Posts from the ‘manMom’ Category
May
26
Some spaces speak.
You can walk into a room and get a sense of its history, its purpose, its role in the life of a community. You can imagine what goes on in that room, like a revealing stroll by the sunlit windows of the Oil City Roadhouse on a morning after. You can picture a family get together in a cozy living room. You can imagine some holy ritual and communion with the Divine in an old church sanctuary.
Our venue, the beautiful sanctuary of St Stephen's/St Faith's
The Parish Church of St Stephen the Martyr (also known as St Faith’s Anglican) is a space that speaks. Walking into the room you feel a sense of awe and wonder. You experience beauty and the feeling of being small, somehow both humbling and uplifting at once. It is with just such humility and uplift that I appreciate this as the context of our upcoming Bridge Songs event. And with great thanks, too.
Our use of the church for this event came through a series of very fortunate events. Serendipity delivered some chance meetings that became intentional conversations that turned into this opportunity to work together with St Stephen’s and St Faith’s. Father John has graciously made the space available to us, and I was delighted to meet Wendy of St Faiths as well. With a warm welcome Wendy informed me that the church is one of only three accoustically perfect churches in the city. Now that is a venue.
I’m still not sure how this all worked out. I mean, I know how on paper, but I also know this. A few weeks ago I was praying, with many others, for a venue. We had lost our original space and I was just hoping for something servicable. But this is more than serviceable. This is a reminder that God is active and living and really cares about our pursuit of Him. He really takes care of us. He really listens. And boy does He provide. As our production team toured the venue yesterday morning we began to see this space come alive. Our imaginations got to work transforming this space for the weekend of June 17-19 with image and sound. It turns out, we won’t have to do much.
This space speaks, and I am grateful for it.
What are you thankful for today?
Tags: bridge songs progress, is this progress?, thank you thursdsay, thankfulness
Posted in Bridge Songs: Progress, Is this progress?, manMom, Thank You Thursday | Comments Off
May
19
Our family acquired 2 more eyes this week.
I’m referring to the old term “four eyes” that kids like me were called by our equally immature taunters is elementary school. I’m hoping the kids of today are kinder, because my son has just joined the “four eyes” club. Pulling out an old photo of myself with my first pair of specs, I can see how the ridicule was much more deserved in my case than his, so I think he’ll be OK. Still, it is sad to see him wearing that vision-enhancing fashion accessory and realize it’s no accessory at all. Glasses are required for him to function normally in the world. And they will be, likely, for the rest of his life. They’re not coming off.
I'm thankful that I can see more of my kids than this.
My son’s eye doctor encounter brought glasses, and my daughter’s, this very morning, brings surgery. My daughter has one eye that does not track properly with the other. This means that when looking at a distance her eyes get out of sync, and one simply stays put or wanders while the other moves about, bearing the extra work of focusing on what she wants to see. Not only is this ineffective and headache inducing, it just looks plain strange. For these reasons we made the tough choice to put our 5 year old girl under the knife (though I’m assured it is a very small and precise knife).
All of this eye trouble makes one wonder “why us”? Why my kids? We don’t even own a TV, so I’m fairly certain they’re not watching too much. For whatever reason we lost the genetic lottery in the vision department and there’s not a darn thing we can do about it. But instead of griping, I’m going to try to turn this thing on its head and offer some thanks this morning.
It’s not with a false or forced heart that I thank God for these optical interventions. With a very real and humbling sense of fortune, I thank God for the times in which I live. Had my eyes come into some other century, without the miracles of modern medicine, I would be considered blind I am sure. I can do nothing without my glasses, and that pretty much includes walking around. I can’t see 1 foot in front of me without my lenses. Removing my glasses, with my laptop solidly on lap, I cannot see what I’m typing, or even that I have a WordPress window open at all. Without eye doctors and their miracle cures (or a more traditional miracle) I’d be hooped.
Similar miracles have come to my children today. Jack marveled as he looked down the mall just outside the glasses store, realizing that he actually could see things at a distance. Clarity is a privilege, he realized. And heck, his Ray Bans even look awesome. From all reports his first day in the “four eyes club” brought nothing but compliments. Lucie will go forward without as much eye strain and (after things heal up and the white returns to the eyes) without the awkward appearance a lazy eye brings. These things are covered by our healthcare and health plans. These things were incredibly simple to set up. These things are genuine miracles.
So today I am thankful for the miracles we have simply come to accept as fact. As I reflect on the theme of “Progress” that comes along with our Bridge Songs event in June, I cannot shake the fact that without advances in medicine and science, I’d be blind, and my children would be in some deep trouble, too. So I am thankful for progress. I am thankful that I can see my beautiful children, and that they can see me.
What are you thankful for today?
Tags: bridge songs progress, is this progress?, manMom, thank you thursdsay, thankfulness
Posted in Is this progress?, manMom, Thank You Thursday | Comments Off
Nov
15
Sometimes the deepest reflections spring from the most mundane of places. Today’s musings brewed in a pot on the stove.
First, the ground rules. “Is This Progress” posts will examine an object and ask three basic questions. First, what has this object added (to society, or to my own life)? Second, what has this object taken away (from the same)? Finally, does this object represent progress, or regress? Of course the answer may not always be so clear, but we’ll strive here, for the sake of lively discussion, to make up our minds. That should be fun. I should also mention that this structure owes some to Andy Crouch and his posts examining cultural artifacts on culturemaking.org, where he asks a similar, but expanded, set of questions.
So, back to taking stock of soup stock.
It was Tuesday night and I’d just cut up my own whole chicken into familiar edible parts for the first time. I felt so emboldened by my pioneer-grade accomplishment that I decided to take things one step farther. I’d make some soup stock from the carcass and bones. Turning to my Company’s Coming Soups standby, I began.
Making chicken soup from scratch this way is not entirely difficult, but it does take a lot of time. About 3 and a half hours, in fact. This is acceptable if you simply leave it to simmer in the background for much of that, which I did. At the end of my simmering marathon, the stock smelled like something that would instantly heal any common cold with “grandma power”. I was pleased. So pleased that I dove in to other evening responsibilities and forgot about the stock I’d measured out into a container on the counter.
I remembered the next morning, when all my hard work stared me tepidly in the face beside the kitchen sink. I knew in my heart that eating this stuff after a night out of the fridge would not be wise. I almost wanted to risk illness to justify all of my effort, but in the end I poured it sadly down the drain, along with my own tears.
To add insult to injury, I realized soon after that the carbonara I am cooking for supper tonight requires one cup of, you guessed it, chicken soup stock. Never fear, however, because in a pinch I can turn to my little tin of yellow powder. Just add a tablespoon of this salty stuff to a cup of boiling water and viola! Instant soup stock.
I quickly made the stock (and I mean quick, taking about 5 minutes). There it sat, hot and ready to use. Something was missing, though. I was somehow disappointed by this instant gratification. Let’s examine why.
What has instant soup stock added to my life?
Instant soup stock adds convenience. Without it, I’d need to either buy soup stock that someone else had made (which is expensive, and perhaps instant anyways), or make my own. As I learned last night, making my own takes a lot of time, and requires left over chicken parts. I don’t keep time or leftover chicken parts on hand. My carbonara would have suffered without instant chicken stock.
Instant chicken soup stock adds options as well. If I want to make soup on a whim, which I often do to use up fridge scraps, I have the base all ready and rarin’ to go. It has a lot of uses, even making its’ way into a scalloped potato recipe I use. Because making your own stock takes a lot of time, without an instant substitute, you just wouldn’t think of using this to cook a lot of things. But when adding it is almost as simple as adding salt, new possibilities for cooking emerge. And I love good cooking.
What has instant soup stock taken from my life?
Just as it adds convenience and possibility, instant soup stock steals from my life as well. Instant soup stock takes away flavor. The stock, no matter how good it tastes, will not taste homemade. The complexity of flavors melts into one monotone yellow salty ‘chickenish’ experience. I know it won’t taste as good, because I don’t expect it to. Because I have no personal investment in its tasting good or bad. It won’t be awful, but it won’t warm my whole spirit over with the taste of love’s labors and a job well done. That is the kind of flavor that takes 3 hours to simmer.
Instant soup stock takes away health. I don’t know the science, but I’d wager that good old fashioned real chicken soup stock has health benefits that the instant variety does not. A friend recommended I read the sodium content on the package, but I think I prefer blissful ignorance in this case. If there’s a doctor in the house who can verify this point, let me know.
Finally, instant soup stock takes away my sense of accomplishment and pride. There is some intangible sense of loss that today’s pot of instant broth dropped into the lap of my soul. Last night, surveying that steaming pot of broth that my efforts had brought forth, I was proud in the most hunter-gatherer way. That’s not a feeling we get very often these days. The feeling that we really did not cheat. That we really earned that A+ with grit and sweat and a job well done. Instant soup stock certainly takes that feeling away, It leaves nothing of worth in its place.
Is instant chicken soup stock progress?
Instant chicken soup stock is more efficient, yes. There’s no question. What troubles me is that as soon as we admit that an object is more efficient, we feel we must define it as progress. I’m not so sure.
When the first draft of my verdict was shown to a friend, my fears were confirmed. I had waffled on the decision. I refused to side with either progress or regress, instead resting in the comfortable gap between positions. Certainly, evaluating most items this way will leave the contemplative in a wisely reasoned balance. But balance be hanged! If I cannot make up my mind on something so basic as powdered soup, these columns will culminate in a predictable “both and” or “yes, but”. And so, I have forced myself over the fence towards regress on this one folks.
Instant soup stock is regress. Let us return to the simmering pots!
When was the last time you sat down to a meal that you had poured your self deep into, and received that bit of yourself back with interest as you dug in? Or, better yet, when was the last time you beamed with pride and joy to share that meal with friends and family?
When we trade the deep joy and pride of a well prepared meal shared among friends and family for something as calculated as efficiency, we trade a slice of our humanity.
Let the androids have their yellow salted water. If it is all we humans turn to, forgetting the age-old ways to make good use of a whole chicken, we lose. If our lives are so chaotic that simmering has become an impossible demand, soup stock is the least of our concerns.
So soup’s on at my place and you’re invited. How do you hope I made it?
Tags: cooking, is this progress?, progress
Posted in Bridge Songs: Progress, Is this progress?, manMom | Comments Off
Oct
25
Perhaps after this someone will erect a statue in my honor? I found a good spot in Rome.
There’s nothing like time away to make you pine for the comforts of home. Even Venice, to my mind the most beautiful city in this world, could not keep me away from my little old house in my little old neighborhood in my modest, cold city full of warm friends and family. I feel blessed to have visited Italy for two weeks this fall. I feel blessed to have taught Creative Communications at Vanguard College, extending my time away from home responsibilities for one more week. But, funny enough, I feel most blessed to return home.
At least, that’s what I tell myself to pull through mornings like this.
It’s 7:30 AM on Saturday and it’s my first ‘real’ day home. I’m over the recovery days of jet lag, I am finished teaching my course, and I am exhausted. My wife is back at work, so I am officially home and officially responsible. And I have to pee. This wouldn’t be a big deal if I weren’t also a dad with two young kids whose bedroom shares a wall with the bathroom. But I am that dad, so I lay in bed, rehashing an old quandary. If I stay in bed, I may be kept awake by the piercing pressure of my bulging bladder. If I get out of bed, I will wake the children. Never wake the children on a Saturday.
So I lay there, hoping for a few more moments of sleep, kept awake in silence by my primal need to urinate. I give up around 8 AM.
I need to shower this morning anyways. I’d have done that the night before, but the night before included the Halloween dance. Who would want to miss that frenetic swarm of a hundred young kids dancing wildly to bass-boom beats in a reverb-drenched gymnasium. Who could resist the opportunity to play real-life “Where’s Waldo?” having to locate one’s children every five minutes amidst the throng of mini-humanity, made unrecognizable by the darkness and their costumes. Who knew there would be more than one blonde ballerina the exact size of my daughter? They say it takes a village to raise a child and I spent last night hoping the village knew where my kids were when I did not. Which was most of the time.
But that was last night and it’s only relevance to this new morning is that I went to bed too exhausted to shower. So I must shower this morning.
I walk to the bathroom, the kids now pleasantly playing in their room. I am hoping for just 10 more minutes of the same. I warn them through the door before I begin, “be quiet for 10 minutes so that your mom doesn’t wake up. I’ll get you up right away”. In my absence I have become naive.
Not five minutes in, the pounding spray of the shower head is pierced by the screams of both children. First, yelps of play and wild abandon. Then, screams of pain and horror. “Perhaps I don’t have to leave the tranquility of this shower”, I daydream. Perhaps I could stay here in the welcome warmth of water forever. But the longer I stay, the louder they yell. Something is wrong and my wife is going to be woken up. I need to put an end to this madness.
I hop out, dry off and run to the room to announce my disappointment. “Could you not wait with me for one single hour”? Or ten minutes? Nope. It seems a fight broke out and Lucie threw a metal marble at Jack’s head. Perhaps he deserved it as he committed the ultimate sin among the young. He was “copying” her. Why do we have these metal marbles, anyways? Remind me to make sure the kids do not also have a box of darts.
I’m overloaded. Overwhelmed. Over. I send one child to the living room and place the other under arrest in the bedroom. He pouts, and she screams. She screams loud enough to elicit a similar response from me. Christie wakes up. Game over.
It’s 8:30 AM and I’m already dealing with fights, failures and fatigue of the bladder. The kids are in their corners for 10 minutes. Time out. Time for me to get the coffee going and think about breakfast. But first, let’s just get that coffee going.
The first step in making the new coffee is getting rid of the old coffee. I need to dump the pot into a sink overrun with dirty dishes from a week of playing catch up between my wife and I. We did not catch up. That small task done, I need to empty the old filter into the garbage. I take it out and open the cupboard to reveal … a full garbage. A really, really full garbage. I’m too tired to cast blame and that finger may be as likely pointed at my self as anywhere else, so I get to work emptying the bag just so I can throw out these coffee grounds and brew some sweet salvation. Except that I can’t. Whoever threw out the grounds last time really should emptied the bag, but they didn’t. The evidence is spilling over the sides of this overstuffed grocery store plastic. If I move that bag, coffee grounds are going all over the floor. Unless …
I cradle that bag with another, larger green garbage bag, creating a safety net for my dirt-defying trick. I wiggle the old bag off the hangers, inch by inch, catching little falling coffee grounds in the bag below. It’s working! I need to tilt the bag forward to get it out of there though. Just a little bit. A little more and … ahhhh! Wet coffee grounds and egg shells fall from the other side of the bag. I let my guard down over there. There are grounds on my arm. There are grounds on the rug and the floor around it. Is there any way out of cleaning this up? Not that I can conjure, being tired with no coffee. I get the dustpan and a rag and I dig in.
That cleaned up, I’m all clear to make the coffee. I pour in twelve full cups of water and then I stop myself. My wife is asleep. I am small. I don’t care how exhausted I am, if I drink a whole pot of coffee I’ll become a walking heart palpitation. But you know what? Once you pour water into the machine, there’s just no easy way to get it out again. I search the odds and ends drawer, setting finally on a small measuring cup. And quarter cup by quarter cup, I drain the reservoir to a reasonable level.
A slow five minutes later, I’m drinking coffee settling into the new reality.
Two weeks ago, this was not my life. I was getting blissfully lost among the hidden streets of Venice. I was riding a train across the Italian countryside. I was eating pizza en route to the Roman Colosseum. But today, it has become official and obvious that I am not Vacation Dave any longer. Nor am I “Teacher Dave” any longer, as I was just days ago. I am this Dave. I am not my own. I am the manMom. And I am home.
Tags: children, homour, Italy, manMom, parenting, Rome, travel, Venice
Posted in Essays and Reflections, manMom, Then In Rome: A Travelogue | Comments Off
Apr
1
It’s been a long time since spring break meant much of anything to me. Gone are the days when I’d sit in my desk late Friday afternoon, writing some essay or reading some section of my science text book, eyes darting back to the clock every few seconds, counting down. It’s been a long time since that single week seemed to stretch across a month of free days. Days to be filled with playgrounds and bike rides and video games and trips to friends’ houses. I’d forgotten how important spring break can be.
And then I had children of my own.
My son is in school full days for the first time this year, and my daughter is in preschool. For them, spring break is really that; a break. I don’t even know if they realized that before it hit them, but they’ve been having a grand ole’ time.
For me, spring break was a terrifying prospect. My wife’s shifts happened to fall on every free spring break day this week, and she was taking our car to work. From 6 AM to 6:30 PM, it was going to be the lone manMom and two bounding balls of energy. With hours and days to fill, I was the one watching the clock – with dread. Please, let there be nice weather.
As it turns out, I had nothing to fear. It’s been a great blessing having the kids around the house all day (well, most of the time, anyways). They entertain themselves fairly well, aside from the brother-sister bickering threaded through their play. We’ve done a lot together. We’ve ventured out into the river valley on long walks with our new dog. We’ve practiced bike riding and swimming. We’ve made pancakes together. We’ve painted pictures with new Dollarama art supplies. We’ve trekked to the Art Gallery for one more Karsh portrait, and to the downtown library for twenty-some more books. We even got to watch Edmonton’s Olympic athletes welcomed home in our city’s square.
Today is the last day of our adventures together, and I’ve got some promises to make good on. There will be some home-league wrestling. Which means I made the bed for nothing. There will be some computer gaming. Stories will be read. Grandma will pay a visit this afternoon for the painting of Easter eggs.
Of course, a week like this doesn’t come without costs. There will be no Media Monday this week (so file your finds for next Monday), and little else has been accomplished outside my manMom role. But the trade-off has been worth it.
I’m thankful that I get to take part in all of this as “daddy”. I won’t be known as “daddy” for much longer. Soon I’ll be “dad”, and then, perhaps, just “hey, can I borrow the car?” But today I am daddy. Today, through the eyes of my two kids, spring break has come back to life for me. We’ve taken time to meander, to play, to be together.
Today I’m thankful for spring break. What are you thankful for?
Tags: kids, manMom, school, spring break, Thank You Thursday, thankfulness
Posted in manMom, Thank You Thursday | 2 Comments »
Jan
28
I just tiptoed down the hallway with morning stealth, desperately trying to keep the kids sleeping so as to retrain my precious morning moments. I was able to shave this morning, but could only find my wife’s razor, which has a gargantuan head of moisturizer around the blades that forces my nose out of the way to get at my upper lip. I feel a slight tinge of guilt for not getting the dog up to pee yet. It is only 7 AM.
This is my life.
I am fully immersed in my role as manMom. It’s no longer a part I play. It’s who I am.
My daughter paints me a porcelain pig from Dollarama, and this time, rather than mixing all colors into a swamp green mess, she has actually painted different parts of the face different colors. Bright colors. My son and I finish reading a magical 500 page book together and I am amazed at his interest and skill at reading. I look over at five gerber daises I brought home for my wife last week. They’re beginning to sag, but they still remind me how good it feels to encourage and love my wife. And to be loved in return by her. Sometimes, just sometimes, my dog sleeps, exhausted, across my lap as I read or type in the evening. Then, I know I’ve done a good job.
This is also my life.
Often, people will question whether I’m still “doing the mr.mom thing”. It feels odd now to have my current role viewed as a little “foray”. A little trial. Another little adventure. That’s how I viewed it at first, too. But now, I bristle at the thought.
This is my life now. I am a stay at home dad. I am a husband. I am a faith and arts enthusiast. I am a growing, falling, rising follower of Christ. This is who I get to be. This is my role.
Today, I’m very thankful to be lost in it.
What are you thankful for this Thursday?
Tags: manMom, purpose, thankfulness
Posted in manMom, Thank You Thursday | Comments Off
Sep
25
It’s always nice when you have a parenting moment that confirms you are doing something right. Any parent knows you have plenty of moments that would make your thinking lean the other way. At least I do.
This morning, on Terry Fox Day, my son was getting ready for school and remarked, “If I had some allowance money right now I’d give a dollar of my own money to the Terry Fox Run.”
Unprompted generosity. Yes!
He then went on to explain that it would be a good idea because the Terry Fox Run is to “raise cancer”.
It’s the heart that counts I guess, hey?
This little moment reminds me of two things. It’s important to start teaching and reinforcing the value of generosity now. When my kids see me giving, they are picking something up. And it’s something that will outlive me by many years. Second, if I can see the good behind Jack’s intentions, even though he may be confused about the purpose of the donation, I wonder how God as a Father can pick through my actions so much more, finding something to treasure in my meager attempts at goodness.
Likely much more than I know.
Maybe I’m doing something right.
Tags: manMom, parenting
Posted in manMom | Comments Off
