Computer Programmer?

When people first meet me, they meet a mom of two pre-schoolers. I did have a different sort of life before June of 2000. People are usually shocked to find out I used to be a computer programmer before dedicating myself to the books of Sandra Boynton and the music of Raffi. They are even more shocked to find out that I was a math major in college. Who in their right mind would major in that? Especially since I was not a math/education major. I'm not sure - I thought it was fun.

The next question usually comes pretty quickly - couldn't you do some computer programming at home? I suppose I could. Anyone who has worked in the systems industry, though, knows how quickly the 10 to 15 hour part-time programming job from home becomes the 80 hour per week project that must be in right now! sort of job. I feel called right now to be at home with my children teaching them, I hope, to fear the Lord and live a life that glorifies Him.

Could I go back to programming when my children are more school-age and self-sufficient. Maybe. Again, any job I've had in this industry has always turned into massive overtime, impossible schedules, and more stress than any normal person can handle. I always say I would rather just work part-time as a greeter at Wal-Mart than get back into the stress of programming. My geek tendencies will just have to be satisfied by this blog that is read by my mother and the occasional person who stumbles across it.

bluevan

We took the kids to see Herbie - Fully Loaded a few weeks ago. It was actually pretty good. Anyone in their 30s or 40s would love this movie. It is exactly like the Herbie movies we grew up enjoying except it has a woman driving instead of Dean Jones. Storyline, antics, villain are all the same, though. Since we went to see the movie, my house is full of matchbox cars in various stages of a race. You must be careful while walking down the steps as the "winners" (which always includes the car designated as Herbie) are always on the steps winning.

On the way home from the movie, my husband asks my 5 year old son if we should name our van. Something snazzy - to remind us of Herbie and the movie we just saw. Without hesitating, the five year old announces that we should name the van "bluevan." I'm sure it is no surprise to find out that we have a van, and it is blue. We tried to get him to change the name to something a little more fun, but he stuck to his guns. Now, while I drive around, I hear a voice from the backseat yelling, "Slow down, bluevan, you're going too fast!" or maybe "Bluevan, you need to hurry up and catch that car." Even the two year old will occasionally yell out, "Go, bluevan!" It does grow on you.

Recently at dinner, my husband asked what we could we name his car? I chimed in right away and said we should name the car "the green machine." Again, the 5 year old said right away, "No, no, no - I have a good idea - let's name daddy's car, greencar." Again, no surprise here, the car is a green cavalier. He was quite pleased with coming up with this name as well.

He now has the hang of naming cars and loves to do it. He has named my aunt's minivan, "greyvan", and I bet you will never guess what he named my uncle's convertible mini cooper-- "opencar."

T-Ball

Since my son turned five in June, and I live in the suburbs, it was mandatory as an American that I sign him up with the local youth association to play t-ball. He just made the age cut-off so I wasn't too optimistic that he would be able to play or even enjoy it. I was also keeping my fingers crossed that we would get a nice and easy-going coach and not a coach who put t-ball on par with the World Series.

In the first few practices, it becomes clear that the "Mighty Cardinals" were going to be lucky to get a few hits and would probably never actually catch anything. The coach was exceptionally nice and patient with the kids and brought along the bonus of his daughter as a player. Cute as a button. She enjoyed wearing her bikini during practice and placing her stuffed animals in the outfield. She also spent the entire first game crying and yelling at the top of her lungs, "I hate this!" Entertaining for all. It also became clear in the first game that noone was all too interested in fielding. Almost every player spent their time in the outfield either kicking the dirt or placing dirt in their hats and then dumping it on their heads. The first half of the season was spent just teaching the kids to keep their eye on the ball so that they could get to the ball in a reasonable amount of time.

Then the magic of summertime and baseball started to kick in. All of the kids could suddenly hit well off the tee and even started hitting off the pitch. Almost all of them started keeping their eye on the ball and pretty much the entire team would go chasing after the ball no matter where it was hit. The coach's daughter stopped crying and started enjoying herself. We all sat in the stands and started enjoying ourselves. Our kids were actually playing baseball.

Of course we ended the season with the mandatory pizza party and trophy handout. I was skeptical about the whole thing. I'm not big on the everyone gets a trophy just for participating. Then, I heard my son's name called, watched the coach shake his hand, and give him his official bobble-head trophy with his nameplate on it and everything. He turned around holding his trophy so proudly and so excited that I just had to smile. Baseball truly is America's sport.

Vacation Bible School

It's that time of year again - time to gather all our resources and wits for Vacation Bible School. Every year when the week begins I am so excited to teach and share the gospel with little ones and at the end of the week every year, I think the same thing - "Why did I put myself through this again?"

Our VBS ended on Friday. We have been having record breaking temps here this summer in Pittsburgh so I am especially thankful for the anonymous donor who put air conditioning in our Sunday School classrooms. I taught the three and four year olds again. Mainly because I enjoy that age and partly because there aren't too many of us willing to teach that class. Since I only had four children sign up, I decided to add the five two year olds from our church to my class to get me closer to the 10 children that I normally have. Since we do put our two year olds into Sunday School, I knew they could sit reasonably well through VBS. Of course, everyone thought I had lost my mind, but they just let me go on my merry little way.

Of course I lost a child here and there during the week - that's par for the course. I really have only one rule in my classroom - Stay with the teacher. I must have reinforced that rule a little too much after losing yet another child because when one of my two year olds was asked by her parent what she had learned that day, she just kept repeating "Stay with the teacher" over and over again. At least they learned something.

We had our closing program on Friday night where they all sang their songs, looked so cute, and ate some hot dogs. I got to meet some of the parents of the children who don't attend our church and hope I did an adequate job of making them feel warmly welcomed to start attending church with our church family. On Saturday, I lay on the couch all day saying, over and over, "Why did I do that again?" But, now it's Sunday, and I have had a day to reflect on the week and the little I was able to accomplish with these precious little ones who the Lord entrusted to me for the past five days. Instead of reflecting on the ones who kept escaping, the one who kept rolling down the hillside into the picnic table of snackers, or the fact that they all still looked blank when asked about their memory verse on Friday, I prefer to reflect instead on one little girl. Her mother told me that everyday she came home so excited to tell her mother the stories she heard that day from her teacher - the stories of the faith of Moses, David, Daniel, Matthew, Paul, and Silas, and of course the greatest story of them all - the story of Jesus Christ.

Wild Kingdom

Before I begin my latest bizarre, wild kingdom story, I need to give some background on where I live. I live less than 10 miles from downtown Pittsburgh in a typical suburban neighborhood with a typical suburban mall right down the road. I have no actual land to speak of (although my husband is desperately trying to convince me that life on a farm would be fun), but only the typical 50 by 120 plot of land that the developer divided out in the early 50's. There is a small patch of trees in the back of my yard where several properties come together. I would not go so far as to call this an actual woods, though. Since we moved here in 1996, little bits of wildlife seem to be making their way back into the neighborhood. We had 5 deer living in our backyard (literally) two summers ago as well as a group of wild turkeys. I also saw a mother duck leading 7 baby ducklings down the street this summer much like the book Make Way for Ducklings. We have no actual bodies of water around here so my best guess is that they're living in the odd creek/run-off which runs next to a fairly major road at the bottom of my hill. Fascinating and fun when you have two small children.

As many people in the suburbs can relate, we have approximately 1 million rabbits living in the neighborhood (give or take 999,000). Where there are rabbits, there are often predators that come right behind them. Two summers ago, I watched a hawk swoop down right in front of me, grab a mouse out of my backyard, and keep flying into the tree area of my yard. Although it was one of the most amazing things I have ever witnessed, I was slightly concerned since I had a three month old at the time, and the hawk looked capable of grabbing her as well. Anyone who has seen a hawk, knows what I am talking about.

I hadn't seen the hawk this summer and was feeling good about hanging out in the backyard again. Yesterday, I noticed an odd thing in my side yard - it looked like some fur and a backbone of something. Being completely paranoid, I immediately think someone is sacrificing animals in the neighborhood for some bizarre reason or another. I called to my husband since this clearly falls into the category of "Husband must take care of without assistance of wife." After investigating the remains and cleaning it up, he informs me that the hawk must still be in the neighborhood. Our animal expert friends have all told us that a hawk will leave just some feathers and bones from a bird or just some fur and backbone of a rabbit. I guess I'll have to keep a closer eye on our puppy Jenna when she is in the backyard. Maybe not after her incident yesterday (see Jenna Aleu post for details).

Jenna Aleu

We have a new dog - Jenna Aleu. Jenna or Jen-Jen(named by the two year old) for short. Anyone who has seen the movie Balto should recognize the name Jenna right away. That is the name of Balto's girlfriend, and Aleu is the name of his daughter. You'll need to watch Balto II in order to catch that reference. Before I go into the latest Jenna story (and there are really too many to choose from), let me wander off point a bit by saying Balto is a pretty good movie and the book Balto is even better. It's a true story that gives the background of the Iditarod race in Alaska. This race is run every year in honor of the dogsled teams who, against all odds, got the medicine through to Nome, Alaska to save the town's children from a diptheria epidemic. Very cool movie for any young boy and a great story for everyone.

Onto the real point of this post. My dog tried to kill me today. I take Jenna along with me in the van for a quick pick up at a friend's house. Now, I grew up with a dog and my husband and I had a dog for years before Jenna so I am no novice dog owner. I was brought to the brink today by this particular dog, though. While going down a very large Pittsburgh hill, Jenna decides that she absolutely must get under my feet at that exact moment. The same feet that are trying desperately to press the brake at the bottom of the very large Pittsburgh hill. Jenna decides to sit on the gas pedal while I try to put on the brake. Jenna was winning this latest fun dog competition, so I needed to act quickly. I throw on my flashers, keep one hand on the wheel, and use my other hand to try and remove the dog from under my feet. She rolls onto her back in the classic submissive pose of a dog and wedges herself more firmly onto the gas pedal. I then slam both feet onto the brakes while at the same time use both hands to drag the dog out from under my feet and place her ever so gently on the other side of the van (that might be a somewhat biased memory - it might not have been so gentle). After catching my breath, I take off the flashers, and drive home. Apparently, all that practice of driving while passing a milk cup into the back of the van with a two year old screaming into my ear and a five year old asking when his tape can be put into the tape player paid off today. It might have saved my life.

Why Bluegrass?

Anyone who has known me for years is probably perplexed by my latest musical tastes. After all, I am the same person who slept outside a stadium to get floor seats to a U2 concert in the early 90's. Why do I listen to bluegrass music? The answer is simple - my children. I had two problems while riding around in the requisite suburban mom minivan. If I had to listen to a Raffi tape one more time, I would wrap the minivan around the nearest telephone pole. Second problem, there is no radio station playing U2, the Eagles, Allman Brothers, etc... who doesn't also have their radio personalities using the kind of language that would have gotten their radio license pulled 50 years ago. So, I turned to a compromise and that compromise was Bluegrass. It is the only genre of music left that has kid friendly lyrics with the additional bonus of being very good. Actually, more than very good, it's excellent. Now I find my five year old wandering the house singing "Crazy Like Me" by AKUS while my two year old prefers the Rhonda Vincent version of "Jolene." The best part - I now get to ride around in my minivan while listening to the harmony of my two children from the backseat on "Down to the River to Pray", "In the Highways", and "I'll Fly Away." Life sure is sweet.

First Post

The first post of a new blog should be profound with something new and exciting to say. But as we all know, "There is nothing new under the sun." Unfortunately, I fall into the category that most of us fall into - no new and exciting original thought. I am good, though, at reading the exciting and original thoughts of other men, more learned than I am, and putting them out here on the web for all to read. So, to start out this oh so bonafide blog, let me start with a quote from one of my favorite authors, C.S. Lewis in The Silver Chair -

"Do you mean everything will come right if we do untie him?"
said Scrubb. "I don't know about that," said Puddleglum.
"You see, Aslan didn't tell Pole what would happen. He only
told her what to do. That fellow will be death of us once he's up,
I shouldn't wonder. But that doesn't let us off following the Sign."

As usual, C.S. Lewis has brilliantly shown us in the above passage what the Lord expects of us - obedience. Nothing less than obedience to his Word. The Lord doesn't promise us peace and prosperity but does promise "... all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose."