Spudlets

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

a terrible thing to waste. I missed December, though one post a month is a pitiful thing. I could note personal things, but I’m not sure if anybody’s out there. We’re still waiting for DSS to finish paperwork/forms, so once that is in the county can process the application and we can finalize the adoption of the boy and girl. The latter is having her fifth birthday in three weeks. They’ve been with us for over two years, and the time flies by.

Well, I’m tempted to get political here in the Taterbed. It makes me sick to see the federal government throwing around trillions like it’s nothing “major”, the auto companies, state governments and others lining up at the feeding trough. Now the feds want to raise the gas tax by ten cents a gallon. Hey, how about cutting back some of the unaccounted billions to the shady bankers?

Obam-abs is already throwing around a $750 billion recovery package. At what point do we cross the socialism line? There’s a real chance for conservatives to take a stand, take back government from those who would spend us into oblivion, and return us to the principles outlined by our Consititution: providing for national defense, regulating interstate commerce, upholding the bill of rights.

It’s sinful that we pay more than 10% of our wages to taxes. God asks of us a tithe. How have we gotten to the point of giving more to Uncle Sam than the Lord? The government keeps feeding, only knowing how to grow. I guess when you get to print money out of nothing, like trillions, then there’s no problem in printing more.

For the last few months I have started to watch some prime-time network TV. Over the previous 15-20 years there has not been much to hold my interest on TV besides sports, news and an occasional movie. The only network show I watched with any regularity was “American Idol”, as I did not have to worry about offensive content (besides the bad singing and judging). Lately there is something on four out of the seven nights that I’ll tune in. They all look good on the high-def TV too. We only have basic-basic cable at the Taterbed, so the 4 shows we watch are pulled in with a homemade antenna.

Sunday night starts the week with Amazing Race, where teams compete to finish silly tasks in various locations around the world. The tasks typically involve various forms of transportation and require an ability to interact with others in a foreign culture. It’s a “Survivor”-type of race where teams are competing for a million dollar prize at the end, and the team coming in last goes home each week. The kids like it, and it gives us a chance to talk about stuff going on outside of the US.  This is its 13th season

Monday night is Heroes time. I had been resisting this for two years, as it looked somewhat silly yet I have an attraction to superhero stuff. I finally decided to immerse myself in Heroes’ third season. It’s “awright”, and fortunately they do not do too much time traveling (one of my pet peeves for any sci-fi/fantasy entertainment). I have to excuse the 10 y.o. to the other room due to its graphic content. The powers that some possess are a little over-the-top, but that’s Hollywood for ya. It has been getting more comic-book like, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, as the storyline has evolved into a bad guy seemingly trying to take over the world with his group, while the good guys try to thwart him. Like recent comic books, there are more shades of grey for the good/bad players in “Heroes” than just Superman:good, Luthor:bad.On Tuesday night my wife likes to watch Biggest Loser, but I get bored with it quickly as they tediously draw out the weigh-ins of people letting their blubber hang out. Yech. Wednesday night finds us busy with church. By the time we get home it’s all I can do to recover from dealing with a dozen “special” boys before going to bed.

On Thursday night Survivor comes on, the grand-daddy of them all. While I watched a little bit of the first season, I didn’t like how mean it could get and would project my “Christian sensibility” into wanting everyone to get along and help each other out. This season we have watched it, and the kids really like it. I’ve come to appreciate the social politics, group interaction, and surviving on minimal resources.  Funny how I started watching it after being on for 17 years.

Friday night is the jewel of the week when Crusoe airs. It looks great on HDTV, has had good stories so far, and it’s something I can enjoy with my ten year old. Again, it’s a story on how someone survives on minimal resources, forging a tight friendship with someone who appears totally different on the surface, and using your wits and talent to accomplish an ultimate goal (for Robinson it is returning home). I don’t know if this show can last longer for more than a few years, as it could tend towards “Gilligan Island” silliness of things happening to someone deserted on an island. For now it is solid entertainment.

For now we have not missed many episodes of any of the shows, even though we are “deprived” and do not have a DVR. I’ll probably get a digital tuner sometime next year in order to save a show on the DVD player/recorder, but I’m not in any big hurry. Maybe with all of those “stimulus checks” (i.e – free government money) I keep hearing rumors about …

No, not from blogging, although my posting frequency makes it seem de facto.  Kristal had a difficult day with the kids, in particular with a counseling session for the 4 y.o. girl and 6 y.o. boy.  DSS pays for it, and they’ve been going about once/month since we got them (about two years ago).  For the last few days the girl has been particularly “oppositional”, where she will not do whatever you ask her to do and acts like behaving is a foreign concept.  If she feels slighted she’ll cross her arms and turn her back on you (her little shunning act).  During the counseling session this afternoon she gave a full-blown performance, frustrating Kristal to the point of tears.  Prior to the counseling session Kristal took them all to the library where there was more misbehavior.

After I got home, one of the first things she asked me was that she wanted to “withdraw”.  The counselor advised her to get the two younger kids in respite care for a weekend and drop off the older boy so that we could have a weekend without kids.  Unfortunately they are high-maintenance kids and we’ve had trouble finding a good babysitter, so it has been awhile since we’ve been on a date (a few month?).  We don’t have anybody (family or friends) here in the area that we could ask for help.  Her folks live about two hours away, but the one time they watched the kids for a few hours it took them a few days to recover (in their mid-60’s). She also mentioned going off by herself or with a friend, but she would not be able to go far due to lack of $$.

The middle boy is pretty easy going and not too much trouble, though his lack of communication can be frustrating.  The oldest boy and young girl are similar:  oppositional, quick to anger and can be very loud at times.  The counselor today mentioned that the girl should probably see a psychiatrist, as she may have early signs of bipolar.  Send a 4 year old to a psychiatrist?  Are they going to dope her up?  She has an extremely short attention span and will agree with anything you say if it means she can go.

I read Jordana’s post from a few days ago, and even had Kristal read it to show her that others don’t have perfect kids either.  Kristal has a particularly difficult time when the kids misbehave and do something wrong outside of the house.  She ends up feeling like a bad mother.  I try to encourage her whenever I can.  This “withdraw” thing concerns me, though.  It almost seems like she wants to give up.  She’s fairly convinced that the kids do not listen to her so she ends up feeling like she has no authority.

It’s been a rollercoaster ride with them, as strong-willed kids will be extra loving at times and then extra exasperating.  After we had talked for a bit I “reminded” her that God does not give us more than we can handle, always an effective line in these situations (yes, I’m being sarcastic).  I don’t know if I’ll have to take drastic or “innovative” measures with the kids and/or Kristal.  I do know I’ll need to continue to trust in the Lord and His timing.  He’s an on-time God, yes He is!

I follow the oil industry a little closer nowadays than compared to a few years ago.  I usually check out TOD (the oil drum.com) daily, though the wingnuts affected with BDS can make it difficult to read.  Anywhozitz, based on what I have learned on that site I could see a strong chance of Hurricane Ike causing significant disruption to gasoline supplies for at least a week.  Yesterday I had not seen the price of gas going up as you would expect a few days before a big storm, so I put it on the backburner.

This morning some stations started to jack up the price big-time (from $3.55 to over $4) and I thought about filling up my tank at stations that were still at the low price.  I even turned around a few times before finally heading to work, mainly because I didn’t have any cash on me and I didn’t want to charge the gas (I had to use my emergency $20 last weekend).  I was gnashing my teeth over it, but thought that I’d end up paying a few $$ extra as a me-so-stupid tax for not filling up the night before.

I called Kristal and let her know to at least fill up the van as soon as possible.  When she went out to drop off the girl at “school”, she already saw some of the high prices and took action.  Not only did she fill the van up but she traded vehicles at my job and filled up the truck as well with low price gas, just before they hiked the price.  So kudos to my Kristal!

While we were talking on the phone I told her it reminded me of times from the Depression when people would make a run on banks.  She said she thought of the same thing.  Instead of greenbacks they were going after black gold – well, the stuff refined from black gold.  At lunchtime the last station still selling the cheap gas had a line of at least 40 cars, with employees directing traffic at the entrances.  By the drive home that station had plastic bags over the handles.

It looks like Ike will deal a heavy blow to the refineries around Houston (representing about 1/4 of the US refinery capacity), and I can see them shut down for at least a week.  While this may not result in actual rationing, expect the price to go high enough so people will not be able to continue keeping their tanks full and eventually diminish the demand to the point where the remaining refineries (as well as anything that can be exported to the US) can keep up with our thirst for gasoline.

From the news reports I could find earlier this afternoon, it seemed like NC was about the only area seeing the run on gas.  Later reports tonight have more states, like AL, KY, FL and TN experiencing the same gas panic.  Maybe by this time Sunday night we’ll have a better idea of the damage to the refineries and how the gas flow will be affected.  Better buckle up, as it’s gonna be a bumpy ride.

Ike Getting Ready to make Landfall

As the weeks go by, I get a better appreciation of how blogs die. What started as a method of “prose practice” morphed into a community of folks to interact with on a small cloud in the blogosphere. Things change, people gain other interests and/or other things demand their time, to the point that hobbies like blogging fall by the wayside.

I still maintain this website, and there are things I’d like to store here if I ever get off of my duff and copy stuff over. I just don’t think there’s enough interest by me as well as those who may still come to visit to maintain some sort of personal diary. I can find other places to vent on particular subjects, particularly my fondness for a particular dark blue/burnt orange football team.

So the things I put in here are for storage. Perhaps there will be a few things I can look up years from now and get a chuckle. Perhaps.

- Tomorrow is my seven-squared anniversary, and I keep thinking of “lucky” things I can do. It ends up being just another day in a way. Lately my birthdays have been better since there are youngsters around to help me get excited. So yes, I’m very lucky to have them, even if they occasionally pose some behavior “challenges”.

- I cannot recall a “finalist” presidential candidate so unqualified as Barry. Prior to his initial term in the Senate (where he has been absent for nearly a year), he was elected to a state and a local/city office. There is no leadership experience, yet he has a good chance of being the leader of the free world. How could so many people be so gullible to the “change” message? Were they that p-o’d with GWBush? Did they swallow the crap from the MSM and have been brainwashed into thinking the “current occupant” is the worst President ever? Years from now people are going to realize how lucky we were to have people at that level with experience in the oil industry and knew how vital it was to gamble on bringing some stability to that area.

- Iraq was a gamble, but the consequences of Barry’s “let’s just reason” plan with folks like Saddam would have been far worse. Al Qaeda knows that oil is the lifeblood for the “infidel’s” economies. Their long-term goal is to control the Mideast and the flow of oil. The Sauds dance with them as they can be useful instruments sometimes, yet dangerous as well. While Saddam may not have negotiated directly with bin Laden, he did work with some leaders from al Qaeda. A democratic and free Iraq will help countries like Egypt and Jordan to change, and hopefully a domino effect can take hold of that region. Unfortunately, Arab men are inclined to be authoritarian and the society is tribal, so the leader of the biggest tribe typically tends to rule things.

- On PBS Monday night, I caught the part in between the end of Teddy Kennedy’s “tribute” and the beginning of Mrs. Obamamama’s speech. The talking heads on PBS were making big smooching noises over TK. One guy said that TK was one of the greatest Senators ever, a top 5 candidate. What?! Fortunately most of my dinner had already been digested by then. I snoozed through Mrs. Obamamama’s speech, and found out that I didn’t miss much.

- The paperwork going through the lawyer/court has been started in order to finalize the adoption of the 4 y.o. girl and 5 y.o. (6 in three weeks) boy. It will take a few months to process it, so hopefully it will be a Christmas gift for us. DSS was gracious enough to let us homeschool the boy, something we were concerned they would not allow since the adoption is not final yet. I did get a little teary-eyed as I was signing the paperwork and saw their names with my last name. Something about that chokes me up. We’ve had to use their birth-father’s last name since we got them, and I look forward to putting that name to the side.

[Post originally written 7/2/08]

I’m still alive but my neighbor is not.

Kristal looked up something on the web last night and had her worst fears confirmed. A little over a month ago she had noticed our next door neighbor (KM) was spending a lot of time at home during the day and wondered if had been laid off from his job. He’s a single guy just a year older than us. He would have occasional visitors, and sometimes we’d hear loud music or see him drinking a beer while grilling a steak, but he was never a problem.

While we were friendly and would chat over the fence, we never got together socially. After we got back from vacation at the beach over Memorial Day, we noticed his truck (and him) missing and did not see his dog out. On June 5, while riding in the back of a pickup truck with his brother, sister-in-law, niece and nephew (latter three in the cab) on the interstate in Virginia, he committed suicide by jumping out of the truck and being hit by a car.

A few weeks prior to June 5 KM had been let go of his job he had held for 23 years. Supposedly some words had been said (political?), and the arguments got to the point where he was fired. No warning, no suspension, just let go. There was no mention of prior incidents. KM was also three months away from being eligible for retirement. His parents live in the area, though his dad just had triple-bypass surgery a month ago. He also has a brother in the area and another up in SW Virginia.

As a brother, how much soul-searching do you do, trying not to replay that jump in your mind? The brother is angry and may sue the city as well as a doctor who prescribed a large dose of Xanax to KM. As a father, how do you explain what happened to your kid’s uncle, when they were there to witness the aftermath? As a neighbor, did I do “enough”? Did I love my neighbor – could I have made a difference?

KM was an Oriole’s fan, and I was looking forward to hollering at him when the Cubs played them a few weeks ago. Obviously that never happened. The houses in the neighborhood I live in are fairly well-spaced apart with big yards. The houses were built in the late 60’s, and some of the original owners are still living in them, probably until they die. We have not had any “block parties” or gatherings since we moved here 8 years ago.

KM’s house had a tumultuous past. An older black man and his son were living there when we first moved in, and there were many nights we heard them arguing after drinking. The son would walk to work when he had a job. Eventually he ended up in rehab, and we think the old man was sent to a retirement home. The house was vacant for a fairly long time. At first somebody came over to cut the grass, but eventually that stopped. Finally a real estate investor bought the house, refurbished it and “flipped it”.

We were hoping for a family with kids to move in, as there are not other kids in the neighborhood for ours to play with. While we were disappointed it was just a single guy who got the house a few years ago, he was an OK neighbor. It will probably take some time for the estate to be settled and the house prepped for sale, as well as just being able to sell the house in this depressed housing market. Once again we’re hoping for a good family with young kids. It’s a 3-4 BR house, so there’s a chance.

There’s no chance for KM, as he decided he had had enough. It’s difficult to say at what point anyone makes that kind of decision, but I suppose all of us have some line we don’t want to cross. What do we have to live for? The answer to that question determines whether or not we decide to hop off the truck.

… an angel drove overnight from near Toledo to Wheeling WV, picking up a 2 month old boy and then returning back to the Toledo area.  The baby, born to a teenage mother who could not take care of herself let alone a baby, was delivered at about 7 am into my arms.  It was the first day of the rest of my life, the first day I could call myself “Dad”, the first day of the enormity of that responsibility started to sink in.  It would be about a year later that the adoption would be final/legal, but he had my heart from the beginning, after the shock wore off.

He was our third placement in the foster care system (we were helping at the time in Ohio).  When they called us about the boy and said he would probably be “for keeps” (something they don’t say unless they are very certain) I actually hesitated.  We had been taking care of a black 2 month old girl with a broken ankle, and I wasn’t sure I could care for them both at the same time.   After prayer and a calm feeling afterwards, I said yes.  The girl’s broken ankle was probably caused by somebody grabbing the baby by the foot and yanking hard, though nobody ever ‘fessed up to it.

Her parents did what DSS asked them to do and they were reunited a few months later.  The boy’s birth mother only visited him once.  If ever the abortionists would approve of “discarding” a child it would have been this boy, carried by a teenage girl already in the DSS system.  Instead, by the grace of God, she chose life and the world/my life is richer for it.  We heard a rumor that she got pregnant again and decided on aborting that baby.  My heart grieves to think about the missing brother/sister my son could have had.  This is what happens on the fringes of society, and some folks do what they can to help out the innocent and the abused.

Kristal and I had tried for about a decade to have children of our own yet God was not blessing us, so we looked into the foster/adoption system.  Initially my heart was hard to it.  My dad would always stress the importance of “blood”, and I wasn’t sure I could love an adopted child as my own.  Well, I could, I did and it’s happened again with the two children we took in over a year ago.  In a few months the paperwork will be finished and we will legally call them our son and daughter.

What changed my heart a decade ago was the Holy Spirit leading me to Scripture about caring for widows and orphans.  In particular, James 1:27 “Pure and genuine religion in the sight of God the Father means caring for orphans and widows in their distress and refusing to let the world corrupt you.”  The world can corrupt you when you let yourself think you can’t really accept an adopted child as your own, that they’re not blood relation.  We’re all blood relation, by the power and glory of Jesus Messiah, His shed blood uniting us as adopted children of God.

[Romans 8:12-17]  Therefore, dear brothers and sisters, you have no obligation to do what your sinful nature urges you to do.  For if you live by its dictates, you will die. But if through the power of the Spirit you put to death the deeds of your sinful nature, you will live.  For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.

So you have not received a spirit that makes you fearful slaves. Instead, you received God’s Spirit when he adopted you as his own children. Now we call him, “Abba, Father.”  For his Spirit joins with our spirit to affirm that we are God’s children.  And since we are his children, we are his heirs. In fact, together with Christ we are heirs of God’s glory.

[v. 23] And we believers also groan, even though we have the Holy Spirit within us as a foretaste of future glory, for we long for our bodies to be released from sin and suffering. We, too, wait with eager hope for the day when God will give us our full rights as his adopted children, including the new bodies he has promised us.