Fun at the Playground Before the Big Change

Jodi and the boys leave tomorrow for Denver. I’ll be joining them in Denver on Sunday afternoon. The gameplan is to hang with her parents until the baby is born and stay up there a few days after the little man arrives before heading back to Branson. I’ve let her and the boys go up north without me before, but this is different. This is harder.

Yellow Hen Not Peck Me

Brock is a fast learner.

Two days ago Brock and I went out to feed our chickens. This is one of Brock’s favorite things to do with daddy. He knows how much to feed the hens, where to find the eggs, and how to gently (for the most part) hand the eggs to daddy. Brock has watched me reach under hens to gather lots of times. On this day, Brock decided to try it on his own.

My back was turned and Brock decided to check under the yellow hen. We have several nice black hens and a nice red hen… as it turns out, the yellow hen is not on the nice list. All of the sudden I heard screaming and Brock is crying. Through the tears, he tells me that the yellow hen pecked him. She got him pretty good just below his left eye. We finished gathering the eggs and went in for the day. Here’s where the story really gets cute.

Brock and I go out again to feed the chickens the next day. This time, totally without any prompting from dad, Brock picks up a pretty big stick as we walk up to the chicken coop. The yellow hen happened to be standing at the door. Brock raised the stick in his right hand and confidently proclaimed…

“Yellow hen not peck me.”

I’ve told that story several times and gotten belly laughs from lots of folks. It has also been insightful to think about.

You don’t have to teach a 2 year old to pick up a stick to defend himself after he’s been hurt. Adults seem to behave the same way. The trouble is with adults, we take a long time to let go of our sticks even when the danger is long gone. This can be a bump in the road for people trying to build and live in a healthy community of grace. We are humans and will hurt each other. Its inevitable. I see many people (including the guy in the mirror) that walk around with our “yellow hen” sticks just in case. The mystery is that God says we can put our sticks down. He says that we can trust him, and that we can trust each other. But won’t we get pecked again? Probably. That’s just a result of getting too close.

But maybe getting “too close” to each other is what we need.

Grilling With Ski Gloves

I hear Alaska is nice this time of year.

2008 in Branson is starting out on a cold note. For those of you here in Branson, you know that. For you out-of-towners, it’s flat out cold here right now. The snow that fell several days before Christmas is still on the ground. I’ve learned how to handle the snow in several fun ways that you can try, assuming you have kids, huskies, a naturally cooled office, and ski gloves.

1. Build a snowman with your kids. Here is a fun picture of Brody and Brock on Christmas Eve day. Brody had fun building the snowman, and Brock had fun chasing our new outside kitty. He’s a very friendly kitty… if a mid-sized orange kitty shows up at your house in Branson, just give me a call and I’ll come get him.

2. Go sledding with your huskies. I’ve biked with my dogs, now I’ve added sledding to my list of dog-powered adventures. Sledding with the pups wasn’t nearly as dramatic as biking was. I guess you really need a sled team to teach dogs to “mush” — they just didn’t quite get it.

3. Patch the hole in your office wall. At one point in the distant past, my office was a bunkhouse heated with a propane heater. The heater has aged, and I just don’t trust it. As much as I like things that go “boom”… The heater’s exhaust pipe has been sticking through the office wall since we moved in (over a year ago). The hole in the wall makes for a chilly office in cold weather. Today I finally pulled the exhaust pipe out and patched the hole. Oh baby, baby! My office stays nice and toasty now, even when it’s 12 degrees outside (like it is right now).

4. Grill with your ski gloves on. Yep, Jodi wanted flank steak, so I donned my ski gloves, fired up the outdoor grill, and got to work. Eskimos would be proud.

Now that I have my Jodi back (she was an interim K-1 teacher for the past 6 weeks), I have time to update this blog, update the church and u-turn websites, run with my dogs, visit people, skydive… just basically do all the things that I didn’t have time to do when my main duty was watching the boys 24/7. I wouldn’t trade my time with Brody and Brock for anything – we had tons of fun – but I have gained a new appreciation for stay-at-home moms. You women are incredible.

Stay tuned.