Not for the Faint

Fatherhood--no piece of cake, I can tell you that.  Everything--good and bad--seems to come in extremes: soaring highs, crushing frustrations, and occasionally, unparalleled nausea.

The other day, I came home late and missed dinner but still inherited the dinner mess.  I was cleaning up the dishes and, like many parents, found that the kids had left some perfectly good food on their plates.  J3, for example, had pulled the cheese off of his pizza and had left it there on his plate.  So I ate it.  Waste not, want not, you know.

Later that week, J3 and I were talking about favorite meals and I asked him about the pizza.  "I noticed that you didn't eat the cheese from your pizza the other night.  I thought you liked cheese pizza."

"I do," he answered, "but there was a problem--the cheese all came off and when I tried to eat it, I choked on it and had to spit it back out onto my plate."

Yeah.  True story.

Fatherhood is definitely not for the faint of heart.

Or the faint of stomach.

So, to all you steel-stomached dads out there, HAPPY FATHERS DAY!  You've earned it.

MOJ

Sleep Deprivation is Not Nearly as Fun as People Say It Is

Beethoven--sort of

I was driving L to the church for a youth activity this morning and, while en route, doing what I do: singing random snippets of music.  She asked me what song I was singing, and I answered, "I don't know.  I'm making it up as we go along."  Then I explained how sometimes little tunes will get in my head and tumble around there while I try out different words with the tune.  I whistled the stretch I had been playing with all morning.

"Sounds like Beethoven," was her response.

Beethoven!?  Wow!  I was floored that she would think of him when hearing my music.  A little surge of pride began filling my heart.

Mid-surge, however, she finished her thought: "He's the deaf one, right?"

Um, yeah.

I think I'll just be keeping my future compositions to myself.

MOJ

Busy Kissing

Wedding Bells

My little brother got married this week.

So happy for him.  He's such a good guy, but he's gotten an advance degree or two from the School of Hard Knocks, in terms of life, and work, and relationships.  There have been times where it looked like things would just never go his way.  But he never gave up.  I admire him a lot for that.

And then--finally--he met her, and she's great: down-to-earth, loving, always smiling.  It's so nice to see them together.

And she went through with the wedding even after getting to know us!

Now that's love!

MOJ