Day after Christmas

Well, to any of you who are still out there, hello! I know it's been a long while. I think I made some empty promises back in September saying I was back, which promptly fizzled once I got busy with school (like usual). Anyway, I just wanted to drop in and make some reflections on parenthood, dadhood, husbandhood, and life in general.

The girls are developing into simply amazing people. E. will be 13 in January. She's been maintaining a countdown to the start of her teen years for about eight months now ("Gee, Dad, what's it like to know you'll be the father of a TEENAGER in less than two weeks?")

The answer, dear Emmie, is bloody terrified, thank you very much.

Actually, I think I'd be much more scared were she and her sisters not homeschooled. It's funny to be a public school teacher and such a proponent of homeschooling - strange bedfellows, as it were. However, I cannot deny the incredible advances the girls have made academically, emotionally, relationally and spiritually over the past two years. E is growing into a truly beautiful young woman - inside and out. An incident occurred recently (that I cannot go into detail about owing to legal reasons) that Kat asked the girls to pray about. Suffice it to say, it involved a kid roughly her own age, facing issues she once faced herself. Kat told me she (E) wept while praying for this other girl - from the bottom of her soul weeping, beseeching the Lord to protect this girl, to give her a way out, to let her know she is loved.

K-Bug, it seems, is getting cuter by the minute, which is a real problem, because she has a tendency, being the baby of the family, to have naughty streaks. All of our girls are smart, but K-Bug, getting the personal academic experience so much earlier than the other two, is simply over the top brilliant - which tends to be a lot of her problem. We believe her little brain is going so fast so often that she finds it hard to slow down for we lesser beings who populate her world. I believe I posted sometime shortly after she came home that we had taken to calling her "Trainwreck" owing to her proclivity for crashing into, over, through (pick your preposition) anything in her way (and, occasionally, halfway across the room from her). This, sadly, hasn't changed - her physical coordination is her downfall. She's not disabled in any way - she's just a klutz, and wears the title proudly ("Daddy say's I'm a train wreck!" spoken with a wide, always impish grin). The nightly ritual of tucking her in to bed always includes the kissing of her hand, in true princess style. It will be a sad day when she outgrows that.

Still, N is now 11 (as of yesterday - yes, she's a Christmas baby), and she still expects to be tucked in as well. Nikki, after flirting near the edge of chubbiness after her first year in our family, is starting to grow taller, and is giving her big sister a run for her money in terms of beauty. K-Bug and E have their red hair, which will always set them apart, but N is my blondie - daddy's Blondie Bear - a title she's promised to keep for the rest of her days ("I'll always be your Blondie Bear, Daddy, no matter how old I get"). We're celebrating her birthday tonight - her best friend, Kendra, is here for a slumber party tonight. We took them all to see "The Water Horse" this afternoon, and, as I write, we're waiting for Kat's mom to come down so we can open presents - then it's off to Olive Garden for dinner (N's choice). She and E both got Nintendo DS handhelds for Christmas, and Kendra has one, too, so the three of them spent the twenty minutes before the start of the movie texting each other back and forth.

I got some nice stuff for Christmas, as did Kat and the girls. But our best Christmas gift is the one Jesus gave us in 2005 - the chance to be a family.

To anyone who's still reading this blog - Merry Christmas, and peace be with you all.