Spudlets

My son took the plunge a few months ago and got a Facebook page.  He was then able to con my wife into one as well.  They get to compare how many “friends” they have, as well as the progress they make in Farmville.  It’s all so silly.

I have not had the urge to be another lump on wall for Facebook.  I can understand the appeal, as my wife is able to keep up with family as well as some friends here in town.  She claims she doesn’t have time for stuff, but between Facebook and her Outlook inbox she has been spending more time on-line.  Josh gets to communicate with his friends as well as cousins, which he seems to enjoy.

But that’s not the scary part.  Yesterday he went with his “best buddy” and family to the movies as it was his friend’s birthday.  After the movie he and buddy were hanging out at Books-a-Million as buddy’s dad had to do something at Sears.  Apparently a group of girls about their same age or slightly older then them took notice of the handsome young men and actually “accosted” them.

Buddy panicked and hid in the bathroom.  Josh laughed at them, but when one of the girls tried to hug him he left the area and tried to ditch them.  Eventually, buddy’s older sister caught up with them and seemed to intimidate the girls away.  For some strange reason Josh found the whole experience scary and has made an oath to stay single.  Josh put a memo on his Facebook wall last night where he posted “I was scared, really”.  He expected all of his “friends” to respond and lend their support.

He got up early on a Sunday morning (before 7 am!), showered and checked his wall.  Nobody had written back.  He was very disappointed according to his mom, but did not let on.  All of this reminds me of my early blogging days, back 6-7 years ago.  I was blessed to find a few friends, we had a community (cloud?) of sorts and got to know each other.  It lasted a few years, where more than a handful of fellow bloggers would visit Spudlets as I posted nearly every weekday, sometimes more than once a day.

Seasons change, fads fade, and it got to the point where the community seemed to die off.  There are times I wish we could bring the “old gang” back together.  I suppose with enough effort I could find another community, though I’d have to do the Facebook thing.  No thanks.  I’ll stick to an occasional post every month unless the mood hits me to do more.  Or less.

I hope this can be a lesson for Josh, that friends, particularly online ones, can let you down.  Otherwise I expect that the oath of remaining single will be tested once his hormones start coursing through his veins, and girls his age start to fill out and learn how to torment teenage boys.

Lady Kristal found a radio station playing Christmas music already.  And to add to our “joy” it’s Delilah.  To those who have never heard her during the holidays, she’s like Ann Landers with a microphone.  She’ll play a few well-worn versions of overplayed songs, and then take a call where someone gives her a sob story.  After Delilah’s encouraging words, we all feel better about thinking good thoughts for the poor soul as we go on to more Frosty and Rudolph.

I’m convinced her doorbell, and probably her cellphone, has her little musical intro with her name programmed:  Duh lie laaaaa … oh well, it’s only six weeks.  Only six weeks.  Only six weeks …

I’m finding one of the more difficult parts of parenting is having my children understand the concept of consequences.  Unfortunately (or not?) I let mercy and perhaps laziness sometimes put aside intended discipline for a child who misbehaves.  All they end up seeing is that they got away with something, and the worse they had to put up with may have been some yelling.

I suppose parents have been wrestling with this problem for millenia, and end up getting frustrated over the lack of respect from them, the backtalk and unwillingness to stop the misbehavior.  I can also see how parents over the millenia have lost their temper and beat the snot out of the kids.  I try not to discipline while angry, but there are times when the line is crossed.  This is my cry (to myself?) for consistency, as it is an effective tool for helping children understand consequences.

This morning I’ll be teaching my third graders about the concept/origins of sin and Satan’s role in temptation.  We went through the story of Adam and Eve last week, and today we’ll review how Jesus faced temptation.  I plan on showing the beginning of The Passion of the Christ.  Even though Satan is not mentioned in the Bible as tempting Jesus in the garden, it’s a great scene showing how the devil operates, and my spirit is lifted every time I see Jesus crushing the snake.   Amen!

One consequence I’m struggling with now is my relationship with Joey (middle son).  We did not get off to a good start nearly three years ago.  He is introverted so it’s more of a challenge to get him to open up.  He adores his older brother yet is (at best) ambivalent about his biological younger sister.  You would expect them to be close, but that’s not the case.  He’ll play with her sometimes but more often than not he gets aggravated by her.  Part of it is just the annoyance of a younger girl, and part of it is she can be desperate to find somebody to play with (and she can be very bossy/domineering).

To help my bond with Joey I decided to take just him to the movies.  This somewhat upset his older brother (as expected), but if I had taken both then Joey would have clung to Josh and I would be left out.  I had wanted to take him to see Astro Boy but it was not playing at the local theater here.  The only “good” option here was Where the Wild Things Are.

MOVIE REVIEW – Where the Wild Things Are

Like most parents I’m familar with the very short story, and wondered how somebody could make a whole movie out of some kids’ dream.  Well, they did manage to make a movie, and there were some things from the short story in the movie.  Otherwise it turned out to be a waste of two hours and twenty bucks.  If you’re seven years old you may not care about the reasons things happen  in the flow of a story, or how a ten year old boy can get away with lieing, destroying things and biting people.

You could speculate as to the movie’s intention of being made for kids, but the symbolism of the “wild things” Max encounters and the relationships they all struggle with go way above the heads of the kids.  This is by no means escapist fare or an enjoyable kids movie.  Therapists and psychologists will probably have this on their Christmas list.  While I did not ask him directly, I doubt Joey understood that the time Max spent with the wild things was all a dream, as he probably thought Max actually got in a boat and sailed across the ocean.

To make things worse there are no “dad” roles in the film.  It’s either kids, monsters or mom.  In WTWTA, Max has an older sister where they are being raised by a struggling single mom.  There’s no explanation about dad or lack of one.  After some destructive behavior by Max in the beginning (he’s mad at his sister) being glossed over by mom, Max is in his room playing.  He goes downstairs to get his mom, only to find out she’s entertaining a male “friend” and they are about to have dinner.  Max acts up, disobeys mom and ends up biting her hard on the shoulder.  As she falls on the floor, male friend pops his head in the kitchen and says “Hey, he shouldn’t be doing that”.  Duh.  Max runs away, finds a ship and sails to wild things island.

The wild things, about a half dozen of them, turn out to be different components of Max’s personality.  He gets to deal with them individually as well as trying to unite them and make them happy after he is crowned king.  There was some things that happened that did not make sense, such as how big monster hands with claws could make intricate dioramas, as well as nobody seemed to need to eat or drink, but the mad dash around the woods and island took up most of the time.

SPOILER ALERT – After Max leaves the island, sails back and then runs home, he opens up the front door to a dark quiet house.  No police on “Amber alert”, nobody out looking, nobody waiting at the door, it was just another night.  He goes around to check a few rooms and finally finds his mom.  No words are spoken.  She just hugs him, serves up a big ol’ piece of chocolate cake, watches him from across the counter and falls asleep while he eats.  The end.

AAaargh!  Where’s the consequences!  Yeah, we’re all happy at the tearful reunion, but there’s no discipline handed out from the parent, no remorse from the child.  I suppose you could liken this to the forgiveness the Lord offers us.  As disobedient children we run away from Him, yet He patiently waits for us with a reward when we return.  We still need to show repentance, though, and we should not be surprised to be disciplined.

I would warn parents to not waste your time watching this with your children or buying the movie for them.  Wait until it comes out on TV and watch it for free if you must, though you’ll regret wasting the time.  I wish Astro Boy had been playing in town.  Ah well, I hope Joey appreciated the time we spent together, even if part of it involved a bad film.  That would be a good consequence.

Back in the old days, early part of the decade, I would occasionally dip my toes in the political waters.  I rarely do that now, as the flamers/libs are too much for me to stomach.  Their BDS (Bush derangement syndrome)-fueled idiocy still rages to this day.  I think it’s one of the reasons we get things like the school kids in Jersey singing praises to Obadma.  Bush had his faults, but he was a good president who loved and served his country, unlike the current occupant who I don’t think loves the US.  While Obadma made noises about bipartisanship prior to his election, he has yet to act on it.  Bush sought more bipartisanship than any modern president, and it came with a price (100’s of billions of debt).

Back to the point I wanted to make … this current health scare proposal has me very uneasy, and not just because of the price tag of having to pay for somebody else’s poor health management as well as screwing around with my health services.  I finally found someone who said it better than me in a Dan Henninger article last week.  He quotes from a paper by Victor Fuchs on national health insurance.  Democrats have been trying to enact a national health plan for over seventy years as part of the original Social Security act(scam).  Why do other countries enact national health care but the US has held off for so long?

He notes, for instance, that the national health insurance movement rose alongside a larger transfer of responsibility from the family to the state: “Every time the state assumes an additional function such as health insurance, child care or benefits for the aged, the need for close family ties becomes weaker.”

Replace “family” with community or church, and you have what has bothered me about the slide of this great country into a nanny-state.  Starting with Great Society and the alphabet soup FDR pushed through in the last Great Depression, the federal government has been on a continuous/inexorable power grab, intruding on what folks should be taking care of on their own.  Compassion belongs in the hands of the church/community/family and not some idiot bureaucrat in Washington.

There is no provision for the federal government to be involved in health care, child care or old-age benefits, let alone be in the mortgage business.  We have allowed this to slowly strangle us over the decades.  We now have something that looks and smells like the beginning of another economic depression, but God forbid we should name it and do something about it.  Instead we watch the federal government try to fix it by issuing trillions in debt, when the problem all along is excess credit/debt that cannot be serviced.  The feds looks the other way as banks play the extend-and-pretend game on debt they cannot service.  Hey, there is something in the Constitution for this – the 10th amendment, that simply declares that powers not enumerated for the fed. gov. will be given/assumed by the individual states.  Here’s more illumination from Fuchs:

But even the state must bond: “It may be that one of the most effective ways of increasing allegiance to the state is through national health insurance.” This would have been Bismarck’s purpose. “We live at a time when many of the traditional symbols and institutions that held a nation together have been weakened and fallen into disrepute. A more sophisticated public requires more sophisticated symbols, and national health insurance may fit that role particularly well.” Updating the public symbols, Mr. Obama says health care is one of the two “pillars” of U.S. prosperity in the 21st century.

No, health care is not a “pillar” of US prosperity.  Letting citizens of this great country live free of federal oppression, allowing free markets to function properly and expecting communities/states to take care of their own – those are the pillars for prosperity.  The elections of 2010 will be interesting to watch, but I’m not confident we will have much of a country left for whoever gets elected president in 2012 if we continue the present course.

Hosanna.

Otherwise, things are poking along here at the Taterbed.  I was tempted to have a big 50th b-day post, but old age prevented me from saying much.  Kristal was so nice and put on a big party, nicer than any I have had in my honor in a long time.  My mom and dad came in (Michigan and Illinois, respectively) and we had some friends stop by too (but none from out of town, not that I have many).  I had asked for just a family portrait b-day gift, but as the day kept getting closer she had not scheduled a time for a picture (at Sears?). 

She ended up collecting a bunch of old photos and paying someone to create a DVD slide show with a few songs.  It was nice, and I found myself getting a little choked up when the first pictures of Josh were displayed.  It feels like my life “restarted” then, and the past before that is dimly remembered.  She also imposed on family and friends to contribute to a 50th year “testimony” book.  Very touching.  I had my mom take a picture of us just before church, so I’m using that as my “official” family portrait, now displayed 8×10 in my office/closet.

I had given some thought so saying something profound at the party day, particularly as some people expect some words of wisdom to justify all those years.  When the time came I did not offer much besides thanks.  In hindsight I wanted to say:  

The older I get the more I appreciate the importance of love, my misunderstanding of it and how much I have to learn.  Love is the greatest challenge and greatest reward anyone could expect from life.

Sandy gave me a big ol’ kiss on the cheek before work the other day, and it was all I could do to stop my knees from wobbling.  I do feel my age when I watch Josh play football.  Part of me wants to strap it on again and show him how it’s done, as well as just for the sheer joy of full contact and the competition.  I know it wouldn’t last long, maybe a play or two, as the mind is willing but the body is fragile.  It’s so much fun to wake up now and start the day with minor pains.  It’ll just keep getting better and better too!

There’s my other reason for not having a big 50 post – who wants to hear somebody crabbing about getting old?  Fortunately the kids keep me busy enough to not give me time and think too much about senioritis.  I’m teaching 3rd grade Sunday school, and it’s been a blessing.  I have no curriculum (for now)  so it gets to be whatever springs from my fertile mind.  I typically get a little under 10 yutes in attendance, and they’re good kids.  They occasionally misbehave but it has not been anything major.  As much as I got to dislike the 3rd-5th grade boys Wed. night class over the last year (dropped it a few months ago) I enjoy and look forward to this Sunday school class.

God is good!

In a few more minutes I’ll enter my sixth decade of existence.  This one has been the most difficult, as father time has caught up to me and my physical skills have deteriorated.  It’s by the grace of God that I have not been in a car accident in the last few years, as my vision has declined and I feel a slight loss in concentration for the task-at-hand.  I try not to groan too much when sitting down, standing up or (the worst) squatting/bending down to pick up something.  I suppose getting rid of the chubbiness would help.

Yeah, ain’t it fun reading about somebody’s griping about their ailments?  I hope the Obama health “scare” program does not add to my woes.  I have much to be thankful for, though I wonder how I can find the energy to chase after a 5 and 6 y.o. every day.  I feel badly that I don’t have the energy to keep up with them, but I try to love them as best I can.  With my 11 y.o. son I get to live vicariously through his first season of football.  I can feel a part of me wanting to “strap it on” and knock heads – in reality any tackle football on my part would be very short-lived.

We will be entertaining both my mom and dad (divorced nearly 35 years ago) coming in from the Chicago area as well as my in-laws (nice people).  Kristal may have invited others tomorrow night, so we’ll see.  I don’t know if I’ll be asked to give a short speech (oh boy), but I want to be prepared just in case.  I have to remember to focus on the blessings rather than the what-ifs and woulda-coulda-shoulda.  When you get old the latter stuff tends to creep in.  Maybe I’ll save that for another post … not.

This post has been rolling around my head for awhile, so I  might as well unload it somewhere.  Our recent return from vacation has helped confirm some of the trends I’ve noticed.  I have mentioned before the slow progress I’ve had connecting with Joey (6 y.o. boy) since arriving at the Taterbed in Dec. 2006.  He’s not very expressive unless he’s angry (and it’s not a good “expressiveness”), and the times I tried to get closer to him at the beginning were difficult.

I didn’t feel like he accepted me as “dad” but the guy who owns the house, yells sometimes and has money.  Hugs would have to be prompted, and he would typically seek out his older brother or Kristal when he needed something.  In the last few months it has felt like things have finally turned around.  I don’t know if it’s a trust issue or if it really is love, though I’ll accept the latter.

He now will come up to me and sit on my lap without my asking.  He also seems to be discussing more things with me, where before it was a shrug and a mumbled “Idunoh”.  I’m not a big touchy-feely guy and have to remember to include more wrestling/hugging with the kids.  It’s amazing how much they respond to physical touch.  My heart goes out to those kids who are in situations where they don’t get hugs (and rough-housing!) and a physically reassuring touch.

I still treasure those times when Sandy (5 y.o. girl) reaches up for my hand when we’re walking and those neck-hugs when I challenge her to squeeze as hard as she can.  I need to push myself on wrestling more with the boys, pats on the back and hugs.

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT

Over at Taranto’s column at WSJ online, this paragraph leapt out at me (a quote from Politico but the link was broken):

Added a senior Democratic strategist: “It may be out of necessity, but for Republicans, relying on the fringe elements of the party to be the face of opposition on health care is a dangerous game. The birthers and the tea party folks aren’t controllable, come off as angry and out of control and couldn’t care less about the issue at hand.”

First off, if Republicans are relying on a Democratic strategist for advice, then they’re in real trouble.  If anything do the opposite and you’d be OK.  As Taranto pointed out, this “fringe” now outnumbers the people who support this health scare scam.  The other, more galling, aspect is the reference to “birthers”.  I visit other sites on the web (i.e. ToD)  where there is this overwhelming stance for not just ZPG but negative population growth.  The tree-huggers value Gaia, obscure fish and redwoods more than people.

The sneers and contempt leveled at families of more than 3 (4?) disgusts me.  God help us if the liberals start initiatives to limit family size.  They’re working at the other end with Obamacare limiting health care for old people, where the end game is having them die as quickly and cheaply as possible.  They won’t come flat-out and say that, but it’s not difficult to read their intention from the remarks I’ve heard from the current administration.

As a Christian I value the lives God has created and rejoice when more are born, giving me the opportunity to praise the Lord with more brothers and sisters.  This world has plenty of space for more people, regardless of the “quality of life” we would have to endure.  While we as a society will have to wrestle with care we give to those near the end of their lives, it should not be up to a government bureaucrat.

Let’s be consistent in encouraging and uplifting life and helping our neighbors.

It was a quiet Fathers Day at the Taterbed.  Kristal and Josh were both struggling a little with a cold, so they missed out on church.  I took Joey and Sandy to Sunday school and then we came back home, as Sandy is not able to sit through a whole service yet.  I had Kristal order two pairs of rugby shorts.  In the picture they looked like they would go to about halfway down the thigh, but they were typical “short shorts”.  Ah well, more incentive to lose weight.

Yeah, I’m trying – if I can minimize the sweets/empty carbs/night snacking and take a walk in the morning I think I can make some progress.  I had two weeks in a row of three pound losses, but Monday’s weigh in showed no change.  There will be some periods of failure, but I have to keep working through them.

While I’m working on there being a little less daddy, it has been gratifying lately as Sandy and particularly Joey seem to accept me more as dad.  I’m not big on physical contact, since I’m the shy/retiring type.  I have to keep reminding myself to reach out to them:  a little wrestling, some hugs, rubbing a shoulder and back.  Kids respond to touch, and for some dads the only touch they give is disciplining.  I want them to feel security and acceptance, not fear though sometimes they do need to be disciplined

Every day I’m blessed to hear “Daddy!”, and I hope to measure up to at least their needs and love them more and more each day.

Here it is – two months and finally getting around to a post.  I need to remember why I blog, in spite of the low traffic.  Uhh … what traffic?

Catchup … oh yeah.  The Spuds are doing OK.  We’re planning on hitting the beach soon, and now have our own family laptop to take with us.  The kids have a special account with the state where things like education expenses (i.e. summer camps, computers) can be reimbursed, ergo we bought a laptop for under $500.  It has Vista and so far I have not cared working with it, though the kids usually are using the laptop for games on the internet.  I’m tempted to install WinXP, but I”ll wait for now.

Sandy:  She continues to be a roller coaster ride for us, sometimes behaving and a joy to be around with her zest for life, other times not so good when her hard head cannot be “cracked” and she screams whenever she does not get her way.  I hope she turns the corner soon, and learns that behaving is an easier way to go.  She had her last soccer game of the season yesterday, but unfortunately the other team did not show up.  She had a great game last week scoring three goals.  If she gets distracted or frustrated, she’ll usually spend the rest of the game not involved and the coaches yelling at her.  We’ll just keep giving her opportunities to blossom.

Joey:  After two and a half years it still does not feel like he’s accepted me as dad 100% (Sandy seems to have done this).  I need to keep finding opportunities to share different experiences with him.  He’s not a talker unless the subject is computer games, stuffed animals or his pets.  He is smart and has done well in school this year, testing nearly a grade level above in math.

Joshua:  We continue to challenge him to be the helping big brother and set a good example.  Unfortunately he usually puts himself first, and God forbid someone should seem to take advantage of him.  He rarely has a bad temper tantrum now, so that’s been encouraging.  He also does fairly well in school when he wants to, but has a difficult time applying himself at math.

Kristal:  Wife has been berry berry good.  She was on the fence deciding on whether to homeschool Sandy or ship her off to public school (she’s almost finished with Headstart) next year, and made the decision to try teaching her at home.  The few times she tried it this year have worked OK.  Kristal has said she feels like a failure because the kids will act up in public and she feels like it reflects badly on her.  I keep reassuring her that we have some special kids, and she should not keep comparing ours to other kids.  One of the most difficult aspects of parenting is when to know it’s OK to let go and not try to be in control all the time.

(little ol’) Me:  Besides glaucoma, tennis elbow(arthritis?), protruding gut, graying at the temples and the beginnings of a flabby turtleneck, I feel great(!).  I installed an antenna in the attic, but the results have not been as good as I had hoped for.  It has helped to bring in a few more channels, but the PBS channels are still a little shaky.  I think having elevated the antenna has helped.  I purchased an RCA antenna for ~$80, but I’m not sure if it is any better than my homemade cheapo antenna (got the instructions from a Youtube video).

but I’m waiting around to post about it. I can now announce that Joey and Sandy are legally my (and Kristal’s) son and daughter. The paperwork finally cleared the county clerk a few weeks ago. They were adopted in our hearts over two years ago when they first slept under the roof we share today. There has been some rocky times and some happy times, and I expect more of the same for many years to come.

We have also gotten out of the foster care business, as I’m getting too old for this – uh – stuff, and we really don’t have the room for any more pitter-patter of little feet. Kristal would like another girl to be Sandy’s “pal”, but it’s taking all of my energy to be the best dad I can be for the three we run after now. I’ve included a picture below, where the monkey in the middle is Josh, our first blessing. He’ll be turning 11 next month. Joey is 6 and Sandy is 5. We continue to praise God for the love gifts He has sent to us.

kids at the arcade