Another Feast

Appetizer
Name 3 things that you think are strange.

• The Segway Human Transporter


• The popularity of smut on TV


• The Third Way

Soup
What was the last ceremony you attended?

Church this week, or possibly Adam and Beckie's wedding in July?

Salad
What is one lesson you have learned in the past year?

God will make a way.

Main Course
Tell us about one of your childhood memories.

OK

Dessert
If you could extend any of the four seasons to be twice as long as normal, which season would you want to lengthen?

Since we're just coming off winter now, I'd have to say summer. I don't like cold very much.

Delurker update 2

For those of you who are interested, Amber and I ended up giving the $40 from my delurker experiment, along with some more of our Ralph money to a new church plant opening up in Calgary's deep south called Journey Church.

p.s. Thanks to Heather (the anonymous voyeur) for the link.

He's so happy

It's really sad actually. Andrew has been such an upset baby that it's a treat when he's quiet and staring off into space. He will often have a bit of a scowl, but if he's not crying, Josh will come over and give him a kiss saying, "Awwww! He's so happy!"

Andrew has actually started smiling a bit now. It's great to see him in a good mood and smiling with his huge dimple. He's getting ticklish too, so it won't be long before I can make him smile whenever I need that little pick-me-up. :D

Not Josh!

I am still doing it. Actually more than before. I was good for a while, but it's been terrible for the last week or so. I call my newest son Joshie ALL THE TIME!

In that last post, I actually typed Josh at least 4 times and had to go back and change it to Andrew. What's the matter with me?

Sick baby

Monday:

Took Amber and Andrew to the doctor for a checkup. We were a little concerned that Andrew had been throwing up and crying a lot more than the others. The doctor told Amber to lay off the milk products and leafy vegetables and come back in a few months.

Later that night Amber spoke to a friend who had a baby who had very similar problems. She ended up being diagnosed with reflux. Amber also knows lots of other babies with the same problem so we had considered it. She checked out a list of symptoms online and determined that it was very likely what Andrew had.

Tuesday:

Andrew woke up after a miserable night and was tugging at his ears. Amber called the doctor back and made an appointment for the morning. I took him in and the doctor was pretty sure he had reflux too. He refered us to a specialist and gave Andrew a prescription for his ear infection.

Wednesday:

The doctor's office called and said they got us an appointment with the specialist for June 5. The receptionist knew this was unacceptable and said she'd have our doctor call in and get that bumped up.

Mere hours later they called to report that they could get us in tomorrow. Dr. T. means business.

Thursday:

The specialist agreed that he has reflux and said that a milk allergy thing isn't the problem so Andrew got a prescription for Baby Zantac and Amber got a prescription for cheese and ice cream.

So, Andrew has reflux - just like his daddy and his uncles. My brothers and I have developed issues with pop and other things over the past few years. But now he has this medicine and hopefully he'll get over in a month or so.

He's already seeming better. Less crying, less clingy, less spitting up. Sounds good.

Feast 86

Pretty short one this week. I don't know if the questions are simple or tough, but they didn't draw much out of me.

Appetizer
How would you describe your personal comfort zone?

Amber and the boys

Soup
What is your favorite tree?

Apple tree

Salad
List 3 foods you'd like to include in your dinner plans for tonight.

I'd love to have roast, potatoes, yorkshire pudding
What did I have? Frozen meatpie, popcorn, apple

Main Course
What is the best advice you've ever been given, but didn't heed?

I was advised numerous times to follow my dreams and do a job I like, but it took me years to heed it.

Dessert
On a scale of 1-10 (10 being highest), how much attention do you feel comfortable receiving from others?

Maybe 2.

Feast 85

Appetizer
What job would you definitely not want to have?

Cedar shingle cutter. Aside from the deadly (to me) dust, it involves having your hands inches away from a 6 foot diameter blade spinning so fast you feel the wind pushing you away and you could cut off your arm way before you noticed it.

Soup
Oprah calls and wants you to appear on her show. What would that day's show be about?

Good questions this week. How about Families With Freakishly Long Streaks of Male Babies Being Born

Salad
Name 3 vegetables that you eat on a regular basis.

Carrots, cucumber, and broccolli, brocolli, broc... mushrooms

Main Course
If you were commissioned to rename your hometown, what would you call it?

Ralphiston

Dessert
If you had a personal assistant, what kind of tasks would you have them to do?

Cleaning. Dishes, laundry, bathrooms, definitely cleaning.

Feast Eighty-Four

Appetizer
On a scale of 1-10 with 10 being highest, how intuitive do you think you are?

Intuitive, eh? I'll say 8 - but I have a feeling most people will disagree with me. ;)

Soup
What is your favorite kind of gum?

Grandpa gum. Wrigley's Doublemint.

Salad
Name a CD you own that you would never get rid of.

Now that I've dumped most of my CDs into iTunes, I could get rid of any of them. I guess I wouldn't want to lose the CD of my grad recital.

Main Course
When was the last time you said something you didn't mean?

I've thought about this for about 4 hours and can't get a good answer.

Dessert
What is the sum of the numbers in your birthdate? (Example: 3 + 2 + 1 + 9 + 7 + 9 = 31)

33

Podcasts

I've been listening to a lot of podcasts in the last month or so since I got my iPod. Podcasts are short audio broadcasts, designed for people on the go. They have shows about everything and by all kinds of people - professional and amateurs. I thought I'd share a few of my latest favorites.

Two Boobs and a Baby

This is a podcast by Dave and Heather. She's from Tenessee and he's from Toronto and they have a four month old baby boy named Sam. It's really cool to hear them talk about being first time parents and trying to figure out what to do with this new little addition. They were kind enough to mention me in their last episode, so I want to help them out and encourage my parenting friends to stop by and visit them too.

Daily Breakfast

This is a podcast by the enthusiastic Father Roderick, a Dutch Catholic priest who does a weekdaily show that is perfect for my morning bus ride. It's about half an hour and he talks about North American culture, movies, TV, books, food and health, has a little bit of music and a thought for the day. It is a very positive start to the day and never fails to be interesting and exciting.

For those of you who are new to podcasting, it's very simple to listen to these. You can go to their websites and download the latest episode - or any archives. You can listen to them on your computer, or copy them to a portable mp3 player. You can also use a variety of software programs to subscribe to the podcasts and have the new episodes downloaded automatically every day (and in my case dumped into the iPod).

What do I remember?

An old guy I know recently asked in his blog, "What do you remember? What is the earliest memory?" Apparently his kids have traumatized him and now he cannot remember anything from before he was in his early twenties. (Sorry Dad)

I posted some of this in the comments there, but I got to thinking and decided to not take up all the space on his blog, when I could be plagiarising myself and updating all my wonderful, loyal listeners here as well.

I remember a lot from when I was 5 to 8 or so. And these are what I believe are "real" memories. Not family legends that get told at every gathering and therefore become part of the collective memory, whether we actually remember them or not.*

• Yelling across the highway out my bedroom window at the grain elevators to hear an echo.
  
  
• Climbing the walls in the hallway by jamming myself in a narrow spot and climbing up like a star.
  
  
• Laying on the bottom bunk with my brother trying to make the top mattress pop off. Hmmm... that seems unlikely at 5 and 3, it must have been laying under the bottom bunk.
  
  
• Watching the first episode of The Cosby Show and calling Dad at work to tell him about it.
  
  
• Watching The Lone Ranger on some weird machine we rented from the movie rental place. The movie was in a big square plastic disk about the size of an LP case. The way I remember it, you put the edge of the case into the machine and it sucked out a laser disc of sorts, but you still had the case.
  
  
• Getting our first computer - a good old Commodore Vic20. My iPod Nano has 419,430 times the memory in 1/250th of the space. And yes, I did the math.
  
  
• Mom used to do something with Lysol to clean the house and determined that it must be toxic to kids and made us go outside while the smell was in the air. Now that I'm a parent, I think it may have just been to get us out of her hair so she could clean (and/or watch Another World).
  
  
• I apparently was bitten by the neighbours' German shepherd when I was about 6. I don't remember the event, but I do remember being at a friend's house that same afternoon, looking out the front window for the dog and Mom told me not to worry and that he was going to be "destroyed". Parenting Tip - Don't tell a 6 year-old that he has caused a dog to be destroyed. I was imagining something involving dynamite.
  
  
• Going to the principal's office in grade 1. Not because I was bad, but I think my teacher had the same idea as my mom - get me out of her hair for a while.
  
  She had given me a crossword puzzle to do and I was stuck on a few words, so she said, "Go see Dr. Garvie". He was actually teaching a grade 6 or 7 class and his secretary sent me in to see him. He took my half-done crossword puzzle, made an overhead and put it up on the screen and had his class help me finish it.
  
  
• I vividly remember sitting in a band class when I was 6, surrounded by 11 year-olds. I had a trumpet and the girl beside me was trying to get me to play the right notes.
  
  
• I remember my first Beavers "camp out". I must have been 5 or 6. We were in the "Combatives Room" at the local high school in our sleeping bags watching "The Littles" and eating raw hot dogs.
  
  
• I also remember the goal I scored in hockey. It was my third year and we were playing against Marengo. I happened to be out in front of the net and Quinn Uzelman passed the puck to me. Somehow I caught the pass and fired it into the net. We won the game, due in part to me, 13 - 0.
  

*Examples that only my family will get: The Mud Puddle Story, The Recess/Lunch Argument, The Baby Lion, etc.

He's like me

Josh loves his baby brother soooo much. He comes over and gives him kisses and hugs all the time and never wants to be separated. Whenever Andrew gives any sort of reaction that is not screaming or crying, Josh says, "He's like me!"

We're pretty sure he means, "He likes me!" but as Amber mentioned last night, that is one of the world's greatest understatements. Andrew, Josh, and Daniel are very much alike, and they are also a lot like me. We have the same big round heads, the same thin short hair, the same eyes, same round bellies, etc. It's going to be tough telling apart the baby pictures in few years. Good thing Amber has done a pretty good job of labeling them.

School Starting

Amber and I were talking about how Daniel is doing at preschool and how much he loves it. I think it's really great for him. It helps him learn social skills and how to listen to other adults. And it gives Mommy almost 5 hours a week with Josh and Andrew alone. ;)

Anyway, I was browsing through the web the other day and realized that Daniel will be starting Kindergarten in just over a year. And grade one in 2008. We need to start looking I guess. I've got a few schools in mind - Calgary has so many options with two "public" school boards and publicly funded charter schools in addition to private schools.

It all happens so fast. I remember so clearly when Daniel was Andrew's age. Pretty soon they'll all be grown and out of the house. And then back, and then gone again. ;)

A very special Friday's Feast

Appetizer
How many pillows and blankets do you sleep with?

I have one pillow and whatever blankets I can steal from Amber and Andrew.

Soup
What are you currently "addicted" to?

Reality TV. New seasons of Apprentice, American Idol, Survivor, Amazing Race all at once - it's too much.

Salad
If you could make a small change to your current routine or schedule that would make you just a little bit happier, what would it be?

Since I've been working late nights, I'd love to switch to sleeping in until 9:00 - but the boys don't seem to want to go for it.

Main Course
Which adjective do you find yourself using often?

Is "annoying" an adjective?

Dessert
Have you ever picked up a hitchhiker?

I was with a group from Bible College doing a week of service in the Kootenays. We saw someone on the side of the road and one of the other students said we should stop. He had a "plan". Let me quote this as well as I remember, though it was probably 8 years ago.

"We'll stop and let him in. He will sit here in the front. You always want the hitch hiker riding shotgun. Then I'll sit right behind him. You always have to have the guy with the knife sitting right behind the hitch hiker in case he tries something."

This is the same guy who earlier that year almost had me arrested. Same guy, different group, different road trip. Inappropriate comments were made to the border guard and we came "this close" to having a cavity search. The hitch-hiking trip also included our friend wearing a miniskirt (belonging to another student in our group) and going commando under it. You just never run out of stories with him around.

The thing is, he's a pastor now - and a good one at that. We love you man.

Sorry, what was the question?

Watch where you are going

So, I've been reading a new online devotional this past week:

Experiencing God Daily Devotional
Daily Devotional feed provided by Broadman & Holman Publishers

Anyways, today's thought was on the story in Numbers chapter 21 where Moses made a bronze serpent and put it on a pole. When anyone was bitten by a serpent, God told them to look to this gift from Him and not think about their situation and they would live.

This spoke so clearly to my life. My job situation has been a real mess for the past year. I've switched careers a few times, moved across the country and back and now I'm in the midst of a corporate restructuring and I'm unsure how I'll come out of it. If I focused on my snake bites, I know I would curl up in my tent and moan and cry and die.

But if I look to God and the gifts He showers me with, I will live. If I follow His plan, the bites won't go away - but neither will they poison the rest of my body. I see that so clearly but it is still hard. It is easier to suffer and try to go my own direction, but the harder choice is the better one. I know He will bless me and my family - He never stops.

In closing, I wanted to share the prayer for the day from this devotional:

King of My Life, no longer will I look where my wants direct me. I will look to see what You want and will adjust my life to be what You want. Amen.

Tough prayer. Tough to mean that. But I will do it.