November Rains

The weather is shifting to winter. The rains have come. At least all the beans are in.

Before I forget, I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving.

MOVE OVER OLD MAN. It is a pleasure to watch my kids grow up. Jenna is blooming into a fine young lady right before my eyes, and the boys are knocking on the door of manhood themselves, though their heads would not follow if they were not attached.

The boys and I love to wrestle together. Vicki and Jenna can’t stand to watch. They just don’t have the Y chromosomes for it. We have fun, and so far no one has gone to the ER nor have we broken any furniture. But I can tell my days are numbered. At 11 Ben is right on the edge of that adolescent growth spurt, and he is getting that new strength that comes along with it. Couple that with the fact that I have a very sedentary job and you can see where I’m going.

It use to be that I could put Ben in the “Daddy Trap.” In this particular hold I put one arm behind his shoulders and the other arm under his knees (much like you would carry someone) and then fold him until my hands meet. Once I lock my hands it’s all over for the boy inside. I can still put Nate in the Daddy Trap, but I can’t force Ben to fold any more -- he is just too big for that now. Let him put another 50-60 lbs. on and I won’t be able to pin him down at all.

FUNNY AND TRUE. Ben came home from school with a paper that had been a class assignment that we thought was most interesting. Judging from the staple holes these had been displayed in the classroom. The assignment was to make an acrostic of your name. Here’s Ben’s:

Believes in God
Enjoys lollipops
Needs to study my spelling words
Torchers [tortures] his brother
Obeys his parents
Needs a little help

SHOPPING—YUCK! I know I’ve said this before, but I must reiterate; Jenna has inherited my shopping and fashion temperament. Being a girl she is just a strange animal when it comes to shopping for clothes—she hates to go. Now that you are set for this story...

Every year Vicki and her friends, Michelle and Tracy, go to the Christmas Village in Nashville. It’s one of those traditions that kicks off the holiday season for them. In recent years Jenna and Michelle’s daughter, Maegan, have been invited along. This year was no different and an invitation was extended to Jenna’s friend, Mackenzie.

The Christmas Village was two weeks ago. The interesting part of this story is what happened at one of the stops coming back home. Jenna was taken clothes shopping against her will! From what I hear she was one miserable girl with three women and two teenage friends loving every minute of it. She was a good sport, but Vicki said Maegan and Mackenzie were having a field day picking out clothes Jenna would never wear outside the dressing room. She did come home with a couple of cute outfits and looked really snazzy at church Sunday.

ROLLERSKATING. Of our family Vicki has probably had the most opportunities to go rollerskating. I went about once a year when I was a kid and our kids have simply not had but a couple of opportunities. When one of Ben’s Cub Scout friends invited us to a skating birthday party we decided to all go since the crowd would be small.

Vicki and I did pretty well considering it’s been about ten years since we’ve had skates on our feet. I was just proud that I never fell and could skate without holding on to anything. Ben says he fell about fifty times. I know it was a lot because we joked with him when we asked if he were tired because we always saw him sprawled out on the floor. Being our natural athlete he just got up and kept at it and did really well.

Jenna is a little more cautious, but she was able to shuffle around before the party was over. We were most proud of Nate. He was not looking forward to trying this at all, but we got him on skates and helped him around the edge of the rink two or three times. What impressed us was that after stopping for pizza he put his skates back on and went back out there all by himself. Hopefully we can get back to the rink before we forget what we know.

LIVE MUSEUM. Ben’s teacher, Mrs. Stroud, did a really neat thing with her class. She assigned each of them a person from American history to research. Each student was to write a paper about their person, draw a picture, and come up with a costume so they could dress as their person. Ben’s historical figure was Ulysses S. Grant. Yesterday they put on a live museum for the entire school.

Vicki, Jenna, and I decided to be a little late for school and work to see the performance and I must say the kids did really well. The show started with each of the characters frozen in place on the stage (the kids wore their costumes to play the part of their historical figure). They took turns coming forward to introduce themselves and tell a little about their lives. When the entire class was done they all recited the preamble of the Constitution. They all did a great job. Ben even sang Yankee Doodle for the Kindergarten class (this was because in his research he learned that Grant knew his song). We tried to get Ben to tell that Grant once got a speeding ticket on his horse in Washington, DC, when he was President but Ben didn’t include that in his speech.

Joe