In a vain effort to bring the Sabbath to our Sundays, Michelle used to turn on the radio on Sunday mornings to "The Sounds of Sunday" on KLCE 97. Well, that was in Idaho. We no longer have that option, except via the Internet.
It only produced marginal results, at best. Most of the time, all it did was add to the noise. My opinion, of course.
However, we may need to return to this or something similar in order to restore order to our Sunday experiences. I think soft music isn't effective enough, however. I'm going to propose a brick or a club of some kind. We need something. Take today for example...
We all were awake at roughly the same hour this morning. Like all Sundays before, Michelle begins early-- she prods them all to get dressed and ready for church. Immediately, Ethan walks in to our room crying because his pants are too small (apparently), and he has them cuddled around his ankles while wearing his inside shirt on the outside of his outside shirt. We try to calm him down, persuade him to rearrange his shirts, and get a belt for his pants.
The prodding on Preston isn't usually very effective, so as Michelle or I remind him about getting dressed, the crescendo in our voice's rise as well. We start at 8AM with normal decibel levels, then this steadily increases until we are screaming by 9:30.
Chrissa, who needed to shower, is still unshowered at 8:45AM, to which we remind her of this need. After a 10 minutes argument on why a person must shower more than every 3 or 4 days, she finally caves and gets into the shower.
Amberlee had been crying this entire time for some breakfast. Once done, she then starts to cry and kick and protest while Michelle tried to get on her dress and tights. After a few minutes of wrestling her, Michelle gives up, leaving her with a dress on over a full diaper.
Preston and Ethan are finally dressed by 9:15AM; however, Ethan's desire for fasting today meant that he was also very grumpy, telling us things like, "Hello? Are you all deaf? I said I want...", or "You and mom are impossible!"
Amberlee's protest reaches new heights at 9:30AM, and in an attempt to get Michelle's attention, she inadvertently grabs her hot curling iron. It didn't burn her hand, but she screamed like it did, and as we tried to grab her to check for wounds, she turns to run-- directly into the wall.
At 9:55AM, 5 minutes before church starts, we leave. Our drive, assuming we get all green lights, is 10 minutes minimum. Fashionably late, as usual. Because we are late, we are forced to cram all 6 of us into 4 open chairs. As if on cue, Amberlee starts whining for her drink, Ethan starts complaining of stomach pains, and Preston complains for reasons known only to him.
Ten minutes into church services, I take the little cup-o'-cereal that we readied for Amberlee and hand it to her. Preston really gets ticked off at that and begins to not only cry, but starts hitting me as well. Right there, right in the middle of church services, I have a 4 year old swinging punches at me with a real look of evil on his face. I try to laugh at it a bit, downplay the tantrum, grabbing his arms with inconspicuous force, but that only fuels his rage and soon I find myself literally dragging him out backwards by his arms.
This, of course, sets off Amberlee and she begins to cry because she wanted to sit on my lap to eat her cereal, so out comes Michelle with Amberlee in her arms. Thus, I'm dragging Preston down the hallway with Michelle and Amberlee in tow, both kids crying.
Preston's temper reaches new heights about 5 minutes later, and as he kicks and screams, I'm forced to pick him up in order to take him outside to cool off. I lay him down in the grass while his temper subsides.
Roughly 10 minutes later, as we make our way back to the chapel, we peek in the door to find a new family had taken over our seats. Ethan had moved to sit with Chrissa, who had moved to sit with a friend.
I'm not sure where the point is when a parents gives up and says, "You know what? That's enough... I'm going home and locking myself in my bedroom." I had suggested this to Michelle at least 3 times-- I guess my threshold is much lower than hers.
Nevertheless, we are failing on Sundays. I'm open to any ideas... drugs, forced labor, incarceration, straight jackets, duct tape... anything.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
Saturday, March 26, 2011
Our Life in Graphs
I've started a new series for our blog, as you can tell-- "Our Life in Graphs". We have weird things about us, and where words can do no justice, a graph or two might.
For this one, we have been without cable for over 6 years now. Often we get asked, "What do you do with yourselves and all that time?" Well, here is what we do. I'm sure this will encourage you all to throw away the remote controls and cancel you cable subscriptions.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Announcements, of Various Types
Alright, alright... here it goes...
There. The cat is out of the bag. Whoop-dee-doo...
We have been taking ballroom dance lessons off and on for years. When we lived in Idaho Falls, we were instructed in the cha-cha, salsa, tango, and west coast swing. Here in Cranberry PA, thanks to the Butler County Community College, we are being instructed in the triple step swing, jitterbug, and the hustle.
So what? Okay, I like to ballroom dance wih my wife. In fact, the other husbands that attend seem to have fun as well. None of us are any good-- which, in reality, is probably as nature intended it.
Can we dance? Eh, well, that needs to be left open for discussion. I mean, Michelle is 110 lbs soaking wet and stands at a towering 5'2". I weigh 240 lbs completely dry and stand at 6'3". If I'm not stepping on her somehow, I'm clothes-lining her as I try to do an underarm pass. Don't even ask how we manage to do the sugar push.
My sister Wendie and I (HI SIS!!) had perfected a dance routine that we were going to take to the national stage: "Elephants on Ice". I think we could have sold out Madison Square Garden. The title says it all.
With Michelle, we are more like a mouse and an elephant, on ice. But, its fun anyway... and, chances are we'd dance circles around you, so don't laught too hard.
SECOND ANNOUNCEMENT
I have decided to write a novel. Actually, its going to a romantic comedy. My goal is to become a writer. Make stuff up, write it down... the only thing better would be a chef where I could labor all day and eat my work in the end, leaving nothing.
I've had a few ideas mulling around in my empty head for a while now. I figure, why not? I've got a plot and I'm developing the characters now. Yep, it'll take some time, but what else do I have?
All I need is an alias. "Cade Jensen" is a far cry from "Michael Crichton" or "George Orwell" or "JD Salinger". So, please send me you thoughts. Before you do, anything with "She-nay-nay", "Lumbiqua", or "Cleetus" is out.
"HEEEAAARRR YE HEEEAAARRR YE! CADE AND MICHELLE ARE TAKING BALLROOM DANCE LESSONS!"
There. The cat is out of the bag. Whoop-dee-doo...
We have been taking ballroom dance lessons off and on for years. When we lived in Idaho Falls, we were instructed in the cha-cha, salsa, tango, and west coast swing. Here in Cranberry PA, thanks to the Butler County Community College, we are being instructed in the triple step swing, jitterbug, and the hustle.
So what? Okay, I like to ballroom dance wih my wife. In fact, the other husbands that attend seem to have fun as well. None of us are any good-- which, in reality, is probably as nature intended it.
Can we dance? Eh, well, that needs to be left open for discussion. I mean, Michelle is 110 lbs soaking wet and stands at a towering 5'2". I weigh 240 lbs completely dry and stand at 6'3". If I'm not stepping on her somehow, I'm clothes-lining her as I try to do an underarm pass. Don't even ask how we manage to do the sugar push.
My sister Wendie and I (HI SIS!!) had perfected a dance routine that we were going to take to the national stage: "Elephants on Ice". I think we could have sold out Madison Square Garden. The title says it all.
With Michelle, we are more like a mouse and an elephant, on ice. But, its fun anyway... and, chances are we'd dance circles around you, so don't laught too hard.
SECOND ANNOUNCEMENT
I have decided to write a novel. Actually, its going to a romantic comedy. My goal is to become a writer. Make stuff up, write it down... the only thing better would be a chef where I could labor all day and eat my work in the end, leaving nothing.
I've had a few ideas mulling around in my empty head for a while now. I figure, why not? I've got a plot and I'm developing the characters now. Yep, it'll take some time, but what else do I have?
All I need is an alias. "Cade Jensen" is a far cry from "Michael Crichton" or "George Orwell" or "JD Salinger". So, please send me you thoughts. Before you do, anything with "She-nay-nay", "Lumbiqua", or "Cleetus" is out.
Monday, March 7, 2011
R.I.P. (Rascally Instigating Preston)
My poor little Preston.
This morning, March 7, 2011, at ~9:30AM, I got a frantic call at work.
"You better pray your son lives through the day," said the person on the other end of the line. I think it was Michelle, but I couldn't be certain. The tone was raspy and direct, something that exuded death.
She mentioned something about a pencil, walls, dead, "everywhere", etc. I had to piece together what it all meant, and as the puzzle started to materialize, I realized that the situation might be worse than I initially thought.
So, I ran out of the office and headed home to assess the situation first-hand.
Upon arrival, I went upstairs to the crime scene to see what was going on. The more I looked, the more bug-eyed I got. Our little Preston, for some reason known only to himself, decided to take a pencil and write big X's on the walls. Uh, no... not one X. Not 2, or 3, or 4. In fact, I would have been happy had he stopped at 10, 20, or even 30.
No, he scribed 53 X's all over our upstairs facilities-- bedrooms, bathroom, closets, hallways, doors, door casings, and furniture. Fifty-three... I counted them myself. Our bathroom had 12. Our bedroom had 8. Ambie's bedroom had 7. Chrissa's room had 8. The boy's room had at least 7. The hallway had 5. And, the doors, furniture, and door casings had the remainder. These were walls that we had repainted in the months prior in an effort to cover up the "ugly". Recall the Caucasian Silly Putty Pink that I described in prior articles? He also drew circles and scribbles of various sizes and shapes. The average X size was about 12" X 12". All this happened in about 30 minutes.
How did Michelle catch on? Preston warned her, "Don't come upstairs," as he closed doors and hid as much of it as he could, and then proceeded to blame his little sister on it all, despite his fingers being covered in pencil-gray.
Why did he do it, you ask? I have no idea. But, I think if you see the video below, you might get an answer similar to what I'm thinking.
I was going to take pictures of the destruction, but given Michelle's fragile state of mind (plus the puffy eyes, sharpened fingernails, and overall dazed look), I didn't want to be implicated as a co-conspirator or co-contributor in this case. Her fuse had been lit, and even though fireworks had gone off, there was no telling when the real "grand finale" would come.
Just imagine, however, every flat surface of every wall with at least one large X written in pencil on it. Some walls had multiple drawings. If there was a window, he put at least an X on both sides and another below it. He even made sure to mark the 2-inch section of wall between the edge of the shower and the corner.
My only conclusion is that he was practicing his letters. We are working with him on writing his name. Or, maybe he tapped into his prehistoric self and realized the walls needed some cave paintings. Or, maybe he was just being a turd. I won't care to make any wager on which one it was, since it doesn't really matter.
He spent the next several hours with a rag and Windex trying to get off the pencil. He went through a half-bottle of Windex. When that died out, we switched to Magic Erasers. He went through 2 of those.
Once removed, it was my turn to re-paint the affected areas. To do that, I took off the afternoon from work. I also took off the afternoon to make sure Michelle didn't kill any kids, kill herself, burn down the house, or do anything rash.
I guess Preston fits nicely into a long line of rascals. I burned down (part) of our horse's barn while trying to hide a letter from the school indicating a bad grade (why I didn't just throw it away instead of burning it and dropping it in the horse manure where it smoldered for over a week before catching the stupid shed on fire, I'll never know). Ethan wrote on a couple of walls while he was learning the alphabet. Chrissa took a piece of hardwood to a new car of our's and effectively "aged" the car at least 10 years in a matter of minutes. Not sure what Michelle ever did... maybe she was a perfect kid? I did hear that at the age of 4 she went into neighbor's mailboxes looking for stickers to steal.
Therefore, I guess we have one last big surprise-- Amberlee. No telling what she is capable of yet.
This morning, March 7, 2011, at ~9:30AM, I got a frantic call at work.
"You better pray your son lives through the day," said the person on the other end of the line. I think it was Michelle, but I couldn't be certain. The tone was raspy and direct, something that exuded death.
She mentioned something about a pencil, walls, dead, "everywhere", etc. I had to piece together what it all meant, and as the puzzle started to materialize, I realized that the situation might be worse than I initially thought.
So, I ran out of the office and headed home to assess the situation first-hand.
Upon arrival, I went upstairs to the crime scene to see what was going on. The more I looked, the more bug-eyed I got. Our little Preston, for some reason known only to himself, decided to take a pencil and write big X's on the walls. Uh, no... not one X. Not 2, or 3, or 4. In fact, I would have been happy had he stopped at 10, 20, or even 30.
No, he scribed 53 X's all over our upstairs facilities-- bedrooms, bathroom, closets, hallways, doors, door casings, and furniture. Fifty-three... I counted them myself. Our bathroom had 12. Our bedroom had 8. Ambie's bedroom had 7. Chrissa's room had 8. The boy's room had at least 7. The hallway had 5. And, the doors, furniture, and door casings had the remainder. These were walls that we had repainted in the months prior in an effort to cover up the "ugly". Recall the Caucasian Silly Putty Pink that I described in prior articles? He also drew circles and scribbles of various sizes and shapes. The average X size was about 12" X 12". All this happened in about 30 minutes.
How did Michelle catch on? Preston warned her, "Don't come upstairs," as he closed doors and hid as much of it as he could, and then proceeded to blame his little sister on it all, despite his fingers being covered in pencil-gray.
Why did he do it, you ask? I have no idea. But, I think if you see the video below, you might get an answer similar to what I'm thinking.
I was going to take pictures of the destruction, but given Michelle's fragile state of mind (plus the puffy eyes, sharpened fingernails, and overall dazed look), I didn't want to be implicated as a co-conspirator or co-contributor in this case. Her fuse had been lit, and even though fireworks had gone off, there was no telling when the real "grand finale" would come.
Just imagine, however, every flat surface of every wall with at least one large X written in pencil on it. Some walls had multiple drawings. If there was a window, he put at least an X on both sides and another below it. He even made sure to mark the 2-inch section of wall between the edge of the shower and the corner.
My only conclusion is that he was practicing his letters. We are working with him on writing his name. Or, maybe he tapped into his prehistoric self and realized the walls needed some cave paintings. Or, maybe he was just being a turd. I won't care to make any wager on which one it was, since it doesn't really matter.
He spent the next several hours with a rag and Windex trying to get off the pencil. He went through a half-bottle of Windex. When that died out, we switched to Magic Erasers. He went through 2 of those.
Once removed, it was my turn to re-paint the affected areas. To do that, I took off the afternoon from work. I also took off the afternoon to make sure Michelle didn't kill any kids, kill herself, burn down the house, or do anything rash.
I guess Preston fits nicely into a long line of rascals. I burned down (part) of our horse's barn while trying to hide a letter from the school indicating a bad grade (why I didn't just throw it away instead of burning it and dropping it in the horse manure where it smoldered for over a week before catching the stupid shed on fire, I'll never know). Ethan wrote on a couple of walls while he was learning the alphabet. Chrissa took a piece of hardwood to a new car of our's and effectively "aged" the car at least 10 years in a matter of minutes. Not sure what Michelle ever did... maybe she was a perfect kid? I did hear that at the age of 4 she went into neighbor's mailboxes looking for stickers to steal.
Therefore, I guess we have one last big surprise-- Amberlee. No telling what she is capable of yet.
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