What does it mean when you come home and find this?

Is the midlife crisis hitting early? No, it’s just the ladies in Karianne’s book club are getting together tonight to show off their wedding photos, and they’re all going to wear their veils, and hey, as long as you’re putting on the veil, why not put on the whole dress and freak your husband out? Totally reasonable.

Here’s Kaeta’s reaction:

[Download Video, 3.2Mb]

So, yes. I should be very worried.

I replaced 2 sprinkler heads in our yard today. One took 10 minutes, the other took over an hour.

And not even in the way you might think. If the first repair took an hour, but I learned something that made the second repair take only 10 minutes, well, I would feel good about that.

But the first repair took 10 minutes, and the second took an hour. The really frustrating thing is, the repairs were identical. They both were simple: dig up the broken sprinkler head, unscrew it from the pipe, and screw in the new one. But the second one didn’t want to screw in. I tried over and over, with no luck. Of course, I couldn’t see what I was doing too well — the hole I dug to reach the pipe was full of muddy water — so eventually I emptied out all the water, getting the last bits with a turkey baster! Still it wouldn’t screw on.

And there was no trick to it. It didn’t work for an hour, and then, suddenly, it worked. The trick was just to keep trying relentlessly. I think this may be the trick to a lot of home repairs, so maybe that’s the skill I need to be working on most!

I’ve been meaning to post this one for a while.  During church a month or so ago, we were waiting for our turn to take communion, and Kaeta was sitting in my lap.  I pointed at the people kneeling at the altar, and I asked, “Kaeta, what are those people doing?”

She thought about it, then said, “Those ladies are eating picks!”

As in guitar picks.  So then I had to explain to her that the communion wafers are not guitar picks.  What in the world must she think we’re doing, going to church to eat picks every week?!

Jonah has been on the move this month. He still isn’t crawling, but he can get where he wants to go by rolling, scooting, and pivoting. It’s not usually a straight line, but he gets there! And he’s pretty fast, too. Most of the time I’ll set him down in one spot and then when I look up a minute later, he’s already clear across the room.

But his new favorite activity is waving. It makes him so happy to wave at you as you’re coming, going, or just haven’t looked his way in a while. Or if you’re looking right at him. He doesn’t need a reason, he just loves to wave. We think he might be trying to say “hi” sometimes, because he often seems to be imitating the “ha” sound as he waves.

In the last month Jonah has acquired his first TWO teeth, and is working on three, four, and five. He also enjoys spitting and trying to do a beatbox with his lips, especially when a spoonful of carrots is on its way to his mouth. He can spray a thin layer of carrots so that it evenly covers his daddy’s entire face!

And just this week, he’s started sitting up by himself. He’s still perfecting this one, but we’ve both found him sitting up in his crib, which is really great!

Kaeta: (pointing out the window at the sky) I got to fly in that sky today!

Daddy: You did?  What did you see up there?

K: Birds.  I got birds on my head!

D: What color?

K: Green and blue and red and green and blue.  And red!  Dofe-tee is a bird.

D: What?

Mommy: (translating) Dorothy.

D: Oh, Dorothy is a bird?

K:  Yeah, Dorothy is a bird.  She’s a bird.  Birds are she.

D: (laughing) She’s a bird, birds are she?  You sound like a pantheist.

K: I like big girl panties!

Whatever your political leanings, you’ve got to laugh at bumper stickers like “Obamanos.” Or my personal favorite, “Barack Me, Obamadeus.”

Ever since the car accident, Kaeta has asked me several times a day, “Is the white car brokened?” It seems like she was more attached to that car than we were! She only rode in it a couple of times. Anyway, a typical conversation goes like this:

Mommy and Daddy: [trying to have a conversation]

Kaeta: Is the white car brokened?

M&D: [ignoring]

K: [getting progressively louder] Is the white car brokened? Is the white car brokened?? Daddy, is the white car brokened??!

D: Yes, the white car is brokened.

K: Where is the white car?

D: Where is it?

K: At a junkyawd.

There are a few variations, but I basically have this conversation 6 or 7 times a day. This morning, I’m working from home, and Kaeta came up to me and said, very sweetly:

“Daddy, I want to ask you a question.”

She’s never said that before! I don’t know where she picked that up, but I was very interested to hear what she so earnestly wanted to ask me. I said, “Yes, Kaeta?” So she looked up at me with her big brown eyes and said,

“Is the white car brokened?”

When someone’s Instant Messenger status says something like “Very busy,” or they are otherwise actively avoiding interruptions, I am always sorely tempted to bother them. I never do, but it’s always a struggle not to be “that guy.”

I’ve been on the receiving end of that kind of interruption many times, though. When things get really hairy at work, I will occasionally “hide out” in an obscure part of the office, or I’ll claim the conference room as a workspace (Dwight Schrute style) and close the door. Invariably, someone will poke their head in, say something like, “Caught ya!”, and proceed to talk for 5 minutes without regard to my visible sweat or one-word responses.

Karianne has read a couple of books by Elisabeth Elliot, including one called Keep a Quiet Heart, in which she talks about interruptions from a very different perspective.  I don’t have the book handy to quote from, but I found this synopsis:

Elisabeth Elliot has a book called “Keep a Quiet Heart” in which she often refers to the Christian’s misuse of their time. She relates it to her own life in several places where she says she’ll have been working on a book (she was once a full-time author of books and other christian resources) or even spending time with the Lord for the day and her two most sacred activities would be interrupted by a phone call or a visitor or a request by her husband. She says in the book on several occasions that while her first reaction to those interruptions was irritation and bother, she has come to realize that those interruptions were often God’s immediate answer to a prayer, what she had just been reading in the Word, or a point she was trying to make in the book. When she stepped back and looked at the situation, she could find that it was not an interruption at all, but a divine appointment that was meant to back up what she had been working on or meditating on at that very hour or day. After that realization dawned on her, she began to practice accepting all unexpected interruptions as divine appointments and it totally changed her perspective, her manner, and her ability to be flexible.

I don’t agree completely with her (sometimes an interruption is just an interruption), but it’s certainly a more charitable way of treating the interrupter!

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