by Greg

You Might Be A Large Family If…

Jen reads lots of blogs by other home schooling moms, and various other family-oriented blogs. She read a list to me from this blog the other night, and I thought it was funny in relation to one of my recent posts below, On Being Seven.

I have not checked with the author about publishing her work here (not even sure it’s originally hers) but I figure one or two … or more… is just publicity for her blog anyway… 🙂 Enjoy… (and click the link above for the rest!)

  • Cheaper by the Dozen is one of your favorite movies.
  • You buy milk 5 gallons at a time.
  • You need a minimum of 2 carts in the grocery store.
  • The children are lonely when there are only 4 of them home.
  • Your grocery budget resembles your house payment.
  • You just really wish people would not think they were clever for saying, “Don’t you know what causes that?”

🙂

by Greg

Back To (The New) Reality

My two week hiatus from my desk job is over. As is my two week adventure of being the primary caregiver for four young kids, as well as taking care of daily household duties and helping Jen & Emma here and there when needed. It was wonderful, and I already miss it, but I am looking forward to moving back into a more normal routine.

I am in the office preparing for the craziness that will be my first Monday back. (Mixed feelings about that, to be sure.)

As I put all the kids in bed tonight, told each one of them how much I love them, and how much I loved spending every day all day with them for the past two weeks. I also told them I plan to take several 5 minute breaks tomorrow to come and give them big hugs! 🙂

Some might think that spending all day every day taking care of four very young kids would be exhausting, tiring, and draining. And, they would be right. But the part that might be missed is that those four very young kids are four of my most favorite people, and even though I was exhausted at the end of every day… it was so worth it!

Tonight (at the last minute) I thought it might be a good idea to get a babysitter for the oldest four and go out for the evening with Jen. I am going back to normal office hours tomorrow, and she’s going back to normal Mom hours tomorrow. Seemed a good way to bring in that next season. It was very nice for neither of us to have the kids responsibilities for this one evening. We just got a sub from Subway, and some ice cream from Chill & Grill, and went up to the community center and played a card game while watching the Sabres (WIN!). So very nice.

And tomorrow, I am hoping that all of this niceness did not exhaust me to where I need a vacation. I don’t think it did. I believe that tomorrow I will be ready to get “back to reality” and move forward as a family of seven!

I’m lovin’ it! 🙂

by Greg

Our Own Dr. Seuss

A couple weeks ago, our son Alex rediscovered a book that his Grammy had bought him a while back. “A Hatful of Seuss” is a compilation of five Dr. Seuss books. He was reading it on his own and would ask me every night, “Dad, can I read this story to you?” I let him do that one night, until I was reminded of just how long Dr. Seuss stories are!

But it was really cute, and the story was pretty funny – and brought back a lot of memories – so the next night I said I would read a whole story to both the boys. They were excited, and I was looking forward to it, and it turned out to be so great that not only did we do that night, we started getting LOTS more from the library!

From all of this Seuss-ing, a side effect has cropped up. We may have discovered more than just a Seuss book when Alex first dug up that Seuss collection. 🙂

Turns out, Ian was pretty hooked by the writing of Theodore Geisel, and even found a book at our library all about his life. He read it rather quickly, and I believe has pretty much recounted in stories told to mom & dad everything in that book, word for word! He really liked it!

The interesting part is that not only did he like the book, and like telling us the stories… he also has been telling us little snippets from his “inside world” about how he feels like Dr. Seuss. He’s creative, and really identifies with Suess’ style and I think his life. It’s been pretty interesting to see that connection, and hear Ian talk about who he is and what he wants to do in a grander scheme of life.

Guess he is growing up.

So, to encourage that a bit (and just have some fun) we wrote a Buffalo Bills poem yesterday. We made sure to keep to an ABAB rhyme scheme, and even kept the meter at 7 syllables, then 8, then 7, then 8. It’s not quite finished (and maybe not quite Suess-ish, but it was pretty fun! Perhaps we’ll share it here someday. 🙂

Also watched a video recommended by Joe about education and creativity… very interesting. I very much agreed with a lot of what this guy was saying. Mainly, how the way our educational system is set up now, creativity is not only not encouraged, it can be squashed. The more creative types are then pushed aside – or worse, medicated – in order that they might “get in line”.

Watching the video, and seeing Ian recently “discover” some things about himself, reminded me how glad I am that we home school.

So I’ll keep you updated on the progress of our young Dr. Seuss. Should be pretty fun to watch. 🙂

by Greg

Big Family Shortcuts

I have noticed that with so many children around here, I am needing shortcuts when referring to them every now and again.

We already had “the boys” and “the girls” before for easy pairings. We also call Kirsten & Alex, “The Twins” because they really look a lot alike, and are similar in other ways, and are the two in the middle. Well, they were.

Now are getting even more creative.

First there’s Mom & Emma, who spend a lot of time together these days. We call them either “Momemma” or “Emmamom”. Both are equally fun to say.

Then we have, “The Oldies”. These are the three oldest kids, who are not our babies.

Then I came up with a clever way of referring to two kids at a time using former (or current) Buffalo Bills players’ numbers. For instance, Ian and Julia are “Frank Reich”. This is because Ian is the first born (#1) and Julia is fourth (#4), so together they are 14, which is Frank Reich’s number.

The combinations are pretty fun.

Ian and Alex? Jim Kelly. Kirsten & Alex (if we’re bored with “The Twins”) are Beast Mode (nickname for Marshawn Lynch, #23). Ian and Emma? Todd Collins. (I know! Good one!) 🙂 Alex & Julia? Terrence McGee.

Pretty good system, I think. 🙂

So, life as a big family continues to be very interesting, and tons of fun. More stories to come, I’m certain of it!

by Greg

R.I.P. Big Ten

With State being trounced 92-74 tonight, that completed the “sweep” of the Big Ten teams in the NCAA tourney this year. Two made it to the Sweet Sixteen, none made it past that. Quite uncommon.

State scored 54 points in the second half, and did pretty well in all aspects of the game for that 20 minutes. That should tell you how the first half went. 🙂

In other sporting news…

The Sabres did manage to salvage a point, but gave up another lead to lose in overtime. They basically threw away a much-needed point. That pretty much sums up the Sabres’ 2007-2008 season. Work really hard, get some great goals… then have the other team tie it with 14 seconds to go, only to lose in OT. (I believe it’s our 12th OT loss.) Surprisingly they are still in the hunt for the final playoff spot, but at this point, every game is a win or your out kind of game. Fun stuff.

So, it looks like my teams are either out, or soon to be out of my two favorite annual sporting events. Not a good sports day here!

by Greg

One Trillion Seconds

I heard this on the Glenn Beck show today (from… yesterday I think?) and was just pretty amazed by it. Perhaps you will be too?

“A million seconds equals 12 days.
A billion seconds is 32 years.
A trillion seconds is 32 thousand years.

54 trillion is what medicare and social security alone are in debt.”

I was just amazed by the staggering numbers. A second is pretty short… so a trillion must be a whole lot. But yeah, when you think about 54 times 32 thousand years… well, translated to money, that’s a lot of debt.

by Greg

Only In Upstate New York…

We have three or four inches of wet snow on the ground (but of course life continues as normal… that’s nothin’!) and many seasonal ice cream places have been open for more than a week. 🙂

Oh, and just a day or two ago, when all the other snow had melted and we were reveling in our 40-degree temperatures, our neighbors were talking about opening their pool! (OK, it was a joke, but we were enjoying the nice “warm” weather.)

Maybe we’ll head out and eat some ice cream in the fresh fallen snow today…

(I’ll post a photo on the snow here when I get a chance to take one.) 🙂

by Greg

Shorties

Since computer (and especially blogging) time is limited… please allow me to share some fun stories/thoughts using another list-style post…

  • Julia just turned two, but she is the smartest cookie in the bunch sometimes. This week she has been really helpful with the laundry. I don’t always know whose clothes are whose, but she does! Seriously funny. And helpful! Also, she is a great talker (though sometimes hard to understand). Maybe one of the cutest things she says is when she’s really excited about something, she says, “Yay-uh”. (Pronounced like a souther gospel preacher, which I’m pretty sure she’s never heard…) 🙂 Hilarious!
  • The Sabres won tonight. They keep stringing me along. They sit 5 points out of the final playoff spot with only 12 possible points remaining. Thanks to some good scheduling, the team we are chasing (Boston) is our opponent for two of those games, so we can possibly make up 4 points in those two games. There’s still a very outside chance they can make the playoffs, but I’m really not optimistic about any chance of advancing if they do. We shall see…
  • Michigan State has worked their way into the sweet sixteen in the NCAA tournament. (Which is now only the terrific twelve or something after last night’s games…) They really have a good team this year. Solid rebounding (as always) from our big guys, Namick & Suton, and a stellar freshman Kalin Lucas, as well as solid scoring threats in Morgan, Allen, & Gray. Ohh yeah… we also have that guy Drew Neitzel… he’s pretty good. (If you don’t know him, he’s a senior, and he was fanastic as a sophomore at least, and has only kept getting better.) 🙂 They play Friday (and hopefully Sunday). Friday’s game is against the #1 seed in the South region, Memphis. 9:57pm tip off on CBS. Well worth watching!
  • Kirstie just oozes nice. It’s incredible. If there is ever any “not-niceness” between anyone in the family, Kirstie steps in to the edification of the one not-niced. Every time. She’s so great! Such a gentle heart. She’s my little lover. She often tells me, “I just love you, Dad!” And then gives me a big hug, and often a big kiss. Well, as you can guess… I just love her, too. 🙂
  • Sometimes I really can’t believe how old Ian is. He is nine, and definitely becoming his own person. We can see the things he really likes to do. He even talks about it. He’s starting to figure it out too. He’s very creative. He too is a gentle spirit. (Sometimes too gentle. 🙁 Easily crushed.) He’s an artist. He’s such a people person. Loves people. Could be his weakness actually (people pleasing) but it will also be a great strength. I’m honestly a little nervous about this transitional stage. Will I(we) handle it well? Will we be able to encourage Ian as he really begins becoming a unique individual? It’s a very interesting stage for all of us. I think we are merely on the cusp, but we’re definitely there. All we can do is just love him, train him best we know how, and live out what we say. And overall, make sure he knows that he is completely safe with us any time and always. That may be harder than it sounds – or I may just think too much. 🙂
  • Alex is TOO picky! Argh. It’s been quite a struggle with people bringing us food (a bunch of new stuff he hasn’t really seen before) and getting him to eat. Not to mention the great Easter candy he knows we have… that’s quite a distraction as well. 🙂 It was funny today when we were dealing with all that again for the 17,000th time that I actually thought of “the kids in India” when I was so mad at his pickiness. “You know, the kids in India don’t have any food! They just eat rice, if they can find any!!!” (Not sure on the accuracy of that statement… but thought it was funny that I actually thought it, and sorta used it. I am truly a dad, and truly old.) 🙂
  • Emma Caroline couldn’t be cuter. 🙂 Funny story from today… we got a new monitor so Jen can be down here and Emma can sleep upstairs. All of a sudden we heard a screaming baby in the monitor! Yikes! What happened?? That was not normal. (Although, she has had a tendency to “freak out” at times…) So, Jen went to help her – but she was sound asleep. Completely still. Weird. When Jen came back down, Emma started freaking out again! Worse than before! Very, very strange… Jen went back up… Emma was completely still!!!! Finally, we sent Ian up to check while we stayed down to listen… you guessed it.. we were picking up someone else’s baby!!!! Ha! Very weird. Kinda funny… very weird.

Much more to tell, but no time, and no energy with which to tell it. Must sleep.

by Greg

On Being Seven

It’s late, and its snowing (which is awesome!) but I wanted to post a few thoughts on expanding to a family of size seven…

  • Yesterday we all went out for the first time in our newly expanded van (see the next bullet point) and after taking nearly and hour and a half to get ready to go, it was lunch time. So, we stopped at Wendy’s. Thanks to some coupons, we ate lunch (six of us) for $7.82! Ha! That was great. But the best part was when Jen was collecting the food, I went to find a table. I had to move two tables of four together… JUST FOR OUR FAMILY! HA HA!! That was classic.
  • The day prior, the long search for the bench seat for our van finally came to an end. We found a perfect match only one hour from our house. (One hour and one minute, to be precise.) The three older kids and I took the trip and had a great time… and once the bench was in, all three wanted to “try it out” on the way home! It was a bit more money than I was hoping to pay, but glad that it’s the perfect match, and glad we can now go out as a family of seven.
  • Everywhere we go, people seem to notice us… sorta stare at us… even point and laugh. (OK, made that up… but you can tell we’re quite the spectacle) 🙂 At a rummage sale today, as we continued to pour in, one of the ladies tending the sale audibly said, “Oh my!” 🙂 (Not to us, she just couldn’t help herself!)
  • You can not imagine how much laundry and dishes we do. And just imagine when Emma and Julia are a bit older.
  • We have now outgrown most of our board games. They all say 2 to 6 players. Nice.
  • We have three bedrooms. (Some find that to be surprising… but that’s not really an issue so far.)
  • We have one bathroom. I think that one might eventually be an issue. 🙂
  • Do you know how much food we have to buy? 🙂
  • It will be interesting the first time we need to stay at a hotel.
  • I continue to tell people, it’s a party at our house every day. And it just keeps getting bigger. 🙂
  • We’re starting to really scare our friends. When we come to visit… SEVEN people are coming to visit. 🙂 (And we’re also starting to scare our regular babysitter. She signed on when we only had three…) 🙂
  • Have I mentioned how much we’re loving this? 🙂

It may be hard to believe if you have or come from a small family, but this is just fantastic. We have great kids, who all love each other completely, and we do really have a party every day. It’s certainly not easy, but a lot easier than most think. Everyone chips in (mostly) 🙂 And as our family site says, “Together is a wonderful place to be!”

We wouldn’t want it any other way. 🙂

by Greg

The Issue Of Race

Wow, that title is way to broad – and official – for this particular blog post. It’s accurate, but there’s obviously too much that can be and has been said on that topic.

Some friends of mine have been having a (mostly) civil discussion over Barak Obama’s recent speech on the issues of race in America. (Note: Please forgive any ignorance re: the content of that speech. It’s been a busy time around here! Haven’t gotten to hear/read the actual speech, just read/heard/seen snippets of reaction to it.) I did not really weigh in on the email discussion because of that, but after watching Meet The Press tonight, I do have some thoughts on the more general subject.

I am a white male. That fact (way beyond my control) might negate anything I say regarding “race issues” in the minds of some people. That’s too bad. I think that proves that those people are missing the point (though, I certainly understand how I could be as well).

There are no races. There. I said it. There is one race: the Human Race. Right? Are we all really different enough to say that we are actually different races? Really? ‘No’ is the correct answer. I will not go into (nor do I have enough understanding of) all the genetics and scientific rationale behind that statement, but I can pretty safely say, there are no races… just one.

So why do we perpetuate the race “card”? Why do any of us? None of the real people I do life with do. None. Not one. It never comes up. (Ha. Except maybe my brother-in-law… but he’s a different sorta fellow…) 🙂 It’s completely irrelevant. Actually, so is gender. People are people. At least, that’s how it is to me, and it’s my perception of how it is to my friends.

But that’s not what the media would have us believe. That’s not what many would have us believe. We watch a NASA podcast that almost every episode declares some amazing fact about how that very week the first “asian-american woman from kansas” did something in space, or the first “black man from russia over the age of 50” did something else. Just silly people. WE ARE ALL THE SAME. Our skin may look different, but why do we perpetuate the differences? They are subtle at best. Culture, tradition, and racism perpetuate this insane notion of “races”.

There are no races. Only one. We’re all one “race”.

Argh.

So, I’ve heard he gave a great speech. I will at least read the transcript. But I wish Mr. Obama (whom I guess is “multi-racial”… isn’t that evidence that we are just one “race”?) would just ignore the race issue and talk about things that are more important to our country. I admit some naivety on this. I am not currently a “minority” group… but I hear that I soon will be. What then? Will “white” people be “featured” or “spotlighted” for their accomplishments simply because of their lack of pigmentation?

Seriously. I just don’t understand.

So, my thoughts tonight… admittedly random and probably not focused due to my brain, heart, and body being all about my ever-growing household this past week or so… but I think I have said here before that if we could ever stop labeling people, grouping people, seeing “races”… we’d be so much better off.

The craziest part is that we do it as an effort to help diminish racism, or to combat it… but it only fuels it. More segregation – even with the best of intentions – only perpetuates the thing we are trying to end. Until we can see that we are indeed one race, there will always be “racism”.

That’s how I see it, anyway.