Kitty Noises

Cats can make a lot of different sounds. Sometimes they meow at the door until someone lets them into the house. Sometimes they curl up on your lap and purr contentedly. Other times they might knock something off a shelf and send it crashing to the floor. And sometimes they let out a sorry sounding cry for help as a wild animal devours their flesh while their owner stands helplessly by. Our cat made one of those noises last night. Can you guess which one? 

The cats meow at the door all the time, so I probably wouldn’t take the time to write about that event and I’m not sappy enough to write about them purring on my lap. If one of them knocked over something valuable I might be willing to write about it, but for the most part, there isn’t anything breakable of much value on any of our shelves. That leaves us with only one remaining option: wild animals. 

The last of the kids had just been put to bed and my wife and I were buttoning up the house for the night when we heard the sound. It was a pathetic and terrified screeching meow that came from just outside the living room window. “Get out there!” my wife demanded as she froze in her tracks. I ran to the front door only to be reminded that the door knob had broken earlier in the day and there was no way to open it. Plan B was to go out the back and run around the house into the front yard, but the back gate was locked and it would take too long to get the key. The final option was to run to the garage and out into the front yard that way. By the time I figured out the best way to get to the helpless cat, it was too late, she was gone. I searched all the usual places and my son even brought a flashlight out, but, alas, no glow-in-the-dark eyes ever peered back at me. 

A few minutes later, my wife joined us with a bag of kitty treats. She shook the bag a few times and we heard it, a faint meow, kind of like the “I’m at the door, let me in” sort of meow, but quieter. “I think I hear something,” I said. “Shake it again.” So she did and the cat responded again with the same cry. We flashed the lights around the bushes in another vain attempt to find the presumably mangled cat. I mentioned to my wife that when I first came out I had heard some rustling in the bushes so we focused our attention in that area and heard a third cry, this time from above. As we gazed upwards, high above us in a leafless tree sat a shaking cat. 

“Come on kitty,” my wife called out again shaking the bag of treats. The cat tried to find a route down, but apparently in her hasty flight up the tree, she had neglected to map out a path of retreat. “Go get the ladder,” Mommy suggested without really leaving any room for me to decline. A few minutes later, clad in only shorts and a t-shirt on a cold dark night, I found myself climbing a ladder to rescue a cat from a tree. 

By the time I had come down, half the family was waiting for me on the lawn and I was immediately told to put the cat in bed with my oldest daughter who desperately wanted to know that her kitty was okay. Somehow this little cat had escaped the jaws of a violent beast and scurried up a tree to safety seconds before being torn apart and came out of it completely unscathed. 

As I drifted off to sleep later that night, little did I know that the hamster was busy escaping from her cage and slipping out into the darkened house; the house that was guarded by the recently rescued kitty. 

Wrinkled Noses

They say that 90% of communication is non-verbal. Or is it 75%? I’m not a numbers guy so I don’t really care what the exact statistic is and, since you can’t see my face right now, you really don’t know whether I mean that or not. Regardless, no one can argue with the premise that body language plays an important role in communication. 

That's why I don’t like the Facebooking and Twittering world. Short pithy statements without the benefit of facial expressions and body language lead to miscommunication. At least with a blog, I can take a few minutes to support my arguments and emotions rather than just throwing a stupid meaningless statement like “Had a bad day” on Facebook hoping for someone to “like” it so that I can feel like somebody out there in cyberspace likes that fact that I had a bad day thus making me feel loved and cared for.  If you can’t give me body language, then at least have the courage to give me a thought-out explanation rather than making me fish it out of you by asking probing questions in the very public arena of the internet. 

Fortunately, as a parent of young children, kids don’t communicate with us through text messages and annoying social networking posts. I realize that as they age, my innocent children will turn into teenagers and try to drag me into an e-lationship, but for now, I am totally digging the face-to-face old school parenting style. I love watching their faces as they relive the scattered moments of each day. 

My wife and I frequently find ourselves laughing at one of the kids. It’s not just the story he or she is telling, but the facial expressions that go with it. I can’t even begin to capture Justin’s four-year-old face as he asks countless questions that simultaneously crack us up and annoy us to tears. And Cami’s six-year-old inquisitions are accompanied by the most complex assortment of facial cues known to man, but the one that has really been popping up lately is on the face of Maddie. 

At eight years old, Maddie Rae has learned to wrinkle her nose at me. This is among the cuter things a lightly-freckled nose can do and it carries a message that she hasn’t conveyed before. She usually gives me the wrinkle after one of the kids asks an unaswerable question such as, “How many elephants are there in Asia?” When presented with such a question, I do what any good father would do. I lie. “There are 7,031 elephants in Asia,” I would begin. Then I would follow it up with further false facts just to make it plainly obvious to most people that I have no idea what I am talking about. “Until last Saturday when a hunter named Bob illegally poached one for its tusks just after a female elephant in the Vietnamese jungle gave birth to twins. Now there at 7,032.”

The younger kids usually enjoy the story and half believe what I say, but Maddie has taken to giving me the wrinkle. She looks right at me and squinches up her little pug nose and conveys a wordless message: You’re bluffing again, Dad and I totally know it! For some reason I find that look amusing and it makes me want to tell more stories just so I can see it again. 

I suppose that someday when she is a teenager and she gives me the wrinkle right after I tell her that a particular boy is a puny excuse for a real man the conversation will have to turn serious, but for now, its a fun form of silent communication between a dad and his little girl and I intend to enjoy it while I can. 

Sunday Afternoon Naps

Our house is only one story...and it has a lot of tile. Those are two very important details when you have five children. For those of you who don’t yet get it, let me explain. Sound waves tend to bounce of hard surfaces more than they bounce of off soft surfaces. Get it now? If you are still struggling, perhaps science isn’t your thing. Maybe math is so I’ll try it this way. Noisy kids + tile floors + no upstairs to hide in = a very poor napping environment. 

As I write this I can hear a door repeatedly slamming in an experimental fashion, a baby laughing as another sibling tickles her, and somehow a scooter got into the house and is being ridden up and down the noise-amplifying tile. 

Fortunately the youngest of the five fell asleep in the car on the way home from church today so her nap was easy. We bought a car seat that reclines, pulled the car into the garage, covered her with a little Thomas the Tank Engine blanket and said good night. She slept blissfully for an hour untouched by the commotion in the house. 

With the baby asleep, Mom and Dad thought we could capitalize on the situation. Did I mention that we had a lot of tile? Did I mention that the tile actually extends down the hall and into our bedroom before carpet takes over? Did I mention the size of the gap under the door after we replaced the old carpet with tile? Remember the math problem from earlier? Now back to the story. 

So with the baby sleeping in the car and the big kids listening for her to wake up, we tried to catch a quick cat nap. Why we tried this on the day Justin got a new remote control car as a Christmas gift from his Sunday school teacher I’ll never know. Within minutes, the dog decided she was lonely and started barking so the kids would come out and play with her. At the same time the remote control car was zipping up and down the tile hallway outside our bedroom. Fortunately my wife and I were in good moods and were able to salt our frustration with a bit of a chuckle as we contemplated the futility of what we were trying to accomplish. With a good natured smile, I went out into the hall and politely asked the offending party to take the car outside and chase the lonely dog with it. He complied and immediately zoomed the car around the yard with the dog chasing it until it was right outside the sliding glass door of our bedroom and a happy tail was joyously thumping on the window. 

Somehow we managed to close our eyes for a few minutes before we heard the sound of a ten-year-old lugging a now awake and semi-happy one-year-old out of the car. Praying that they bigs would be able to keep the littles happy we tried to stay asleep. Predictably, it didn’t take long for the littlest little to latch on to the door knob of our bedroom, walk in, give us both a quick and amazingly silent-but-still-deadly look-over and leave. With the door wide open. 

“Party’s over,” was all I could say to the tired mommy next to me. “I don’t even know why I try this,” she replied back to me as we both rolled out of bed. No wonder we so longingly look forward to bedtime each night. At least then the house is quiet for up to an hour at a time. 

Getting Old

I like to consider myself a pretty friendly guy. I am always on the lookout for strangers who I think will talk to me, especially if I can spot something that we have in common. I’m not talking about someone who has the same shoes as me or someone who is wearing an In-N-Out t-shirt. I look for bigger connections that show more evidence of a lifestyle. When I see a mom or dad out with four or five kids, I have an instant conversation starter. If I suspect someone is a teacher, I’ll chat for a minute or two. (They are really easy to find if you know how to eavesdrop the right way.) When I see someone wearing a Biola University sweatshirt, I always say hi. That backfired today.

I know that for the past several years my hair has been...changing. In order to really notice it, you have to be either behind me or really tall, because the biggest change is taking place in the back. Okay, maybe there is a little gray around the edges, but you have to really study it to see it. I don’t think I have any wrinkles and my belly is still well above my belt, so I can’t imagine how this happened.

It all started as I wandered around Sea World with the family today. I had my five young kids with me and my charming trophy wife. We looked like the perfect picture of a youngish family who clearly had two dogs back at home and more than one bunk bed in the house. How anyone could have mistaken me for old is beyond me, but it happened.

I spotted her approaching about 50 yards ahead of me. As we got near, I could clearly see that her sweatshirt did indeed say Biola University in large block letters. I’m guessing she was a product of a public school who had reformed and chosen to attend a fine Christian university as a way of cleansing her soul from all that she had lived through as a child because the mistake she made could only be the result of a poor education early in life. As we drew near, I turned to her and asked, “Do you attend Biola?”

She replied with a smile and said, “Yes.” But she didn’t stop there. Perhaps she should have because the next words out of her mouth were words that she probably wished she could have sucked back in, kinda like when you ask the heavy woman about her due date. (Brian Regan fans are no doubt pondering pandas at the zoo right now.)

There are countless things she could have said after informing me that she was indeed a current Biola student. She could have said, “Oh, did you go there too?” or “Do you know someone there?” She could have even said, “Yes, because Jesus loves me and has a wonderful plan for my life.” Anything would have been better than what she said. Keep in mind that I am not that old. My oldest son is nine. That puts him nine years away from college. So why did she respond to my inquiry by saying, “Yes, do you have kids there too?”

Kids in college! Me? Do I really look old enough to have kids in college? Notice she didn’t say “a kid.” She said “kids.” As in more than one. Of course, I wisely turned the inner voice off and instead used the outer voice to say, “Oh, no. My wife and I went there about 14 or 15 years ago.”

Of course, I never even slowed down after that. The damage was done so I just kept on walking and hoped she wouldn’t turn around to catch a glimpse of my “changing” hair.

The Best Thanksgiving Ever!

Like most grandmothers, my mom enjoys spoiling her grandchildren. When it became apparent that all 16 of her grandchildren would be coming for Thanksgiving, she pulled out all the stops. To get things started, the pool was heated and a bounce house was rented. Then she ordered all kinds of crafts for the kids to do over the course of the weekend. She was intent on making this the best Thanksgiving ever for all of her grandkids and nothing could stop her - until she got a phone call.

The first call was from my sister. "Uhh, mom. I don't think we're going to make it. I have four sick kids at home" As a matter of fact, she had finally thrown in the towel after cleaning up the fourth bed that had been splattered with vomit. "But I think Kevan will still make it," she added reassuring Mom that her husband would represent the family.

As my wife and I were driving into town, we called ahead and let my mom know that my in-laws, who frequently join us for Thanksgiving, had also called in sick and would be sitting this one out. With the count now at 12 kids and 9 adults, it would still be a full house, but just not quite the same.

As it turned out, there was more than enough food to feed everyone for the entire weekend and a great meal was enjoyed by all who were there. The next morning, my sister's kids were feeling better, so they decided to come over and join the after party. As they were preparing to get in the car, my 5-year-old nephew, who missed the original dinner but was nonetheless excited about seeing his cousins, looked up at his mom and said, "This is the best Thanksgiving ever!" Not wanting to ruin his enthusiasm, she decided not to mention the fact that he had completely missed the entire day and was instead on his way over to Grandma and Grandpa's to eat leftover turkey.

Prior to joining us on Friday, my sister decided to call ahead and let us know that Kevan would be missing the planned guys day out since he was now stuck in bed with the flu. That's okay. We could still have fun without him.

The guys day out involved lunch on the beach that included raw fish and oysters. Me, being more of a connoisseur of fine ground beef than delicacies of the sea, tried to avoid the raw fish, but finally gave into the pressure against my better judgement. After a fine lunch with my dad and brothers, we returned to my parent's house just in time for me to start feeling queasy. By nightfall, I was sick and by midnight, I was rushing to the bathroom as two days worth of eating was working its way back up. By two o'clock that morning, my wife had joined me and we traded off the rest of night vomiting. We did stop the cycle on a few occasions as we cleaned up the vomit from our middle daughter and oldest son who didn't want to be left out. By morning, we were all exhausted. By the time we inventoried all the sickness, we found out that my mom had also joined the fun, followed by my niece.

A second niece added her name to the ranks on Saturday night as well as my dad who woke up Sunday morning feeling under the weather. Who knew that raw fish disease could spread so fast? Can't wait for next year.

PS: Just before leaving Mom and Dad's tonight, our 3-year-old threw up twice. Then he added six more to his total while we were in the car. The only good news about this is that the dog, who usually pukes in the car, held it all in!

PS 2: By the time the week ended, the final count stood at 20 kids and adults sickened by the bug. All but three threw up. Of those 17 who puked, the average number of heaves stood at 3. That means that there were approximately 51 sessions of vomiting that occurred as a result of one family weekend. If only there was a market for the stuff...

Rained Out

The smell of sizzling bacon early in the morning. Lazy afternoons spent sitting in a chair surrounded by tall trees as sunlight bleeds through the shadows to light up a good book. Campfires with marshmallows turning slowly above the flames. These are things I think of when I think of camping and that is why we decided several months back that we would spend the long Veterans Day weekend camping with my sister and her family and my wife's parents.

What we got, however, was slightly different. Friday night started things off with a gentle pitter-patter of raindrops on the roof of the trailer. I knew that rain was in the forecast, but the last report I had seen said showers in the late afternoon on Saturday. Nothing said rain Friday night. Soon the pitter-patter turned into a steady drumming and my mind raced to think of all the things I had left outside exposed to the rain. Not wanting to get wet, I decided that there was nothing that needed immediate retrieval and I eventually drifted back to sleep.

The next morning, the rain continued off and on. The kids played outside as much as they could, but there is only so much that can be done without creating a huge mess, so Plan B was put into motion. "Hey, kids!" I yelled. "Who wants to go play at the McDonald's playground?" Needless to say, the response was unanimous and we loaded five kids into our car while my sister and her husband took four. (No one really paid attention to whose kids were where as long as the numbers added up.) With all nine buckled up, we hit the road and invaded the unsuspecting McDonald's.

After returning to the campground several hours later, the rain began to come down much harder than before and the wind picked up. With the question of how to get a dry lunch answered, the topic inevitably shifted to dinner. No one really wanted to go out again and no one really wanted to spend hours cooped up in small trailers either with passels of young children clamoring at our feet. Since our house was only 40 minutes away, we suggested heading home for dinner and returning to the campground later in the evening once the rain died down.

The idea sounded great to the adults, but the kids took some convincing. "You can't go home in the middle of a camping trip," my oldest son complained.

"I know it is a little unorthodox, but it will be fun," I insisted. He eventually agreed, but only after he realized that using the word "unorthodox" in various sentences was actually the fun part.

Dinner was tremendous and the various catastrophes that fell upon our home during that time were all remedied before we left. This story isn't really about the catastrophes, but I will summarize them for your reading pleasure: 1) "Uhhh, Honey. Is the liquid laundry soap supposed to be spilled all over the floor of the laundry room?" 2) "Aaron, Elijah just spilled your dinner all over the floor!" 3) "Hey Aaron, do you have a plunger?" 4) "I think the leaky roof just got worse. Get me a bucket!"

During the course of dinner, the storm passed and by the time we returned to the campground a full moon was breaking through the clouds. With the kids in bed, the adults gathered around the campfire to enjoy what camping is all about.

Growing Pains

When we first bought our house almost nine years ago, it was perfect for our little family. There was an extra bedroom and closets galore. I even remember commenting to my wife as we were unpacking, "I don't think we will ever be able to fill all these closets. Look at all the extra space!" I was young. I was naive. I was a father to one 11 month old baby boy.

Something happened over the last nine years that changed things. I don't think it was the birth of our daughter. It wasn't the birth of a second daughter either. Maybe it was when the fourth kid came along. Or possibly even the fifth. I'm not exactly sure, but at some point things changed. The closets filled up. Extra cabinets appeared in the garage. They filled up too. A shed popped up out back. It filled up with bicycles of every shape, size, and gender. The attic that was once home to noting but Christmas decor now contains 20 boxes of neatly labeled children's clothing.

While we have managed to keep up with the demands for space and have even updated the interior of the house somewhat, the outside has done nothing but deteriorate. Over the past several years, the lawn has been behaving much like my hair. At first it was only a little thin in spots, but then somewhere between baby 2 and 4, it surpassed my own hairline and completely disappeared. I went out back to look for it a few times, but only found dirt.

And this dirt was not very well behaved. It liked to crawl off the former lawn space and get comfortable on the patio. The flower bed that once boasted of vibrant hydrangeas somehow turned into a dog bed and a series of moats and canals for kids' buckets, cars, and boats. This dirt joined the other dirt on the patio and a never-ending cycle of moving dirt became the norm.

A few months ago I got tired of it. On a sleepless night, I devised a plan to section off the yard into thirds. One third would be for the kids and dogs, one third for the beautiful lawn and flowers, and one third for the trailer and other things that Daddy wanted outside where kids and dogs wouldn't get them.

Last weekend, the biggest part of Operation Normal Yard was completed. Thanks to the help of some friends, (one with a tractor and one with some sweat) a brand new lawn was laid down.

When we first moved in nine years ago, I took the lawn for granted. I assumed that it would always be there. Now, having experienced its death and renewal I have a new appreciation for grass. I have invested money, hard work, and time and now I have a plan for watering, fertilizing, and even over-seeding it each year. I keep the kids and dogs off of my lawn and will use nearly lethal force if necessary to protect my lawn.

My dad used to say that his lawn was more valuable than his kids and I think he was on to something. His yard was always green and all five of his kids turned out great. There must be a connection.