Grandma and I are enjoying seeing our grandson Drew on webcam over the internet as we talk by Skype to Megan. He’s cooing and smiling more and more, just like his grandfather. At Drew’s check up last week the doctor said he’s now passed the 8 pound mark and is doing very well. Yippee! For those who can’t get enough baby pictures, here’s another one of our little guy:

As a final installment for Father’s Day, here’s an article by Dave Barry I found in my files. I chuckled and LOL often while reading this one - it’s so exaggeratedly true!

Miracle of Birth: That Dads Survive
by Dave Barry
Sunday, January 23, 2000

So my wife and I are preparing for childbirth. When I say “my wife and I,” I of course mean “my wife.” She will be the most directly involved. On behalf of all men, I just want to take a moment here to get down on my knees and thank whoever invented our current biological system, under which the woman’s job is to have the baby somehow go from the inside of her body to the outside of her body, in clear violation of every known law of physics, and the man’s job is to stand around looking supportive and upbeat and periodically no matter what is actually happening to the woman, say, in an upbeat and perky voice, “You’re doing great!”

My wife thinks the only fair system would be, every time the woman had a contraction, she got to hit her husband on the body part of her choice with a ball-peen hammer. Of course she is kidding. But only because her contractions have not yet started.

We’ve been going to Childbirth Classes, which involve sitting in a classroom filled with expectant couples and a mounting sense of dread. The teacher usually starts with a scientific discussion of childbirth, in which she shows us various models and diagrams to give us an idea of what will be happening when the Big Moment arrives. In my opinion, the most informative way to do this would be to hold up a bowling ball and a drinking straw, and say: “Basically, this has to go through this. Ha Ha!”

But our teacher keeps fairly technical. After a while, we’re starting to feel confident about this childbirth thing. We’re thinking, “OK, all that has to happen is the cervix has to dilate to 10 centimeters! How hard can that be? I wonder what a cervix is? Also, centimeter.”

So we’re pondering these abstract questions and maybe thinking about what we’re going to have for dinner, when suddenly, with no warning, the teacher turns out the lights and shows a horror movie. Oh, it starts out innocently enough: There is a nice couple consisting of a woman who is pregnant and a man who is supportive-looking and generally has a beard. They seem happy, but you just know she’s going to go into labor. You want to stop her. It’s exactly like those scary movies where the heroine goes down into the basement, and you want to shout, “Don’t go down into the basement!”, except in the childbirth class you want to shout, “Don’t go into labor!”

But she always does go into labor. It seems to last a lot longer than necessary. Hours turn into days, and still she is in labor. Outside her window, the seasons change. Her doctor grows old and gray and eventually is replaced by a new doctor, and still this poor woman is in labor. Her husband keeps telling her that she’s doing great, but you can tell from her expression that he’s very lucky she doesn’t have a ball-peen hammer. Eventually she becomes so deranged that she apparently does not even notice that there is a cameraperson shooting extreme close-up footage of…OK, let’s just say that it is not her most flattering angle.

When the woman gets approximately to her 15th year of labor, she begins making noises that you rarely hear outside of nature documentaries and her husband edges back a little bit in case she gets her hand on a scalpel. The movie now becomes very explicit, causing the entire childbirth class to go into a mass cringe, all of us hunched up and involuntarily protecting as many of our body parts as possible. I use this time to practice my squinting, which is the most important thing the husband learns in childbirth class. I use a special Lamaze squinting technique that enables me to prevent virually all rays of light from penetrating my eyeballs.

When the woman in the movie makes a noise identical to what you would hear if a live yak went through a garlic press, I unsquint my eyes just enough to see it happen, the Blessed Event, the timeless miracle that makes the whole thing worthwhile: An alien bursting out of the woman’s chest cavity. No seriously, what happens is that the woman has a baby, via a process that makes what happened in “Alien” look like a episode of “Teletubbies.” Then our childbirth-class teacher turns the light on, and the pregnant women all turn to face their husbands, and they all have the same facial expression, which says: “this is not fair.” We husbands respond supportively and pat their arms in a reassuring manner because we’re sure that they’re going to do great!

quotation…

“The task of Christian parents is to transmit their heritage to the next generation.” - Dr. Jim Deuink

=^..^= =^..^=
Grandpa Rob

People who say they sleep like a baby obviously don’t have one.

We are thoroughly enjoying our week with Jim, Megan, and Drew. The last time we saw him in person, he was still hooked up to all kinds of things in the NICU. Now he’s a strong, constantly wiggling, newborn-size baby boy. He goes to the doctor’s office today for a well-baby check up and to get four shots. We hope to hear that he’s grown a lot since his last check up. Below is a picture of Drew with Megan holding up to him the smallest of his preemie clothes - something he fit into just a couple of weeks ago. He’s already into newborn diapers and the largest of his preemie outfits are beginning to be too small.

Now that he’s big enough to use the baby bathtub, he is actually enjoying his bathtime….

We went to Ohio a few days ago to see my mom. She really enjoyed meeting her newest great-grandchild. Below is a four generation picture from that visit. As of right now, I was the only one in the picture whose eyes aren’t blue.

Yesterday Megan took us to a store we’d never been to before - IKEA - and within five minutes Becka commented, “Well, I’ve found my new favorite store.” As I said, this has been a great week for us!

It’s been fun to watch our oldest child parenting this week. We are quickly reminded of how much time and work goes into caring for a newborn. It brought to mind this final Mother’s Day post for this year. All you moms out there enjoy your special day this Sunday. All you kids out there, spoil your mom!

The Cost of Love

A little boy came up to his mother in the kitchen one evening while she was fixing dinner and handed her a piece of paper. After his mom dried her hands on her apron, she read what he had written.

For cutting the grass: $5.00
For cleaning up my room this week: $1.00
For going to the store for you: $.50
Baby-sitting my kid brother while you went shopping: $.25
Taking out the garbage: $1.00
For getting a good report card: $5.00
For cleaning up and raking the yard: $2.00

Total owed: $14.75

As the mother looked at her son, he could see that she was thinking. She picked up the pen and turned over the paper he’d written on. She wrote:

For the nine months I carried you while you were growing inside me: No Charge.
For all the nights that I’ve sat up with you, doctored you, and prayed for you: No Charge.
For all the trying times, and all the tears that you’ve caused through the years: No Charge.
For all the time that I’ve pondered what I knew was ahead in life for you: No Charge.
For the toys, food, clothes, and even wiping your nose: No Charge, Son.

When you add it up, the cost of my love is: No Charge.

When the boy finished reading what his mother had written, there were big tears in his eyes, and he looked straight up at his mother and said, “Mom, I sure do love you.”

And then he took the pen and on his side of the “bill” wrote in great big letters, “PAID IN FULL “.

=^..^= =^..^=
Rob

Children will soon forget your presents; they will always remember your presence.

Grandma and I plan to leave ASAP after graduation this Saturday to head up to Michigan. A baby dedication has been planned for grandson Drew on Sunday morning at Jim and Megan’s church, and we’re looking forward to being there. Nora and Mark will be holding down there fort here at our house, watering the garden, caring for the cats, etc., while we’re up north for a week. We hope to drive down to Ohio one day so that my mom can see her latest great-grandson.

Today’s blog post is a parental readiness test. I know of several people who read my blog who are awaiting their first child (or second, third, etc.), have small children, have recently adopted, or have even raised their kids and are now enjoy having grandkids. Today’s iv is advice especially to those are thinking about having a baby for the first time. I don’t know who wrote the following, but I personally found that some of it may be at least a tiny bit exaggerated.

Are you ready to be a parent? Take the following parental readiness test….

Preparation for parenthood is not just a matter of reading books and decorating the nursery. Here are 12 simple tests for expectant parents to take to prepare themselves for the real life experience of being a mother or father.

1. Women: To prepare for maternity, put on a dressing gown and stick a beanbag chair down the front. Leave it there for nine months. After nine months, remove 10% of the beans. Men: To prepare for paternity, go to the local drug store, tip the contents of your wallet on the counter, and tell the pharmacist to help himself. Next, go to the supermarket. Arrange to have your salary paid directly to its corporate office. Go home. Pick up the paper and read it for the last time.

2. Before you finally go ahead and have children, find a couple who are already parents and berate them about their methods of discipline, lack of patience, appallingly low tolerance levels, and how they have allowed their children to run wild. Suggest ways in which they might improve their child’s sleeping habits, toilet training, table manners, and overall behavior. Enjoy it - it’s the last time in your life that you will have all the answers.

3. To discover how the nights will feel, walk around the living room from 5 p.m. until 10 p.m. carrying a wet bag weighing approximately 8 - 12 pounds. At 10 p.m. put the bag down, set the alarm for midnight, and go to sleep. Get up at 12 a.m. and walk around the living room again, with the bag, until 1 a.m. Put the alarm on for 3 a.m. Since you can’t go back to sleep, get up at 2 a.m. and make a pot of tea. Go to bed at 2:45 a.m. Get up again at 3 a.m. when the alarm goes off. Sing songs in the dark till 4 a.m. Put the alarm on for 5 a.m. Get up. Make breakfast. Keep this up for 5 years. Look cheerful.

4. Will you be able to stand the mess children make? To find out, smear peanut butter onto the sofa and jam onto the curtains. Hide a fish stick behind the stereo and leave it there all summer. Stick your fingers in the flowerbeds then rub them on the clean walls. Cover the stains with crayons. How does that look to you?

5. Dressing small children is not as easy as it seems: first buy an octopus and a string bag. Attempt to put the octopus into the string bag so that none of the arms hang out. Time allowed for this - all morning.

6. Get an egg carton. Using a pair of scissors and a can of paint, turn it into an alligator. Now get a toilet paper tube. Using only scotch tape and a piece of foil, turn it into a Christmas tree. Last, take a milk container, a ping pong ball, and an empty packet of CoCo Puffs and make an exact replica of the Eiffel Tower. Congratulations, you have just qualified for a place on the play group committee.

7. Forget the Miata and buy the mini-van. And don’t think you can leave it out in the driveway spotless and shining. Family cars don’t look like that. Buy a chocolate ice cream bar and put it in the glove compartment. Leave it there. Get a quarter. Stick it in the cassette player. Take a family-size bag of chocolate cookies. Mash them down the back seats. Run a garden rake along both sides of the car. There! Perfect!

8. Get ready to go out. Wait outside the bathroom for half an hour. Go out the front door. Come in again. Go out. Come back in. Go out again. Walk down the front walk. Walk back up it again. Walk down it again. Walk very slowly down the road for 5 minutes. Stop to inspect minutely every cigarette butt, piece of used chewing gum, dirty tissue, and dead insect along the way. Retrace your steps. Scream that you’ve had as much as you can stand until all the neighbors come out and stare at you. Give up and go back in the house. You’re now just about ready to try taking a small child for a walk.

9. Always repeat everything you say at least five times.

10. Go to your local supermarket. Take with you the closest thing to a pre-school child that you can find. A fully-grown goat is excellent. If you intend to have more than one child, take more than one goat. Buy your week’s groceries without letting the goats out of your sight. Pay for everything the goats eat or destroy. Until you can easily accomplish this, DO NOT even contemplate having children.

11. Hollow out a melon. Make a small hole in the side. Suspend it from the ceiling and swing it from side to side. Now get a bowl of soggy Fruit Loops and attempt to spoon it into the hole in the swaying melon by pretending to be an airplane. Continue until half of the Fruit Loops are gone. Tip the rest into your lap, making sure that a lot of it falls on the floor. You are now ready to feed a 12-month old child.

12. Learn the names of every character from ‘Barney and Friends’, ‘Sesame Street’, and ‘Power Rangers’. When you find yourself singing, “I love you, you love me” at work, you finally qualify as a parent.

***
Here’s something that combines the parental readiness theme and this Saturday’s being the Cinco de Mayo….

One young woman didn’t think she’d ever have a mother’s intuition. One day her sister left her alone in a restaurant with her 10-month-old nephew. She asked the child’s mother, “What do I do if he cries?”

She said, “Give him some vegetables.”

It turned out that jalapeño was not his favorite.

quotation…

“What people don’t know can hurt them.” - Dr. Steve Hankins

=^..^= =^..^=
Rob

There are three ways to get things done: 1) do it yourself, 2) hire someone to do it, or 3) forbid your kids to do it

With this blog post I’m getting a little jump on Mother’s Day coming up at the end of next week here in the USA. Quite a while back I received a list of things that you’d never hear a mom say to her children. It had such potential that I put the sharp wits of the Loach family to work on giving me a few more of their own. We had a lot of fun with this, and I’m sure that once you get to reading them, you too will come up with some of your own.

Things you’ll probably never hear a mom say…

“Don’t bother putting those toys away. You’ll want to play with them again tomorrow.”

“If you’re good, for your birthday I’ll buy you a motorcycle!”

“How on earth can you see the TV sitting so far back?”

“Let me smell that shirt…. Aw, it’s good for another week.”

“Why don’t you try wearing your hair down in your eyes?”

“I don’t mind your running in and out, but please remember to slam the door each time.”

“Yeah, I used to skip school too.”

“Please put on a little more makeup.”

“Oh good! Another stray animal. Of course, you may keep it.”

“Would you please turn that up louder?”

“You’re going to bed already? It’s way too early.”

“Don’t bother to clean your room. You cleaned it just last week!”

“Where are you going dressed so appropriately?”

“Go back in there and fight with your sister right now!”

“Practice, practice, practice! All you ever do is practice the piano!”

“Why don’t you and your friends play baseball in our living room today?”

“Stay in bed a little longer. You’ll make it to school on time.”

“Don’t eat those vegetables! Have this candy instead.”

“Stop closing that door! I’m trying to attract flies into the kitchen!”

“You’re doing homework again? You study too much.”

“Get back out there and play in the middle of the street.”

“Don’t bother with those dishes. I’ll take care of them later.”

“Run and bring me the scissors! Hurry!”

“Well, if Timmy’s mom says it’s okay, that’s good enough for me.”

“I don’t have a Kleenex with me. Just use your sleeve.”

***
We’re in the throes of final exams here, with university graduation this Saturday. It’s an exciting and sad time of year for me. I always look forward to the change of activity, pace, and focus that the summer break brings, but it’s also hard to say good-bye to yet another group of my students. It’s hard to believe that this is the end of my 34th year of teaching. I can’t imagine how many students I’ve taught and known through those years!

quotation…

“Our children are the living messages we send into a time we shall not see.” - Art Linkletter

=^..^= =^..^=
Rob

The best way to keep your kids out of hot water is to put some dishes in it.

This is a special iv in honor of Mother’s Day. Thanks to all you moms out there for all you have done and continue to do for us, your offspring!

One afternoon a man came home from work to find total mayhem in his house. His three children were outside, still in their pajamas, playing in the mud, with empty food boxes and wrappers strewn all around the front yard. The door of his wife’s car was open, as was the front door to the house. Proceeding into the entry, he found an even bigger mess. A lamp had been knocked over, and the throw rug was wadded against one wall. In the front room the TV was loudly blaring a cartoon channel, and the family room was strewn with toys and various items of clothing. In the kitchen, dishes filled the sink, breakfast food was spilled on the counter, dog food was spilled on the floor, a broken glass lay under the table, and a small pile of sand was spread by the back door.

He quickly headed up the stairs, stepping over toys and more piles of clothes, looking for his wife. He was worried that she may be ill, or that something else serious had happened. He found her lounging in the bedroom, still curled in the bed in her pajamas, reading a novel. She looked up at him, smiled, and asked how his day went. He looked at her bewildered and asked, “What happened here today?”

She again smiled and answered, “You know every day when you come home from work and ask me what in the world I did today?”

“Yes…?” was his incredulous reply.

She answered, “Well, today I didn’t do it.”

* * *
Just a Mother? - Mother Reclassification

I had heard a story about a woman named Emily who was renewing her driver’s license at the County Clerk’s office and who was asked by the woman recorder to state her occupation.

She hesitated, uncertain how to classify herself.

“What I mean is,” explained the recorder, “do you have a job, or are you just a …..?”

“Of course I have a job,” snapped Emily. “I’m a mother.”

“We don’t list ‘mother’ as an occupation…’housewife’ covers it,” said the recorder emphatically. I forgot all about her story until one day I found myself in the same situation, this time at our own Town Hall.

The clerk was obviously a career woman, poised, efficient, and possessed of a high sounding title like, “Official Interrogator” or “Town Registrar.”

“What is your occupation?” she probed.

What made me say it, I do not know… The words simply popped out.

“I’m a Research Associate in the field of Child Development and Human Relations.”

The clerk paused, ball-point pen frozen in midair, and looked up as though she had not heard right.

I repeated the title slowly, emphasizing the most significant words. Then I stared with wonder as my pronouncement was written in bold, black ink on the official questionnaire.

“Might I ask,” said the clerk with new interest, “just what you do in your field?”

Coolly, without any trace of fluster in my voice,I heard myself reply, “I have a continuing program of research, (what mother doesn’t), in the laboratory and in the field, (normally I would have said indoors and out).

I’m working for my Masters, (the whole family), and already have four credits, (all daughters).Of course, the job is one of the most demanding in the humanities, (any mother care to disagree?) and I often work 14 hours a day, (24 is more like it). But the job is more challenging than most run-of-the-mill careers and the rewards are more of a satisfaction rather than just money.”

There was an increasing note of respect in the clerk’s voice as she completed the form, stood up, and personally ushered me to the door.

As I drove into our driveway, buoyed up by my glamorous new career, I was greeted by my lab assistants - ages 13, 7, and 3. Upstairs I could hear our new experimental model, (a 6 month old baby), in the child-development program, testing out a new vocal pattern. I felt triumphant! I had scored a beat on bureaucracy!

And I had gone on the official records as someone more distinguished and indispensable to mankind than “just another mother.”

Mother … what a glorious career! Who needs a title on the door?!

***
personal update…

We had a good planning session last night with the two other teachers who will be teaching with us this summer in Hainan. It’s hard to believe that we’ll be in Asia eight weeks from now! Lots to do yet, but we’re headed in the right direction.

quotation…

“As frail human beings, we’re often bewildered. But God never is. God never wrings His hands.” - Dr. Drew Conley

=^..^= =^..^= =^..^=
Rob Loach in Greenville SC

No day is over if it makes a memory.