Taco soup has become one of the favorite family meals, and works best with corn bread (at least that’s my opinion, though tortilla chips work nice, too). The last time we had it for dinner, the girls began a little debate about the finer points of eating meat. I guess I really shouldn’t call it a debate as the argument was pretty one sided. None of them are looking to be fledgling members of PETA just yet. They love taco soup too much to change it up by replacing the beef with beans or, heaven forbid, tofu. The funny part of the debate, though, was Irelynn’s take. I don’t think she’s quite getting the idea that there are people who don’t eat meat. So her mind translated a certain word a whole different way. It’s probably best if I just write out the conversation the girls had. I think you’ll get the idea.

“You know, daddy,” Katy said as she took another bite of her sour-cream/taco soup, “I don’t think I could be a vegetarian. I like meat too much.”

Maddy nodded through her bite of soup, then said, “Me either. I couldn’t be a vegetarian.”

Irelynn raised one of her eyebrows and chuckled a bit to herself. “You guys are crazy. I could be veterinarian,” she said as she took another bite of the taco soup.

Daireth and I laughed, then Daireth tried to correct her saying, “Sweety, Maddy said vegetarian, not…” but Irelynn interrupted her (as often happens when a six year old is certain they know what they are talking about), and gave her that look kids have that can only be described as ”duh”.

“I can too be a veterinarian,” Irelynn said with a mouthful of taco soup, “I love animals.”

The way they used to do it:

1. Can only be played in a car. Cannot be played while taking a stroll through the neighborhood. So far, so good. Its fair and it makes sense.
2. When a VW Bug is spotted, the first player to shout out ”Slug Bug!”  (hereafter referred to as “slug”) can claim the prize and victory. No one is actually punched. Calling out the slug is enough.
3. The person shouting out the slug must then specify every person in the car that has been slugged lest they fall victim to a slug thief (see rule 4).
4. If, however, another person in the car slugs the original slugger before the original slugger has the oppurtunity to specify the second slugger, the second slugger then successfully steals the slug and claims victory over the original slugger.
5. Any person slugged in the car can slug anyone else who has not slugged them.
6. The slugger must also call out the correct color of the VW bug in question (see the special Maddy rules for some minor variation to this rule).
7. The optional “no slug bug back” must follow every slug, or the slugger leaves themselve open for slug theft.
8. Once the slugger has claimed victory, and if they have successfully named and included the optional no slug back option, the slugger then owns exclusive slug rights on any other VW bug of that color spotted in the same trip or day (whichever lasts longer).

These were the rules the girls played by. These are typical rules for this game - minus the exclusion of actually punching somebody. That was an early change neccessitated by the fact that the girls usually couldn’t reach the front seat and simply being able to call out the slug increased their chances of victory (and lowered the possibility that they would actually beat the snot out of each other). It also increased the safety level in the car (it’s kind of hard to drive while trying to puch somebody in the backseat…not really punch, per se, more like a love tap).

However, those weren’t the only rules. There were some minor variations made to the rules, particularly by Maddy, that increased slug theft, and most likely stretched the limits of fairness. It’s important to note that I call them the Maddy rules simply because she was most inventive in creating them, but once created, they were immediately embraced by her sisters.

The Maddy Rules:

1. The color of the VW bug spotted must be shade specific. For example, if the bug is light blue, then light blue must be called. Simply calling out your slug as “blue slug bug” won’t do. You’re leaving yourself open to slug theft. Exclusive rights only apply to other bugs of the same shade.
2. If the bug has a convertable top, this must be specified as either “slug bug convertable” or as a combination of the color of the convertable top and the color of the car, for example “slug bug black and dark blue”.
3. If the bug is an older model bug, this must be specified as well. This rule is not applied to newer models.
4. Both colors of a two toned bug must be called.
5. The crybaby rule. A slug is only valid if both players are actually participating in the game. If the victim of a slug can wine loud enough and convince everyone else that they weren’t actually playing, the slugger loses exclusive rights to the slug as the slug was delivered out of game.

As fair as these rules may sound, they caused many arguments and more than a few tears. Often times, Maddy would sound like an auctioneer when she would fire off her slugs in rapid succession, ensuring victory and total dominance, and she would quickly be followed by Irelynn who would slug everyone, save Maddy. More than a few times Maddy would wine that she wasn’t actually playing if she lost a slug. Even Katy would use the crybaby rule to avoid defeat. It had to be stopped. After a quick parental meeting, Punch Buggy survived, but with a few rule modifications.

The new, unofficial Klein family rules:

1. Can only be played in the car. (The only rule we kept was the only one that made a lot of sense).
2. When a VW bug is spotted the first person to call out the slug, including the color (non-shade specific, mind you) and punches the roof of the car wins.
3. The winner does not gain exclusive rights of that color bug for the remainder of the trip (or day). They simply win that round.
4. None of the Maddy rules apply. 
5. There’s no crying in Punch Buggy. 

We are not born with a knowledge of life and death. We simply exist without any understanding of how we got here and where we will eventually go. That knowledge comes with growing up. Irelynn’s first brush with Mr. Grimm was actually the family beta fish, Bach, a present we had received from Katy’s piano teacher. Her second encounter was the loss of Watson. Bach was easy to handle. One day he was simply belly up, and the next he was replaced with beta fish number two - Phoenix (I let the girls name him that time). Watson wasn’t as easy. She cried a bit (we all did) and kept wondering where he was and when she’d get to see him again. At four, “He’s dead, sweety,” doesn’t really mean anything.

I can’t remember if my first encounter with death was the actual death of one of our dogs (Mindy was hit by a car) or that horrible “kid friendly” movie, Old Yeller. As you grow older, and watch Marley and Me with your own kids (I think we watch these movies with our kids as kind of a right of passage), you wonder why the “kid friendly” movies involve the death of a dog. Why don’t they ever kill off the family cat? Wait…they did that in Christmas Vacation. Don’t think too many tears were shed over that one.

Irelynn is still learning about the circle of life and how her own mortality plays into things. While death is a reality, and she understands it as some kind of ending and, though her faith is still young, as kind of a new beginning, she still holds on to her innocense and applies that to her world. Last weekend, she found a pair of dead baby birds on the sidewalk in front of our house under the tree. Being the curious child that she is, she studied them for awhile, poked them with a stick, examined their beaks and determined that they were baby chickens (yes…a more knowledgable Irelynn would have realized the absense of cute fluffy feathers ruled out chicks). Then she began to wonder how they got there and started searching for a nest in the tree. Afterwards, she came running into the house to find me.

“Daddy! I found some baby chicks in our yard!” she yelled as she waved for me to follow her back outside. Walking up to the birds, she pointed and asked me, “How can we wake them up?” she asked.

“Sweety, we can’t wake them up. They aren’t sleeping. They’re dead.” She looked up at me and then back at the dead baby birds.

“Did they fall out of their nest?” she asked.

“I don’t know. A bigger bird might have tried flying off with them,” I answered. I probably should have eased her into that revelation about the circle of life, but I figured she’d seen the Lion King often enough to understand the basics. We walked into the garage and grabbed a broom and a shovel. Irelynn was so curious about the whole thing that she insisted on using the broom to push them onto the shovel, then followed me to the back yard.

“Are we going to bury them?” she asked.

“No, sweety. Scrappy and Emma would dig them up,” I know, more circle of life knowledge that she should have probably been eased into. After dumping the birds in the trash and hanging the shovel and broom back up in the garage, Irelynn hit me with her deep thought of the day, loaded with innocense.

“Daddy, I wish we lived in a world where birds didn’t kill other birds,” she said.

I know, kid. I wish other people saw it that way, too.

Noticing the bracelet on Irelynn’s wrist after picking her up from school Tuesday the week before last (I know…it’s been awhile since I first planned to write this), I asked her who she got it from and she went into a story that ended with her trip to the “treasure box” where she picked out the bracelet.

The story begins at lunch. Irelynn was sitting there, pulling her sandwich, cup of Mots, and zip-lock baggy of Cheeze-Its out her lunch bag when two of her friends (who shall remain nameless to protect the innocent and the guilty…and just in case their parents may someday stumble upon this blog) devised a plan to see how many people they could lick before lunch was over. Yep. No need to read that over. Kids are weird and come up with strange games to pass the time (i.e. Mercy, Bloody Knuckles, Red Belly, etc). Irelynn’s friend invited her to play along and when Irelynn refused to play, asked if she could lick Irelynn. That’s when Irelynn could handle it no longer and decided it was time to tell the teacher.

“What did Mrs. Fultz say?” I asked her.

“She wanted to know why I didn’t play along, and I told her I just knew that it wasn’t appropriate.” I was proud of my girl. First off for knowing that it wouldn’t be appropriate to lick a fellow student (or to let one lick you) and that she knew the appropriate way to use the word appropriate.

When we got home, Irelynn showed me a note she had gotten from her friend after the lunch hour incident: “Dear Irelyn, I am so sorry that I tried to lik you. I do not no what I was thinking. Can you forgiv me?” Of course Irelynn forgave her. I’m pretty sure the kid has forgotten the whole incident (I found the bracelet buried underneath her bed with a stray sock and some ponytail holders…always wondered where those things disappeared to). I just hope that Irelynn remembers the inappropriateness of licking other people, and that the number of licks it takes for her to be repelled by a game of lick-me-lick-you is 0. Just the idea is enough to make her go “Ewwwww”.

While these rules apply for those of us above the age of 12, a different rule applies for the grade school kids. This is the time of year that you pick out your variety pack of 32 cards in order to hand them out to your class mates, and if mom or dad is feeling generous, you get that package of heart shaped lolly pops or those boxes of heart shaped candies that on any other day of the year would not be purchased by a child (lets face it…those hearts taste like Tums that have been sitting in your medicine cabinet for years…we only buy them for the messages).

When putting these cards together, we all experience that sudden panic about which card to give to which kid. No one wants to give that weird kid the “You’re cute” card (unless you were as sarcastic then as you are now), and you definitely don’t want to give another boy that card, either (I seriously doubt we’re dealing with rainbow coalition problems in 1st grade). No, the “You’re cute” card is reserved for that special someone (or somebodies if you were anything like me in the early years…why have one crush when you can have four or five). Early on, you learn to give the right card to the right person, but on the other side of things, when you get your valentines from other kids, you’re never really quite sure what they mean. “Does so and so think I’m cute? What? I have three girls wanting me to be their valentine? Can I do that?”

Last night I helped Irelynn and Maddy sort out their own personal dilemmas caused by this annual festival of love. Irelynn picked out the Tweety bird pack, which had a few of those ”dangerous” cards, the most dangerous of which is the ever popular “You’re cute” card. Maddy, on the other hand, opted for a neutral pack of Page-biters. It’s a pack of monster cards that second as book marks (you pop the upper jaw out and the card looks like it’s biting the page). Every single one of the page-biter cards says the same, gender-neutral thing: “Here’s a bookmark for you!” I gotta’ hand it to Maddy. She saved herself the grief of worrying over the “You’re Cute” card. Irelynn, on the other hand, had to deal with me helping her.

“You know, Irelynn. I don’t think you should give those cards to any of the boys,” I said, pointing at one of the dangerous cards, which caused Irelynn to blush just a little bit.

“Oh, no. I won’t do that,” she said, blushing even more in embarrassment. I could tell that she wanted to. And she may even have done so as I walked away from the table and let the girls work on them by themselves.   

As a boy (at least from my own personal experience) you play along with this holiday in grade school because everyone else is doing it. When you reach the age that it is no longer mandatory, you rejoice a little bit and simply stop purchasing valentines for anyone until you gain the wisdom that comes with having a significant other, and realize that this day is about them (regardless of what they say…pay no attention to their seemingly genuine arguments that they really don’t need anything…because they really do want something). For girls, I think it is a little different. They’ll buy valentines for their friends right on through college, and they’ll continue to confuse boys along the way. Does it really mean anything?

At least in grade school, you don’t have to sweat it too much. After all, when you get to that next recess, girls and boys still suffer from cooties that seem to repel the other gender, and holding hands is that mythological thing that never really happens, and kissing? That’s what mom and dad do when they’re trying to gross you out. You soon forget that so and so thought you were cute, although you were never really sure if that was true in the first place.

As parents, we have a golden opportunity to lay down some foundations for these ground rules early in life. A lot of this early work depends largely on your child’s personality. Take Katy, for example. I was blessed with a daughter whose boy craziness has not quite kicked in with full force…even at the age of fourteen. Not yet. Hallelujah. Irelynn, on the other hand, most likely had her marriage planned by age 6…to Joseph (at least he’s the current model husband for her marriage dreams). Maddy, I think, is going to be a mix of the two. I’m hoping for more of Katy’s level headedness. There’s plenty of boys knocking on the door already (Daireth was surrounded by five or six of them at a class party once, all trying to convince Daireth that they were Maddy’s best friend).

Especially with a daughter like Irelynn, who wrote her first love note to 3rd grader Joseph when she was in first grade and barely able to write a note on her own; the need to set up these ground rules early on in life is essential. The earlier, the better. It starts with subtle hints, like keep your hands and your feet to yourself. Absolutely no kissing. Boys have cooties (yes…this still works, and I encourage you to use it for as long as it works). Slowly, over time, you build up the foundation until you get to the ground rules which are more specific.

Listed below are the ground rules Katy and I have reached so far:

• Guard your heart. Boys don’t want your heart, they want something else. You have control of your heart and you choose who to give it to. Save it for the right one. Don’t give it away too early. Believe me, I know you’ll want to, but you’ll save yourself a lot of pain if you wait for the right one.
• No sex until marriage. Kind of goes with the first one. As much as society would like to convince us all that people can be emotionally removed from the physical act of sex, the truth is that we can’t. You’ll give part of your heart to the people you mess around with, even if you don’t intend to. Save it for the right one. Not to mention all the health risks involved with being freely promiscuous. And that pregnancy before marriage thing? Completely avoidable here.
• Don’t get serious with anybody until age 25.Why rush things? Remember the other two rules? Getting serious only leads to the desire to break those other rules. So wait. Have fun in school, real fun, not that Girls Gone Wild crap. Enjoy your freedom. Explore the world. Go on mission trips. Travel. See places now when you aren’t tied down to anybody. Find out what you want to be in life. Pursue your dreams without worrying about somebody elses dreams. Wait to fall in love until you’ve lived a little and can actually separate the lust from the commitment. Don’t confuse this rule with the world’s view of sampling many different flavors before you settle on the right one.  
• Absolutely no messing around. Your bedroom door stays open if the boy is brave enough to visit your house, even knowing your father works from home. Hands touch hands, no wandering. Avoid the “danger” zones. And if the boy wanders, kick his ass to the curb. Remember, he’s more chimp than boy at this stage of life, so don’t feel bad about it. And if you remember the first rule, this really shouldn’t be an issue. Hands touch hands, nothing else.

Those are the ground rules. We talk about them every once in awhile. Katy usually turns red and looks as if she’d rather bury her head in the sand. I won’t give up, though. I believe its my role in life to guard the hearts of my daughters, to watch them closely, especially in these times when society and raging teenage hormones are working so hard to steal their hearts and offer them up on the alter of teenage promiscuity, which is quickly followed by the college years where things really heat up. My job is to teach them to guard their own hearts and hope that they learn the lesson well. So remember, Katy. Hands touch hands.

Maddy has joined in, only her competitive nature has twisted the rules a bit. She simply refuses to lose this game. This is kind of endemic for her. You see, if you played poker with Maddy, your Royal Flush would lose to her pair of deuces. The kid will turn everything into a game, as long as she will be on the winning end. If she loses a race, then it wasn’t really a race. A lot of this probably has to do with my parental tendency to let my kids win when I’m trying to teach them a new game. Kind of like that scene from Big Daddy where the kid throws his hands up in the air and shouts, “I win!” and the Rob Schneider character tries to argue that he can’t win.

Maddy’s competitiveness has lead to a lot of shouting matches between her sisters over the years. The morning routine (and the bedtime routine as well) usually involves a race to see who can get to the tooth paste first. This works for the sake of hygiene (at least I’m not wrestling with them to brush their teeth), however, when a six year old comes out of the bathroom with tears in her eyes because her eight year old sister beat her to the tooth paste, one has to wonder if this competitiveness is healthy.

Lately, Maddy and Irelynn have been racing to the car shouting Shotgun. It’s gotten so bad, that I’ve had to rotate them on a fairplay basis so that neither of them will show up at school with tears streaming down their face whining, “Maddy/Irelynn always gets the front seat,” even when they had the front seat themselves the day before.

There are several parental advantages to the highly competitive nature of siblings. I’ve already mentioned one, but below are several daily tasks that can often times be difficult to get children to do on their own that, when turned into a race, usually gets it done without argument (until it comes time to declare a winner):

• Brushing teeth
• Shower speed race (always a bit dicey, they may forget to scrub in their haste, or rinse all the soap out of their hair)
• Getting dressed
• Getting ready for bed
• Clearing the table
• General pickup
• Making beds
• Finishing homework (also dicey, you wouldn’t want them to flunk out of school just to get the homework done quicker)
• Washing hands (lately we’ve been using the tactic that the first to wash hands gets to hold Tatum)

I realize that using the natural competativeness of my kids can be a little…um…dangerous at times, but usually, the end result is just what I wanted them to do anyway. In the end, the house always wins, and I own the house.

(PS - You just lost the game.)

The latest fact of life that has been tickling Irelynn’s puzzler the last few days has been breast feeding. She is beginning to understand the concept, but there is still a little part of her brain that still thinks its too weird to be true.

During the first few hours of Tatum’s life outside the womb, Irelynn was holding her new baby sister, and looked up at me with a smile in her eyes, “When we get home, daddy, I’ll help with the feedings.”

“Not right away, sweety. Tatum won’t be using a bottle,” I said, not really trying to shatter the Irish princesses hopes.

“Then how is she going to eat?” Irelynn asked.

“Daireth’s going to be feeding her,” I said. And that was the first step in Irelynn’s trip through the breast feeding conundrum.

The first few days, Tatum spent most of her feeding time in the bedroom with Daireth. Both needed their rest between feedings. After  those first few days, Daireth wanted to get out of the bedroom during some of the feedings, and it was during one of these that Irelynn became even more informed on the whole deal.

“I know how this works,” Irelynn stated as Tatum was feeding under a full-coverage quilt. She said this as if she was trying to convince us that she had finally figured it all out, then followed up with some reaffirming questions.

“So…she’s not using a bottle,” she said.

“That’s right. Tatum isn’t using a bottle,” Daireth answered.

“But she’s still getting milk, right?” Irelynn continued.

“Yep,” Daireth answered.

“Huh,” Irelynn said with a look of mild confusion mixed with the light-bulb-I-just-figured-it-out look. Then she was off to jump on the trampoline some more.

It seems the trampoline is the place to go once you’ve figured these fact of life things out.

The story begins with Castor oil, a once-upon-a-time cure all that cured many an ailment without even being taken (it seems the threat of being given the stuff scared the sick right out of you). The stuff has been used for many ailments, but has traditionally been used as a method to induce labor. What sometimes gets overlooked is that Castor oil is also a take at your own risk laxative. It seems the laxative qualities and the results there of are somehow related to the birthing process and can jump start your labor. Heading into week 41 with barely a sign that things were progressing, we decided that taking yesteryear’s wonder drug was worth a shot, and while enjoying dinner at Sauce with Daireth’s parents, we got the results we were looking for. Contractions. Finally.

We decided to head home from Sauce in order to time the contractions and change activities to see if things stayed the same. For the first two hours, we watched a few episodes of Dirty Jobs. There was a marathon going on at the time, and we watched as goats were castrated and pigs were bred. Both images were very disturbing, but we couldn’t seem to find anything better to watch (one would think there would be something better to watch given the method by which goats are castrated…lets just say it has something to do with the term “bite me”, and the pig breeding wasn’t much better). After the second hour of timing the contractions, we decided it was time to head to the hospital.   

When we got there, we were quickly ushered to the triage room where they decide to keep you or send you home. After two hours of waiting, they finally admitted us, and we were on our way for the long wait. Admitted at 2 am, delivery at 3:04 pm. All told, labor lasted about 18 hours. Not much more to report on that. An epidural was given, granted, it took the guy 7 pokes before he got it right, and the epidural wore off at the end, which was not good during the hour of pushing. We got a little bit of sleep that night. About four hours (epidurals are awesome). When it came time to push, there was lots of 10 counts (they said I was a great coach), but Daireth was the star. Tatum arrived an hour after we started. She weighed in at 6 lbs 14 oz, and she measured 20 inches in length. 

We had the iPod on shuffle throughout labor, and she was born to the tune “We love you Jesus” by Shane Bernard and Shane Everett, off their Pages album. Thought it was a nice little coincidence. She could have been born to any number of songs by artists as random as Dave Matthews to The Classic Crime, but that was the one on shuffle at the right time. 

There you have it. Tatum arrived on 12/27/2008, exactly on her due date (which I’ve heard doesn’t happen very often). I’ve left out many of the details, but this wasn’t an episode of Dirty Jobs where there are more details then many of us are comfortable with. This is simply a story on how Tatum got here. We’ve been blessed once more. Tatum Elizabeth is an angel if ever a human could be called one.

On one hand, they have learned about a God who saved hundreds of animals along with Noah on the ark (I’m pretty sure most kids forget the part about thousands of people and animals drowning outside of the ark). You have a God who chose Abraham from all the people on the world to bless as the father of nations, a man whom He had promised to bless with a child in his old age. Isaac was the result of this promise, and then God asks Abraham to march him to a top of some mountain and sacrifice him on an altar. Huh?

Maddy was in a big state of “Huh?” after listening to this story last Sunday. She heard the part where the angel appeared and stopped Abraham short of actually killing Isaac. That didn’t help matters, though. The fact that God would ask a man to sacrifice his own son was raising all sorts of red flags in Maddy’s mind. “If God could ask Abraham to do this, would he ask somebody else? Would he ask my dad to march me up a mountain? Would the angel stop my dad?”

These are tough questions. It’s hard to get a child to see the test and the allegory buried in this Sunday school tale. In a society that understood sacrifice as a means of payment for a debt owed (the scapegoat), Abraham probably understood this request from God as a form of payment. Abraham also had a faith that allowed him to perceive good in everything God had done, and he did not doubt that good would come from this strange request. After all, God had given him Isaac at a time where Sara was far beyond child baring age (about 50 years past that age), in Abraham’s mind, it was well within God’s right to take Isaac away. There is also some foreshadowing of the sacrifice God would make for us. A way for God to say, “I love you enough to sacrifice my son, would you do the same for me?”

In a child’s mind, though, this test of Abraham’s faith, this foreshadowing of God’s saving grace does not take away the fact that God asked Abraham to sacrifice Isaac. That night it took some coaxing, but I was finally able to get Maddy to bed. She still suffers a bit of “Huh?” when thinking about this story, but I think both of us are coming to realize that without a lot of “Huh?” God wouldn’t be God.