Long long ago I wrote about the trauma of having to buy personal items for my mother when I was a kid, and how when I had to buy them for Nancy, it got worse. It got a LOT worse last week.
We are about an hour away from shopping, so since I was in town, it was only fair that I would buy the product that she wanted. I went into the store, and looked and looked, and finally found...
Our kids are all changing. I have this conversation with Katie almost every day:
Katie: Daddy, what color skin do you have?
Me: I have white skin.
Katie: What color skin do I have?
Me: You have beautiful black skin.
Katie: And I don’t NEED sun screen!
Whenever Nancy works on Katie’s hair, as soon as she is done, she races to the mirror to see what it looks like. That is funny in itself, because Katie’s run might remind you of Groucho Marx’s sloping walk,...
Someone brought us one of those variety boxes of different types of chips from the states. They were the kind of bags that you might have put in your lunchbox when you were a kid. It was a great thrill, and it became almost like a poker game. `I trade you two Doritos for one Cheetos.’ I think I could eat one of those bags in one gulp when I was a kid; we lingered over our bags and our...
Continue ReadingMind you, I get up around 5:30 am during the week, and around 6:30 on the weekend. It’s just that there is something about Sunday morning that just begs to sleep in until 7. This, of course, is an outrage to the dynamic duo, who can spend twelve minutes happily playing together. After that, they come into our bedroom. It is there that I learned the first rule of twins: It doesn’t COUNT if you said it to the other...
Continue ReadingWhenever I sang ANYTHING to my little sister, she would yell `I know! You’re singing the Theme from Rocky!’
I was kicked out of the choir in Manhattan, Kansas because I could make a whole row go flat, and I was kicked out as the director was making his weekly plea for more male voices.
When I was briefly on the worship team in Texas, I was told that I could sing whenever the whole band was blaring. Otherwise, I should just...
When you give twins a bath together, they NOTICE stuff. Since we are trying to do the toilet training thing, it has led to discussions about differences between a boy and girl. After almost every bath, Katie will tell me `Ben has one, and Daddy has one, and JT has one and Matthew has one but Momma doesn’t have one and I don’t have one.’
That was all good, but she and I were going for a walk and we passed...
Continue ReadingThis first term in 9th grade has given me many things to think about. For one thing, the workload doesn’t exactly get lighter! I used this term to figure out what I need to push harder in and where I can give slack. This break has gone well, we went to Mombassa. And as I am sure you can see I caught a 40 lb. Wahoo. Matthew and I were able to scuba dive together, and were able to go...
Continue ReadingThe term ends at the end of November, and the guys get to go home for a month. Provided of course, that the dorm passes inspection by an external inspector. We began with a hope that the dorm would be clean enough to call the inspector right after lunch, and then struggled with the idea that the boys would be done by the time they got to college.
Eighth grade guys (ok, all males) but eighth grade guys especially believe that...
