my answer: Yes, it’s quite possible that my seven year old didn’t catch all of the nuances in the narative.  Honestly I was torn on this issue and still am. But my oldest was eleven! I couldn’t wait any longer.

- I hadn’t remembered this, but Carl mentioned last night that we began the book on vacation at Cascade Lodge. Very fitting.

- It’s such a perfect ending for a book, except for one thing that I’ll note: It is too short.

- If you interested in a pretty good chapter by chapter review of the book, you can find it here.

- I’ll be going through the very important After-The-End-Of-The-Book-Events timeline with them sometime soon. We did note in the appendix that one of the major characters ended up having 14 kids. Yikes.

- I predict we’ll read it again, outloud, say in ten years.

- Big question: Who should we let watch the movie?

- Heard from the back of the van as we drove home: Thanks for bringing us, Daddy!

- Also heard: “What are we going to read next?”

My children’s last living great-grandparent was their mom’s mom’s mom. She died on December 14^th, 2010. She was an extraordinary woman. Let me tell you about her.

But first a little background. The extended family that I grew up with was a family that (1) showed love to each other, (2) showed love for God and (3) had a love for music. Even before Debbie and I were married, I could see this was true for her extended family as well. It was something that helped draw me to Debbie. It was, and still is, a thing of beauty. And this trinity of love stems greatly from the soft, cheerful, uncomplaining spirit shown daily in Debbie’s grandmother.

I have never heard anyone say a negative word about her.

EARLY MEMORIES

I recall the first time I visited their home that first summer that I dated Debbie. Debbie and I had decided that we would not kiss until right before our wedding. And so it turned out that the first kiss I received from anyone in her family was the gentle kiss on the cheek from her grandmother as we were leaving.

PRAYER

As each of our children were born, Debbie’s grandmother knitted them blankets. They are still treasured. One of them was treasured to the point of near disintegration. But infinitely more valuable to us was the fact that she prayed every day (sometimes twice) for all of us, including all of her grandchildren and great-grandchildren. I look forward to finding out one day all the ways our lives were blessed by these prayers.

BLESSINGS
But here’s a few we know about right now . . .

Of Debbie’s grandmother’s 19 great-grandchildren, six of them were adopted from four different continents. All of her children and grandchildren are actively serving in their evangelical churches. As far as I know, none of them have experience even a short period of backsliding or rebellion. All of the marriages are strong. Is this not remarkable?

I rejoice daily at the blessing I personally receive for having been married into this family. And I can see behind all of these strong traits the whispered prayers of Connie Eagan.

THE TESTIMONY
Debbie’s grandmother was almost 94. At her funeral, they read her testimony; it was full of the Gospel and explained how she came to know Jesus as her Savior. It was wonderful to hear yet another reassurance that she was saved and she is now enjoying new life with her Heavenly Father. I am so glad my kids got to hear it.

The last sentence from her testimony was “and I have never regretted this decision.”

Amen.

Last Month my wife Debbie wrote about why December third was an important day in our relationship history. In it she left the reader with a bit of a cliff hanger and promised more. More than one person has asked when we’d finish the story.

Today, she returns to the story, but this section is actually a prequel to the first part of the story.

===

I had broken up with Scott two years before this, not because I didn’t like him, but because I felt no peace about marrying him. I actually WANTED to marry Scott; I loved him. My only explanation was that God didn’t want me to, and was therefore giving me absolutely no peace! I agonized over this almost every minute of every day, especially as Thanksgiving of that year (1991) was getting closer; Scott was going to be with my whole family for Thanksgiving Day, and I didn’t want him or my family thinking we were getting married if we were not!

So I actually told Scott ahead of time that I was going to break up with him because I didn’t think God wanted me to marry him–but that he could still come for Thanksgiving. He came! It was bittersweet, as I so enjoyed being with Scott, but if things went as I had planned, it would be the last time I would ever see him. (Being “just friends” was clearly out of the question.) We broke up that evening, and my heart was broken too, but I finally had the peace that had so eluded me for more than a year.

It just so happened that the next summer, one of my best friends was marrying a good friend of Scott’s; in fact, we were both in the wedding, which was three hours away. Now we didn’t ride together, but we did end up making an emergency trip to the tuxedo shop together the morning of the wedding to remedy a mistake–we were both more free than family members. It was fun.

That Fall, I started seminary to get a degree in Christian Education. And I had to drive right past Scott’s apartment (or pretty close) every day! So every day I would imagine that just maybe he would be out jogging while I was on my way to Bethel, and I would for sure skip my first class in order to go out for breakfast! Just as friends, of course. It never happened, though.

I would walk down the halls at Bethel Seminary, making up little scenarios about the future in my mind. I thought for sure we would live out the sad story of always loving each other, but never getting married. I even imagined that on my death bed, I would ask someone to tell Scott that I still loved him. (Sigh.)

The summer of 1993 brought ANOTHER wedding; the sister of last summer’s bride and another one of Scott’s good friends. (Oh, brother!) We were both in the wedding again! But this time, since Scott was doing a good job of not asking to marry me, I agreed to ride the three hours with him. We even went out for breakfast on the way! I remember thinking, “Well, this is pretty fun, even if we can’t get married.” I thoroughly enjoyed the weekend, and gazed at Scott in his tux as much as possible.

That Fall, Scott would “just happen” to be in the lounge every Tuesday when I was done at Bethel, so we would go to the cafeteria for supper. I started to look forward to Tuesdays, and always came with things I wanted to talk about. I even told him about the guy I was kind of dating, and Scott seemed okay with it.

One day, a friend of Scott’s walked by while we were eating, and said, “Hey Scott! Did you hear about my play? You two should come!” Scott looked a bit tongue-tied, so I said, “Sure! When?” So we went that Friday. It wasn’t a date, though, since we were just friends.

So, since we were having supper together every Tuesday, it’s not hard to see how we ended up planning to go to the Festival of Christmas together. Again, it was as friends, since I had actually invited my quasi-boyfriend to my Minnesota Chorale concert the next week. But he didn’t enjoy music as much as Scott, and didn’t care about the Festival of Christmas nearly as much as Scott. After all, Scott and I had been IN it four years each.

And I was REALLY looking forward it. I couldn’t imagine anything more perfect than attending my favorite concert with my favorite person . . .

The only thing dampening my excitement was my preaching class; I had been assigned to give my sermon that Friday. Ugh!

==

. . . which pretty much explains where she was emotionally when the first story began – but what happened after that day?

9 Bad Reasons For Not Teaching Your Child How To Do A Task

1.      It will take longer of my time to teach him than to actually do it. (Think long term.)

2.      Even after I teach her and no longer need to help them it will take her longer than it takes me. (Does this matter?)

3.      He might not do it perfectly. (You don’t do it perfectly either and he’ll get better)

4.      I might find out she’s better than me at this. (You’ll get over it.)

5.      He might break something (Okay, this is bad dependant on what they might break)

6.      It might turn out that she is too young to do this task. (This won’t happen very often)

7.      It might turn out that he doesn’t have this skill and never will (He needs to learn this lesson).

8.      I don’t want to be a slave driver. (Consider: what percentage of your life is non-work? And what percentage of your child’s life is play).

9.      She might not feel like doing it. (This is another lesson she needs to learn).

All humans want to be useful and appreciated for what they do. Your child is a human.

Do you have any other reasons? I have left a couple off to see if you can come up with them.

What successes have you had teaching your child to do some important task? What have you been surprised to learn they can do?

* Pictured: Adelyn (age 8 ) in the kitchen.

Last year my wife directed one of our church’s children’s choirs and for this our family was given a gift card to Chili’s (Thanks, Mr. Shull!) So last night as part of our 12 days of Christmas celebration, we decided to use the card.

Now I am on record that our family generally eschews using the kids menu, so when our server came around, I asked her what their biggest burger was. As it turns out, she said there was an available item that is no longer on the menu* and it turns out, it’s this:

. . .  so we ordered four of them.

It turned out great. These things are messy and twice the size of some of my kids opened mouths, but we cut them up and the kids went after them. And the best part is, I hardly had to pay a tip because the gift card made our meal’s charge so low**.

This was more food and significantly cheaper than getting them all children’s meals. I recommend it.

* You may be wondering why such an awesome item is no longer on the menu – does this answer your question?

** Kidding!

Okay, it looks like the Jamisons are going to The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyages Of The Dawn Treader in about 45 minutes and here are my feelings before we go. (I have intentionally not read any reviews but I have seen three previews . . unfortunately)

Here’s what I’m afraid I’ll see:
- Good guys being foolish or wrong-headed needlessly.
- Big departures from the written story
- Eustace being worse that he is in the book.
- Material too scary for my kids

Here’s what I hope I’ll see:
- Very little of the White witch. (She was in the preview, which is disappointing. I hope her appearance is extremely short)
- Lots of what’s in the book.

Here’s what I hope to see in the book but am almost sure that I won’t
- A Lamb turning into a Lion. I can’t imagine this staying in.

I’ll let you know!

Hi, I actually wrote a full post about this historic day in our relationship, but Debbie said “Here, let me write it.”

I’m glad she did.

===========

This year, December 3rd is on Friday, as it was in 1993. December 3rd is a day I always commemorate because December 3, 1993 was a life-changing day for me.

Scott and I had been friends for a long time; we had even dated for a year or so during the five years we had known each other.  But now I was quasi-dating a different guy from Bethel Seminary who was planning on coming to my Minnesota Chorale concert the next weekend.  So Scott and I were “just friends,” but planning on attending the Bethel College Festival of Christmas together.

I had been dreading that Friday morning, however, because I was to finally give the long-feared sermon for the preaching class that I had put off for as long as possible during my years at Bethel Seminary.  As I walked down the stairs that morning to leave my home, I remember being really nervous and thinking, “I want to talk to Scott,” then gasped as I wondered why I wanted to talk to Scott, rather than my “boyfriend.”  That was weird; oh well.

I was giddy with relief when my sermon was finally over, and that afternoon was like the day before Christmas break as I looked forward to meeting Scott for supper before the Festival of Christmas.  I would tell him all about my “preaching” because he found everything I talked about interesting.

Scott and I had a very enjoyable supper, then headed on over to Bethel College where we ran into Scott’s aunt and uncle who eyed us curiously while talking with us politely.  “Oh, no,” I thought, “now they’re going to think we’re dating again!”  On to our seats, where we listened to heavenly music from Handel’s Messiah.

Suddenly, during the “Hallelujah Chorus,” I looked at Scott out of the corner of my eye, saw him enjoying the music as much as me, and thought, “Why didn’t I want to marry Scott?  Hmm.  Right now I can’t think of anyone I’d rather spend the rest of my life with.”  (And I had dated more than a few guys.)  And then, “Oh my goodness!  Did I just think what I think I thought?  Now what should I do?  Should I TELL him?  I’ve broken up with him TWICE already; if I’m wrong, I can’t break up with him a THIRD  time–after telling him I’ll marry him!!!

To be continued . . .

=====

For the record, I still think what she talks about is interesting – Scott

When buying presents, try to keep away from toys that will be mostly worthless if one piece is missing.

This includes (but is not limited to):

K’nex Rollercoasters

But does not include Legos

or Bionicles (which I recommend).

Update:  Welcome Challies People!  Care to subscribe? You know how.

As I’ve noted before, I like to keep track of things. Several years ago I started logging all of our family’s gas purchases. I’m pretty sure I’m the first person to ever think of doing that. In the history of the world.

In any case, I thought you might be interested in seeing the cost per gallon for a typical family living. We live in the Northern Suburbs of the Twin Cities of Minnesota. This for the past five years (starting Nov 2005).

And if you want to see the Excel File Behind The Data . . .

So . . . do you remember those beautiful days in the fall of 2008?