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Showing posts from 2017

Moving On

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I got the urge to go street skating yesterday. It doesn't hit me too often, as I have been perfectly content skating skateparks for the past several months. Maybe I'm getting old, or maybe just lazy, but letting the ramps do part of the work just fits right now. But I woke up with an image in my head of an old skate spot I had only hit one time in my youth, and so I tried it out. Unfortunately, the school that had an excellent double set with ledges on each side, and a very attainable five-stair handrail, was totally fenced in and unaccessible without a little trespassing involved. I'm not sure how I could explain getting arrested to my wife and kids right now, so I decided to hit the loading docks I had seen on the way, which seemed pretty fun and empty. It had a nice little drop to bank, with some higher drops nearby and even a big dumpster I tried to noseslide a few times before abandoning the trick. When a skater approaches a new spot, he or she tries to get familiar

Wrong Things

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I hate to admit it, but I am on a string of domestic mistakes right now, particularly in the area of shopping for our family. In the past few weeks I have bought: children's vitamins for the wrong age, the wrong cooking oil , green olives instead of black, the wrong size diapers, and quite a few other items that weren't the right ones from the list. The good part about it is that it does feel good to return items and watch that money go back into the bank account (even if it will only exit a short moment later with the correct purchase -- ride those highs to get through the lows). I am a big proponent of the idea that dads can do more than they think they can, but there are some things we just aren't as good at. I don't mean that "we" as a dad-only thing, but more of a personality difference. When I go grocery shopping, I am in and out as fast as I can, mostly because I don't like the crowds, but also because the kids can get a little rowdy in there. My

Committed

This verse really hit me lately: The eyes of the LORD search the whole earth in order to strengthen those whose hearts are fully committed to him. (2 Chronicles 16:9) There is just something epic about that: God looking all about the world, just trying to find people who are committed to him, so that he can bolster them up, encouraging them to press on . Sort of like an anti- Eye of Sauron . (I've been reading Lord of the Rings lately...) But what does "committed" really mean? I think its essence can be boiled down to one thing: a decision. We decide to follow Jesus , no matter what, and forever. In that decision comes God's strength in the midst of doubt, perseverance and, of course, his love, which initiates the whole thing . But as I think about the concept of commitment, I have to conclude that far too often our relationship with God is more like a friendship than a marriage. But "friends are friends forever." Maybe sometimes Michael W. Smith , bu

Trader Joe's vs. Costco

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After moving to Southern California, I was introduced to this quaint little grocery chain called Trader Joe's . Of course they were bigger than I realized at the time, and are an ever-expanding company, having spread nation-wide by now. But back then, I was a very reluctant follower in the cult of TJ. Their stores are small and always seem packed full of people. The parking lots are never quite big enough, and the whole claustrophobic experience just made me shy away. Also, they were a little more money than my habits of only-buying-sale-items at Ralphs , which was a store a little closer to what I had grown up with. However, after a few years and marrying a woman who is very pro-Trader Joe's, I am happy to say I have come around. The problem now, though, is that we aren't in Southern California anymore, where there is a store located in between every Starbucks and Coffee Bean. There is only one  TJ's to supply the needs of the increasingly popular Charleston area, an

How to Take Your Kids Skateboarding

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This may be the most important blog post I've ever written... Just kidding. But it so deeply identifies with what I am all about, that I think it's pretty cool. A couple years ago I made Skater Dad: the Movie , which features lots of shots of me and Ellie at the El Segundo skatepark . I was blessed to find this place -- empty most of the day, totally fenced in, overall pretty safe but also super fun to skate. I would take her pack 'n' play, and then later let her run around, while I skated. I was also lucky enough to take Waverly here too before we moved away. More recently the park of choice has been Ackerman Skatepark in West Ashley, which has been a big part of my life since high school. The last Halloween I ever trick-or-treated, instead of wearing costumes, we brought our skateboards and asked for petitions to get a city skatepark in our hometown. "Kickflips for candy" we joked as we gathered about 75 or so names, if I remember correctly. We then

Choices - A Follow Up

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I wrote a few weeks ago about some difficulties in getting our children to sleep. Actually, there have been a couple posts about it...I guess this is just the season we're in. Anyway, I found something that really works that I thought would be a good follow-up, and hopefully worth the share. Katie and I have based a lot of our parenting style on the Love and Logic  books, which seem to be doing pretty well for us. One of the big things that they preach is giving your child choices, all of which result in situations you are okay with. This is done in order to make your child feel like he or she has some degree of control of said situation, putting forth that many of our battles with the little ones are about control. So naturally, giving control away should help alleviate the problem. We have done it with our oldest, but I didn't think the younger one was ready for it yet. However, when trying to get her to nap, it seems that the best thing that works has been to give

Difficulties in Endeavors

I wrote last week on our new adventures in sleeping/napping. In the midst of change, I had a thought I'd like to share here... If you read that last post , you know we have recently moved both of our daughters into one bedroom. I have to admit I was kind of excited about the idea in a way. We have always talked about the girls sharing a room later on, my wife and I preferring to live a little more simply with smaller spaces. My youngest's enhanced ability to climb just sped up the transition. The night of the incident, as we moved Waverly's matters into Ellie's room and moved out Ellie's bed, both became extremely excited at the prospect of sleeping in the same room. They wanted their mattresses next to each other, so they could be closer, and then proceeded to jump on them like trampolines. Great,  I thought, this will be easy, they love it already!  Not so. Even after keeping them up late because of a church meeting, Waverly did not take to the new bed well.

Stormy Skate

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Rain is the enemy of skateboarding . It rusts your bearings, ruins your trucks, mushes up your board and diminishes your grip tape. It's no wonder why California is the skateboarding mecca of the world -- because it never rains there. Growing up, a rainy day would spell certain disaster on any attempt at a skate adventure. Many-a-times I made plans to hang out at a friends house, certain to skate, and ended up only playing skateboarding video games instead, longingly watching the rain drip sadly down a clear glass pane, like tears down my sad pimply teenage face. The other day my wife went for a run after work, and then came home and told me I better go skateboarding quick because it was about to rain (I have a good wife). I rushed out the door and into a super windy session at the nearest skatepark to me. It was fun skating in stormy weather, the leaves flying around as the trees were jostled about like broccoli flung across the dinner table by my daughters...fun as long as the

The Disappearance of Nap Time

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Ask any parent and they will tell you that nap time is pretty much the only respite you get while parenting. I recently spoke with a dad to a one year-old who still naps twice a day. Ah, I remember those days , I thought with a tinge of jealousy. Nap time is when parents can sort-of get things done (quietly, of course), and maybe even rest a bit themselves. I mentioned in another post that our oldest hasn't napped much in the past several months, but our youngest is still pretty solid on once a day. Well, a couple weeks ago, this happened: That's our youngest climbing out of her crib. We had put her to bed one night and, after a little crying, heard a knock at the door. There she was, standing on the floor. "Did you put her in her crib?" my wife asked me, which I did. We put her back in the crib and left a phone on a table to record the video. Sure enough, she climbed out in less than a minute. Of course I am proud of her physical prowess and climbing abili

Jah Works #2: Music - 200th Blog!

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"Think about how many songs you have stored in your brain," I remember telling my co-worker Angie during some down-time while working at Baskin Robbins. "Is there a better way to spread ideas than through music?" I said, with a hopeful glint in my eye. Okay, maybe I didn't have a glint in my eye -- after all, I couldn't see myself in the dull reflection of ice cream-stained plexiglass -- but I imagine that I did. I was finishing up high school at the time, and getting really into music. My punk band, Minus the Standard , was a lot of fun, and we were actually playing some small shows. Even though the end of high school and different colleges brought about the dismemberment of what I'm sure was to be the next MxPx ( Who is MxPx? , the collective readership asks...), I was all about music and investing most of my graduation money in a new guitar, amp and pedal board. I was also writing some of the best songs to-date, though I had no avenue to share it.

Big Mess

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I guess messiness is part of my job description. Poop and the such mark my days as a stay at home dad. This morning, however, was one of the biggest to date... I was taking out some trash and emptying our compost, which has been sitting for far too long. I find some degree of satisfaction in utilizing all of the banana peels and avocado shells for something outside of just tossing them, but if you don't empty the inside can regularly, fruit flies abound. Well, in the process of doing so (gone for only a couple minutes), I came back in to find our youngest jumping on top of the dining room table, covered in oatmeal with more oatmeal spread about like grass seed. "Uh oh, Waverly made a big mess," our oldest said, as I began the cleanup process... Not today's mess, but one for the record books. (Yes, that is what you think it is...) Oatmeal is really difficult to clean up, by the way, in case you haven't had experience doing so. When you wipe it, it just ki

Genealogies

Reading genealogies in the bible can be daunting. Sometimes you wonder why they're even there, but trust that someone, somewhere has derived a spiritual benefit from them in some way. I've been reading through Chronicles, and the first part is a pretty hefty genealogy. There are some lines in between the hard to pronounce names that tell a little story, but for the most part it is tough to get through. Today, though, the Holy Spirit brought out a couple things to me that I'd like to share. They waged war against the Hagrites, Jetur, Naphish and Nodab. They were helped in fighting them, and God handed the Hagrites and all their allies over to them, because they cried out to him during the battle. He answered their prayers, because they trusted in him...They also took one hundred thousand people captive, and many others fell slain, because the battle was God's. And they occupied the land until the exile. (1 Chronicles 5:19-20 and 22) From this verse we can see that God

Beat Dependent

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The more we are together, the more I realize that I am dependent on my wife for certain things. She always buys the shampoo and tooth paste (and we never run out). She plans vacations. She knows how to make popcorn in a pot and not in the microwave. There's nothing wrong with being dependent of course, but as I take on more responsibility as a parent, I am finding that there are things I should know how to do that I just don't. Last night, for instance, we were going to have pizza for dinner because Katie bought some dough that was about to expire. We used to have a Pizzaz pizza maker, a gift from our good friend Jason, which made homemade pizza night something to look forward to. The Pizzaz didn't make the move cross-country , but homemade pizza is still awesome. But also intimidating, as I have never made it before and a big blob of dough is kind of weird to me. And so I did. And the dough was undercooked and our youngest woke up puking this morning. Still, I tried and

Keep Experimenting

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Kids are really different. This becomes more apparent when you have more than one, of course. Our first learned different words at a different rate, walked later than the second, is a much more fluid dancer but also a little less adventurous. She also used to hate  going to bed (still does most of the time, though it's not as bad as it used to be); but once you got her to bed, she was out for the night. We got this book, 12 Hours Sleep by 12 Weeks , which was recommended from a work friend. I think it took 14 weeks for us, but it pretty much made the difference. However, once you put her down, you usually had to go back in a few times to comfort her before she would actually pass out. Yeah, maybe we should have just let her "cry it out," but sometimes it's hard to take the sound for more than a few minutes. Conversely, our second child was extremely difficult at first, in regards to sleep. To be fair, we were in a 2 bedroom apartment and were putting her to bed in o

"I Just Want You"

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Nap time is never a guaranteed thing at our house. My wife very cleverly started calling it "rest time," so our oldest could play by herself in her room while the youngest slept, also giving Katie some time to relax before the afternoon craziness that would inevitably come. I have tried to keep rest time going during my tenure as the stay at home parent, but it is becoming increasingly difficult. Ellie started getting into an Amazon show called Creative Galaxy , which is a fun little cartoon that encourages kids to approach problems through creativity. At the end, it shows live action kids doing art projects, which always inspires Ellie to do the same. Suddenly, rest time has become "art project time," which involves a constant interruption for paper, scissors, crayons, glue, etc. I think of myself as a pretty creative guy, so I hate to stifle her own endeavors, but it is cutting into my own time, which is when I usually write or do house projects. So this

The One He Loves

Here is another throwback to some sermons I listened to during my tenure at my boring desk job. I was lucky enough to watch Judah preach this one in person (not the recorded one, but the topic was the same). He's a compelling speaker and if you ever get a chance to see him, take it! But one thing that struck me about Judah Smith from the beginning was that he pretty much says the same thing every sermon: God loves you a lot and wants you to be in relationship with Him. That's it. Over and over, just with different words and a unique twist here and there. But what could be more foundational to our faith and our existence on this planet? Sometimes it's hard to believe, but when we hear the passion in Judah's voice and see his excitement over the reality of God, you start to think that maybe it's true. Here is The One He Loves By Judah Smith Now a man named Lazarus was sick. He was from Bethany,  the village of Mary and her sister Martha.  (This Mary, whose brot

The First Hard Day

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I wrote before that I recently became a stay-at-home dad for the second time, and I am totally loving it. Well, the honeymoon phase has worn off I think, because things are starting to get hard. The kids seemed very happy to have me home for the first couple of weeks, and were pretty much obedient. Over the last few days though, I have noticed a little more obstinance showing up. I was bracing myself for the explosion, and today it came. My daughter hates cleaning up. It's a real point of contention for us, because it drives me crazy when kids don't want to clean up after themselves. I'm big on social responsibility, and realized that children don't often share my sentiment when my wife and I used to teach Sunday school for our old church . Getting fourth graders to clean up their crayons seems just about as hard as training a dog to make me a sandwich. So when my own daughter, a three year-old, shows signs of this same blatant disregard for responsibility, mixed wit