Last night was one of the best times of my life. Lucy had her Christmas program at school. It was a crazy night, Bethany was late getting home from work, we had house church meeting at our home, and I was responsible for making dinner. We would be leaving shortly after everyone arrived, and returning hopefully sometime before it was scheduled to end.
I got both kids dressed and out the door. We were walking into the school’s play ground when the Wife called out to us and we were able to walk in together. Bethany and Jack found their way to the auditorium and I got Lucy situated in her classroom. Then, I joined the others in the auditorium.
This was Jack’s first time sitting in “bouncy seats.” You know the seats that are spring loaded like in movie theaters? He was having a blast making them bounce. He would raise his legs and let the seat come up, then grunt and push his legs down to make the seat go back down. It was endless entertainment.
Finally, students started to appear on stage, the principal made an announcement and then the curtains opened. It took only a few seconds for us to spot Lucy, but it took her minutes to locate us, despite our best efforts to waive and move so she could spot us. I guess we weren’t the only parents trying to employ this strategy. Eventually she spotted us, made a waive of her own, and promptly got lost in the singing/performing experience.
They sang several songs, some of which I had only heard previously by Lucy singing them at home to “practice.” Lucy was sitting on the upper level of the risers to the left of the stage (as we were looking at it). She was fidgety. She would play with her hair, bounce it into her face, or not so discretely pick her nose. Bethany and I were laughing really hard. We laughed the hardest when they started the 12 days of Christmas. It wasn’t your typical gifts, but they hung different things in the tree and when they said them, the students would hold up cutouts of the items. The first gift was a bird feeder, the 2nd day was 2 teddy bears, and the 3rd was 3 penguins. Lucy was a penguin. Well, she tried to be anyway.
She got a little distracted at times and missed her cue, or was early, but was rarely Johnny on the spot. Sometimes she would thrust up the penguin with such exuberance that it would flip over her hand and we would end up being mooned by the penguin. All of this is happening despite there being a teacher off to the side of the stage trying to coach the 2 girls and prompt them to act on time.
It wasn’t until after the program while I was relaxing at home that I remembered a story that Jared had told me once. He had gone back to his high school to compete in the annual alumni soccer match against the current players. While he was out there running around, he bends over, plucks a dandelion from the ground, races over to the stands and gives it to his father, who tears up remembering his son not caring about the soccer ball at all, but sitting on the field and plucking dandelions for minutes at a time.
I can only hope, that in the years to come, I will be able to experience more “penguin” moments with Lucy, and that in turn, she will remember them and return them to me in a moment of fondness at a later date.
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Monday, December 1, 2008
A Walk to Remember
I am battling this stupid cold or something and it has pretty much wiped me out. Bethany has again been a super wife/mom and stepped up and gotten a lot done and handled everything around the house beautifully. I would rise out of my sick/sleep state and give breaks where I could throughout the weekend. It was during one of the breaks that I realized that the kids have a certain tone or pitch to their voice that just makes you go from zero to angry in the snap of a finger. Bethany agreed that she felt the same, and we tried to make the best out of a bad situation, and get the kids to play quietly or watch shows or whatever, nothing seemed to work. It wasn’t a good time.
At this point, I was reminded of a childhood memory. Well, it wasn’t really childhood, as much as teenaged. My family was on our way home from Winamac, and we were traveling in our minivan. We three kids were being.. we three kids. We were arguing, bickering, poking, pushing, yelling, you remember those days, right?
After about 15 minutes of this non-stop fun, my parents snapped. Dad pulled off to the side of the road and told all of us kids to get out and walk home. They had had enough and needed a break. We were about 3 miles from home. Growing up in the country, we knew everyone that lived in the houses that we passed, and mom and dad felt safe with this decision. I don’t know if they would in today’s environment though.
Anyway, Rose and I were somewhat devastated. We couldn’t believe Mom and Dad would treat us like this. It was John that was the trouble maker, not us. When we watched them drive off, we knew that we had to walk. It wasn’t going to be a good afternoon.
We were walking west on the Francesville Pulaski blacktop (that’s the actual name of the road), and we come to a bridge. Being who we were, we had to explore: we grabbed rocks and dropped them off, we climbed down the bank and scared the pigeons out from under the bridge, and we tried to hit fish with rocks. It was a good 30 minutes before we got bored, and decided to walk again.
We walked past Lowry’s, both Hansen’s homes, Bush Farm service, and made it to the corner of our road. Smith’s live at the intersection. They have really nice flowers that grow along the road. Again, being who we were, we decided that the best thing we could do to make this better between us and our parents was to pick some of these flowers and take them home to Mom. We each grabbed a handful.
We walked the remainder of the way, maybe 1.5 miles and somewhere along the way, the number of flowers we had picked had dropped, and we each had 2-3 flowers to give to Mom; a paltry offering.
When we got home and walked into the house, mom and dad were upset with us. Even after giving them the flowers. They expected us to be home a lot sooner than we had made it. We were punished again for not being more prompt and listening to them and coming straight home. Oh well.
The thing that made the biggest impression on me about this particular punishment, wasn’t that we didn’t argue as much in the van, or not simmer down a little when Mom and Dad threatened to make us walk home, but that we later learned that 4 neighbors had called to make sure everything was ok because they recognized us and saw us walking without our parents.
Looking back on this memory, now that I too am a parent, I actually admire my parents and their decision. I don’t know if I could do the same thing they did. It took a lot of courage, but it also took a lot of faith in our community. They knew that we would be safe, and that nothing would happen to us. I miss that community, the genuine compassion and concern.
It has taken me years to find anything similar, but I believe that my family now lives in a similar community, in a city nonetheless. But that story is for a different day.
At this point, I was reminded of a childhood memory. Well, it wasn’t really childhood, as much as teenaged. My family was on our way home from Winamac, and we were traveling in our minivan. We three kids were being.. we three kids. We were arguing, bickering, poking, pushing, yelling, you remember those days, right?
After about 15 minutes of this non-stop fun, my parents snapped. Dad pulled off to the side of the road and told all of us kids to get out and walk home. They had had enough and needed a break. We were about 3 miles from home. Growing up in the country, we knew everyone that lived in the houses that we passed, and mom and dad felt safe with this decision. I don’t know if they would in today’s environment though.
Anyway, Rose and I were somewhat devastated. We couldn’t believe Mom and Dad would treat us like this. It was John that was the trouble maker, not us. When we watched them drive off, we knew that we had to walk. It wasn’t going to be a good afternoon.
We were walking west on the Francesville Pulaski blacktop (that’s the actual name of the road), and we come to a bridge. Being who we were, we had to explore: we grabbed rocks and dropped them off, we climbed down the bank and scared the pigeons out from under the bridge, and we tried to hit fish with rocks. It was a good 30 minutes before we got bored, and decided to walk again.
We walked past Lowry’s, both Hansen’s homes, Bush Farm service, and made it to the corner of our road. Smith’s live at the intersection. They have really nice flowers that grow along the road. Again, being who we were, we decided that the best thing we could do to make this better between us and our parents was to pick some of these flowers and take them home to Mom. We each grabbed a handful.
We walked the remainder of the way, maybe 1.5 miles and somewhere along the way, the number of flowers we had picked had dropped, and we each had 2-3 flowers to give to Mom; a paltry offering.
When we got home and walked into the house, mom and dad were upset with us. Even after giving them the flowers. They expected us to be home a lot sooner than we had made it. We were punished again for not being more prompt and listening to them and coming straight home. Oh well.
The thing that made the biggest impression on me about this particular punishment, wasn’t that we didn’t argue as much in the van, or not simmer down a little when Mom and Dad threatened to make us walk home, but that we later learned that 4 neighbors had called to make sure everything was ok because they recognized us and saw us walking without our parents.
Looking back on this memory, now that I too am a parent, I actually admire my parents and their decision. I don’t know if I could do the same thing they did. It took a lot of courage, but it also took a lot of faith in our community. They knew that we would be safe, and that nothing would happen to us. I miss that community, the genuine compassion and concern.
It has taken me years to find anything similar, but I believe that my family now lives in a similar community, in a city nonetheless. But that story is for a different day.
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