The Phantom Train

Is it possible for demons to possess toys?  This is a question I found myself pondering last night as a peculiar situation unfolded.

Gage’s third birthday party was held this last weekend, and one of the toys he received was a blue remote control train.  It’s got four buttons on it which allows the small engine to make a great deal of noise.  The remote itself has a couple of buttons, one for forward motion and one for a reverse turning motion.  The boys love it!  It’s a bundle of loudness all wrapped up in a pretty blue shell.  Thanks, Aunt Charlotte.

The problem occurred last night, about two hours after the boys had gone to bed.  I was in our bedroom working on the computer, when I heard the train whistling and making chugging noises.  I immediately got up and prepared to bring the wrath down on Gage for getting out of bed and playing with his toys (we never have this problem with Griffin).  When I opened the door, I saw the train sitting over by the dresser, making a huge ruckus, with the remote right next to it.  My boys were both in bed, sound asleep.

I grabbed the engine and took it out into the hallway, making sure to flip the switch to the off position.  I was a little surprised when it just kept going, even though it should have been powered down.  Something or someone was causing this toy to behave in a most unsettling way.  I didn’t quite know what to do with it at this point.  I couldn’t put it back in their room, and I didn’t want it in ours.  As light as I sleep, if that thing went off at the foot of our bed, they’d have to untangle my body from the ceiling fan in the morning.  The only clear solution was to store it in a closet at the other end of the house…with a Bible on top of it.

Maybe you’ve had the same thing happen in your house.  A song spontaneously emits from some small plastic plaything, or a doll whispers “I love you” as it vacantly watches you pass by.  Could demons really be responsible for such a thing?  Meh, probably not.  These are tell-tale signs that you’re up for a battery change.

Funny things can happen in these playthings when the power level barely hovers around what’s necessary for them to function.  In the train’s case, I was particularly impressed at how the manufacturer only installed two of the four needed batteries.  These two were solely responsible for running the DEMO portion of the circuitry.  When I was filling up the batteries on the train and remote, I neglected to change the two that came with it, since they were still working.  In about 24 hours time my boys managed to drain them to the point where it started acting a little funny.

So, let this be a lesson to you.  Unless you live over an ancient Indian burial ground, give the batteries a check.  Four double AAs are a lot cheaper than the going price on a professional exorcist.

Need More Sleep

I wholeheartedly believe there is a Divine Conspiracy afoot when it comes to issues and circumstances involving the birth of a child.  I think that God floods the brain with a memory erasing chemical that wipes out the pain and negative aspects of the whole process, so that years later you find yourself saying, “Yeah, we should have another kid.”  Were this not the case, I believe each couple would have one child, look at each other, and say, “We’re never doing that again!”

For the woman’s part, it’s not all that hard to see how much pain they experience up to and during the birth.  Why do you think they make those hospital doors out of 8 inch thick hardwood?  You could set off a hand grenade in the delivery room and never hear it out in the hallways!  I’ve been told that the pain experienced by a male passing a kidney stone is similar to that of a female giving birth.  I wouldn’t know if that’s true or not, because I’ve never done either.  What I will tell you, though, is that you’ll never see a male two years down the road say, “I think I’ll go out and get me another one of those kidney stones.  I haven’t had one of those in a while.”

The only logical solution here is that even though the pain is intense enough to measure on the richter scale, it is somehow blocked from making a permanent impression on the brain.  I don’t think it’s tied only to the birth or even to just the woman.  I believe it extends through the entire adjustment period and to both parents.

We’ve lost a lot of sleep.  My wife has lost more than I have (I’m legally bound to say that, or she’ll be all like “You don’t even know what it is to lose sleep!  You just get up and change the baby then go back to bed…”).  The sleep loss starts to have a sort of bipolar effect on you after a while.  You get tired enough, and you’ll swing between railing about the way the towels are folded, to uncontrollable giggling fits about silly words like ‘Hoboken’.  The longer the sleep deprivation goes on, the more severe the effects become.  Everything starts to get on your nerves, from how loud the kids are breathing to how the dog keeps eyeing your peanut butter sandwich.

Eventually, the child does sleep through the night, you get some good rest, and everyone starts to get adjusted to the new norm around the house.  Somehow, memories of those stressed and strained times just simply fade away.  You remember that it was rough, but none of the gory details about how rough it really was.

To be fair, there is an alternative to the whole “mind erasing” theory.  It would be that the rewards of a precious new little life so outweighs the struggles that they simply pale in comparison.  But that’s just silly.  A Divine Conspiracy is so much cooler to think about.

You Want Some Cheese With That?

The whining is becoming an issue.  Tamara reminded me that we went through something similar with Griffin, but I don’t recall it being this bad.

Gage has taken to having a whining, crying fit about everything.  Just the other day, I was trying to get our morning routine kick started, when Gage came out of the bedroom in a thorough grump.  I can tell it’s going to be one of those mornings when the brothers are into it before breakfast even hits the table.

Tamara came out a short while later and asked, “What’s Gage been crying over?”

I said, “Take your pick.  It could have been when I told him that we needed to change his diaper, or when I told him to go use the potty, or when I flushed the toilet without giving him a chance to do it, or when a bite of Eggo dropped off the end of his fork.”

It’s extremely irritating that most of the time you don’t even know what he’s crying about.  He just sits down in the floor and starts wailing over some real or imagined slight.  He’s even taken to whopping himself in the head every once in a while.  That’s an attractive trait.

If this truly is similar to what Griffin went through, then it has a lot to do with learning how to communicate.  Once Tamara reminded me of what happened with our eldest, it gave me hope that we can work through it with Gage too.  It was a lot of effort to reign in my frustration and apply the appropriate amount of patience, but we managed to help Griffin get a good command on expressing his feelings.  I think that’s pretty obvious if you’ve ever been around him.  The kid talks.  A lot.

With Gage, it will be a process of convincing him that we can’t understand what he’s saying when he’s whining or crying.  Then, helping him find the words to describe what’s bothering him.  And finally, giving some sort of positive feedback on those expressions, so that he can associate a good outcome with the process of communicating the way we want him to.  It’s easy to say, but a lot of work to actually do, especially when you’re busy enough with other things.

And don’t think for a moment that the irony of me whining about how my child is whiny is completely lost on me.  It’s not.  Around our house, if it walks, it whines.  The worst culprit of all is probably our dog, the ten year old Whine-a-ramer, I mean Weimaraner.  But I suppose that makes sense if you stop and think about it.  She’s got the most obstacles to overcome in the area of communication.

She's here

Last Wednesday morning, we celebrated the arrival of our little girl, Haven Makenna Thomas.  She came into this world at a healthy 8 lb 2 oz and was 20 inches long.  Tamara seems to think that she lost about 5 inches during the whole process, but since she was completely intact, I’m not quite sure where those extra inches would be.

When a man first hears the words, “I’m pregnant” come out of his wife’s mouth, it’s usually accompanied by a sudden sense of terror and joy along with a stack of mental images that include pickles, ice cream, and a frantic rush to the hospital at some ungodly hour in the morning.  Little Haven managed to fulfill the better part of these nightmares.

I got in bed pretty late Tuesday night.  There were a bunch of things I was trying to get done before we went into the hospital at 5 am to have the doctor manually start the birthing process.  So, I was rock solid, sound asleep when she tapped me on the shoulder and said “My water just broke.”  I believe there are some things that are programmed into the male body, either by God himself, or centuries of genetics.  One of these would be the reaction to that simple statement.  Next time you find yourself in the throes of insomnia with nothing to do, just reach over, tap your husband on the shoulder, and say “My water just broke.”  See if he isn’t up and across the room before his eyelids even open.

That’s what happened to me.  I had my clothes on and phone in hand before I was really aware of my surroundings.  Lucky for us Tamara was able to relay some detailed, specific instructions, or I would have probably dressed the dog, turned the oven on, and took off for the hospital.  As it was, we were able to get in the car and on the road in short order.  Thankfully, traffic is practically non-existent at 2:45 in the morning. 

If you work at the Ft. Smith airfield and picked up a low flying missile headed up 71 last week, then that was probably me.  The doctor warned us that we needed to get to the hospital immediately, and I did my best to comply.  Considering the statute of limitations on vehicular misdemeanors in the State of Arkansas, I will not go into a great deal of detail about our ride to the hospital.  I will merely say that we got there as fast as we could.

A huge sense of relief flooded me the moment my wife stepped out of the truck and headed for the elevator at the women’s center.  I knew, right then and there, that we weren’t having the baby in the front seat of our brand new vehicle.  I can’t even imagine how we would have gotten the stains out.  I was glad I didn’t have to pull over and tell her to get out and have the baby on the side of the road.  She would have yelled at me and probably not gotten over it for a good long time.  Thank the Lord that we didn’t have to cross that bridge.

The check-in process took a lot longer than I expected.  Knowing how quickly Tamara’s labors go, I couldn’t help but think the night crew wasn’t moving with the same sense of urgency that we had.  The antibiotics were not hung and waiting, Tamara’s doctor had not been called, and they were generally reticent to do a single thing to her until we were entered on the computer.  This was all about to change.

Not more than a minute after I walked into the delivery room, Tamara kicked the sheets off the bed and said, “CAN YOU GET ME SOME WATER!  IT’S HOT IN HERE!  PLEASE TURN THE AIR DOWN!  I’M ABOUT TO PASS OUT!”  At this point she sat up so she could breathe.  That was the only signal our baby needed.  The very next words out of her mouth were, “I’M PUSHING!!!”

The nurse, bless her heart, was not ready for this.  She yelled at my wife, telling her she couldn’t push yet, because she didn’t have the clamps.  Tamara simply said, “I’m sorry.”  I could tell she didn’t have control at this point, and that baby was coming whether there were nice shiny clamps prepared to greet her or not.  The nurse’s only response, before she scampered off, was to tell Tamara to breathe.  This is where I stepped in.  I’ve had a great deal of experience with breathing, so I got down in my wife’s face, morning dragon breath and all, and got her to focus on me and breathe.  I felt pretty good for filling that vital gap in time, so I was a little disappointed to hear Tamara say later that the breathing wasn’t any help.  The baby kept moving toward its inevitable exit.

Sometime during those intervening seconds, a doctor materialized behind me.  By the time he showed up, the baby was crowning.  Before they could get a pad down, Haven was making her entrance.  My wife is used to pushing through the contractions, so she stopped when they stopped.  Both nurse and doctor seemed to finally get on the baby bandwagon and told her she needed to go ahead and push since the girl’s head was already out.  She did, and out the rest of it came.  Relief for Momma was instant.

Haven was cleaned up, measured, fed, and whisked away to the NICU.  Since we didn’t get the requisite 4 hours of antibiotics before delivery, there was concern that she might have picked up Strep B during her delivery.  They needed to monitor her closely for signs of pneumonia.  We also found out that she was Coombs Direct Positive, which is a blood type mismatch that increases her chance of jaundice.  When I first heard my wife say it, I thought she was mixing medical and banking terms {Who cares if somebody named Coombs had a direct deposit}.  But, that got me thinking, if this whole Obamacare thing goes sideways, doctors might be able to generate extra funds by letting corporations sponsor diseases.  Can you imagine going to the doctor and hearing him say, “Looks like you’ve got a bad case of the Energizer Pink Eye.”  Or maybe announcing before your procedure, “This colonoscopy is being brought to you by Drano!”  It could happen.

Well, it turned out that the special care was unnecessary.  Our little girl was as healthy as could be, and I am extremely grateful.  God has given us a special blessing.  Two days later, we brought our little bundle of joy home.

It was fifty-nine minutes from start to finish.  That’s a quick entrance.

Welcome to our world, Haven.

Welcome to Mir week

It’s officially Mir week!  To avoid confusion, this is not the celebration of some defunct Low Orbit Soviet space station.  It’s the week we celebrate Miranda’s first triumphal return from Free Will Baptist Bible College in Nashville, Tennessee.

As part of the celebratory procedures of the week, each family member has been assigned a task by Miranda herself.  I have been given the honor, the privilege, to write a blog entry about my “wonderful niece.”  It’s a very difficult task that I embark on, and with no small amount of trepidation.  Where do you start on such a momentous undertaking? 

Do I speak of intelligence that outshines the others in her class?  What about athletic ability that comes so natural?  Maybe I should spend time expounding on her beauty and charismatic personality or maybe her mellifluous voice.  The longer I pondered these thoughts, the more I came to realize that it was impossible to complete my task.  As selfless as her request may be, it just doesn’t seem fair to devote a whole entry to Alexandra Parish when in fact we are celebrating Miranda’s return.  I’m sorry, Miranda.  Considering its Mir week, I’d rather use this space to write about you. =)

Miranda holds a special place in my heart, since she’s the first niece I ever had.  She is solely responsible for my introduction to Barney.  So hooked was she on this purple monstrosity, that she named everything after it (her cat, stuffed animals, the tree in the back yard…).  I remember one time I was so fed up with it that I gave her a stuffed bear and intentionally named it before she had a chance to attach the usual moniker.  I named it Floyd after the barber on Andy Griffith, fully expecting her to slip a name change in on me.  She never did.  And years later, when her stuffed animals had to be confiscated for allergy reasons, she refused to give up Floyd.  I had no idea that this little teddy bear would become such a special thing to her.

But now, she’s moved on passed Barney and bears and is off at college, preparing for the rest of her life.  We’re very proud of how well she’s doing and how thoroughly she is applying herself.  I’ve seen some of the pictures of her study time, and the intense look on her face tells the entire story.  I remember my years of college at the School of Engineering, and can honestly say that I don’t ever recall being so bent out of shape over my assignments.  Keep up the good work, Miranda!

I can only hope that her rigid study practices don’t detract from the real reason she went to college…to find a man.  It does scare me that she’s off so far with no one to help guide her in the “man-selection” process.  I say this because not long ago, we all went on a vacation together, and she ran across her ideal guy.  He was the quiet type, tall, dark, and handsome, with rugged features.  He turned out to be a wooden Indian.  So, I’ve got to say that her husband hunting method is a little suspect.  Here’s a picture of her and her cousin, Karinda, with it.  We worry about Ren, too. 

So, to help with this effort, I encourage any eligible, attractive, interested bachelors to send me a photo of themselves as well as a resume complete with earning potential and the number of orphans you’ve personally saved in the past year.  If you turn out to be above the high bar that our selection committee has placed, we might contact you.  Don’t hold your breath.

Well, I think I’ve done my part to get this special week jump started.  We can’t wait to see you, Miranda (at least those of us who bothered to even be in town…Kendal)!

That's not a napkin

Let me be perfectly clear to any of our English friends from across the pond, when I say ‘napkin’, I’m referring to that piece of paper or cloth that is used to clean the fingers and face during or after a meal.  Since we rarely break out the cloth napkins unless we have company, our table is usually graced with a sheet of Brawney’s finest, or one of the small memorabilia napkins from our wedding.  Yes, I know that we were married over twelve years ago, but let that be a lesson to the engaged couples reading this.  Don’t order too many napkins.

Now, there seems to be a slight bit of confusion at our house as to what a napkin might be, and this was never clearer to me as when I tried to clean the table off the other day.  To start with, the back of the chair is NOT a napkin.  I personally buffed, stained, and sealed those chairs, with some help from my nephew.  When I finished, they were as smooth as silk.  Now, the kid’s chairs feel like they are somewhere between #80 and #100 grit sandpaper.

Another spot that is often mistaken for a napkin is the bottom of the table.  As best I can figure, the children take their greasy food covered hands and place them, palm up, against the little lip on the bottom of the table.  Then, they slide their hands toward themselves, effectively scraping the loose food off and depositing it underneath and out of view.

 The dog is NOT a napkin, no matter how badly she wants to be.  It might be fun to watch her lick the food off your fingers or turn in circles to get at that greasy spot you handprinted on her hindquarters, but it is neither sanitary nor desirable.  And lest you be tempted to let her clean your face as well, let’s not forget that the dog is a bit less discriminate about where she pokes her head and what she puts in her mouth.

Finally, your light colored church shirt is NOT the place to clean spaghetti off of your mouth, and your khaki pants are NOT for tidying up your hands.  That small square piece of paper beside your plate is there for a reason.

If I can get my kids to understand and follow these simple dinner time rules, I think we’ll be a little better off in the clean-up department.

Big Hearted Boy

Griffin is probably about the best big brother in the whole world.  He watches over Gage like a mother hen, and has on more than one occasion saved his little brother from imminent trouble or physical harm.  Above that, though, he has about the biggest heart I’ve ever seen.  He probably gets that from his mother, and I’m glad that he does.

He’s very sensitive to people that are hurt or sick, but beyond that, he likes to share the good things of life with people he is close to.  The main incident I’m thinking of happened about a month ago. 

Griffin had finished eating his lunch, and as usual, he asked, “Can I have something else?”  Well, it turned out that the ‘else’ he wanted was an orange.  I peeled and gave it to him.  As usual, Gage was lagging behind his brother by a good ten minutes.  Upon seeing the orange Griffin was eating, he also voiced his desire to get one.

“I’m sorry,” I said.  “That’s the last orange.”

“We don’t have anymore,” Griffin asked, staring at the last two wedges in his hand.

“No,” I said.

So, my big boy peeled the last two wedges apart and handed one to his brother.  Somehow, in the midst of the handoff, the boys managed to drop the wedge that was being shared.  In typical fashion, Piper was there to snag the falling fruit before it even hit the floor.

Griffin stared in shock for a moment, then with tears in his eyes, he sniffled and handed the last wedge to his little brother.  He was more determined to share than to eat that last piece he wanted so bad.

It was an event that caused feelings of both heartache and pride.  Walking to the pantry, I grabbed a package of Spidey Snacks and tossed them on the table to my grown up boy.  The tears instantly melted away and he tore in to the package with gusto…offering his little bro a couple of the sweet treats as well.

Yup, Griffin is about the best big brother I’ve ever seen.

First Soccer Game Report

Well, we had our first two soccer games this last weekend, and I’m afraid to say they didn’t go as well as I had hoped.  The Eagles did not soar.  In fact, after seeing the size of the other teams, I think we should be renamed the “Eaglets” or maybe the “Fledglings”.  At least that’s the thought I had when I watched them take our team of four and five year olds and feed them to first graders.

Griffin played goalie for most of the game, and did a fairly decent job of protecting his charge.  That’s not to say he didn’t have a few glaring errors, but when you factor in that we spent the entire game on defense, he did alright.  I did not keep track of the scores for either game.  Suffice it to say that in both cases it was ‘a whole lot of points’ to ‘zero’.

For most of the first game, I lamented that our offense never pushed into enemy territory.  Were it not for the fact that we change sides after the second period, our players might not have seen the other half of the field.  This is not how I thought things would go.  I had expected that the ref would put the ball down, blow the whistle, and it would be a mob of children surrounding the ball and barely moving it one way or the other.  In reality, the other team consistently took the ball from us and we chased them all the way to our goal. 

That’s not to say that there weren’t a few bright spots in the games.  Somewhere in the fourth period we managed to get the ball and push it past mid-field.  Then during our second game we pushed it past mid-field two more times.  You would have thought we won the game the way parents reacted.  We also had one incredible block by our youngest player.  She was helping defend the goal when one of the first graders launched a vicious kick toward the net.  Using her head, she knocked the ball away, and Griffin jumped on it.  Had it been intentional, that would have been awesome.  But when I say she used her head, it would be more precise to say she used her face, and by ‘used’ I more accurately mean that she had it in the wrong place when the ball came screaming in.  There was much crying.

Even though they lost both games, I know that Griffin had fun playing.  I think all the kids on the field had a good time, and I know the ones on the bench were having a blast running around and using the wooden surface as a balancing beam.

Sadly, I wasn’t approached by any scouts from Gatorade or Nike, but it’s still pretty early in the season.  With the direction things are heading, I imagine Griffin will put up a record number of saves this year, and that has to get the attention of some sort of sponsorship.

What's Up With Cartoons?

“There’s a hundred and four days of summer vacation, and school comes along just to end it.  So the annual problem for our generation is findin’ a good way to spend it…”

If you just read that first line and had a triangular-headed boy and his green-haired step-brother pop to mind, then you probably have kids in your house.  Of course, I’m talking about Phineas and Ferb.  A cartoon which I was completely biased against based solely on the name.  Now, I try not to miss an episode of it when the kids have it on.  Those guys are hilarious, and were it not for their tattle-tale sister, it would be the perfect cartoon.

At least much better than some of the other fare that is offered today.  Once you stray away from Noggin, PBS, or Nick Jr. you’re opening yourself up for some questionable stuff.  I won’t even go as far to say that the aforementioned channels get it right a hundred percent of the time.  It’s not uncommon for the more modern “toons” to have improper or rude dialogue, realistic violence, or even themes with adult issues.

When I was a kid, about the worst you had on T.V. was Tom and Jerry beating the snot out of each other for thirty minutes.  Oh, and Wile E. Coyote somehow escaping the certain doom that he constantly inflicted on himself.  As ill-advised is it may have been, you could let a kid sit in front of the television for the entire Saturday morning, and never worry about what they were going to see.  Even the Transformers, for all their robot-to-robot action, never killed a person during their conflicts.  I’d even go as far to say that I never remember a single G.I. Joe dying, and that was a military cartoon for crying out loud!

Somewhere, somehow, that has all changed.  You might say that we’re overprotective parents, but we won’t let our kids watch a new cartoon series until we preview a few episodes first.  I know there comes a time when you have to let go and let the kids get used to some of the themes presented, but when a mean character on a Thomas the Train movie still scares the boy at night, he’s just not ready for that sort of thing.  Believe me, I can’t wait to watch The Chronicles of Narnia and The Lord of the Rings with my oldest boy, but those days are still a ways off.   The White Witch will be a big enough hurdle.  I don’t even want to imagine what it will be like with the Ring Wraiths.

And as much as he enjoys the cartoon Transformers series, it’s infuriating that he won’t be able to watch the Transformers movie until he’s like…thirty years old.  I’m sorry, but we could have had a perfectly good movie without the whole Megan Fox story arc.

Don’t delude yourself into thinking what kids see and hear on T.V. doesn’t have an effect on their attitudes and actions.  It’s as direct a correlation as sunlight to flower growth.  One year, I bought my dad some DVDs of Sugar Ray Leonard boxing matches for Christmas.  That night we popped one in to watch an old match, and in the midst of it my son toddled over to me and put the smack down on my face.  How could I blame him for slapping me in the eye, when that was exactly what we were watching on the big screen?

In the end,  I think it’s up to us as parents to filter the things that our kids see and hear coming in over the cable.  We’ll either take that responsibility seriously, to our benefit, or reap the consequences to our own detriment.

And, in conclusion, I have only one thing to say.  Hey!  Where’s Perry?