5’2″ Eyes of Blue

Every time I have the measuring tape out for something, the children want to be measured. Tonight was no exception. The incredible thing to me is that my soon-to-be-11 year old son is already 5’2″. Calvin started out long–22 1/2 inches. That entire long boy was curled up pretty tightly in my rather short torso. I really realized how long he actually was when I delivered his brother 18 months later who was only 19 1/2 inches long. The entire time I was pregnant with Nevin I wondered why it didn’t hurt as much when he kicked as it did with Calvin.

Now, I know Calvin may reach a plateau somewhere in adolescence and turn out to be a man of average height. But for a descendent of my parents (both 5’2″ as adults–that’s right, my dad was only 5’2″) to have reached their height already seems amazing to me. My mom, now 80, is shorter than Calvin.

The point of this post is to just register my amazement at my blue-eyed boy being so big. Of course, his heading into those teenage years is rather remarkable, too. But I still have a couple of years before I have to really think about that. Sigh. They’re only little for a short time.

For the record, here are the others’ stats:
Nevin – 9 1/2 yo – 4’10 1/2″
Evangeline – nearly 8 yo – 4′ 1/2″
Charis – nearly 4 yo – 3′ 4 1/2″

Life & Stuff

We just got back from a quick overnight jaunt to Pella, IA. Mark was slated to preach there this morning, so we all went along. Orginally, Mark and I thought we would try to find places to send the children, and just the two of us would drive up there–about 5 hours away–go out to dinner, spend the night without kids, etc. Ok. So I know Pella, IA is not a great getaway spot, but the hotel was covered by the church that was hosting Mark. Alas, the sending off of the kids thing didn’t pan out, and when we realized the weekend fell at the end of the older ones’ spring break, we thought we could pass this off as their little spring break journey. So we left early Saturday morning, stopped in Hannibal, MO., to see Mark Twain’s cave and eat at the Becky Thatcher Restaurant ( a crusty old diner, but it had good cheap food with second hand smoke to boot). We got to the hotel in Pella by 5:30, so we had time to swim in the pool and eat TV dinners before going to bed. It was sort of a family slumber party. Mark preached this morning, and his sermon was well received. The church had a fellowship meal after the service, and our kids always love those. So all in all, the weekend was a success in their eyes. It was pretty good for us too, despite Mark and I both drugging ourselves to keep our cold symptoms at bay. We both felt a lot better today, and I attribute that to getting to sleep earlier than we ever do at home.

We arrived home to find our 11-year-old neighbor boy and his friend hiding out in our garage. We’ve known that he and some of his buddies have been jumping off our garage roof onto our trampoline at night for a few weeks now, but we’ve never caught them. Mark walked him home and talked with his older brother. Hopefully he’ll be too afraid of getting caught to keep up with his night-time adventures.

After being home for an hour or so, Evangeline informed us that she was feeling sick. We put her in our room with a bucket to wait to see if anything would materialize. Well, it did. After about 30 minutes, she threw up. It only happened one time, and I think she just overate while we were on the road. However, their school rule is not to send a child to school if she has thrown up within 24 hours. So this will be the third Monday in a row she will be missing school.

We’re glad to be home. We hope that we only have one throwing up incident, and we’re looking forward to that time in the not-too-distant future when Mark and I can get away for a night on our own.

Bad News Comes in 3s

Well, sometimes, I think bad news comes in 4s, 5s, and 6s.

I’ve told lots of people who read this blog about Calvin’s classmate Jacob who is 10 and has cancer. He was diagnosed 6 weeks ago, and it seems he has many ups and downs. His site gives details if you want to know more.

Then the Edemas , friends from church, wrote about little 4-month old Amelia being diagnosed with leukemia a couple of weeks back. Very sad.

Finally, today, I received a call that my oldest sister Kathy has been diagnosed with bone cancer that has spread throughout her whole body. Kathy has lived a longer life (she’s 59) than these children who are sick, but she is still young. And, she’s my sister.

I was at least happy to learn that the 12-year-old boy scout who was lost in the woods in North Carolina for 4 days was found today, healthy and well. I told my own boy scout son about his being lost this morning. I will need to be sure to tell him tomorrow about his safe return.

I know God has a plan in all the bad things that are going on in people I know, people I know about, and now people who are very close to me. It is just hard to process it all.

Please pray for Jacob, Amelia, and Kathy. Praise God for the return of the boyscout. Hug your own kids. Love the ones your with while they’re with you.

Benjamin Franklin is to Blame

Daylight saving time always throws a wrench in my schedule, especially since having kids. It always takes about a week for the kids to adjust to new sleeping patterns, and then there’s always the daylight until 7 o’clock that makes them think we’re crazy to have them start getting ready for bed.

In case you’re wondering how this all started, we can blame Benjamin Franklin. According to Wikipedia article, he was the one who planted the idea back in 1784. Then in 1907 a British golfer who didn’t like his game having to end at dusk actually proposed the idea of changing the clock. By 1918, the US government made it law.

To make it all just a bit more confusing congress passed a law in 2005 to change the start date from the first Sunday in April to the first Sunday in March–beginning today, March 11, 2007.

For the past 20 years, daylight-saving time has started on the first Sunday of April and ended on the last Sunday of October. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 changed those dates for this year to the second Sunday of March and the first Sunday of November.(Roanoke Daily Herald, Roanoke Rapids, NC 3/09/07)

Supposedly there will be some sort of tracking of energy costs that will be reported to the congress for them to decide if the change will be permanent. So it looks like this won’t be the end of it!