Routine Week, Busy Weekend

Life all last week was very routine. Then this weekend came.

WE HAD A GREAT TIME Saturday morning. The kids played their last ball games of the season. Mom has made just about all the games this year, Pauline has been to some, and Aunt Mar has even made it to a couple of Jenna’s afternoon games (the wheelchair from church makes this easy for her). Saturday the kids’ games were back to back, and since Aunt Mar hadn’t seen the boys play she decided to get up early and come to their game.

Mom, Aunt Mar, and I were running a little late Saturday morning and missed the very beginning of the boys’ game, but we got there just in time to see Nate get the ball, dribble to the other end of the court, and earn two points for his team. Aunt Mar was really glad to see this as well as watching Ben and Jenna play. After the game we went to Cracker Barrel for lunch. We all had a lot of fun together.

THAT CHAIR NEEDS A SEATBELT. That afternoon Mom called the house. Aunt Mar had fallen. There was panic in Mom’s voice.

I must say that Aunt Mar is tough. She has taken quite a few spills over the last few months only to be sore for a few days afterwards. When I got to their house Saturday afternoon I knew we needed to call 911. Aunt Mar had been sitting in the rocking chair in her bedroom to change clothes. She fell asleep while sitting in the chair and then fell sideways onto the floor. Now Aunt Mar has a high tolerance for pain, but her left hip was really hurting after this fall.

To keep this brief, the early x-rays and CT scan on Aunt Mar’s hip revealed nothing. All this reminds us of the elusive fracture she got from a fall in January of last year which, as you may recall, laid her up for several weeks. Dr. Valosik came to talk to Aunt Mar this evening to report on the latest round of x-rays. It turns out that that this is a repeat of last year times two. She has fractures of the transverse process on two vertebrae. In my opinion this is great news because she can recover from this without surgery and it could have been so much worse. Did I mention that Aunt Mar is tough?

OTHER BUSYNESS. Even though Aunt Mar is in the hospital, life does not stop. Jenna had a 4-H project on photography to prepare for this weekend. Vicki helped her with this. (I get the science fair project next weekend.) Jenna focused on tips for taking good pictures and even took snapshots of her brothers to demonstrate good and bad techniques. She even made one really good picture of the boys that was printed as an 8X10 and will be framed.

The Cub Scout Blue and Gold banquet was last night. Like last year the scouts and their dad’s were to contribute a cake to be auctioned off as part of a fund raiser. The theme of the banquet was camping so Ben and I made a chocolate cake with green icing (for grass). We then decorated the cake with three tents (made of graham crackers), a campfire (pretzels for firewood, coated raisins for rocks, and fruit rollups for fire), logs around the fire (Tootsie Rolls), and people (Sour Patch Kids candy). His cake won a ribbon for “Best Camping Theme.”

Ben’s cake brought $25.00. Of course, it came home with us. Nate took $2.00 to bid on the cake. He was worried all night that he wouldn’t have enough money to buy it. He didn’t count on the rest of the family chipping in.

Ben also got his Wolf patch last night.

More important than the cake was that Ben was asked (ahead of time) to say the blessing before the meal. He did a wonderful job. We were all very proud.

Joe

Six and Going Strong

The last two weeks have been pretty routine for us. Well, life has, but the weather hasn’t. Last week was really cold, then all of the sudden it got really warm. To illustrate, Thursday the 5th we woke up to 12°. Less than 36 hours later I had left my jacket behind because it was 63°. After a week of this it’s getting colder again.

A BIG BOY. I remember feeling big when I turned six. For some reason whenever people asked my age I liked to answer by holding up my fingers. I felt big at six when I had to begin using two hands.

It was six years ago tonight. We had finished a dinner of chicken and dumplings and Vicki had been talking to her brother on the phone when she said she thought it was time to go to the hospital. It had been raining hard all day. Mom and Aunt Mar came over to keep the kids and we took off. We hadn’t even gotten to the interstate and I was concerned about the frequency of her contractions. Vicki was too and was praying aloud. We were on Cross Plains Road near White House Estates when I silently expressed my concerns to God. I did not want to be delivering a baby on the side of the road. He immediately answered, His voice audible inside my ears. “It’s going to be alright. My job is to get you to the hospital safely. Your job is to drive, and drive FAST.” The only appropriate answer was, “Yes Sir.”

We got on the interstate and I floored the van. The slowest I got between White House and the Cumberland River was 85 MPH. It was raining way too hard to be driving like that. Water was standing on the road and we passed six accidents due to the wet conditions. Every time someone would change to the left lane ahead of me I would flash my high beams and they immediately moved back. This happened a lot. As wet and windy as it was the windshield stayed amazingly clear and the van handled as if I were driving 70 on dry pavement. Coming down the ridge I could see other vehicles dealing with the crosswind. Our van was normally affected. That night it drove like a calm day.

When we got to the hospital I called home. Mom answered and said, “But you haven’t had time to get there!” Thirty minutes later I called and told her she had a second grandson. She didn’t believe it until she heard Nate cry out in the background. Vicki never had time for her epidural. Nate hit the ground running and things haven’t let up since.

Nate had a big day today. The boys played basketball this morning. Ben had another good game (he put 18 points on the board). But what was so neat was watching Nate play. He usually just follows the action up and down the court doing little more than taking up space. Today he got the ball several times and was a totally different kid. The first time he drove down the length of the court and shot only to miss. He had a second good drive and passed the ball to Ben who scored. I leaned over to Vicki and said I believed something about the game had clicked with him. She agreed. In the second half Nate received a pass, put the ball up, and scored his first goal! The family went wild.

This afternoon, after Jenna’s game, we all went to Hollywood’s Grill and Fun Center in White House where we enjoyed supper and games. We had cake at Mom and Aunt Mar’s. Nate will get to do some birthday stuff with some friends on Monday.

ARE YOU IN? Getting out the door this morning wasn’t the easiest thing. The boys were wound up. Let’s just say we weren’t the model family. Vicki and I drove separately (due to other errands) and she had the kids with her. Vicki had reached her limit by 8:30. Once on the road she began to lay down the law. She told them how she wanted them to be kind and considerate to each other, etc. As Jenna told me later, “She ranted for about five or ten minutes.” I’m not sure Vicki would agree she was ranting, but she was trying to get the kids to act like a caring family should.

At the end of her pep talk she said, “Okay, who’s in?” Silence. Jenna, who was reading, finally piped in with an “I’m in.” (We later found out Jenna quickly answered because she wanted to get back to her book.)

Then Vicki said, “So Nate, what about you?”

“I want to think about it,” came his reply.

“Benton?”

“I want to think about it too.”

“You know guys,” Vicki countered, “we can make life miserable for those who aren’t in.”

Ben immediately changed his tune with an “I’m in.”

Vicki asked Nate again. His answer: “I still want to think about it.”

Hours later, not knowing Vicki had already told me about all this, Nate comes to me and says, “I’m in.”

Playing dumb I ask, “In with what?”

“In with being part of the family. Mom wanted to know if I was in.“

VALENTINE MATH. They had all their Valentine activities at school yesterday. Jenna even got a Valentine card from another boy in her grade (the students can pay for greetings to be sent to others at their school).

Nate’s teacher gave the class M&Ms and incorporated a math lesson. The assignment was to color a graph showing the number of candies they got of each color. Nate proudly showed this off to Vicki when he got home and pointed out the blue bar on the graph. ”I only got one blue one in my bag, but I found another on on the floor.“

”You didn’t eat it did you?“

His face first wore a sheepish expression but was quickly replaced with a gleam in his eye and a devilish grin. ”Yes I did!“ he said with gusto, ”I eat anything off the floor that’s chocolate.“

Joe