SpringCon 2013

Jack, Maggie and I met the Jankovich's for the spring comic convention. We also met Mike D there. This is becoming a tradition and I like that.

At the MN State Fairgrounds

the Ghostbusters had Stark Industries gear

with Batgirl

Maggie holding her own against the competition for action figures

Gentle Giant Octopus

Gentle Giant - Octopus

So my mind was blown a tiny bit yesterday. On my commute I opted to listen to Gentle Giant. The only album I have of this amazing and extremely prog-rock group is Octopus. The music is of a nature that might blow one's mind, on it's own. But then...

Later, as the kids are getting ready for bed, Jack shows me his latest favorite library book. Gentle Giant Octopus.

Took me a few seconds to figure out what was going on.

Star Wars

Jack and Maggie and I watched Star Wars: Episode IV today (the original version).

Jack and Simon

2

Jack Elliot Willis turns 2 years old today. Happy Birthday, Action Man!

Jack's Bible Stories

Maggie grew hungry while we were at church this morning. So Cara took her to the nursing room and fed her. There was a technical problem with the video feed in the room causing the moms to miss a majority of the sermon.

At dinner, this evening, Cara asked what the sermon was about and I started to describe it's theme. While I was explaining the message, Jack gets out of his seat and starts asking Cara to read him a Bible story. He wouldn't let up, either, running off to go retrieve one of his Bible story books. Finally Cara had to page through it as she listened to my retelling of Greg Boyd's message.

It seems he picked up on enough of my words to know what I was talking about and associated that with his Bible stories. He is amazing.


(This image is not from the book Jack selected. It's here jsut to add humor).

Pictures of Maggie Mae

Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana

Jack had some misadventures at around 1:30 in the morning last night. After he was all sorted out I was up. So I settled in and finished Christ the Lord: The Road to Cana.

I thought this was much better than the first book. I can't imagine how difficult it must have been to write from the P.O.V. of Christ, but I think Rice captures His voice masterfully. I was surprised to find myself feeling sorry for Jesus through the first half. In the 2nd half, however, we see a transformation that reminded me of Neo in the Matrix. The dialog between He and Satan in the desert was interesting in that Jesus was portrayed as having the upper hand, not something that I think is traditionally taught with the passage. It usually seems like Jesus' ability to resist temptation was the victory in the desert. In this book He clearly out maneuvers the devil conversationally. Basically, Jesus verbally kicked his ass. I loved the way Rice planted characters from the biblical account throughout the story. She is a master storyteller. 

Through high-school I was a HUGE Anne Rice fan with the vampire books. Having moving on from my interest in the dark gothic stuff, she has followed me out of it. It is great having her familiar voice continuing to tell me great stories. They're still stories about immortals.

Father's Day

Father's Day was good. It started out pretty normal for a Sunday.

We went to the 11:00 service. While Cara was submitting the young ones into the Hero's Gate (Woodland Hills' children service/daycare) I went to the audio/lighting booth to talk to the crew. It was there that a co-worker of mine approached me. Tom was the very last trainee I taught at Monarch before they stopped hiring new drivers. He and I had absolutley nothing in common (until now, that is- now I know we're brothers in Christ) as I'm a full through and through geek and he's a minor league hockey player. His buddy disappeared or something so Tom sat with Cara and I. He mentioned that he heard the usual sermons here at WHC are not the typical kind, they make you think. I confirmed that and added that if you want a sermon that makes you feel good this was not the place for that. As soon as worship was done and announcements were out of the way Boyd introed his message naming it PAIN. Tom and I laughed about that.

After church Cara, Jack, and I (Leesha went out with her dad after church) went out for my Father's Day lunch. I chose The Uptown Bar and Cafe for their gyro omelets and their bloody marys. That's exactly what I got, too. Didn't even need the menu.

We went home and I crashed - thats what you do after you eat an Uptown omelet and a bloody. There's no avoiding it. Cara cleaned the cars and I watched Jack- rather we watched Flash Gordon. At some point Leesha came home. Later, Eric and Keesha came over to help install our air unit in the window. When they left I called my dad and by the end of that conversation it was around 10PM.

It was a full and relatively active Father's Day.

Jonny Quest

I've been sorting my comics downstairs over the weekend with varying piles around. Jack creeps around and runs his cars over some of them with a careful sense that dad wants caution, so it seems. He asks- "Whatsat, daddy?" as he examines the topmost comic. And I answer him.

He runs over to the futon in front of the TV saying something over and over. It looks like he wants to watch something but he's not saying "Clifford" or "Emily" or "T-Bone" or "Cleo" which is what he usually says when he gets to watch a show downstairs meaning Clifford the Big Red Dog. This time he was saying something like 'choneetrest' or something 'dressed'. So I went to him and said "what are you saying?" And he repeated it. Didn't help me much. I asked again and he said "Airpane in da sky!" Now I got it! He's saying Jonny Quest! That was the comic he was asking about just a minute ago. He remembered that title because we watched it a couple of times. Just a couple of times!

We watched a few episodes several weeks ago and stopped because it seemed to only lightly hold his interest. The show's intro has an airplane and that's what Jack remembered and communicated to tell me what he was talking about.




This was the best example I could find.

Saturday

It was a good Saturday. Jack and Leesha playing in the yard with the neighbor kids today.

It was a good Saturday. Jack and Leesha playing in the yard with the neighbor kids today.

Cara's folks came over so Cara and I could go on a date for dinner. My folks gave us a gift card to a place called Sgt. Pepper's. Great place, OK food, HUGE servings. We don't do that often enough. After dinner we drove around a bit and took a walk in a park down by Battle Creek. It was really nice.

Very Good Saturday

The last week was coming close to overwhelming. At work there are people in training. That means the training department is putting in 9 or 10 hours a day all week as we cover or evaluate morning routes and afternoon routes with training for 3 hours in between. Sometimes that even includes afterschool routes like it did for me on Monday. Thursday I sat on a Minneapolis charter route which clears around the same time as a St. Paul after school route. Then I have small group bible study on Tuesday night. And we had a small group church meeting Wednesday night. Very busy week. One nice thing was every moment I worked on Friday was overtime. So I needed a fun-no-work weekend.

That's what I got.

Saturday was gaming. D&D at Rob's house. When I got home it was Jack and Leesha and Hazel in the back yard (Hazel is our friend's dog we're sitting for the weekend). Cara grilled brats for dinner. Pretty good day.

After dark and after Leesha was ready for bed we watched the 3rd episode of our new show - Avatar: The Last Airbender. This is an American anime. Three episodes in and its proving to be very well made. It's targeted to Leesha's age, I believe, and has enough fantasy elements to be interesting for adults with that geek gene. We're both really enjoying this show a lot.

It Never Seems To End

I caught something the very night of my last post. I thought and was expecting to throw up, but never did. Instead my throat became extremely sore and I was very chilled. This lasted through Friday and Saturday and is still going strong today. Saturday we did go to a clinic to get swabbed for strep-throat. Turns out that is not what I have and that would've been the thing to have to get a remedy. Whatever I have has to run its painful painful course. They said probably just over a week. If it goes for longer, I'd need to go back and get tested for mono.

At least everyone else is feeling well. Jack did throw up again last night. Not sure why, but he's acting fine today. Cara is going crazy from just being in the house for so long and battling Leesha's devious ways of finding attention. She continues to antagonize Jack. Its getting rare that he allows her to hold him. Sometimes he gets mad if she even comes near him. It's all her own doing, though. From day 1 she was in his face too much. No amount of warning from Cara and I could give her a clue. Now its Jack's screams that seem to actually give her pause. Sometimes they don't even do that.

With all of this literal down time I've been reading and watching old shows. Finally finished Edgar Rice Burroughs' 2nd book in the John Carter of Mars series - Gods of Mars.

I've also been watching old '80s episodes of Doctor Who when the Doctor was played by Peter Davidson. Davidson is a very dorky awkward Doctor. Not at all doing the right thing at the right time. He seems more flawed than most of the other Doctors I've seen. I never understood why he wore a celery on his lapel. Perhaps that will be revealed. I must keep watching...

As I watched these episodes some big Doctor Who news broke...

The official 11th Doctor. Here is a link to the article and a discussion board about it.

So all the things we cancelled on this week...

• Holiday Celebration with Mom and Dad at Greg and Mandy's
• Small Group Social with Parents
• New Years Day with Trelevens
• Work on Friday
• Gaming on Saturday
• Church on Sunday

The Bad Cruise Ship Holiday

This is my blog, so I'm going to use it to vent.

I'm looking forward to this holiday break ending! From the perspective of possibilities it looked fantastic and fun. Having gone through most of it now, there were some nice times with family and some of it was actually fun. And the best part wasn't actually officially planned. Saturday we got everyone together. Sunday on Jack got very sick and it took several days for his recovery. And he's not completely back, actually. This morning we gave him milk for the first time and he rejected that pretty quick. So Jack getting sick was a big drain on everyone and completely derailed much of our holiday family plans. Also put a stop to small group and seeing the Trelevens today in Wisconsin. But the kick in the face happened last night.

Leesha got sick. She started throwing up around 1:30AM and she still is at it. Bless her heart, she's obviously much more capable of taking care of herself than Jack was, so we're leaving her to sleep where Jack got cuddled and cared for. But she's also kind of attempting to make it more miserable for us, which Jack didn't/unable to do. So yeah.

I've had enough of this crap.

And Cara is nausious in the mornings, too!

Oh, and Happy New Years...

Jack Is Back

Jack is almost completely back. The last time he spit up was about 5:30AM yesterday (Tuesday) morning, so its been a good amount of time past the worst. Now its just getting his strength back and making sure he's drinking lots of fluids. His spirit has returned and it is so wonderful to hear him laugh and blab. For short periods of time he seems back to 100%, but he mellows out fast and needs to rest. He's been using far less diapers, too. He's basically refilling his system.

Wow, it was scary. If I could step out of the situation and take a look I'm sure it never was that critical, but as dad- that just wasn't possible and I didn't like seeing the little guy so uncomfortable. I thank God for placing us in a time and place where this kind of thing is not such a big deal because of modern medicne. A different era or country and Jack may not have recovered. I didn't think such a small guy could derail a holiday's plans so effectively.

Not Quite The Day I Was Hoping For

Today was going to be fun. Our plans were to go to Greg and Mandy's house and open our Secret Santa gifts and just hang out, maybe play some games and definitely eat. We went to church and picked up Leesha and then started driving to Willis West. About 1/4th off the way there Jack exploded. Something caused him to throw-up everything he ate for breakfast. ALL OVER himself, and the car seat. Quick thinking we diverted our course to Cara's parents house which is sort of on the way. They were there and we all got him and everything else cleaned up. However, Jack threw up again. And soon it was apparent that this wasn't going to stop anytime soon. We decided to call off going to Willis West and started on our way back home. Jack then upchucked something yellow so we decided to change course again to the Children's Hospital.


He was poked and prodded, and x-rayed. They seemed concerned that he was getting dehydrated and finally they I.V.ed him- which he was a real champion about. Having an I.V. put into your little guy is a scary ordeal. It did help to hear that the ladies doing it had done 8 already today. And they pointed out that that was just her count, there were other nurses doing them, too.

When it seemed he was finished he was fed some pedialight or whatever. But that came up pretty quick. But that was the last.

All said, Jack threw up at around 1:30pm and continued to around every half hour till around 5:30. The poor little guy never had a nap and was completely exhausted.

Cara's dad came and took Leesha to stay with them for the night. They are so great.

They moved us up to a real fancy room with the fanciest crib you've ever seen. TV, toys. Jack is definitely coming back. He started to get chatty again. What a wonderful sound that is. Looks like Cara's going to stay here to sleep and I'm going to go home to my CPAP.

A doctor says this may be the beginning of it and this may carry on for a few days.

Christmas

Yesterday was Christmas and we spent the afternoon at Cara's folks house. We had a nice quiet time there. Opened a few gifts, had a nice big dinner, installed a universal remote. It was also the usual- getting on Leesha's case to leave Jack alone, finish eating, eat with her mouth closed, not speak with her mouth full, enjoying Jack's ever-increasing vocabulary, etc. Leesha got a couple of gifts, but they were two things that she was very very excited about getting.

One was a Webkin dragon. She had been asking for this particular Webkin for a long time, long enough ago that she probably forgot about it. This was also kind of cool, because the dragon is no longer available anywhere other than places like Ebay (which is exactly where we got it).

Webkins are a fantastic marketing ploy, plush animals that include a code that you plug into a webpage and you can navigate your newly purchased animal through an online community featuring games and chats and all sorts of things like that.

Grandma and Grandpa gave her an MP3 player that she really wanted. An amazingly cheap little thing that didn't seem to work creating much drama this morning. Leesha is now with her dad and reports that she got it to work. That's good.

Tonight we finish the Doctor Who Christmas Special. We started it last night but put the 2nd half on hold because we were both fading.

Jack Elliot is one today!

Happy Birthday, Jack Elliot!

Jack Elliot's one year video. Most of the pictures were taken each Friday night for the last 52 weeks (there are also other pics sprinkled about). You are more than welcome to look at more pictures of Jack and the Willis' here...


The song is Seasons of Love from RENT.

First Day of Summer School

First day of Summer School and I feel like writing.

Got to work early. I like it like that. Early. Had little problem with either route when dry-running it last week, but still. There is that anxiety of not really knowing what it'll be like till your on the other side of the experience. Cara, Leesha and Jack all got up early with me. They dropped me off at work so we can save on fuel costs. Works for me. I have to get up early anyways. We'll see how long the rest of the fam can handle that kind of schedule.

First school, Highwood Hills Elementary, was going very well. Nearly 80% of the bus were Hmong students. This is very good. Hmong are the most well behaved kids I've ever seen. 2nd to last stop brought on a kid who seemed to have a lot of potential of being trouble. But he's 2nd to last before we head for the school. Can't do much better than that. On top of that almost half the stops were dead - no one got on or off at those stops.

Second school is one I'm quite familiar with- Wellstone. Not this route, however. Pretty evenly balanced between African American and Hispanic kids. I didn't recognize any of them. I asked a couple if they knew some of the names from my regular school season route (which is another Wellstone route, but in a different area of St. Paul).

I was able to steal some time at home between routes. As I pulled up in front of our house I waved at Carla, our neighbor who frowned. What?

Taking the kids home was just as smooth as picking them up. Except for one thing, on our way return from Wellstone, a small Somalian girl got sick. It wasn't too bad on the bus, she caught most of it in her dress fabrics or whatever they wear. I had a whole bunch of towels which I gave to her and she used up. It was a striking orange, whatever she ate. Hopefully that was it for the summer and got it out of the way.

Called Cara when I was finished with work and the family came and picked me up. When we got home I was able to lay down for a nap.

David and Darlene came over for a late Father's Day dinner. We grilled pork and steaks and had a good time.

Turns out that our neighbor may be upset seeing the bus return to the neighborhood. Geez, some people need to relax. Cara said she told her school would be out in five weeks about six weeks ago. Cara failed to mention that summer school would follow shortly there after.

Father's Day

My Father's Day was simple. I did lights for the church services last night and today. Got to hang out with Greg Wollan more than usual as he lead worship. He/they performed one of his own songs - Glorybound. That's one of the songs that inspired me to approach him which has lead to a nice friendship. The song reminded me SO MUCH of Paul McCartney way beck in 2003 at the Small Group Leadership Retreat. There was someone shooting a documentary at Woodland Hills today while we were doing the service. That stuff adds a fun energy to church service.

Cara and I came home and put Jack down for his nap. We had a small lunch and watched a fresh episode of Doctor Who! It was a creepy one. One of those good ones. Then Cara took a nap as Jack continued his. Quiet time. About the time everyone was getting up, Leesha came home.

We had our regular routine. Getting stuff done and ready for the week. Jack started to figure out his toy- the toy with four balls that get smacked into their holes by a hammer and proceed down through an obstacle course and exit again. Until today I don't think Jack recognized any purpose to the main piece, the balls, and the hammer. Now he realized the application. It was wonderful to see him working it all out.

After Leesha went to bed I took Jack to the couch and we sat and watched over the neighborhood and he fell asleep on my lap. That was the perfect way to end my father's day.