Category: MC

Twelve

Last weekend I got to take my very pretty wife away for our anniversary.

I took Friday afternoon off of work and we dropped the kids off with my parents, and we hit the road for Atlanta.

We hit Atlanta at 5:30 on Friday afternoon. I was expecting absolute traffic armageddon, but somehow we cruised all the way to the Lenox exit off GA400 with no trouble at all. From there, it took us 45 minutes to go the last mile to the hotel.

We checked into our room, threw on some nicer clothes, and headed downstairs for a fancy dinner at Ruth’s Chris. I snapped a poorly-lit iPhone pic to immortalize the occasion:

The next morning we headed for the Atlantic Station area to walk around. We grabbed coffee and an omelette in a little cafe and then spent a couple of hours walking around Ikea. Here’s my pretty wife at the cafe:

Later in the day, we grabbed an early dinner and headed downtown to grab a parking space and get ready for the main event: the David Crowder Band concert at the Tabernacle.

As we were making our way into the venue for the concert, I spotted a couple guys chatting with folks in the line. I asked these dudes if they’d mind taking a picture with MC (who would mind that?). This is Chris August on the left (search iTunes and buy some stuff, he’s good!) and Mike Dodson from the David Crowder Band. They were just out mixin’ it up with fans before the show. Nice guys.

And here’s a pic from the show. I’ve seen plenty of live music, but this was my favorite show.

And finally, here’s a little project I made for MC for our anniversary. I called it the Instagram Art Project. A love note to my wife using photos and images sequenced together:

I’d be remiss if I didn’t give all the credit to my parents for making the weekend possible by keeping our kids. Mom and Dad – the way you give to us is not lost on us. You are very much appreciated!

Fall is my favorite season

I’m never very sad to see summer go.

I think that’s because over the years, so many of our family milestones and memories have accrued during fall that it has solidified its place as my favorite season.

Here are a few things that come to mind when I think about fall:

Marrying Mary Craig on a crisp November day.

Crunching through leaves in the yard the day she was in labor with our oldest child.

Celebrating our boy’s birthday in late September.

Cheering for our Blue Hose at our alma mater’s homecoming.

Chasing after the big kids at the Fall Festival at their elementary school.

Watching Tivo’d Gator football after everyone’s asleep.

Feeling inspired and overwhelmed at Catalyst.

Those are just a few quick ones off the top of my head.

What are some of the things you like about fall?

Adoption update: Home study

I can’t remember the last time I posted an adoption update, but that’s for good reason. There simply hasn’t been anything to report.

Our formal application is complete, which means the next milestone is the home study. The home study consists of in-person interviews with our social worker from our adoption agency at her office and an inspection of our house.

When I say “inspection of our house” I mean they need to come eyeball the thing to make sure it has four walls and a roof, space to accommodate another child, etc. They’re not checking the r-value of our insulation, I don’t think.

Our social worker began reaching out to us in April wanting to nail down some dates for our interviews, but we were set to close on the sale of our house and move into our new house during the week she recommended, so we had to defer. Ever since, it’s been a matter of coordinating her schedule, my work schedule and childcare for our three turkeys. Throw on top of that the fact that the agency office is in Knoxville, a two hour drive away. Scheduling has been a chore.

But we got it worked out, so on June 20 we drove to Knoxville and met with our social worker and had our first in-person interviews. For two hours, we talked about our family, our marriage and about adoption.

When the day’s session was done, we did what any country mice without kids for a night would do in the big city: we walked around the mall and had dinner at P.F. Chang’s. Because the party never stops with us.

The next morning, we went back to the agency office and completed another, even more personal questionnaire than the one we filled out prior to our other interview. Then MC had a one-on-one session that lasted almost 90 minutes. When she was done, it was my turn.

I didn’t know I had it in me to talk about myself for 90 minutes, but somehow I managed.

Now that our interviews are complete, our social worker will come visit us at home to check out the house. After that’s done she can finish writing the home study report.

The next big piece to tackle after that will be the dossier, which as far as I can tell is a big packet of information, applications and documents that the kind folks in our immigration department will want before they allow the folks in Ethiopia to match a child up with us.

So there’s the timeline.

How are we feeling?

I can’t speak for Mary Craig, but for me it was energizing to get our interviews done. It was the first time since Mary Craig clandestinely attended an adoption information session a year ago that we’ve had face-to-face interaction with someone from the agency. Up to this point it has all been on paper. So in that sense it made it the whole thing feel real, like we’re really going to adopt a child, not like we’re entering an essay contest or something.

At the same time, none of this feels real because the timeline seems so long that I can’t picture the day when our child will be with us. I can’t visualize it yet. I can’t see the part of this process where we buy plane tickets and fight crazy jet lag and write all the big checks we’re going to have to write. I can’t see our baby here with us.

So even as I write this I feel like a standard-shift car with the engine revved but the clutch on the floor. There’s so much energy but there’s nothing happening. No motion.

But even as I fret about my own family, I know that these stories do get written. Just a week or so ago I sat on my own deck and patted the tiny back of little Mira, a little Ugandan miracle. And I stood in my kitchen and watched her demolish a piece of watermelon, just like my own daughter had done hours before. I remember being with Mira’s parents at Thanksgiving when she was still in Uganda. I’m sure they must have felt that they’d have to wait forever to bring their daughter home.

What a difference six months can make.

That’s our update for now. I’ll post more as I know it.

A dangerous mistake that nearly cost me my tastebuds

If you follow me on Twitter, you’ve already been shocked and horrified by this story, but I thought I’d share it here because I think it’s one to remember.

On Tuesday night, I had a meeting at church and MC was  invited to a thing at a friend’s house, so we had our sitter come stay with the kids and we had a brief “date night” over sandwiches at Which Wich.

I don’t know why I just put quotation marks on “date night.”

I’ve got a favorite sandwich at Which Wich, but I’m thought I’d break the mold and try something new. I ordered the gyro with some greek-ish condiments (lettuce, tomato, cucumber, feta). It was fantastic.

We were in a bit of a time crunch, so we at quickly and chatted quickly and then split up to go do our separate things. Good meal, then end of date night.

Wednesday was a busy day at the office and finally got to a stopping point around 1:30 p.m. when I could think about grabbing a quick bite to eat. I still had a mountain of things to accomplish before the day was over, so my time was limited.

Which Wich is right behind my office and we joke that it’s the corporate dining room because it’s so convenient that many of us eat there a lot. I decided I’d run down to Which Wich and have another one of the tasty gyros I’d built the previous night.

I strode into the store confidently and picked up a brown bag and ordered the sandwich I’d eaten the night before. White bread, gryo meat, tzatziki sauce, lettuce, tomato, cucumbers, and feta cheese. Then I paid for my meal, grabbed a seat and read a book on the Kindle app on my phone.

When I got back to the office with my food, I was really disappointed to find out they’d screwed up my order. There was no sign of gyro meat and there was some kind of red sauce dripping out of this sandwich.

It’s always frustrating to me to get a carryout order home and find out that the restaurant has screwed up the order. It’s time and money wasted. And I was having a stressful day to begin with, so this was just a little icing on the cupcake.

I called the store and they non-enthusiastically offered to make me a new sandwich if I would bring my brown bag back. I decided that was the thing to do even though it would be a 20 minute field trip on a day that couldn’t spare it. I just couldn’t see eating whatever it was they gave me. I wrapped the sandwich up and threw it in the trash.

As I was walking across the office to get my keys, everything snapped into focus. I suddenly understood precisely what was inside the deli paper I had unrolled earlier.

I double-checked my brown bag and discovered I had checked “Monte Cristo” instead of “Gyro.”

The Which Wich Monte Cristo is a sandwich made with ham, turkey, grape jelly and powdered sugar.

And I thought I was building a gyro.

So the sandwich I ordered had:

  • ham
  • turkey
  • lettuce
  • tomato
  • cucumber
  • grape jelly
  • feta cheese
  • powdered sugar

When I realized what had happened, I knew there was only one thing to do. I had to eat the sandwich.

Okay, so that’s not true. I could have not eaten the sandwich. But if I had just eaten my chips and sipped my Coke, that would have meant I paid $8 for chips and a drink. And if I’m going to pay $8 for a Coke, you better believe it’s because I just stood in line for three hours to ride It’s a Small World.

I tweeted about my blunder and Which Wich replied back, enthusiastic that I take the sandwich back. They wanted me happy. But I explained that this one was all on me. One hundred percent my goof.

So I ate the sandwich.

And it was horrendous.

But I learned my lesson. You won’t believe the caution I’ll use when I try to fill out one of those brown bags again.

You remember the movies from the 80s where the two guys with keys had to turn their keys at exactly the same time to launch the nuclear missile attack that destroys the world?

That’s how it’s going to be with my Which Wich bags from now on. I’m going to tell like nine people what kind of sandwich I’m trying to make and then pass the brown bag around the store to make sure I’ve done it right. Maybe even take it next door to Jason’s Deli and say, “Hey, I’m getting a Turkey Club at Which Wich…did I do this right?”

I hope this is helpful to you. Please don’t make the same mistake I did. Your tastebuds will never, ever forgive you.

A weekend daydream

We sold our house at 3 p.m. on a Friday afternoon.

We weren’t set to buy our new house until the following Monday at 4 p.m.

For a weekend, we didn’t own a home. We didn’t have insurance or taxes or any of that stuff to worry about.

Riding in the car from the closing to the bank, Mary Craig and I daydreamed about cancelling the closing on the new house and disappearing for a while. During a celebration date the following night, we tried to figure out how long (or how short) a family of five could live someplace tropical on what we made on the sale.

We thought it would be fun to homeschool the kids and spend a year in the Caymans or in a big RV. If nothing else, we’d have great stories to tell.

In the end, those were just daydreams, and we stuck with the plans we’d made. We bought our new house the following Monday. It’s a great place. We’ll still have great stories to tell.

If you found yourself suddenly able to wander with the people you love – where would you go? What would you do? 

Getting married was like putting a gun in my hands

I got a BB gun when I was in high school.

My friend worked for this guy who had a cool piece of land out in the woods, so every now and then we’d go work at his place and then shoot BB guns for a few hours before we came home.

Then, since the thing was just sitting there crying out to be used, I’d shoot at Coke cans or oranges in my backyard. Occasionally, a bird or squirrel would even jump in front of my gun while I was shooting.

When you’re a 16 year old and you have a BB gun, you shoot everything. Because you can.

A few years ago, I discovered that I haven’t exactly grown out of that.

When Mary Craig and I got married, it was like someone handed me a different kind of gun.

All of a sudden, I earned the right to have input on everything that happened under our roof.

Paint colors, furniture placement, grocery lists, spending, movie selections, routines, kids clothes – you name it, there was a nearly unlimited list of things I could throw my two cents in on.

For a long time, I critiqued and commented and vetoed just because I could.

In your relationship, is there anything you find yourself doing just because there’s space in the relationship to do it?

I found that I viewed Mary Craig more highly when I made a habit of willfully dialing down my need to have an opinion on everything that happens in our house.

That’s not to say the occasional squirrel or bird doesn’t still jump in front of the gun, but for the most part, I think I’ve quit shooting stuff just because I can.

Four tips for better relationships with your kids

When our son was born, we had a nurse who liked to give what I would call “unconventional” advice about how to care for him – stuff that she’d learned simply by being around a lot of babies over the course of her career.

You know you’re in for something good when your nurse starts a story with:

“You won’t find this in any medical textbook, but…”

And when she said those things, I knew she was either 100% right or 100% insane. No middle ground.

I like her approach enough that I’m going to steal it and use it here.

You may not find this in any parenting manual or psychology textbook, but I have a theory about young kids: Kids will establish how they relate to you forever based on how you relate to them when they are very small.

Here’s what I mean.

If my son learns at five that I laugh at him/fuss at him/ignore him when he brings me what he thinks is a problem, how much communication is likely between the two of us when he’s 15?

Based on this idea that kids will solidify how they relate to you when they’re small, here are a few notes based on what I’ve seen in my life:

1) Be a receiver. I’ve posted about this before. My goal when my kids start a conversation is to keep them talking and draw out what they’re saying as much as possible.

While I was driving Son home from school the other day, he said, “Daddy, I like Saturdays.”

I asked him, “What is it that you like about Saturdays?”

I kept drawing things out of him and eventually he told me that he likes Saturdays because we’re all together as a family.

Made me glad I didn’t just say, “Me too,” or “Yeah, but Saturdays can be really busy sometimes.”

2) Lose the sarcasm. Mary Craig and I like to think we’re pretty funny people. Sometimes when one of the kids says something, I’ll reply sarcastically. Kids don’t speak the language of sarcasm. Getting a laugh off my kid while they’re trying to talk to me is cheap. I think they don’t know, but they know.

3) Remember they’re kids. Kids have kid problems and kid fears. They celebrate kid stuff and cry about kid stuff. Their reality is their reality. I think kids feel disrespected or diminished when you don’t recognize that their stuff is real to them.

4) Be mindful of what they really want from you. What I mean is, answer the question in your mind, “How would I want my mom or dad to react in this situation?”

If I hit a homerun on the tee-ball field, I’d want to hear my parents cheering the loudest in the stands. If my friends picked on me all day, I’d want someone to love on me. If I brought them a problem I’d created, I’d want them to listen without reacting harshly.

That’s not to say it’s my job as a parent to always give my child what he/she is wanting from me, but I think being mindful of them is the best place to start.

Like I said, you probably won’t find those in any textbook or parenting manual. So like our nurse, there’s a chance I’m 100% insane with this.

But if I’m on to something, and the preschool and kindergarten years really are when you begin to set patterns of relationship and communication for the later years, what would you add to my list?

2011: Rest

Somewhere along the way, Sunday turned into every other day.

Chores, errands and activities compete for the hours after church.

Most weekends, it doesn’t feel like Mary Craig and I get to rest until the kids are in bed on Sunday night, and even then there are lunches to pack, trash to take out, etc.

A couple weeks ago, I told Mary Craig, “I think we need to commit some time each Sunday to rest.”

“YES!” she answered.

So the next day, after everyone was fed their post-church lunch, we sent the kids to their rooms to read and play, put the baby down for a nap, and we napped.

We got about 10 minutes of actual sleep in because the phone or doorbell rang or something, but for a chunk of our Sunday afternoon we gave ourselves permission to let all the responsibilities sit and wait for us while we rested.

Life at home with three kids can feel like a treadmill sometimes. It just keeps going.

You unload the dishwasher to make space for the dishes in the sink. By the time you run it, the sink is full again.

You send the kids to their rooms to play so you can get a few things done, but while you’re working on one area of the house or paying bills or folding laundry, the kids are busy messing up their rooms. So you’ve got to go supervise room cleanup.

Maybe it’s more like a game of whack-a-mole than a treadmill. Either way, for the sake of your own sanity and to maintain your energy, you need a break every now and then.

For 2011, we’re building rest into the rhythm of our family.

How do you maintain energy and sanity at your house? Do you have a regular rest time?

2011: 60 silent nights

He was an accomplished prime time TV viewer, well-versed in the plot lines of multiple situation comedies and highly skilled at using voice inflection and facial cues to predict which house would be picked by the folks on House Hunters. In addition, he had a knack for serving ice cream at just the right time to coincide the the peak moments of any show.

If she were being honest about me, Mary Craig would have to include that in my obit if I died right now.

Have you ever had a junky snack in front of you – say a bowl of chips or a plate of cookies – and you’re not even really hungry and you know they’re not good for you but you just keep eating them because they’re there?

That’s kinda what TV is for me. It’s just fluff. Just mental junk food.

More than anything though, it’s a time suck.

If I think too much about it, I start to get a little crazy and want to sell all our TVs.

We’re not doing that. But I do want to dial my own TV intake down in 2011. And I think that will bear fruit in other areas of my life as well.

My plan is to have 60 silent nights in 2011. Sixty nights of no TV.

Now that may or may not sound like much. But that’s more than once a week of intentionally leaving the TV off to do something else.

When I check in this time next year, I wonder what I’ll have to show for how I’ve spent those 60 nights. More books read? Better connection with Mary Craig? Healthier family budget? Cleaner house? New side project?

I’ll let you know.