Happy Friday

Well today was a pretty good day. Carmin and Missy (2 students in our college small group) came and babysat the kids this afternoon while Nancy worked her last day.

Missy came over for several hours yesterday for the same reason.

For the past few weeks, Nancy has finished her part-time employment at the Surgery Center. Next week she starts as resource status, meaning that she will work around 4 hours per week.

In the meantime, while she's been gone during the day, I've still had work to do and 3 kids to take care of. It's been a challenge -- especially since Abby refuses to take a bottle. Yesterday was awful in this regard.

After Missy left, it was time for Abby to eat and she was hungry and upset. She was screaming, mad at me -- if she could have talked I'm sure the room would have been full of baby-expletives. For 45 minutes I tried and re-tried to give her the bottle with absolutely no success.

I have tried consistently (lately) to give her a bottle, but she just screams the whole time. It is a totally unpleasant experience for both of us.

Today, on Nancy's last day -- Abby suddenly took the bottle. I sort of snuck it to her, letting her kind of play with it, then taking it away if she started fussing or acting suspicious. Now I've tried this before -- along with many other techniques -- with terrible results. I've tried a host of different nipples, I've tried breastmilk and formula, adding sugar, putting sugar water on the nipple -- everything "they" say to try. But today was the day.

It was amazingly gratifying to hold my infant daughter on my lap while she drank vigorously on the bottle of formula without so much as a whimper.

It is a happy Friday. 

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday to you
Happy Birthday dear Jackie
Happy Birthday to you

I hope you have a great day and that you feel loved, dear friend. 

Craning to see Mom

Abby is so dang adorable. She has the sweetest disposition.

I came up for lunch and found her craning her neck and trying to work her entire body around so she could see Nancy. 

Care Package

Today we received a package in the mail.

I opened it to discover the following contents:

• a short note


• a bag of cinnamon almonds from Farm and Fleet


• a package of Marshall Field's Franco mint chocolates


• a PC video game


• a bag of BeefaRoo seasoned salt


• a 3-pack "Spice Rub Sampler" from Harry and David

The package was from Michael and Terri back in Illinois. Michael and I worked together at Studio North for several good years. Several items in the box are so great given some times that we've shared. It is so great to get something tangible from someone who knows who you are and has stories and memories that you share.

Receiving the package gave me a great excuse to call Michael and thank both he and Terri, and to catch up. I hope we get a chance to spend some time together this year.

Thanks again Michael and Terri.

Expanding?

Well I'm in the throes of a very busy time of year right now for my business.

I'm quoting and getting more work than I have in a long time.

I've talked to several people about helping out as contractors, and I've finally pulled the trigger and sort-of hired someone as a part-time contractor. He is brand new to HTML, and he's only worked a few hours total, but he's already editing source code and created a whole bunch of new pages today. I have high hopes.

This is a big step for both he and I. We're both stepping out into new and somewhat uncomfortable territory, although it is exciting.

Meanwhile I'm ramping op for a bigger project that will involve hiring still other programmers as well as a designer.

I hope this helps me spend more time with my family. My fear is that I will get sucked in deeper to more hours.

Risk and reward, tempered by hope of establishing some balance in my life...

So Good to be Together

Sunday we hosted a farewell party for my good friends Todd and Missy. Todd is with the Colorado Division of Wildlife and has just been transferred to Evergreen, Colorado. They move this week. We've been good friends with Todd and Missy for a long time, and it's sad to see them move away, but I don't feel like it's a big goodbye. They'll be a little over an hour away and I think we'll still see a lot of them.

Sunday night I worked all night, then around noon yesterday we went to Denver to see Jackie and Mark and go to the new Bass Pro Shop Outdoor World. We had fun just spending time with our good friends. After hanging out at Bass Pro, we had a great Italian dinner at Cinzetti's then went to Jackie and Mark's apartment for a little while.

Good friends are so important. We certainly miss our friends that live all over the US and all around the world, but it's great to be able to keep in touch and read many of their blogs.

Abby and I

This photo was taken by Emma a few weeks ago.

Abby is growing so fast. She loves making all sorts of noises, smiles when she sees any of us, and is laughing more and more.

I just love having kids. 

Fun with Google Analytics

Google has a fun tool called Google Analytics. You can use this tool to track visits to your site. One of the fun things for me is to see where users are coming from.

If you look closely you can see your dot on there somewhere (if you were here during the past week). There is also a way to get a text version of this and you can see what city, state, and country visitors come from.

You can see in the map that people come from all over the world to look at my site. Actually, the topmost thing people come to my site for is from searching Google images for "Of Mice and Men". Right now I'm on page 4 of the search.

Google just re-opened registration to Google Analytics. It's on an invitation-only bases - get it while it's hot!

Parkour is crazy

8 minute video of Russian[?] guy doing some crazy Parkour (gymnastics mixed with running and climbing)

All I was thinking the whole time was "Is this guy near Chernobyl or something?" cuz everything is abandoned and run down. I wonder because from the looks of it he could probably outrun an angry mob of well-armed, highly caffeinated spider monkeys - but you just can't outrun radiation.



UPDATE** If you cannot play the video, you may need Macromedia Flash player.

Youth Group Gone Full Circle

I'm helping with my church youth group now. We had a meeting tonight at church. 4 students were there. 2 couldn't make it.

We talked about breaking out of the Christian bubble (a reference to the message last Sunday in church) and genuinely caring for those who aren't in the social club, if that is what church has become for us. This discussion wasn't entirely a "pulling teeth" discussion, but it wasn't "The View" either. Let's say if could have gone better.

After the talk, we played a little game that we made up.

You see, before the talk, we hung out for a little while and several of the kids played ping-pong with one of the other adult volunteers. While they were playing, we pulled out probably 8 old messed up ping pong paddles, which raised the question of why we had so many old, messed up ping pong paddles.

I made up some lame answer, then said "there must be some game we could play with all these paddles." One of the students immediately had the idea of some form of ping-pong-paddle combat, which got shot down pretty fast. Then I found the old rubber ball - you know, the sort of reddish squishy one that at one point was attached to the rubber band which was in turn attached to one of those cheap plywood paddles?

I sent combat paddle boy to the other side of the basement, then he and I volleyed the red ball back and forth a few times until we started our talk.

After the talk had ended, and we all had some snacks, I went back and grabbed the paddles and the ball and handed out paddles. Then we invented "Peak pong" which involved a mad scramble around the church basement trying to smack the red ball at someone else.

It turns out combat paddle boy was a ball magnet, as it seemed that no matter what direction the ball was hit, he was at the end of the line drive - except for the shot to the back of the head I accidentally landed on the quiet junior high girl who was sitting on the sidelines refusing to play.

Overall the night was good. We had fun, we invented a new game that no one was seriously injured while playing, the snacks were pretty good, and we connected with the few students that were there. Last week went much better - I planned a successful activity that related directly to our talk. These activities are a pretty big gamble with High School and Junior High Students, but this one paid off.

Either way I'm enjoying being back in ministry again. I am working with a really good group of volunteers. Our student group is small, but they are young and a great batch of students, so there is tremendous potential. As we get into the new year, I am planning some team building and planning sessions for our volunteers that should bring some nice community and cohesion to our group.

The reason this is titled "Youth Group Gone Full Circle" (I'll make this fast, I know this is a long post) is that I started out in youth ministry at this church almost 14 years ago. Now I'm back. One of my former students is now one of the adult volunteers, and I have become an old fat guy with some really solid youth ministry and leadership training, a lot of life and business experience, and perhaps become a better person to do what it seems God is calling me to do.

Yeah, I Sold Some

Well it's finally happened. I sold some art work.

Last week I took our life drawing group to a dress rehearsal by Open Stage Theater & Company, where we drew from the live actors on stage - something that proved to be more difficult than I had imagined. In the end it went well, we had fun, the actors enjoyed having us there, and we created some nice drawings and paintings.

We had a fund raiser Friday night (CoCoA - my art cooperative did) and I actually sold some of the drawings from Monday night.

I don't know how many I sold or how much they went for (it was a silent auction) but it is pretty cool nonetheless. I just hope someone took some photos of the drawings or I'll have no record of them at all. I did not expect that any would sell. Who knew?

The Funniest Thing I Think I Have Ever Seen

I don't know if this was real or staged, but I almost fell out of my chair when I saw it.

Old Lady Pwnz Mercedes Guy - Google Video

UPDATE: As I've read around the interweb, this is part of a commercial. Also, as a warning to anyone sensitive to profanity there is some text that contains profanity on the page that I had not noticed before.

Finally, Google video lets you add free videos to your site, so here is to hoping that Steffen can see the video now:

Indomitable Spirit

Our son, Corben, will be 3 in February.

He has become quite a personality. He's always gone 100 miles per hour, but lately I think he's begun accelerating.

He acts out so spontaneously. We'll hear him yelling at Emma, go correct him, and he immediately yells at her again, so we give him a timeout - which starts the tears. He cries the whole time he's in his timeout, then we have him apologize to Emma, which he does, then he wants us to hold him or play with him, and it's as if nothing had happened; he engages with us and giggles and laughs and we have fun.

We then leave the room and he yells at Emma again for something.

The correction should be constant with him, but he outlasts our ability to correct him for the same thing. But always there is the restoration; the apology and love and playing and laughter.

I try to imagine him in High School or as an adult, and I wonder what his personality will be like. What is a 2-year-old who can't stop like when he's 15? 25?

One thing I learned years ago from our former pastor, Tim - is that parents need to correct the negative behavior without crushing the spirit of a child. I have to watch myself, because I can tell when my patience has been exhausted. I resort to yelling "Corben, leave your sister alone!" from another room, rather than coming right to him, again, stopping him, talking to him and addressing the behavior.

I think this could be what could crush his spirit - scolding him constantly without meeting him at eye level and stopping whatever is going on. After a while, if I've scolded him a lot, I can tell he does quiet down, and does retreat. But this is not an improvement in his behavior, it is him surrendering - out of fear of being scolded - to my will. He cries more easily when things have gotten to this point.

This is not the way I want to parent. Even though he is exhausting, the moments of restoration are so sweet and the freedom of his spirit is so refreshing. This is the son I want to see become a man -- not one who has been subdued and quieted, but one who jumps onto the couch [where we don't want him standing], and with a big grin stands and yells "Daddy, look at me!"

A pickle

So I don't have a great track record with gifts for Nancy. I've had a few winners, and as long as I get her exactly what's on her list I'm ok, but too often I get something that I think is perfect, that tells her how much she means to me -- only to find that her gracious "thank you" is the last I ever hear or see of the gift.

Well this Christmas another problem surfaced with her gifts. She got some perfume from someone. It was perfume that she asked for, that she used to wear (I assume long before we ever met) that she loves. Now she's wearing it. I can hardly stand it. I'm in a pickle.

I was working in my office and she came and sat beside me while she was talking with someone on her phone - calendar in hand - trying to schedule her week. After about 5 minutes, I looked to her with an unintentional grimace on my face and whispered as delicately as I could "I think I'm getting sick from the smell of your perfume." She promptly got up and left.

In my defense (to all of you contorting your mouths and saying "ooooh") -- I was getting nauseas from the smell, and the grimace that she came back and informed me was on my face -- really was unintentional.

I'm sitting here - alone - in my office now with the window opened trying to clear some of the aroma, still feeling nauseas. I think I need to wash my hands because the smell is still strong on my skin from touching her sleeve.

I'm anticipating a tearful conversation later today or this evening when I get home from drawing.

Changing subject completely, tonight I will be taking the life-drawing class to a dress rehearsal of a musical performed by Open Stage Theater Company. We will be drawing from the performance. This was not my idea -- someone else had the flash of light -- but I think it's a great idea and I'm looking forward to it.

I still feel sick, so I'm going to get some water. I'm wringing my hands.