The Man I Am Not Yet

I aspire to be a man of poetry, one so well-versed in the great works that gems can trickle from my soul like something very poetic if only I could think of the word right now.

Alas, I have not invested enough to give me the stamina to read through the 700+ pages of Selected Works of Wordsworth that has sat somewhere in my home lo the last decade largely unread. But I did manage a few brief spurts and marked a few choice phrases I want to remember before I give up for the present and consign the work to the Salvation Army:

"Hope itself was all I knew of pain"

"Much done, and much designed, and more desired" -- if that doesn't describe a mother's work, I don't know what does

"The eye that marks the gliding creature sees
How graceful pride can be, and how majestic, ease."

 (all three from "An Evening Walk")

The close to "Anecdote for Fathers":
"O dearest, dearest boy! my heart
For better love would seldom yearn,
Could I but teach the hundredth part
Of what from thee I learn."

From "The Tables Turned"

Packing Games

I gotta say, as we are busy packing our board and card games to ship to Nigeria, it is amazing how much excess space is in these games! That's cheap and easy to say for video games because they are all box and a small CD. But even when there are hundreds upon hundreds of pieces, we can really shrink them down to fit at least 3 games in each box. We fit:

• All 5 Dominion boxes into 1
• The Alhambra Big Box with 20 expansions, Apples to Apples Big Box with 1000 cards, Puerto Rico, Seafarers of Catan, and Music Maestro in the Alhambra box alone
• Thurn and Taxis also has the Settlers of Catan card game, the Princess Bride, Rook, and Phase 10
• The Bible Trivia game has Carcassonne and Mille Bornes
• The Book of Mormon Challenge has Uncle Wiggley and Family Fluxx
• Scattergories has Wise & Otherwise and Racko
• Solarquest has the Ungame and ImaginIff
• Candyland has Carcassonne: Discovery and a Care Bears game
• Settlers and Cities of Catan, and some but not all of Seafarers in one box
• Star Trek Uno has Pit

There are very few games we own that comfortably fit only themselves: Dominoes, Paradise Island, the Great Dalmuti, Fluxx (plus Christian Fluxx and Jewish Fluxx), and Guillotine. We probably left some space on the table, as we could fit some of those games into the Ticket to Ride box, but we're carrying several of them with us so there's little point. Also in our collection coming with us are the 2-player Starfarers of Catan, Citadels, Pass the Pigs and Bohnanza. Just for the reference of anyone in Yola who would like to set up a regular game night :)  .

For the fun of it, I highlighted a few of my favorite games of those we're bringing. Joy would add Bohnanza as one of her reliable favorites and she has been fairly addicted to Dominion for months. She is also regularly into Carcassonne: Discovery and we got the Fluxxes for her.

We introduced the Prince to the Bible Trivia game a couple weeks ago. He won his first time through (with some hints and careful selection of questions). He has a lot more patience for it with fewer people playing.
 -- Derrill

Leaving Town - a parody that was all too easy

The problem is all inside your head, she said to me
The answer is easy if you take it logically
I'd like to help you in your struggle to be free
There must be fifty ways to leave your program

She said you see it is my job here to intrude
Furthermore I hope my meaning won't be lost or misconstrued
So I repeat myself, I'm a head-hunter, dude.
And there must be fifty ways to leave your program, fifty ways to leave your program.

Chorus:
Just throw in the towel, Raul.
Get expelled, Nell.
Don't matriculate, Nate,
Just listen to me.
Quit your post-doc, Barack.
Get a real job, Bob!
Join the real world, Earl,
and get yourself free.

Tender Mercy: Lemon Honey

It only took 6 years of marriage, but I am finally converted to the use of lemon and honey in warm water to cure coughing and sore throats.

I have been up all night with this terrible, unending cough. I'm thankful we got a friend to pick up my mother from the airport in the hopes of getting us both some sleep because if I had tried driving I would have totaled the car and probably us with these hacking fits. I have Never had a cough like this, and I've had people comment, "Y'know, Derrill, I don't believe I've heard you cough recently." Right in the throat, ripping it out with steel claws cough, makes everything worse and the next cough all the more likely. This is bad stuff.

I was on a double dose of cough syrup plus three drops (2 for pain, 1 for the cough) and nothing could shake the cough. I gave up trying to sleep before Princess was born and went to the internet for some home remedies.

Lemon honey, hunh? I'm desparate. Sure.

Now Joy loves lemon honey. Always has. I made it for her daily during our first year of marriage. (We were both sick a lot that year.) It never really did much for me and I didn't like the taste. If I need a warm, soothing drink, I'll stick to a fruit tea or hot chocolate, and the fruit tea didn't help. But I'm desparate. I'll try it. Here goes.

Wow. Has it been five minutes since I last coughed? 10? Am I cured? *cough cough* No. Well, let's have some more drink. Another 10 minutes of freedom.

I can get 10 minutes of freedom at a time by sipping this little concoction. Not enough to sleep on, but enough to make life bearable. And maybe enough to help Joy get a couple hours before we leave.

That will make 2 more hours than either of us got the last time we gave birth.
 -- DW

Eating like a Prince

Prince eats peanut butter sandwiches. Huzzah!!!!

NOT the Prince

He not only eats them, they have become an official Staple Food, joining strawberry yogurt and blended peaches&pears. I am very thankful for this because we know we'll at least be able to feed him peanut butter sandwiches in Nigeria, even if he's unwilling to eat homemade banana yogurt or if we can't find canned peaches.

He has also decided that he likes sourdough bread better than any other. When I made his sandwich for lunch today, he specifically noticed that I was using sourdough bread and thanked me for it.

The old deal we had with him was that he would get to eat half a sugar cookie (blame and praise my mother for that) if he ate 5 different foods at a meal and a whole cookie if he also tried something new. This was very useful for giving his diet a lot more diversity and getting a very few new foods into his diet, like cooked carrots.

His school has been wonderful at getting him to eat more, different foods. The next process involved asking him how many bites of a less preferred food he would eat in order to get the same number of bites of a preferred food: 3 bites of rice and peas for 3 bites of yogurt, etc. This works, but is pretty time consuming and we are far less successful at getting him to try new foods this way.

The new game: Prince becomes a "cookie winner" if he eats a little bit of everything I eat. This means he gets at least 3 "new" foods every night. He seems to dislike tomatoes less than he dislikes other foods, so I'm going to see if I can't get tomatoes into his normal food circulation. The discussion is quite interesting. Do you want to be a cookie winner? "What do I have to do?" We describe the food and he lets us know if he's motivated enough to try or not.

The other major steps in Prince's growing up is that we have moved to a much more active set of rewards for him. We set up a chart on the front door. He gets to put an X in the chart if 1) he hasn't gone to time out in an hour and 2) his underwear is still clean. For a certain number of Xs, he gets to play a favorite game, which he switches up very regularly. His behavior has definitely improved - we had been at a series of 5 and 6 time outs in one hour before. Not only that, he really likes the system, so much so that he draws reward charts during art time in crayons and paint, and he decorated the box with his plushes with a reward chart.

 -- DW

Too Much Going On

• The baby doctor called this morning to rearrange when we deliver Princess. So now we'll be giving birth tomorrow morning instead of Friday morning. He needs to reschedule because his son is graduating Friday. ... I would've thought that would have been noticed earlier so we could plan better.
• Prince will be staying overnight with some friends ...update: and we've figured out who. I love visiting teachers. My mother will get into town early tomorrow morning -- unless her delayed flights keep her in Chicago overnight -- and will be able to watch Prince after the birth.
• I have strep. I had allergies, the allergies led to a sinus infection, nothing unusual. The sore throat and deep, deep cough lingered longer than the antibiotics and I suffered a serious relapse Sun/Mon with a major fever. I'm not sure just how high, but I thought the fever had broken yesterday at 9am, but when I went in to see the doctor I was still at 101. I have new antibiotics, but should keep my handling of Princess to a minimum. :(
• We spent last night consolidating our board game collection, fitting as many games into as few boxes as possible and deciding which games we can afford to try to find later. I am proud of myself for finding a way to fit every card from every Dominion expansion into one box so we can keep it in our luggage. Only problem is its weight.
• We've been spending so much time keeping the house clean enough to show to potential buyers that we have had precious little time to pack. We had one family that was interested in buying and made an offer, but by the time we had agreed they had already bought another home.
• So far we have organized but not finally packed our books; organized but not finally packed our board games; organized but not finally packed our movies and computer games; not even organized Prince's games; and successfully packed my sheet music and the plush toys. We have started lists of other things we might want to bring, but it's going to be a tight fit no matter what.
• I've had to visit the dentist 3-4 times to get two appointments done, plus a urologist, my GP twice, and the eye doctor before that. Add to that the Prince's visits to the eye doctor, and several to the pediatrician for travel shots and his regular check up, plus the OB/GYN and we have seen quite enough doctors this month to last us. May we now be healthy? Please?
• As if that weren't quite enough, my grandmother is in the hospital after having a very mild surgery and then a more serious one. She is very weak and her future health is still in question.
• So many thanks to our dear friends for bringing over lasagna Monday. We had so much going on we forgot they were even bringing dinner and were just sitting down to wonder what we were going to do when they popped over with a steaming plate of vegetable salvation. Pity half my mouth was still numb from the dentist so I could barely taste it.
• Oh, and I've been fighting with and training our two new computers. I finally convinced this one to stop giving me error messages, but can't install my preferred antivirus software to do it. I gotta say, Dell's customer service has deeply slipped over the years, and I continue giving three cheers to Major Geeks for good support.
• Last week we spent some time with our best friends -- also expecting next month and also heading for foreign lands -- to watch a movie. During the movie, we sat with our accumulated financial paperwork from 6 years of marriage and shredded documents we really won't need anymore. We shredded for the entire movie, nearly blistered our fingers, and still didn't finish.

 -- DW

Five more days

We have been waiting for Princess to come for so long, it is hard to believe that she will be here in just five more days. We believe that children are a blessing from our Heavenly Father and would like to raise as many of them as He sees would bless us with. Having a family with children really is the best thing to do in this life and there are so many things to learn from children.

A while back before we had the Prince we had a miscarriage and have been waiting for our first girl to join our family ever since. Any of you who have had children would probably understand the concerns that can accompany adding an additional child to your family. I have recently been feeling over whelmed with this prospect. It is funny I really want her to come, but I have never been a real baby person and that is how it starts.

I am looking forward to meeting her and to being done being pregnant (the later is different than my other pregnancy). While we were at church today, I realized that it was the last time we would be going to church before having our new little one. Wow, it should be an exciting week.

--Joy

The Reviews are In

I mentioned Prince's poster with statements from his classmates about him. I'll post a picture of it on our old blog (for those who know where that is), but the comments are here:

T -- Prince loves to play with me outside.
Kt -- Prince likes to play in block corner and ride bikes.
Ay -- Prince likes to play with me outside.
D -- Prince likes to play in the block corner.
B -- Prince likes to sing songs at circle time.
Ax -- Prince likes letters.
Ki -- Prince likes boats.
I -- Prince likes outside time.
Z -- Prince is learning to use the pedals on a bike
J -- Prince likes to play with trains.
P -- Prince is my friend.

Is there anything you would like to say about your friends, Prince?

"A____y took a deep breath!" We are grateful that A_____y took a deep breath, Joy adds. She helped teach Prince how to take deep breaths to calm down.

His note to T____ was also sweet: "I like to sit next to T_____" T was his bus buddy, at least when they weren't hitting, pushing, and kicking each other as boys are wont to do.

 -- DW

pre-Graduation

The Prince had a "graduation" ceremony at preschool yesterday. I was thinking auditorium and no one will see me, so I brought my work computer along, just in case. Wrong. It was just a little get together being thrown by the class. Prince's teacher called each student up one by one (as their parents showed up in some cases) and told everyone a little bit about them.

She said (to paraphrase) "Prince joined our little group very late in the year. When he got here, he wasn't sure he wanted to be here and he really preferred to play by himself. He didn't want to play with others. But now he doesn't want to play by himself. He looks around and asks for someone to play with him. He and his family are moving to (where are you moving?)" she prompted. The Prince dutifully came out with "Nigeria" and, on additional prompting, that Mommy is having a girl.

I cannot describe just how proud I was.

I'll try anyway.

Someone has glasses

And he's very excited