Franklin Chronicle

The Monkey's Birthday

2011-12-18T17:29:00.000-05:00

Oh we are getting closer to real time here...only about a seven weeks behind. The Monkey had a birthday in November, and he asked for a pirate birthday cake, and the QB, as always, was ready to oblige.

She had a lot of fun putting this together. I think the inspiration for the cake came from here:

The cake was a big hit.

Notice the aweseome wrapping paper employed on the gifts in the background--Sunday comics and brown packing paper..we were running a little low on real paper. But I don't think the Monkey minded much.

The football was for him, but it has been the Monkey's little brother that has played with it the most. Just about every day I come home to find him in the living room with the ball in his hands. He holds it up and says, "down, set, Hut," and then runs around the room. Sometimes he stops and says "kick" and tries to kick the ball, but he hasn't figured that out quite yet.

This Lego ship was big on "wow" factor but since its an advanced set, he hasn't played with it much--er, what I mean is, I haven't sat down with him to put it together yet. We've got about 1/3 of it done. My goal is by the end of the year to have it built with him.

This bicycle we got in the back alley about two months ago. It belonged to our neighbor's son who didn't ride it very much. He (our neighbor) regularly places gently used kids items in the alley that his family no longer needs, and we are the regular recipients of the gesture. The bike's chain was rusty and the bike needed a cleaning and an inner-tube change, but since Mr. Baseball got a new bike for his birthday I was able to part-out his old bike to get this one working. Then I washed up the frame, adjusted the handle bars, put on new grips, added the training wheels and the final touch was to put some Armor-All on the tires. The best part about it is that a week later the Monkey surprised us all by hoping on his old bike (that no longer had training wheels on it) and riding it across the yard. The training wheels are now collecting dust in the garage, and if we can get some warmer weather, we'll be riding for sure.

A few weeks after the Monkey's birthday, Grandpa Franklin came into town for Thanksgiving. He was scheduled to come for Mr. Baseball's baptism, but he was sick that weekend so he used his credit to come for for Turkey Day. Among other places, we took him to the Ranching Heritage Museum. The boys love the train (and I think it's my favorite too.)

Grandpa striking one of his famous poses.

And then shortly after Grandpa left, the Monkey came down with chicken pox. If you look closely in this picture form his preschool Christmas performance (taken a week after he cleared up), you can still see a scab on the side of his neck. Besides a lot of pockmarks and one tired day on the couch, you wouldn't have known he was sick. It was his brother's that got the worst of it. But that's for another post.

The Monkey loves preschool (he goes twice a week).

Sorry about the grainy photographs. That's all my camera could manage from a distance in the light of the chapel. Stay tuned for a Christmas post in the next few days.

Lubbock Soccer: Or parenting 001: remedial fatherhood

2011-12-18T17:28:00.000-05:00

The Monkey played soccer this fall. He had two practices a week and games every Saturday at the expansive Earl Huffman soccer complex in North Lubbock. He played for the "Texas Boyz," (sic). He talked about it for months and was very excited to finally get to play. The three-times-a-week schedule was hard for him to get used to (he regularly broke down in tears about getting his gear on for practice before finally deciding it was okay and then running out to the car fully equipped and happy to be going).

Lubbock is definitely a baseball town, but soccer holds its own, particularly in the "hyper-competitive parents" column. These are four-year-olds remember, but I definitely saw one coach turn so red with frustration that he had to remove himself emotionally and physically from the game by sitting the entire second half at the top of the bleachers in order to stay calm (apparently he'd been kicked off the field the week prior).

I heard a parent say: "Hey Ref...those boys are pushing! That's illegal! They're playing dirty! That's +*&^%$ ridiculous. Come on! Watch the pushing...(then, to her son when he comes to the sideline to get some water: "Hey, son, don't let them play dirty. Push 'em back!)

A few other choice lines, all spoken through gritted teeth, or hollered through cupped hands or otherwise spat out of parents mouths who were disgusted by their four-year-olds' apparent lack of motivation, attention, determination, fighting spirit, or whatever:

"Watch the ball!"

"You better get up and play if you know what's good for you!"

"You gotta attack that ball. Are you kidding me?"

"RUUUUUUUUN!"

"Get your head in the game now, or I'm pulling you out!"

And then this particularly painful moment:

"What is your problem?!?" (Spit literally flying from coaches mouth as he held his son's shoulders in his hands...At this point the assistant coach speaks up and tells the head coach to calm down, and several parents murmur that the coach needs to calm down, and I raise my voice and say "Coach, he's only four," and without turning around the coach says, "He's my son, I'll take care of him." And his son his crying at this point, holding both hands to his mouth. The boy runs back on the field.

And I think that is the saddest part about the entire situation. Almost without exception, the coaches I observed on both sides of the field were kind, patient, and encouraging to everyone on their respective teams--everyone except their own sons. In fact, it became easy to see which boys belonged to which coaches. More than once a coach turned to his son on one side and ripped into him with something similar to the comments above only to turn to another boy on his other side and pat him on the back and send him on his way with some words of encouragement.

There were certainly plenty of coaches who were kind and encouraging all around, but too many were too hard on their own boys. and it wasn't just coaches. Many parents on the sidelines were just as guilty and just as likely to ridicule their own sons and cheer on someone else's son in the same breath as the coaches were. It got to the point that we didn't want to come to games anymore.

After games and practices I found myself in conversation with the Monkey, asking him what he thought about the way some of the parents and coaches talked to their sons. He never seemed too bothered by it, except to say that he was glad we didn't talk to him that way, but he also seemed to be buying into the criticism he heard levelled at some of the other kids. "So and so really needs to learn to listen," he would say, or "so and so doesn't pay attention very well." We talked about the point of soccer (to have fun and learn to play as a team and have fun and follow directions and get exercise and have fun) and about how some kids are still learning some of the basics and about how sad it was that some parents took the game so seriously. But we left it at that and now I think--no, now I'm sure I should have done more. Too many parents, including myself, stood by and let the shouting and harping go on unchecked week after week. I didn't approve, and a few times I spoke up a little to those around me, and once to the coach himself, but for the most part I just kept my mouth shut and made sure no one shouted at my own son. But in my silence, in all of our silence, we were perpetuating a winning-is-everything culture that distorts the purpose of youth sports and sets ups a generation of boys to base their self-worth on their dexterity with a ball and whether or not their dad is shouting at them.

Uggh.

John Gottman (marriage and family therapy guru) says that the key to a successful married relationship is to outnumber negative comments with positive comments 5 to 1. So what is the key to a successful father/son relationship? At least that--maybe more. There is this one important difference. A married couple may grow apart, may separate or divorce, may start a new life apart, but a father/son relationship is forever. Couples can "fall-out-of-love," but it takes a lot for son to give up on his Dad (in fact, I'm not sure a son can give up on his Dad. Even an absent or abusive father still has a profound influence on how a son sees himself and the world). A father wields what a writer friend of mine called "mythic" power over his sons.

Whether we want to or not, whether we acknowledge it or not, whether we are willing to do anything about it or not, our sons live for our approval and much of their self worth, their ability to navigate the world, to accept their own sons, will be learned as they grow in our shadows--for a son always lives in his father's shadow. And it is up to fathers to either bring light to their sons' lives in the form of kindness, patience, understanding, comradery, and humility, or to make it ever darker through anger, unreal expectations, spite, aloofness, and pride.

I think the boots-on-the ground answer to the soccer issue is this: if I want things to change, I've got to volunteer--yeah, that's probably it. Isn't there some line about being the change you want to see in the world?

Photo dump: Fall 2011! The Haboob, and Mr. Baseball's Baptism

2011-12-11T23:33:00.000-05:00

This is what it looked like outside our front door at about 5:30 pm on Monday October 17. I had decided to leave work a little early and had walked in the door about three minutes prior to taking this photo. The QB had just taken her mom to the airport. The sky had been blue and the wind brisk, but we had no idea this was coming. In about a minute the neighborhood turned martian and stayed that way for twenty or thirty minutes. As you can see in the photo here, though I didn't notice it when I took the picture, my car window is cracked open and the next morning when I got in it to drive to school, I found a thick coating of red sand all over my dashboard, steering wheel and seats. Lovely.

Besides the haboob, Mr. Baseball's baptism weekend went off without a hitch and we were very glad to have family in town. The week was kind of crazy with family trickling in and then trickling out between Wednesday and Saturday, but we enjoyed the close quarters (there were 11 of us all together in our house at the high point) and the chance to spend time with family we don't get to see very often.

Papa Fitz flew in on Wednesday. Nana, Grandma, two sisters (amy and Aubrey), and one nephew (Kimball) flew in on Friday; Papa and one sister flew out on Saturday, Grandma flew out on Sunday, Grandma flew out on Monday, and the Amy and Kimball flew out on Tuesday.

The entire trip almost didn't work out because of a variety of logistic and financial issues (and Grandpa Franklin got really sick and wasn't able to come), but in the end just about everything went smoothly and we are very grateful to everyone who helped to make the trip happen.

These three boys, separated by three-year increments from one another, all lined up in front of us, smiles and curls and one squared-shoulder suit--they're almost too much to consider. When Mr. Baseball was born, I thought about the 18 years that lie ahead of us, his formative childhood to which God had handed us the keys and said "drive safe," and "Bring him back in one piece," and it all seemed impossibly long, a drive with a destination so far in the distance as to not even register on the mind, but in a flash 8 years is gone.

I am too hard on him, too expectant of him, and too skeptical of him. When he was younger he used to be quite good at throwing tantrums, and falling apart when things didn't go his way, and I always read his behavior as selfish. But as he's gotten older and we've talked through some of his outbursts I've discovered that his anger has always been more directed at himself than anyone else, that he feels failure keenly and that he takes criticism as a reminder of the perceived failure he is already aware of. He is a kinder and more sincere child than I think I will ever understand and my only hope is that I can stumble through parenthood well enough that when he's finally an adult, he'll accept my apology in spite of everything.

Christ went to John the baptist to be baptized for two reasons. First: to fulfill all righteousness (it's a commandment, after all), and second: to "showeth unto the children of men the straitness of the path, and the narrowness of the gate, by which they should enter, he having set the example before them." (2 Nephi 31). I'm grateful to the Savior for his example of perfect goodness, and I'm thankful to Callan for being Callan. We don't deserve him.

Happy Halloween

2011-11-09T09:48:00.000-05:00

So we're a few days late (okay, a week) and some of these pictures have already shown up on Facebook, and we still have a camera full of photos from the summer that haven't made it up here, but I just wanted to give a brief report on Halloween.

We had some friends over for dinner and the QB made eye-ball deviled eggs, worm Jell-O salad, and mummy wrap hot dogs.

Then we all went as bats (costumes courtesy of the QB) to the Trunk or Treat at church and some friends of ours manned our trunk while we took the kids around. Our 400 pieces of hand-out candy lasted about 2/3 of the way through the night, but we probably brought that many home in those orange bags.

Sunday night, after a week of candy, candy, candy, and more candy, we dumped the dregs of their bags into a container and while we sat and watched this documentary on the King James Bible, told the boys they could eat what they wanted and then it was all going away.

What remained was a motley assortment of nondescript taffies, hard candies, jaw breakers, bubble gum, and suckers--the undesirables of every Halloween stash, the candy that kids begrudgingly eat when they've already got a gut full of Snickers and Milk Duds and candy corn, the candy they keep pawing through, hoping to find one more Hershey Bar, or Star Burst, or even a pack of Dots--a Tootsie Roll!; the second-class candy of bank teller windows and summer parades. They were sad to see it go, but not terribly sad.

And it has now been scattered to the wind in the final resting ground of unwanted junk food--the break room at work.

Happy Halloween!

Why is Mormon-bashing Ok?

2011-10-21T14:44:00.003-04:00

"You can’t be openly racist, sexist, or anti-Semitic in America. But anti-Mormon? Go for it...."

In case anyone who reads this blog isn't friends with me on Facebook, I wanted to share this article. This topic is a hot one at our house these days. It does seem unfair doesn't it? Protecting minorities, all except Mormons. I think especially in many academic circles, making fun of Mormons is perfectly acceptable. The beginning of the article is a perfect example.

Thank you to the Christian Science Monitor, and the author (who is not a Mormon) for addressing this issue. Here it is

Getting Better

2011-10-09T17:46:00.006-04:00

For a while I was a pretty frequent blogger. But lately, not very much. I am going to do better. Oh yes!

The Student has been doing a lot of that lately, studenting, or studying if you want to get technical. His Comprehensive Exam is next month, and he's less nervous than I expected. Also, he's teaching two sections of Intro to Fiction at Tech, two classes for BYU-Idaho online, compiling all the necessary things to apply to jobs (CV, Vita, Letters of recommendations, etc.)*, planning out the rest of his dissertation, managing to stay on top of things for the Elders Quorum at church and still trying to be a great husband and father.

Yeah, he's kind of busy. But most nights we eat dinner together and lots of nights he still puts kiddos to bed. Which of course involves reading Peter Pan, I'm not sure who is liking it more! Sometimes he moonlights as a kitchen fairy. Can I call my husband a fairy? But the kitchen is magically clean when I get up some days, and I SO appreciate it.

I am taking a break from doula and Childbirth Ed work while I regroup and figure things out. I had a rough couple of weeks, some things I'm trying to move forward from. I want to get back into it, but right now I still have a bit of a dirty taste in my mouth. Sad, but true. It will get better at some point and I'm sure I'll feel more excited about it like I did earlier this year. Yes, I will!

Mostly I try to keep track of the boys, running them here there and everywhere and keep the house somewhat organized and picked up. I try to squeeze in some organ practice for my calling at church (which still pretty much terrifies me every week) and cook healthy dinners, remember picture day, show and tell day, keep the clothes clean, and all that other mom stuff I'm supposed to do. But sometimes we eat the same food three meals in a row and children (or I!) pull things out to the dirty laundry to wear and I step over and ignore the pile in my room. Just in case anybody wondered if I had it all together. I don't :)

Mr. Baseball turned 8 recently and his Baptism is coming up this Saturday! He's excited and ready, I think knows way more about the gospel than I did when I was 8! He came out of his interview with the Bishop today smiling, so I think he's all set. We recently finished ready the Book of Mormon as a family because reading it all together before he turned 8 was our goal. When we started he struggled through 1 verse. And now he plows through a column at a time, we even have to tell him when it's another person's turn to read. The change in him is amazing!

He reads about everything he can get his hands on but especially love Boxcar Children, loves his new bike and practices the piano every day willingly even if he doesn't really want to. (Good boy! I'm absolutely convinced he'll thank me one day) He's gotten be to very helpful around the house and doesn't beg to watch TV or play Wii. whew!

I often find myself thinking, how did he get so big and grown up. When he pours his own bowl of cereal, eats it and clears off his dish I start to think, wow he hardly needs me anymore. But I know he still does and will for a long time, and I'm happy to oblige. He's a fun kid. And he even taught me how to throw a football on Thursday. I have a feeling it's one of many, many things he'll teach me.
The Monkey's life has changed a lot this fall. Preschool has started on Tuesdays and Thursdays, which means some adjusting to getting ready in the morning without a long time to play. Some days I hear about a brand new knee injury that "just started hurting!" or how he'll never get to play Legos again if he stops right now, but I know he really loves preschool so I just ignore it and help him get ready with lots of hugs and send him off. He comes home singing cute little songs he's learned and telling me about all the things he got to do and play and who he played with. I'm glad all-day kindergarten isn't until next year!

The Monkey started soccer this fall too. We've had to deal with some of the same excuses when it comes to practice and games, but when he actually gets out there on the field he smiles and runs and kicks and smiles a lot more. He's made a few goals at his games, but mostly I'm happy he's having fun, even if I ask him about it he might insist that he's not! It's too much running, he says. Yeah, I think you're right Monkey, boy, but I know deep inside under the whining you like it!

Today he did a magic trick for me with 2 cards. It was hilarious and very cute at the same time, he was so proud of himself. The Monkey always makes us laugh.

Little Bruiser isn't so bruising these days. Although I get comments from strangers all the time, "How old is he? He is big!" Yes, he's still a big boy, but thinning out a little around the middle. His little thighs are still chubby though, squeezeably chubby! And I'm so glad because then I think he's still a baby.

He's gotten a little more picky with his food lately, throwing it and the dishes even farther than he used to. He's definitely more insistent about the things he wants and doesn't want. Which is cute and trying at the same time. I remember this phase with the older two and thinking how hard it is when your sweet little angel starts have their own will and opinion about everything. I just want to enjoy all his sweet baby-ness before the Terrible Two (and Three) Monster gobbles him up! I know from experience he'll still be adorable, but the sweet, sweet baby part will be gone.

Today he was saying "Run!" with his hands up as he ran back and forth between the living room and family room. He loves football. Apparently more than other balls and sports (uh oh, we're in trouble) because he always chooses a football over the other balls available in the house. And when there is a football at the park that he can't have because it's not ours, he kind-of flips out. Today we had to leave the small white plastic Ohio University one in the car when we went into church today and you would have thought I just told him he could never eat ice cream again in his life. Oh the boy loves footballs.

As a family we're enjoying bike rides in the neighborhood, playing games together on Sundays, sometimes Life or Monopoly but lots of Carcasonne lately. Eating together for dinner at night and enjoying new treats like Lemon Crinkle Cookies. I love my family. I should blog about them more. 'Cause they're a pretty neat bunch.

PS. In case you're wondering about Copper, he loves his new food which is mostly beef now instead corn, he can't stand to be left behind when we go for a walk or bike ride (he usually gets to come!) and he waits patiently near Little Bruisers high chair for little treats to rain down. Yep, that about sums up his little doggie life right now.

* We've decided applying to "real" jobs is the best thing for him to do right now, and if nothing comes of it, we can still stick around here for another year. We'll be sad to leave, but a "real" job sounds so appealing, doesn't it :) Not that a "real" job will solve all of our problems, but it just feels like the right thing to do right now.

Fall family photos

2011-10-02T15:21:00.003-04:00

Before the Sunday session of conference this morning we got the kids dressed and we headed over to campus and took some family photos. The boys were great and the pictures came out great, even though we found the only place in Lubbock still wet enough for mosquitoes to grow. Here Mr. Baseball is about to kill one.

Mr. Baseball really likes the camera and this is the least posed-looking shot we could get him to take.

We forgot--well, we couldn't find--the tripod, so we brought a paint stool and a kid's folding chair and a phone book and that worked okay.
Is it a bird? a plane? No, it's mom going crazy trying to get the baby to smile for the camera.

Can you tell me how to get....how to get to sesame street?

He looks so willing to smile for the camera. Looks can be deceiving.

We had one of him too slouchy, and another one too stiff, and this one, just right. This is looking natural without trying to look natural.

Fall on the South plains

2011-09-20T07:52:00.009-04:00

We're still hanging around here in Lubbock, despite what our lack of blog-tivity might suggest. It's finally cooling off here and we've been taking advantage of it as much as possible.

The Little Bruiser likes to play in the dirt.
Our big meal before school started.
Mr. Baseball is in second grade now!
And the monkey has started pre-school!

We went to a little balloon festival at the SW end of town. It was actually raining that morning for the first time in forever and a lot of the balloon teams weren't sure if they were going to take off. The funny thing was, I've been going to balloon festivals in Oregon for years, so the wet and the rain felt just like it should.
The Little Bruiser liked to point...

We had to wait about an hour for the weather to clear, but eventually, most of the balloons took off.

We've talked occasionally about getting into ballooning. but we asked one team about start up costs and I think the figure they gave us was $35,000. So...maybe someday...

The Little Monkey also started soccer..."The Little Texans"
The monkey scored a goal during his first game, but he's really hit his stride on defense. He's gotten quite good at clearing out the ball. He talked about wanting to play soccer for months, but now that he's going, he occasionally has a hard time getting up the energy for "all that running," as he says.

We all went to the first game and didn't even think about sunscreen and at bath time that night they all looked like lobsters.

High fives all around at the end of the game.

We hope you are all enjoying the fall wherever you are. We hope you've got pumpkins on the porch, and leaves on the ground and sweat shirts by the door.

To everyone who helped make our trip to Japan possible…

2011-08-29T00:58:00.008-04:00

I’d like to report on our experiences and express our gratitude for your financial and moral support. The week we spent working in Japan was at once humbling and heartening and neither of us will ever forget it.

We flew out of LAX on a red-eye flight Monday morning August 1 with our cousins, Julie and Quinn Hess, and arrived in Tokyo early Tuesday morning. From Tokyo we took a 4-hour bus ride to Sendai and then a 1-hour train ride to Furukawa, the small town north of Sendai that would serve as our home for the week. We stayed in an apartment paid for by our church and spent the week working as members of a Mormon Helping Hands service tour in surrounding areas affected by the Tsunami. We worked for 5 days and left Furukawa on a night bus on Monday night at 10:30 pm after our last day of work. We arrived in Tokyo on Tuesday morning and after some sightseeing, caught another red-eye flight out of Tokyo Just after Midnight.

That is the short version…

The long version involves such a mix of beautiful, green scenery, devastated neighborhoods, resilient faces, and humbling service opportunities that it is difficult for me to know where to start. How to describe the sensation of winding down a country road through rice fields and scattered villages only to come around a corner and be confronted with a pile of garbage three stories tall? And then another pile, and another, and another? Or a 70-foot fishing boat listing in the gravel of an empty lot a half-mile from the coast? Or car after car after crushed and mangled car stacked like Legos—unclaimed and anonymous

Or the row of townhouses bloated and empty, seeping with four months of raw sewage, silt, and the crumbling remnants of the lives that once thrived there? And across the parking lot from that row of townhouses, the impossibility of clean laundry hanging from a first floor balcony of a rebuilt apartment, and a family inside living on despite the emptiness and destruction that lies around them for blocks and blocks and blocks?

The long version centers on this row of townhouses—about ten of them, all lined up with their rear sliding doors open, hanging off their tracks, cracked and broken, the interior mess of each apartment spilling out into the alleyway. The Tsunami brought water through those back doors and filled the apartments to the first-floor ceilings. When the water receded the second-floors had been all but untouched, but the first-floors were covered in mud, grass, sticks, raw sewage, and the occasional dead fish. The furniture of each apartment had been tipped over, flipped upside down, filled with mud, and plastered with all manner of foulness.

The old man who owns the townhouses had tried to start the clean-up on his own, but his wife had fallen sick, and so he sought out the Church’s help. Our job was to gut each apartment so that professionals could come in and remodel the bottom floors. Our goal, according to Brother Asano, our service coordinator, was to take care of the big mess in order to revive the old man’s desire to carry on.

The long version would have to include Brother Asano and his dear wife. They lost their home in the Tsunami, but have spent the past four months working non-stop organizing service tours for groups like ours. Six days a week Brother Asano leads volunteers out of Furukawa and into the disaster area, working from house to house by invitation.

At times he has had dozens in his group, at others just a few. The work is slow, dirty, and tedious, but over the weeks and months since the Tsunami, they have helped many families move back into their homes. In addition, Brother Asano receives about 100 care packages a month from LDS congregations around Japan. He and his wife divide up the packages of food, clothing, and essentials, and they deliver them to needy families all over the area. They welcomed us, encouraged us, let us use their internet to keep in touch with family, and fed us the most amazing Tacoyaki (Octopus dough balls) for dinner on our last night in Furukawa.

The long version would also have to include the Junior High school in Natori where we spent two days with several other volunteer groups folding, stapling, taping, boxing, and stacking hundreds of paper lanterns that would be used for a summer festival in the middle of August. At first, we weren’t sure that lantern making would be a good use of our time, but then we learned that the members of the community usually in charge of the lantern making were killed in the Tsunami, along with 1000 other people. And we learned that each year at the festival, people write the names of their diceased loved ones on the lanterns and set them afloat down the Natori River as a memorial and guide to the dead. This year, of course, the need for lanterns in this small community has increased significantly.

And then there was the elementary school down the street from the Junior High where we stopped to use the restroom and found an entire gym full of family photo albums, pictures, wedding albums, yearbooks, snapshots, and other photographs that had been found by the Japanese military during the initial sweeps of the disaster area. All these images were sorted and stacked, or else hung by clothespins around the room. A basket of unscathed yearbooks lay beneath a string of individual photographs so scratched and warped as to make the faces barely recognizable.

Each image cleaned and scanned by a volunteer, each image a tiny relic, a miniature shrine to the displaced, the dead, and the missing. On our second day at the Junior High, Jason found a wedding album that had washed in through a second-story window and we took it over to the elementary school to add it to the collection.

And I have to mention Takumi. He’s 18. He lives with his family in Yokohama. He came on his own accord to Furukawa several weeks before we arrived and will stay several weeks after we leave. He’s been a constant face in sea of changing volunteers, has endured many days of being the only Japanese speaker in the apartment, and quietly rises from his bed in the morning to serve. Japan is full of people like him.

We mucked and shoveled and bagged and lifted and carried and swept, and then we paused to drink water beneath an unseasonably cool and cloudy sky, and then went back at it. We stopped at convenience stores to buy lunches and snacks and mingled with the local workforce that went about their day with such determined normalcy that I often felt like just another cog in a giant clock, slowly ticking backward, in a layer-by-layer undoing of the disaster that has laid itself over the coast.

The magnitude of the damage, the human and economic cost of such a natural disaster is difficult to wrap my mind around. Our service was barely a drop in the bucket of what must be done to rebuild, of what it will take a decade or more to complete, and it is this that impresses me so much about the Japanese people. The job will get done slowly, one house at a time, one neighborhood at a time, one village at a time but it will get done.

Of course, the work of rebuilding the Tohoku coast will take a steady stream of financial support and willing hands to do the dirty work. Your donation helped us contribute in our small way to the strengthening of that stream and we are ever grateful for your generosity and compassion.

If there is a country anywhere in the world with the cooperative spirit and tenacity necessary to accomplish such a reconstruction, then Japan is that country, and by that fact we are humbled and encouraged.

Thank you again for helping us making this possible.

-Joey and Jason

Help me help Japan! $1,000 and counting

2011-07-13T11:25:00.005-04:00

So last week I found out about an opportunity to go to Japan and help with the Tsunami clean up efforts during the month of August. The LDS Church's Helping Hands Volunteer Network (MHH) is organizing service tours to the Tohoku region and supplying housing for anyone who can come.
So far more than 10,000 MHH volunteers have given more than 100,000 hours of service, but there is still a huge mess to clean up. Specifically, there is a need for boots on the ground to go through the rubble and help clean out houses and gardens, and help residents salvage their belongings.

I served an LDS mission in Japan for two years when I was nineteen and the QB and I took Mr. Baseball back to Japan five years ago to teach English. We love Japan, the people, the land, and the culture and were as shocked and devastated as everyone by the footage coming out of Tohoku. I've wondered for a long time about a concrete way to help, and this service opportunity really feels like a good fit.

My brother Jason and I have decided we'd like to go help for a week during the first of August, but while we have the room in our schedule and the youth in our backs to do it, we don't necessarily have the money. I'm a graduate student and he's trying to get a new business off the ground and left to our own budgets, a service trip like this would be impossible.

We've put the word out to family, friends, and the world of Facebook and the response has been incredible.

We have raised nearly a $1,000 dollars already in just five days. However, the minimum cost to make this trip work will be closer to $1800.

If you or anyone you know would like to help out, please contact us soon.

Your donation, whether $200 dollars or $20, will directly contribute to 10 working days of labor in the clean up effort (five each) and will be greatly appreciated by us and the people we serve in Japan.

If you've wanted to do something concrete to help, and wanted to see your financial contributions in action, then this is a great opportunity.

If you've already donated, thank you. And please, pass on the word.

Thanks!

joey dot franklin at gmail dot com.

A Walk through our summer so far...

2011-06-28T00:47:00.006-04:00

The Little Bruiser's face in this picture says it all. Hot, but happy. We're on to day 19 of 100+ degree weather here in Lubbock, but our spirits (along with our electric bill) are up.

We've looked for shade in the strangest places, but we just can't get out of the heat.
Even at the amusement park, under the canopy of the carrousel, we could feel it.

It takes a lot for an outcome person like me to ride something like this, especially so many coasters! Honestly, I was surprised at how hard it was to just "sit" at an amusement park. Perhaps it would have been different if I'd not been totally preoccupied by an irrational fear that the little bruiser would freak out mid ride and be stuck 20 feet in the air with a disgruntled one-year-old. But the QB and Mr. Baseball definitely enjoyed it.

The boys and the QB went on this ride twice. It was fun this year with the Monkey because he wasn't afraid to ride some of the bigger rides.

We bought our first kiddie pool this year. And thanks to Sonic's happy hour, the boys got to cool down from the inside out.
On the last day of school we went to a big park on the east side of town and tried not to make many sudden movements in the heat.

The boys all through sticks in the water. Well, the little bruiser watched his older brothers throw sticks in the water.
This year Mr. Baseball played machine pitch little league. We thought t-ball was overly competative, but machine pitch takes the cake. He spent most of his time in left field because he was one of the younger players (the team is made of 7-8 year olds), but he got called in to the infield every once in a while to help out when some of the older boys were having trouble.
Left field was home for Mr. Baseball this year. At first he had a hard time with the fact that he didn't get to be in on every play, but he started making some great throws to keep runners from advancing and decided it wasn't so bad to play in the outfield.

I took him to the batting cages back in February so he could try out hitting off the machine and he did great. But once the season started he really struggled to hit the ball. But by the third or fourth game he was hitting regularly and feeling more confident. Still, when he struck out he was pretty hard on himself. Once he made it to first base but then running to second on the next play the ball was a pop fly out and he didn't go back to first to tag up and ended up getting thrown out. I think he felt a little embarrassed about his goof up, and he told me through the dug out fence: "I want to punch the player who got me out, punch him right in the face." We're working on anger management with him.

Like all the players, Mr. Baseball got to choose his number. Why 99? Why not?

That's him, ready to run at first base.

The Super Fans--Monkey and little Bruiser came to just about every game (except for the ones that started at 8pm--yuck).
Here are the boys way back in March on the day of Mr. Baseball's first practice. Notice the brown grass. It's still that brown, unfortunately ( I can't bear to water, for economic and environmental reasons).
The Little Bruiser wishes he were three feet taller. We have since rounded up a small hoop for him so he can play "ba ba" along with the brothers.

The Monkey and a mystery friend.
Need a haircut, maybe?
We visited Utah back in March and got some great family pics. We kept forgetting to bring the camera along though, so we actually didn't get as many as we wanted to.

Franklin cousins at the Salt Lake Temple. Difficult to get them all to make straight faces.
I think I posted this before, but while at Temple Square with Jason and the cousins we randomly ran into Nana and Papa. It was a nice treat.
The Monkey...getting so tall!

We stayed at The QB's middle sister's house in Utah and the kiddos did a lot of eating and mess making together.

Happy Mother's Day...in Art...

2011-05-08T15:40:00.003-04:00

The QB loves art. If we could spend every weekend jet-setting to some new city to walk around the airy halls of museum after museum, she'd be all for it (and I'd need a better pair of shoes).

On our third date, she took me to the Portland Art Museum to see how I would handle myself among all those oily canvases (though she swears the date wasn't a test). We've been married almost nine years now, so I think I passed, even though it wasn't really a test.

Right.

So, to say Happy Mother's day, I'm giving her a virtual trip through an exhibit I've had personally curated right here on our blog.

Love you Honey!

Mother and Child, Richard Hamilton (British, born 1922)

Limestone statuette of a childbirth scene, ca. 310–30 B.C.; Hellenistic

A Young Mother, 1896, cast ca. 1906

Bessie Potter Vonnoh (American, St. Louis, Missouri 1872–1955

Alexandre Cabanel (French, Montpellier 1823–1889 Paris)

Title: Catharine Lorillard Wolfe (1828–1887)

Leonaert Bramer (Dutch, Delft 1596–1674 Delft)
Title: The Judgment of Solomon

Vincent van Gogh (Dutch, Zundert 1853–1890 Auvers-sur-Oise)

Title: Madame Roulin and Her Baby

Kahlil Gibran (Lebanese, 1883–1931)
Title: Towards the Infinite (Kamila Gibran, mother of the artist)

Benjamin West (American, Swarthmore, Pennsylvania 1738–1820 London)
Title: Maternity

Orazio Borgianni (Italian, Rome 1574–1616 Rome)
Title: Head of an Old Woman

Pablo Picasso (Spanish, Malaga 1881–1973 Mougins, France)
Title: Mother and Child by a Fountain

I love you. You are everything to us and we are blessed to be yours. Happy Mother's Day

I am grateful for Moms...

2011-05-08T07:58:00.006-04:00

So I've been sitting here trying to think of some inclusive way to thank all the mothers in my life, to describe them in a way that accentuates and honors their womanhood and their motherhood and their humanity in general, some way to describe what my own mother has meant to me and to my little family, what my wife means to me and to our kids, what my mother-in-law means to all of us, some way to describe the generational influence of grandmothers and aunts and sisters and even kindly neighbors and sweet baby sitters who have provided and continue to provide a female presence in my and my children's life, but every time I sit down to do it I end up with a list of things they "do" that on the one hand makes them sound really good, but on the other hand implies a certain set of cultural expectations about what women "should" do that I fear may turn into a list of ways women can feel inadequate.

(That's a long way of saying that too often the pedestal we sometimes like to put women on can, if we're not careful, become a whipping post--and I wish this was my original idea, but its an old feminist mantra).

Consider this. The QB is a wonderful mother. But when I try to qualify that I end up with a list of chores she accomplishes well, a set of qualities she exhibits (patience, kindness, sacrifice, etc) when interacting with me and the boys. But that's not what makes her wonderful. Those are fine of course (particularly her blender pancakes and her rendition of "peek-a-boo"); However, they are not HER, but rather manifestations of who she IS.

And she manifests different attributes and characteristics differently depending on the time of day, the number of kids screaming, and the likelihood that I've remembered to put the lid back on the milk.

But she is still HER, regardless of what she is doing, or saying, or whispering through clenched teeth (though she does that rarely).

Let me put it another way. Dads like myself get a lot of credit from a lot of people just for showing up. Taking the boys to the store, or simply being in the same place with them qualifies me for "What a good Dad" comments all day long.

It is enough, apparently, in the eyes of many, for me to just "be." But rarely, particularly on mother's day, do any of us express our gratitude for the simple presence, the existence, the perseverance of the women in our lives. Perhaps its because fathers have a long, lame history of absenteeism that a man's mere presence is lauded as an accomplishment (not much of a bar, if you ask me), but this should be cause for even greater appreciation for women who, in the very act of "being" demonstrate a measure of sacrifice and love that too many men can't even begin to fathom.

So, today I celebrate Mother's day by saying thank you to my wife, my mother, my mother-in-law, my sisters, and friends, not for what you do, but for who you are. For what you are. Thank you for BEING, thank you for persevering, thank you for working out your own existence the best you can.

Thank you for showing up!

100% done! (okay, more like 95%, but whose counting)

2011-05-08T07:23:00.004-04:00

Okay, so this is the last kitchen remodel post, but since I finished the kitchen while she was out of town for her sister's graduation from BYU, I wanted to post some final before/after photos. There's no way I could have done this by myself. In addition to all the work the QB did earlier on in the project, I had 20 hours of volunteer work from my dedicated home teachers and my good friend Groooover.

And if you want to see all the juicy details, here's a link to the facebook album with play by play shots of all the changes.

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150171709089175.346146.680149174&l=0ee8b3a1f3

He's ALIVE!!!!! er... well we knew that...He WALKS!

2011-05-04T23:55:00.003-04:00

The Little Bruiser has been teasing us with half steps over the past few weeks, but this week he finally let loose and really walked. All it took was the tempting offer of half a Swedish fish dangling in front of him.

Walking is a big deal around here for us since he weighs nearly 30 pounds and we are all getting a little worn out carrying him around.

Next up, Mr. Baseball learns to drive....yikes...at least we've got a few years to prepare for that!

The Kitchen (for those of you who haven't seen pictures yet)

2011-03-27T23:10:00.002-04:00

We've (kind of) finished the (partial) remodel of our kitchen and we are (exhausted and) thrilled to have a high-functioning cooking area to work with.

Here's a public link to the facebook album.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=346146&id=680149174&l=0ee8b3a1f3

The whole project took a little under two weeks to complete, during which time we lived off whatever we could cook in our living room with the microwave and the toaster oven (a lot of toaster waffles, burritos, and canned soup....).

The project had a number of unforeseen hiccups (large vent pipe that had to be slightly rerouted, cabinet base that needed replacing, sink that wouldn't fasten down, brand new faucet that wouldn't work, electrical wiring that needed repair), but all the wrinkles ironed themselves out and we're pleased with it. We still need to paint walls and cabinets, but we're pleased.

In other news:

The QB started her Doula training and will finish that and her childbirth educator training about the same time and hopefully she can start attending a few births a month at the local hospital (She really should tell you all about it).

Mr. Baseball has started baseball again. This years it's machine pitch and the game is a lot more serious (as if last year it wasn't serious enough). He's having a little trouble hitting the ball off the machine, but its his first time. They won their first game and he loves to get dressed up and get out on the field.

The Monkey went from being a bored-to-death pre-preschooler who missed his older brother when he went off to school to being almost too busy. He has pre-school coop on Monday mornings and soccer basics on Monday nights. He has art and music too and spends at least an hour on sunny days out in the backyard playing basketball on his plastic goal.

The Little Bruiser has learned to sign "more" when he wants something else to eat (though he usually squawks along with the sign to let us know. He also blew a kiss to the QB and me tonight after dinner. No walking yet, but its only a matter of time.

Me. Sick. Again. I've been sick off and on since February 1. Time to go to the Doctor.

It's the medicine talking...

2011-03-20T22:53:00.002-04:00

So, Mr. Baseball has been sick since we got home from our spring break trip to Utah (more pictures later) and he came out of his room about five minutes ago, face all pillow-pressed and hair askew:

Mr Baseball: "Dad...the chair...explain...my foot...what..expect?"

Me: "What?"

Mr Baseball: "I'm just...the shelf...I'm needing...the escalator..."

Me: "Son, You haven't made a clear sentence."

Mr. Baseball: "That's because I don't have any clear sentence(sic)"

All the time, he was rubbing the side of his head with the palm of his right hand and giving me a half smile as if he were about to laugh at a joke he hadn't yet told me. I asked him if he needed something and he managed a "No," before walking back into his room and going back to sleep.

Go figure.

Little Bruiser Turns 1

2011-02-20T23:35:00.003-05:00

First ride on the car!

Free hats and balloons at Toys R Us!

Still loves the car most of the time

Following mom around the kitchen (soon to be remodeled, isn't the primer lovely!?)

Loves the bath!

How'd he get so big so fast!? We're sure enjoying Little Bruiser tagging along in our family.
His first word was dog (dahg dahg) and now he likes to say Hi, Nur (nurse for breastfeeding), Uh-Dah for Daddy. He doesn't say mama much, but he sure wants to see me all the time!

He seems pretty content with crawling and pulling up when he needs to, so who knows when he'll decide to walk! This fits perfectly with his go-with-the-flow personality.

He'll eat just about anything we give him, hence the Little Bruiser nick name. Around the house he's usually known as Chubby or Chubster, although he is thinning out just a bit. For instance, we can see his neck very clearly now! And when he takes a bath his belly doesn't hang down on all sides. But he's still the heftiest kid so far, weighing in at 25 lbs. Whoa!

We had kind of a crazy day for his birthday, but I was able to take him to play at the Mall and to Toys-R-Us and snapped pictures all along the way. He loved the dogs at the pet store in the mall and especially liked the balloons they gave him at Toys R Us.

We love his infectious giggle and cocked eyebrow he flashes sometimes! He's sure cute and fun to have around.

In case you haven't heard of Jimmer Fredette

2011-02-18T10:54:00.002-05:00

In case you don't follow college basketball, I thought I'd clue you in on BYU' senior phenom, Jimmer Fredette. He is currently the nations scoring leader (last I heard at least) and regularly hits three point shots from 30 feet out (that's several feet passed the NBA 3-point line if you didnt know. He's had at least four games with more than 40 points and he's gained quite a cult following.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VZkrYKITL-o

Sign #148 that the world is coming to an end:

2011-01-27T11:11:00.001-05:00

There was a time when I had a little respect for this guy...

What goes on four legs in the morning? Or...thoughts on death and baby's first steps

2011-01-24T00:00:00.005-05:00

The ancient sphinx used to sit on its haunches outside Thebes twirling a bone between its teeth and waiting for travelers to pass under her long, winged shadow. Those who were unfortunate enough to cross her path were forced to answer a riddle, and those who failed to provide an acceptable answer were eaten, end of discussion--literally.

The riddle goes like this...

What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?

Apparently, until Oedipus came along, the sphinx had, with this one sad riddle, lived nicely on a steady diet of not-so-clever Grecians, or, as I like to think of it, incredulous Grecians who didn't like the premise of the riddle to begin with and who refused to participate on principle and ended up dying for a set of convictions that would have made any 21st century PhD in English proud?

I mean, really, is it fair to expect a Grecian traveler to surmise that "morning, noon, and evening" are metaphors, especially when they're staring down the business end of winged cat-bird with a woman's face and a well-documented taste for human flesh, her breath wreaking of falafel, man sweat, and sandal leather?

No. It's not. But what really bugs me is that this scene is the most famous riddle scene in all of Western literature (I honestly can't think of any others, can you?), and the riddle is...well...lame.

Still, its what I thought of yesterday when I took this video:

I said something to the QB about how we all start and end life in the same way, and I thought to myself about how a child's first steps are charged with hope and anticipation and excitement (and dad and mom speaking in rather silly voices), and how none of that accompanies the slow, hobbled, steps of an old woman maneuvering her walker around the edge of her single-size bed that sits tucked in the corner of her care-center-studio-apartment like some over-sized pharmaceutical tablet--her frail hips one false-step away from cracking like a spent robin egg lying in the grass underfoot.

The first step and the last, life's genesis and its coda--this is what they mean when they say life can flash before your eyes--that I can see my ailing grandmothers in the sweet steps of my youngest child, and that in both images, I ultimately see myself.

Daily Snippet

2011-01-19T15:09:00.003-05:00

I find I have less time for the blog than I'd like. But I don't want to say "forget it". So here's a daily snippet, the first of many (or at least a few more maybe).

2:07pm Wednesday
I'm on the couch in the family room with the laptop. Little Bruiser is asleep, The Monkey is outside playing in the warm sunshine (I know you're thinking it's cold and it's January! Oh yeah, we live in Lubbock, with only tiny pockets of actual winter, so it's probably nearly 60 outside) Mr. Baseball is at school and so is the Student, but only until 3:30 when they'll both come home and I'll finally go work out. I feel gross because I didn't shower since I'm working out at 4pm instead of 6:30 am when I didn't want to get out of bed this morning.

I'm trying to narrow down which books to recommend at Book Club on Friday night. Here's what
s running in my head:
"So many I want to read, but aren't they supposed to be ones I've read and can recommend? I like this particular one, haven't read it, but the student says it's good. Wait. Are all these books things I would recommend or The Student's recommendations? Does it matter? Will they think I don't have my own taste in books? What if nobody wants to read these books, oh but I'm sure some of them will. I'm sure everyone will love this one. And I have read parts of it. But it's the same type of book as that other one." etc.

And while I'm thinking this I look at the mess on the floor I should be cleaning up, specifically:
today's newspaper
a load of laundry in a new storage bin (because we only have 1 laundry basket)
plastic blocks
empty smoothie cup
stack of BirthWorks papers and books
my purse
the telephone
Mr. Baseball's old stuffed dog that needs a permanent keepsake place
2 empty boxes

Not sure what we're having for dinner, but I should probably get on that since I'll be working out during dinner-making-hour.

2:27pm. It really took me 20 minutes to write this? It will be shorter next time.

Have you heard of Wordle?

2011-01-05T23:15:00.002-05:00

So, I published an essay in this online journal a few months ago all about my decision to go by "Joey," instead of Joseph, and today I pasted the entire essay into this geeky cool site called wordle.net, and came up with this:

The site sorts all the words in the essay and then displays them graphically according to their frequency within the essay. Pretty cool. Here's one of the declaration of Independence:

And here is the Sermon on the Mount:

and the lyrics to "YMCA":

So, I know Wordle has been around a long time, but its fun, and I like the idea of words speaking for themselves in a way that's not possible through a simple reading.

a year of projects and great finds

2011-01-03T00:33:00.005-05:00

It has been a year of home improvement projects and great finds off of Craigslist, garage sales, alley ways, and thrift stores. Slowly, we're piecing together a comfortable home, and we're grateful for how much we've been able to do on our budget.

This is the QB's Christmas present--a tv stand to hide all the wires and loose ends that the Little Bruiser likes to play with so much. Inspiration for the project courtesy Ana White, though the design is more or less my own. the cabinet is made almost entirely of scrap wood and spare hardware we had lying around the shed, and the paint is left over from a project we never started back in Ohio.

"You'll shoot your eye out"

When Mr. Baseball fashioned a toy wooden rifle out of a splintered old fence board in the backyard, I knew it was time to do something about his lack of toy firearms. I made these two wooden rifles out of scrap 3/4 inch plywood and sawed-off broom handles. The paint is from a garage sale and the design is from my noggin (with a few looks at some wooden rifles available online).

I did not build this ark (though I wish I had), but I did fix a few broken hinges and the QB and I stayed up late one night repainting all the animals from this garage-sale find.

Perhaps our most exciting Craigslist find. We've been talking about getting a piano for years, and we've been talking in earnest since Mr. Baseball started piano lessons in September. Its a 100-year-old Shoninger and it plays really well ( a little tinny, but considering the student who sold it to us let us have it for $25, we can't complain).

I built these shelves (there are two of them, plus the computer desk I'm typing at right now) last Christmas break, but they still haven't gotten any primer or paint. However, for Christmas this year, the QB got me a spray gun and I borrowed an air compressor, so tomorrow, I'm going to finally finish the job.

The find our boys are most excited about is the Wii. Santa brought it, despite my insistence to Mr. Baseball that Santa would not be bringing any such thing (and he wouldn't have if one of the Wal-Marts in town hadn't been practically giving them away during a special, unadvertised promotion that sent me speeding down the highway on a race to pick one up--a rare moment of impulse Christmas shopping that I neither regret nor wish to repeat any time soon.)

And finally, here's the kitchen table I refinished last May. It was a pealing and shabby garage sale find in Ohio, and we've been meaning to refinish it for a long time, but we finally got to it . The boys helped me sand down the chairs and the top coat of the table only took two tries (after putting on two coats, the finish began to blister and I had to start over completely.)

Crazy December

2011-01-02T23:09:00.004-05:00

We've been so busy lately (and by lately, I mean the past year and a half) that we've done little more than report on events, upload a few photos and add a few captions, with little time for rumination on this long-term project of parenthood that seems to have caught the wind and is coursing out ahead of us faster than we can spool out line to keep it up in the air (eh...that metaphor is almost doing what I want it to, but its nearly 11pm and I'm going to leave it at that). I'm afraid tonight won't be much different, but perhaps its an observation in itself that ruminating about a lack of time to ruminate is about as deep as it gets sometimes (most times) as a parent. Though, I'm not sure that's entirely a bad thing. Hindsight enjoys a little more distance from its subjects than I typically want to give it, and perhaps the rumination on months like this will come later. In the meantime, we've got pictures.

Like this one, of the little bruiser, whose crawling so fast now all we usually get is a blur of fleece pajamas and the residual smell of mashed pees and diaper ointment.

And this one, of the boys and some friends who came over to make gingerbread houses (graham cracker, really) a week or so before Christmas.

Everything worked out...the frosting was thick enough, the crackers didn't break, the kids actually put more candy on the houses than in their stomachs. No tears, no fights, no "why did we do this again," moments from any of the adults involved. It was magical.

We even managed to have a real formal Thanksgiving dinner with our friends, the Grovers. We thought we would be eating alone (all four of the families we invited had sick kids or plans or t travel that kept them from coming), but bad Utah weather ended up keeping them from traveling and so they joined us for dinner. There were four adults and three little kids and we had enough food to feed four times that many (including four pies. There would have been three, but about two hours before dinner was supposed to start, I realized there was no chocolate planned for dessert, so I put together this chocolate cream pie!)

On Christmas Eve we went to the Mall. Yeah, I know. Crazy. But we got there right around 9 AM when they opened and the place was empty enough to get through the Santa line in about 5 minutes and have plenty of time and elbow room to romp around on the indoor play structure (for which Mr. Baseball is hopelessly too tall, but as we were all but alone there, we figured he'd be okay as long as he didn't jump too much).
Boys...no rumination necessary....they're grand!

A rare cold moment this December. We've spent so much time together the past few weeks, working and playing and getting ready for Christmas. We were very sad to not see any family, though, and it made us appreciate the distance that really does separate us from those we care most about. Texas never feels larger than when we imagine traveling to visit our parents and siblings.