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One of the great things about having kids, and having your parents still in the house in which you grew up, is that you get to relive the experiences you had growing up. Preferably they would be only the good experiences, the ones you want to relive.

This past Saturday, my brother had his kids and my kids down by my parents’ pond. He found a garter snake and pointed it out to the children. It was about a foot and a half long, maybe two feet.

I have many memories of chasing and catching garter snakes during springs and summers. I thought I would try to relive my glory days of snake catching. Those days must have been 20-25 years ago. So my brother and I chased it through the grass. The snake must not have had anywhere to go, because he didn’t hide very well and didn’t go very far. I grabbed for him a few times, but my skills were a little rusty. I missed those few times, always hitting just where the tail had just been.

I decided that I needed to aim closer to his head, leading a little bit so that I wouldn’t miss again. But I also wanted both hands free so that I could quickly grab his head once I caught his body. That’s the easiest way to avoid being bitten. I was carrying the infant in one arm, so I handed him over to my brother so that I could have both arms free to catch the snake. Surprisingly, I caught the snake on the next attempt.

It is a lot easier chasing snakes without having to worry about dropping a 2-month-old child.

I held the snake just behind his head. Sure enough, he started twisting his head around, with his mouth open and fangs bared. He tried that only twice and then realized it was futile. But he also was writhing his body. You want to hold the flailing body away from you, at arm’s length, because the snake will usually start emptying his digestive system. And you don’t want that to get all over you.

We took the snake over to the other children, and they were interested for a little bit. They touched it, but no one wanted to hold it. Then it was dinner time, so I let the snake go back in the grass. I assume there’s no license required for catch-and-release for snakes.

“Now suppose one of you fathers is asked by his son for a fish; he will not give him a snake instead of a fish, will he?”
– Luke 11:11

In a shameless spoof of MckMama’s Not Me Monday (via Four Now’s Not Me Monday), I am posting a Not Mine Monday. I am calling it Part 1 because I am planning on making this a regular somewhat occasional feature.

• My child did not come to the edge of his bed as I was about to finish changing the sheets and draw on the new clean sheets with a crayon. He would not do that, since he knows that crayons are for paper only.
• My child did not take the infant’s Boppy, put it around his own neck, and run around pretending to be wearing a life jacket in the water. He uses things only for their intended purposes.
• My child did not threaten to stay up until midnight because he was unhappy with our choice of bedtime for him. And I most certainly did not reply that he could stay up as late as he wanted as long as he was quiet and stayed in bed. That was not us – bedtime is always a smooth, orderly, and on-time process in our house.

But if our children did do those things, we would still love them.

Okay, I’ll throw a Not Me in here too: I did not use the infant’s burp cloth to wipe up the floor when his spit-up landed there. And I did not absent-mindedly wipe the infant’s face with that same part of the burp cloth that wiped the floor. Only sterile products go near the baby. If I had been holding the baby at that time, I would have thrown the burpey (burpee?) in the wash and gotten a new one. And cleaned the floor with a floor-cleaning thingy.

“and the priest shall take holy water in an earthenware vessel; and he shall take some of the dust that is on the floor of the tabernacle and put it into the water.”
– Numbers 5:17

Our junior-kindergartner participates in the Awana club at our church. He is in the Sparkies group, so last week when the older kids were racing their pinewood cars (AKA Awana Grand Prix), he got to race the Sparkies cars. Since they’re considered too young to be sanding and painting their own cars, the Sparkies bring in a Matchbox- or Hot Wheels-type car of their own choosing.

They race them down a track and it’s an actual competition setup as something like a double-elimination tournament. But they race four cars at a time so it’s a little trickier than that. He got second place in each race. But since he never won a race, he didn’t make it to the finals and was not in the running for a trophy.

Later that week, someone (an uncle, a grandparent, I forget who exactly) was asking him about the race and how he did. The conversation went a little like this:
“How did you do in the race?”
“I got second every time, but I didn’t get a trophy.”
“Did you get a ribbon or anything?”
“Yes, but everyone got a ribbon.”
“Well that was nice.”
“Even last place got a ribbon.”

The tone of his voice for that last statement left no doubt that he was not impressed with the participation ribbon. I wouldn’t expect them to get rid of the participation ribbons, as there may be some other children who cherish theirs.

Our son might not understand the concept of single- or double-elimination tournaments, but he knows that if everyone is special then no one is special.

“And behold, some are last who will be first and some are first who will be last.”
– Luke 13:30

My wife had some raw diced onions on the dinner table one night.  I forget what we were having, probably tacos.  The 5-year-old thought they looked yummy and asked for some (the onions, not the tacos).  We said he shouldn’t have any because he wouldn’t like them.  He insisted that he liked them, so we gave him some.  He put them in his mouth and promptly said “I like onions!”

Then he started chewing.

It took about 2 seconds, but he very quickly changed his countenance and spit everything out.  His face looked like the face of someone eating raw onions.

Fast forward a couple of weeks…

The 5-year-old is eating salmon and liking it.  The 3-year-old is curious, so he asks if it is chicken.  We tell him it is fish, and he should try some.  He takes a bite and promptly says “I like it!”

Then he starts chewing.

It takes about 2 seconds, but he very quickly changes his countenance and spits everything out.

My wife and I can’t help chuckling at that.  That must annoy him, because he tells us that “it’s not funny.”

“We remember the fish which we used to eat free in Egypt, the cucumbers and the melons and the leeks and the onions and the garlic,”
– Numbers 11:5

For those interested in the details of the most recent addition to our family:

• 11:00 am – I get a call from my wife. She is calling as she is leaving her doctor appointment for a regular, weekly check-up in the month before her due date. She tells me that we have to go to the hospital. The doctor said to be there in an hour because we’re going to have the baby today, even though my wife isn’t feeling any contractions.
• 11:45 – I get home from work, change my clothes, and help see the kids off to school with their grandparents
• 12:15 – We leave for the hospital
• 12:30 – We check into the hospital (sweet – they have wireless!) and get sent to a triage room to figure out if she really is in labor.
• 1:30 – They finally hook up monitors to see how contractions are going. There are some contractions – they’re just slight enough that my wife had been dismissing them or not noticing them.
• 2:00 – contractions are about every 4 minutes but not very strong
• 2:30 – contractions are more inconsistent, about every 7 minutes but stronger when they do happen
• 4:00 – contractions every 2-3 minutes, much stronger now, slightly painful as opposed to just uncomfortable. I enjoy watching the real-time graph that shows the baby’s heartbeat and the intensity of each contraction. Without that, all I have to go on is how hard she squeezes my hand during the contraction. But now I have some numbers to go along with it!
• 5:00 – It looks like the contractions are good enough, so they now decide that we are going to stay and have the baby. Up until this point, we didn’t know whether they were going to admit us into the hospital or send us back home until we came back with some real contractions. We get moved out of triage and into a normal room.
• 6:30 – contractions are painful, and my wife thinks she is ready to get the epidural.
• 7:00 – contractions are extremely painful now. We wonder where the epidural is, and we are told that they had two emergency C-sections come in and they have priority for the anesthesiologist. He can do the epidural when those are done, which should be soon.
• 7:15 – We are told that the lady next door also needs an epidural, and since she is farther along in labor (a couple of centimeters more dilated), she is getting her epidural first. We hear later that she delivered her baby about 10 minutes after she got the epidural. So if my wife had gotten hers first, then this other lady would not have gotten one at all.
• 7:30 – The anesthesiologist started the epidural. Due to my being voted Most Likely To Faint During An Epidural, I am relegated to the lounge for the next 15 minutes.
• 7:45 – The epidural is done, and I am allowed back in the room. It is more peaceful and less stressful than when I left.
• 8:00 – The doctor broke the water, and everything is ready to go. We know it’s close because the doctor starts setting up the table with all her surgical instruments and towels and stuff and she doesn’t leave.
• 8:25 – The fun begins – it is time to start pushing. Or – in my case – holding, watching, and talking. My wife does not think it’s fun, as this epidural isn’t as strong as the others, or perhaps it hasn’t had enough time to fully kick in.
• 8:31 – Baby is born. He is silent for the first few seconds, but then he starts crying like one would expect. It’s always amazing how the baby can go from not breathing air one second to breathing air the next second.

For those keeping track:

• Baby #1 – at least 90 minutes of pushing.
• Baby #2 – 20-30 minutes of pushing.
• Baby #3 – 6 minutes of pushing.

We can’t have any more kids, as the next one might be in the negative minutes of pushing, and I don’t want to find out what that means.

“As the pregnant woman approaches {the time} to give birth, She writhes {and} cries out in her labor pains, Thus were we before You, O LORD.”
– Isaiah 26:17

One of the aspects of marriage is learning about differences in how the other was raised.  For instance, one thing I learned early in the marriage is that you don’t need to refrigerate ketchup.  Everybody I know puts his ketchup in his fridge.  But think about it: no restaurants do.  And nowhere on the bottle does it say “Refrigerate after opening”.  But we keep ours in the fridge because we don’t go through it as fast as restaurants do, and better safe than sorry.

Another item involves the words to Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.  Not the real words, but the extra, unofficial words that you learned as a child in school: “like a lightbulb”, “like Pinocchio”, “like hoofball”, “yippee”, and “like George Washington”.  It’s the part that follows “join in any reindeer games” on which my wife and I disagree.  She insists the words are “like Monopoly” instead of “like hoofball”.

I don’t know what part of Monopoly has to do with reindeer, but it is a common enough phrase in the US.  It seems that “George Washington” isn’t that popular either.  According to my informal survey of websites, more people claim “Columbus” than “George Washington” for the part following “you’ll go down in history”, and most people claim “Monopoly”.  “Hoofball” is obscure.

But how can a reindeer play Monopoly?  They can’t hold the cards!  And the names that Rudolph is called, either Dumbo or Pinocchio?  Why are they always Disney characters?  I sense a lot of stealth marketing, which might be why I prefer hoofball – there’s no one to benefit by promoting hoofball.

If you need more evidence, just look at the letter that Rudolph writes (it’s in section E).  When he discusses the reindeer games that he plays, do you see Monopoly listed there?  No, but you do see hoofball.

“So Moses wrote this song the same day, and taught it to the sons of Israel.”
– Deuteronomy 31:22

Tuesday night was crazy.  It was one of those nights that wouldn’t let me go to sleep.

I went to bed around midnight.  At 12:15, one of the neighbor’s dogs starts barking.  Very annoying.  It’s not a constant barking – somewhat intermittent, so I am able to start drifting off to sleep.  At 12:30 however, the dog is joined by a chirp from the smoke detector.  It has decided, just now, that its battery is getting low.

I remember that the smoke detector emits a short chirp every minute when the battery is low, but I also remember that it can be on the edge for a while.  I don’t want to leave my warm bed, so I gamble that the next chirps will not be very regular, and maybe I can fall fast asleep and will miss the next chirp. I win that bet, and am back asleep.

At 1:00 my wife wakes me with a “What was that?”  She then described a chirp-like sound.  I tell her it’s the smoke alarm telling us it thinks its battery is running low.  She asks how often it makes that sound.  I tell her “once a minute”, and the alarm chirps again, and again.  I give up and get out of bed.

I go downstairs and get the step stool, since our bedroom ceiling is at 10 feet.  The step stool is not tall enough – my reach is probably 2 feet shy of the smoke detector.  I try remembering how I did this before.  Then I recall that I use the small ladder from the garage.  But the small ladder isn’t in the garage anymore; it’s in the shed.  There’s no way I’m trudging through the snow to get a ladder just to change a 9V battery.

Ah-ha!  We have tall stools in the kitchen for sitting at the counter.  I bring one upstairs, and now my reach is only 1 foot shy.  Hmm…   I grab an end table from the upstairs landing.  The kitchen stool plus the end table is tall enough, if slightly unsteady. But at this point I don’t care.  Swap the batteries, leave the stack of table and stool, and turn out the lights.  Finally back in bed, heading off to sleep at 1:30.

The kids wake up at 6:30, at least an hour earlier than usual, and they’re hungry for breakfast.  If nothing else, that was a training run for when the new baby arrives.

“Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.”
– Matthew 11:28