Home Alone 3

Today my wife headed to William Carey University with my daughter to register her for college, lock in her classes, see her advisor, and all that preliminary stuff to embarking on the college adventure.

My older son, 20, was watching my 11yo while I was at work.

I sent him a text around noon to see if he was working today, and he said he was, 3:15pm - 7:15pm. Another odd shift, but hey, cash.

So, this meant my 11yo would be home alone until i got home, usually around 6:30pm.

I was positive this was a bad idea, so I asked my boss if I could head home early, and left at 2:30. I arrived home at 3:05. My 11yo had been left home alone for 15 minutes.

Having seen the Home Alone movies, I came home a little nervously, checking for trip wires and traps.

What I found when I got inside was egg shells. Lots of them.

Appears my 11yo was trying to cook an omelette for lunch. 15 minutes alone, NINE bowls, 18 eggs, and he managed to burn two eggs into a brown crispy treat. No cheese.

He's following in the footsteps of some great men of science, like Thomas Edison, who tried almost10000 times before coming up with the right filament for the electric lightbulb.









After all his failed attempts, I came home to find him scraping his eggs out of the pan with a metal spatula, leaving on the stove and counter a trail of wreckage, as seen below...

After seeing his final offering, I got hungry, and cooked myself one, with cheese and ham, which prompted him to ask for one himself. Looks like I'm still good for something, anyway.

And we still have a mess to clean up. Like always, this reminds me of a verse, this one about a child left to himself... which is why I was hurrying home in the first place.

Time to go do life with my boy. Maybe we'll play some cleanup games...

Excursions and Diversions

This past weekend, my daughter came back from a mission trip to Northern Ireland. To return, she had to fly from Dublin through New Jersey to Seattle, then from Seattle back to St. Louis, when she lives in the Memphis area.

Talk about confused paths!

In a brief explanation, her missions organization, YMI, is based out of Seattle. It was a direct flight from there to St. Louis, so rather than have her change planes and gates alone on her return journey, we thought we'd drive up to St. Louis, and pick her up there. At midnight.

Right.

While there, we were going to see Six Flags and the Arch. We decided to go as a family, and take my oldest and her son (my grandson) along. That's a total of 7 people, which is too many for our Sentra, but just right for Bertha.

There was some discussion about whether Bertha, the antique Dodge Grand Caravan I drive now, would make the trip. She's been a great blessing, and should be good for a road trip. She made the distance to and from Awana Camp (a distance of almost 600 mi round trip) with no problems, so in mind she was good to go.

But, Bertha had other plans. She must not have wanted to go. On the way home from work the day before leaving, it started to rain. I turned on the windshield wipers, and Bertha, with a bang and clatter, threw the wipers off the windshield onto the side view mirrors.

Here's a picture of the wiper off on the side. I drove home in a torrential downpour with no wipers. It's amazing how slow you have to drive in the rain on the expressway, when the wipers don't work...


I had Thursday off, so I took the morning and tried to figure out why she wasn't wiping any more. A quick disassemble showed that some plastic bushings holding the wiper assembly together were gone. I tried to fashion a replacement out of black rubber using a Dremel and a lot of patience, but she tossed her blades again, and I ordered some replacement parts.

Bertha's seen a lot of miles, so if she wanted to sit this trip out, I wasn't going to deny her the chance to rest and relax. So, we chose to caravan with the Sentra and my son's Taurus.

While Bertha didn't want to travel, Bean Bun was insistent that he come with. While I was packing my travel bag with clothes, he climbed on top of it and tried to get inside. I was wise to his tricks, and told him, no pets allowed in the hotel.

He didn't get the memo, so I zipped up the bag to keep him out. That didn't keep him from climbing on top and hoping he'd be hidden amongst all that black canvas. Good camouflage, I must say...

Sorry, Bean Bun. No dice, you can't come.


We caravanned to St. Louis and dropped the rest of the family off at the hotel across from Six Flags, and my wife and I headed to the airport for a late night pickup.

While waiting at the airport I decided to see what Pokemon Go had to say about the place, and found out it was a Gym and Resource Center. Just showing up there allowed me to score a new bag full of Poke Balls and pick up another Eevee, cute little guy.

We made it back to the hotel with my little missionary and crashed. The next morning after reading a chapter of Proverbs from Blue Letter Bible, we headed downstairs for a breakfast of champions at the hotel restaurant.

My ADD family couldn't quite get it all together, so my oldest and I left with my youngest and the grandson, and had breakfast.

My wife and the other two came down a bit later, and descended on the all you can eat breakfast buffet.

Here my son Justin is with the all-American standard breakfast food of choice - Bacon. Note, no cereal, no eggs, no toast, just... Bacon.

I gotta admit, it was amazing to finally be all together again as a family, with all four kids, after having one married off and one back and forth six hours away at college, and one on the mission field, even if that was for only a couple weeks.

Something I can't get used to, as Rachel will be headed off to college in another couple weeks, and Justin won't be long behind her, heading back down to Hattiesburg in about a year.




We spent the day at Six Flags, enjoying our time with Bugs and the Gang, and only got losted a few times, when John or the parents would wander off while somebody was riding a ride. The weather was decent for the trip, it never rained, and didn't really get too hot for this time of year. It may have gotten to 90 once but we had sunscreen and Six Flags has a waterpark.

Which, unfortunately, was maxxed out on capacity, and tended to make hunting for your lost ADD kids a little difficult. Note to self, next time put them in Dayglo Orange from head to toe, to make them easy to find.

Thankfully, everyone knew how to get back to the hotel via the hotel bus, so there were no police reports that needed to be filed and no milk cartons had to wear one of our happy faces.

But Justin did have to find out where the building for Lost Parents resided, since we seemed to have lost ourselves.

On the way back, we went to the Arch. Note, I did NOT say, we went THROUGH the arch. It was intended to be an educational homeschool adventure, as John had just been studying Lewis and Clark, so a trip through the Arch museum seemed an intelligent thing to do, and we had time to do it. John was looking forward to it.

But when we got there, Siri invented an exit# that wasn't in the city, and since the exit number didn't exist (except maybe in Percy Jackson's dimension) we tried to get to the Arch on our own.

Last time we went, about eight years ago, there was a parking lot for the attraction, but this time, there were construction barricades everywhere, and the picture here is as close as we could get. There was a parking garage that would have allowed us to only walk a mile to get there, but it was full up, and so Dad got upset and we headed home instead.

Big Mistake. Disappointment found a new octave in our car, but it only solidified our resolve NOT to go to the Arch, since the city seemed so intent on keeping us out. I remember reading how Percy Jackson destroyed the top of it, so I expected they were still repairing it.

Maybe we'll be back that way in a few years when they get done with their repairs, and take a ride to the top.

Melatonin at Midnight

Our youngest, now eleven, is the most hyperactive of our brood, there is no doubt at all. The little guy could be hooked to a treadmill and generate enough electricity for the neighborhood. Reminds me a bit of Hammy from Over the Hedge.

Because of his propensity for zipping through life, we give him Vyvanse to calm him down (yes, a stimulant actually slows him down, much like Hammy did when time slowed down for him when he drank the Mach 7 drink. (You HAVE seen the Over the Hedge movie, yes?))

A negative of that is that when he comes down from the meds he takes in the morning, he's too wound up to go to sleep. We've given him multiple things for that, starting with a teaspoon of Benadryl, but settled on Melatonin, a healthier solution that's a natural hormone, one that regulates sleep. John takes a dose in the evening and is ready to crash about an hour or so later.

When he doesn't get his dose, he's chasing cats down the stairs at 2am, something Papa Bear doesn't approve of. And when Papa Bear ain't happy, well...

Papa Bear can get pretty ugly when he's woken up from hibernation. Just sayin...

This appears to be a common solution to the age old problem of put-the-kids-in-bed, so much so that they now make GUMMY Melatonin, which looks a lot like gummy vitamins, or the friendly kid-approved Dots candy. So much so that it's easy to confuse the two. Whereas, if you eat a box of Dots, you might get a bit of a sugar rush, but if you ate an equal number of Gummy Melatonin, you might sleep for a week.
Here's a comparison of what they look like... pretty similar, right? Ha, and they call it Adult Gummies. But the dose is small enough where it takes several to knock the boy out.

This story is not how my youngest OD's on Melatonin and has to visit the vacuum cleaner at the local hospital. Or another call to the Poison Control Center. But looking at the two, hey, it could happen. I mean, what were they thinking??

One evening, we forgot to give John his dose, and he was running around at midnight and woke up Papa Bear. So he got his dose then, and after a bit, he went to bed, and slept through morning bible, breakfast, and probably homeschool.

Recently our family started going to bed significantly later than usual, since we have new adults in the house, that is, not that we've added family members but that we've fed some of them and, gasp, they've grown up.

So my oldest boy, Justin, now 20, is often gone with friends or has them over, and so does my daughter, now 18. We usually get to evening prayer time quite late, and I'm wiped before they are ready to shut down for the night. My son Justin would just as soon play Uncharted 4 until 8 am and sleep through the day. Me, not so much.

I've taken to telling them I 'turn into a pumpkin' right about 10:31pm, a reference to Cinderella's carriage turning back into a pumpkin at midnight, and cranking it back to a Halloween time because Midnight JUST AIN'T HAPPENIN any more for me.

Or rather, until last night. My 18yo daughter just got on a plane to head out for a Mission Trip to Northern Ireland with YMI, and her red-eye flight left at 5am sharp, which meant we had to be at the airport about 3am, which meant if I was going to get any sleep, I needed to go down by 9pm. But with company over, and my daughter wanting to watch the end of a show, it just kept getting later. We finally turned the TV off about 11:30pm, and prayed. I went up to bed for a few hours sleep, but Justin wanted to play his video game, and he wanted me to watch him. So I stayed up, and so did John, watching Justin gun down baddies while hunting pirate treasure, until it was time to take my daughter to the airport.

So I am running on about 1 hour sleep. Whereas, John, well, this time he didn't need any Melatonin...

And I'll leave you with this verse, which applies to all of us I guess:

It is vain for you to rise up early, to sit up late, to eat the bread of sorrows: for so he giveth his beloved sleep. - Psalm 127:2

Distractions, Cherry Blossoms, and Peace

This morning we were doing a family devotion together, as we do every morning, reading God's Word together as a family. We are currently working our way through 2 Corinthians 5, on an annual reading schedule called iFit supplied by our Awana Club church.

The passage concerns how we are new creatures in Christ, and how old things are passed away, and all things are become new. It also talks about death, in how we have to put off this old tent someday, and go be absent from the body and present with the Lord.

There is a beauty in heaven that is beyond description. The passage got me to thinking about heaven, and I gave a glance out my back window at the sky.

It was a beautiful morning, and I was struck by the Mimosa blossoms on one of the trees growing in our back yard.

The mimosa has some of the most beautiful flowers of any tree here in the South, and it is a very common and hardy tree.

This time of the year the blossoms break out in vibrant pink and white cascades, which will eventually make a much less appealing carpet of brown underneath.

Being ADD has its disadvantages, of course, and while my daughter was reading her portion of the chapter before passing it over to my youngest son, I was off in the past, thinking about a similar tree that stood in front of our old house over two decades ago, a cultivated magnolia with beautiful pink blossoms of a slightly different nature.
Gazing at that tree each morning while drinking my coffee gave me such a feeling of inner peace and contentment and communion with God in His creation, a feeling shared, obviously, with millions of Japanese who gazed out similar windows at the cherry blossoms each Spring.

When we moved to our new home, one of the things I missed the most was that tree and its beautiful pink blossoms in the Spring. I had made comments about this loss to my Father-in-Law, who was a decent artist and sculptor, and it struck him so much he gave me this painting for my birthday one year.

The photo here doesn't do it justice, it's huge, about three feet by two feet. My wife had it professionally framed, and we hung it in the bedroom, sort of a window to an alternate dimension where it's always Spring, and I wake up many mornings and stare at it in contemplation of God's design and the beauty of His creation, including the skilled work He creates through us.

Years later, my Father-In-Law passed away, and I was thinking about that as well, and how his funeral coincided with my wife's birthday, a poignant and tragic combination. At that funeral I played a song I wrote for the occasion in honor of the talented somewhat starving artist, a song you can hear by following this link.

So I thought on that and the fact that Heaven is waiting for us, a place more beautiful and tranquil than a thousand Japanese cherry orchards in full bloom, and that I only have the hope of seeing it because of the last verse in that chapter that my eleven-year-old was just getting done reading:

For He made Him who knew no sin [to be] sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him. -2Cor 5:21 NKJV

Focus, Dishes, Tea, and ACTS Praying Revisited

Ever tried to force an ADHD kid to have focus to complete a task?

So last night, it was John's turn to do the dishes. Actually, we have chores on rotation, so each week we rotate, with Justin (20) doing one chore, Rachel (17) doing another, and John (10) doing a third. Mom and Dad picking up the slack.

The three chores we rotate through are (1) Dishes, (2) Laundry, and (3) Sweeper.
The prized job is Sweeper, because we rarely force whoever is sweeping to actually sweep. It is usually just feed the animals (no cows and chickens, just Cats and Dog). Oh, and take out the trash. And maybe scoop the cat litter. Slack = scoop cat litter for the kids, and put a liner in the can for those who forgot. BEFORE you throw trash in the can and discover there's no liner!

Laundry is is a no-brainer. One load, make sure the washer has nothing molding overnight.

Dishes ought to be a no-brainer, but when the dishwasher went south shortly before Christmas, rather than buy a new one, we decided to hold off and wash by hand. We're still holding off, partly to make sure Rachel finishes funding for a Mission Trip, and kids have college. But we have one picked out, I think...

Anyway, whatever chore John is on is a sharing chore, because, well, he's ten. And ADD. And Hyperactive. And all boy. A wicked combo, especially when he's wrapped around the axle from too much video gaming.
I usually give the assist in the evenings, and don't mind dishes. My mom would die of shock, I used to hate hate hate hand dishes. So, I wash, and John dries and puts away. But what occurred last night was, I washed, and John played his game. When the dish racks were fully loaded, therefore, since John was on his game when he was supposed to be helping, I sent him to completely empty the rack while I finished reading The Ghost Box by Mike Duran. :-)

I had to break away from reading seven times to send John back in to dry. First, he couldn't find a hand towel, so he just chased the cat around the house. So, I got him a dishtowel, and sent him back (he knew where these were!) Then, he chased the cat with the dishrag. Trying to pop him, I think. So I sent him back. Then, he marched around the house with a towel and a glass.

You get the picture. He was so hyper he did a flying tackle on the cat, snagging him with the towel. It's a wonder we weren't back at the ER for a broken bone or Cat Scratch Fever. Or at the vet for a crushed rib...

I had to get a chair, and block exit from the kitchen, while reading my book, until he was completely done drying and putting away. Funny how being trapped in a five-foot by five-foot kitchen will give you focus.

After chores came the usual ACTS praying.


ACTS Praying is a thing our family does in the evening to wind down, focus on God, and get our hearts ready for sleep. It's an acronym for (A)doration, (C)onfession, (T)hanksgiving, and (S)upplication.

(A)doration is where we praise God for one of His attributes, like 'You are Holy'. Or one of the other Nine Billion Names of God.

(C)onfession is where we confess something we did wrong to God, try to make it right with each other if it's an offense against another family member. This one can be hard to draw out, or to nail down, especially with John. But, he's ten.

(T)hanksgiving - should be obvious, except when you're tire, you might end up saying Grace for a meal you've already eaten...

(S)upplication - 2 rounds. One for others, and a second round to pray for yourself.

John was still wound up tight, even after 10PM, so when we got to Thanksgiving, he just said, for Tea. I told him that the Tea in the fridge had been there too long, and was probably fermented. Thankfully, he didn't ask what that meant or we'd have been exploring beer and other fermentation.

But he said he meant T. As in, the letter T. I never really thought about thanking God for a letter before, but T is not a bad one, as it's used in so many things. It's even used four times in this sentence.

So, flashback to Sesame Street: Today's ACTS Praying time was brought to you by the Letter T.

We all got a big laugh out of that. You would too, especially if you were a Vols fan.

Dis Mantle

So it all started with the Mantle Clock.

It was (and still is, in some respects) a thing of beauty, the only real thing of value I got from my first 'real' job there at Jostens (other than a good career path!).

The clock was sold in an employee auction because of a slight mar on one foot, a $350 mantle clock that I picked up as the highest bidder for $70.

I was real proud of that clock, and would wind it weekly, to hear its lovely chimes ringing through the house. Letting us know what time it was. Even in the middle of the night.

When we got our second home, because of the ice storm here in the Memphis area, I insisted we get a home with a fireplace, which of course came with a mantle. An excellent place for a mantle clock, wouldn't you agree?

By this time we had two children - a daughter (9) and a son (3) and one on the way.

We already knew that our daughter was ADD, due to a diagnosis when she was in the first grade and struggling a bit. But the jury was out on our son.

Well, life at work had gotten quite hectic, and I was putting in extremely long days and weeks, working weekends and quite worn out, so I forgot to perform my Monday ritual winding of the ever-important mantle clock.

Tuesday came, and my 3yo dear son reminded me to wind the clock. I said I would, but a call from work caused me to rush off without doing so.

A cardinal sin.

Dragging back home at around 7:30pm that night, I went straight to the kitchen and went to the fridge to pour myself a glass of iced tea. Something us southern folks find a necessity down here in the sweltering south.

I stopped in mid pour, with the dawning realization that something was STRUCTURALLY DIFFERENT about the home. No, not just 'I cleaned the Living Room!' or 'I rearranged the furniture, do you like it?' or 'I bought a slipcover for the couch, that's a nice color, don't you think?'

No, this was on the level of a new window, or a new door.

So I put the pitcher down and came back in the living room, looking for the cause of my concern. And suddenly, I saw it. Or rather I didn't see it.

The mantle.

It was GONE. That's right, gone. Not painted, or damaged, just completely and utterly gone. Unpainted drywall was staring me in the face.

I blinked.

It was STILL GONE.

I rubbed my eyes.

The mantle persisted in its gone-ness.

I've heard of people stealing stereos, TVs, even Tickle-Me-Elmos. But a mantle thief??

I said, 'Um, Honey?'

'Yes?' came her bright voice from the other room.

'Where's the MANTLE?' - I tried to sound as sweet as she did, but I was failing miserably.

'Oh, the Mantle?'

'Yes, the MANTLE.' There was a different note in my voice, the 'don't mess with me' voice.

'Oh, it's in the garage.' As if that settled the matter.

'Um, why isn't it on the wall?' Like where it belongs...

'Ask your son...'

Yes. It appears that my sequentially thinking son had decided to wind the clock for poor Daddy, since he forgot. Being athletic (and giftedly so) this little 3yo took a running leap, and caught the mantle. Pulled himself up and got an elbow on top the mantle, and hung there by one hand while he opened the door to the clock and attempted to find the key to wind it.

At this point, physics and gravity took over.

The professional construction crew who built our home probably didn't consider the possibility that we would be hanging toddlers from our mantle. Usually you hang stockings from this piece of furniture, and perhaps put bric-a-brac on it, with nothing much heavier than a mantle clock expected.

So the ten-penny nails began to come out and with a groan and a crash, toddler, clock and mantle came crashing down.

Luckily for our toddler, the clock decided to slide before falling, and went past him, and the rather large, rather disassembled mantle fell in front of him.

When the family came running to find out who had started the war, they all decided to hide the evidence and hope that Daddy wouldn't notice.

Yes, I'm ADHD too. But not so far gone I'd miss a missing mantle. (Well, ok, for more than the time it takes to pour some tea...)

Well, dear son and I had a talk, and he helped me glue the mantle clock back together (yes! It still works and everything!)

And I took a trip to the store to buy a box of heavy duty nails and I rehung the mantle in such a way that I could hang on it myself. (Yes, I tried this).

I'm reminded through all of this, though, that I should not hold too tightly to THINGS. Like Mantle clocks. As beautiful as these things are, everything in this life is passing away. And sometimes God has to use a prybar, or an over-helpful toddler, to open our fingers so he can fill our hands with the good things of lasting value.