I Say It Best When I Say Nothing At All.....

Matthew is teething again, and it has been a painful experience for all of us. So far, he has three teeth in, and he is working on his fourth. I can see that tooth just floating on the surface, but for some reason, it won't break through the gum. It is like a shark that nibbles on the toes of his prey without the typical warning there is danger by breaking the surface with his dorsal fin. Do you remember the opening scene in the movie Jaws where Chrissie goes out swimming and is suddenly attacked from below? First there is a slight tug, and Chrissie shows a look of confusion, "what is that?" Suddenly, fear sets in and she realizes she is being eaten alive. Her shrills and shrieks and panic are similar sounds we hear from Matthew. There is nothing we can do to make him happy. He crawls around with this look of, "please pick me up!" Once we pick him up, he wants to be put down, and then he screams even louder because that is not what he wanted. With new t...

On Sunday, it was the children's primary program. This is that exciting time each year where all of the children from the ages of 11 down to 3 perform for their parents, friends and relatives. They sing songs and they each have a small speaking part. This is a time for parents to beam and show a moment of pride for their children's abilities as stage performers. These are times when parents wish filming with a camcorder would be acceptable, because chances are, one might end up with the winning video for ABC's AFV (America's Funniest Videos). As a parent of three children who are within this age range, I took turns smiling, winking and encouraging each of my boys as they sang. Because they are boys, they are competitive by nature. I had to make sure that I gave equal attention to each of them, or it may create ill feelings. "Dad, every time I looked at you, you were looking at Jeff. I knew that you liked Jeff more than me!" On occasion, I turned my head...

Having family prayer with young children is an experience. After we read scriptures at night as a family, we kneel down together and then I select somebody to say the prayer. This should be a reverent, spiritually building experience, but I must admit the comedy of the situation sometimes boils its way to the surface and the result is a family of gigglers hoping the Lord isn't going to come down those stairs and catch us in the middle of something we shouldn't be doing. It is a challenge for me to select a good rotation in who will be the orator each night. The difficulty is mixing it up enough so that one person is not the orator for the blessing of all the meals, family, companionship and personal prayers. I have to look at this like I am a coach of a baseball team. It is important that my pitchers get at least a day or two of rest before I put them back in the pitching (praying) rotation. There is somebody, however, sitting at the end of the bench that rarely gets used....

Lately, I have really started to wonder what is wrong with me. There was a time when I could stay up for hours, then rebound and be at it again early the next morning and feel refreshed. I could sit down on the couch and read a book or watch a television show during the day and not fall asleep. In fact, if there was a good movie coming out, and there was a midnight showing available, I would call my brothers and cousins and hook up with them for dinner and the movie, then consider going with them to an early morning breakfast. Times have changed! Now, when I am no longer actively engaged in something, I sit down on a comfortable sofa, and I will be unconscious in a matter of seconds. Reading books and watching movies can no longer hold my interest. As you have read from previous posts, a book is the best sleeping pill for me. Once I crack open a book, 40 seconds later, the book is covered in drool. I have recognized that the result of my tiredness comes from my cat and my childre...

I am currently reading Hostage , a novel by Robert Crais. As I was reading last night, I realized that my job has some similarities to a hostage negotiator. Although I never have to diffuse a situation to get the hostages and the perpetrators out of an intense situation, I sometimes feel like resolving issues on mortgage files is a lot the same, and the stress could not be any greater than what I deal with, albeit lives are not at stake in my case. Yesterday, one of my loan officer's transferred his borrower's phone call to me. The borrower threatened to walk away from the closing (pull the trigger) unless I was willing to give him what he wanted. He claimed he was being charged $750 more in closing costs than what I told him he would have. He proceeded to tell me that I had lied to him and I had to be charging a lot in junk fees. In reality, he was not overcharged, and his closing costs were very much in line with what he agreed to pay. The $750 overage he was seeing was comin...

Coralee didn't have to play the organ today. Bonus! I actually got to sit next to her during Sacrament Meeting. This is a very rare occasion. If this wasn't a bonus enough, I had a second person available to help me keep the kids properly behaved. We have too many children now to completely separate them. It used to be that one child could sit at one end of the pew, then a parent, then a child, then a parent, then a child. Matthew is still being held by one of us, but that still leaves a couple of children who are lucky enough to sit together. In today's arrangement, Nathan and Jeffrey were the lucky ones. The meeting, for the most part, went pretty well today. The more challenging child, Matthew, decided it was time to be fed early in the meeting. This required Coralee to be excused, and there I sat with the other four children. I could see their minds working in sync almost immediately after Coralee left the chapel. Jeff and Nate started poking each other on queue, "...

We took the kids swimming on Labor Day at a local indoor, community pool. We all had a great time. The pool is really nice. They have a lazy river, a large circular slide and several different structures that shoot water in all kinds of directions. There is something for everybody there, and when it was time, it was a real challenge to get the kids out of the water so we could head home. I love how water makes people have very little body weight. I was able to carry three children down the lazy river with very little effort. I had one on my back, and the other two were stretched out in a 'Superman' flying position, holding on to my arms that were perpendicular to my body. The kids thought I was the strongest man in the world, and I was nearly convinced that I was. A couple of hours after swimming, hot water leaked out of my ear. All of a sudden, I was hearing better. I didn't even know I was hearing badly. It was just an added bonus to my day. I was thinking, "Gee, I...