Touch

Robert and I just started watching a new tv show called "Touch." (For those of you who suffered through "the longest day of our lives" with Jack Bauer in "24," you'll recognize the main actor, Kiefer Sutherland.) I found the premise very interesting. His (Kiefer Sutherland's) 11 year old son is autistic, and has never spoken, but he thinks in numbers and can spot mathematical patterns everywhere. Every person and series of events is connected, and this boy can spot all the patterns and "invisible threads" that link them together. He figures out how to communicate this to his father through patterns of numbers, and the father has to stop certain events from happening - or make sure that other events do happen.

It made me think a lot about the idea that certain people on totally opposite sides of the planet who have never met are linked by invisible connections that change all of their lives. According to this show, it is "the Universe" (whatever vague entity that may be...it kind of reminds me of "the Force" from Star Wars, both indefinable and impersonal) that connects these people together and contains the hidden mathematical patterns that calculate their connections. Surprising as it may sound, I found this completely plausible. I just believe the source is something - or rather, Someone - far more specific than "the Universe." God created everything - people, continents, space, time, the past, the present, and the future. I believe He sees it all from the outside. Is it stretching too far to believe He has orchestrated, down to the exact moment and location, the events of our lives, the people we meet, the things that happen to us - or don't happen to us?

In one scene (hopefully I'm not giving too much away), the main character has been searching for a specific phone number at a specific location at a specific time. He arrives at the place only to discover that another person is using the pay phone he has been so desperately searching for. He tries to persuade the man that he needs the phone - it's a matter of life and death - but he ends up getting into a fistfight with the man over the phone instead! The essential minute passes and, distraught, he returns home thinking he has missed that crucial moment forever. Imagine his shock when he sees on the news the same man he fought with, who has  just saved a bus-load of children from certain death. The momentary delay their struggle afforded caused the man to miss his train, thus placing him in exactly the right place at the right time. This reminds me so much of how God works. What both men saw as trouble, a delay, a missed opportunity turned out to be instrumental in the saving of others. How many jobs have we not gotten, people have we not married, places have we not gone, or things have we not done that seemed like failures at the time, only to discover later how much God has used them for our benefit, to give us something so much better? It gives me such great hope to think all my steps are guided and ordained by Someone who loves me so much and has such an amazing plan for my life, even when I can't see it at the moment.

While "Touch" is missing the essential point of the Great God of the Universe being the one to orchestrate all these events, it does have some very positive elements. (Based on the 2 episodes that I've watched...it's brand-new, so I can only judge based on the limited evidence I have so far!) I like that it's optimistic- people who don't know each other affecting each other's lives in positive ways, caring about people they've never met, saving people they have no selfish motivation to save. People making each other better, even through momentary interaction. So many popular tv shows are about the pursuit of justice after a crime has been committed, and while I believe that's important, sometimes it can get very depressing. This show is all about ordinary people preventing bad things from happening to others. I like it because it's hopeful. Thus far, it gets a big thumbs up from me.

Monday's Top 10: Animated Characters

Top Ten Favorite Supporting Characters in Animated Movies

1. The King - Cinderella
I really don't like Cinderella's prince AT ALL (starting with the fact that he doesn't have a real name, just "Charming" - I bet he got beat up by the other princes at the Royal Academy...but that's a whole 'nother post). His father, however, is AWESOME. The poor guy just wants grandchildren, for crying out loud! And his rotten son just refuses to get married and give them to him! I love the scene where he accuses the Grand Duke of conspiring with the Prince to deprive him of his grandchildren and calls out "treason" and "sabotage" while chasing him around the Royal Bedchamber with a sword. Best scene in the entire movie! "The whole thing was a plot!"

2. King Hubert - Sleeping Beauty
First of all, who doesn't love the "scomps" song? He's another dad who just wants his son to get married so he can have grandchildren...he's already got the castle built and the cradle carved in anticipation of the joyful day! And the fact that he and King Stephen end up swordfighting with a fish over it...awesome. "Come, now, father, this is the 14th century, after all!" Poor King Hubert. His modern son is just ruining everything. I'm so glad Phillip and Aurora ended up giving him a happy ending after all...

3. Maximus - Tangled
"On his watch, crime virtually vanished overnight in the kingdom. As did most of the apples." We have watched Tangled, Gabriella's favorite movie, about 600 times, and every time the feud between Max and Eugene makes us all laugh out loud. Best. Horse. EVER.

4. Lady Kluck - Robin Hood
Robin Hood was my absolute favorite animated movie of all time as a child...and possibly still is! I was determined that I was going to marry him when I grew up...never mind the small obstacles of A) the fact that he was imaginary B) the fact that he was a fox and C) the fact that he was a cartoon...Anyway. hands down the best supporting character in Robin Hood is Lady Kluck, Maid Marian's duenna. Plucky, brave, and outspoken, she stands up to Prince John and defends her charge and Robin against all odds. The scene we dubbed "chicken football" where she escapes from all the evil rhinoceros guards is priceless...it literally had our childhood selves rolling on the floor with laughter and was re-enacted with great spirit on many occasions. "Long live King Richard---yeee-hee!"

5. Gune - Titan AE
It's not a Disney movie, but it's actually quite good, and I love the strange little alien scientist named Gune. He is an absentminded genius who lives in his own strange world that doesn't always intersect with the real world. Holding up an odd-looking device, he says "I built it in my sleep. It has a button and I wish to press it, but I'm not quite sure what will happen if I do..." **Spoiler alert!** There is one terrible moment after a bomb goes off when he slumps over saying "so tired...I think I shall take a little nap..." and we fear he has perished, but at the critical moment the laser cannons start blasting and we hear "I finished my nap!" over the intercom. Thank goodness! If Gune perished the movie would be pointless.

6. The Grandmother - Mulan
Evidently I just love old people. "Would you like to stay for dinner?" Mulan shyly asks her suitor. "Would you like to stay forever?" pipes the shrill little echo from behind the garden wall. Poor Mulan. Those blunt relatives can be SO embarrassing. But what would be do without them?

7. The French Chef - The Little Mermaid
Singing and dancing joyously about, his enormous mustache bobbing as he prepares his culinary masterpiece...only to discover an evil little crab determined to remain un-cooked! Poor man! Have you ever been pinched by a crab? AAAAHHH! (Robert got pinched by a crab on his big toe while on the beach during our honeymoon. I think it's the only time I've ever heard him swear! ;-) I know he always roots for the chef.

8. The Vultures - Jungle Book
A-a-ahem. "We're your friends....we're your friends...we're your friends to the bi-tter end (the b-it-ter END)..." Ah vultures. Truly you're "never met an animal you didn't like." Only when I grew up did I fully understand the delicious irony of that line. Daniella and I make a habit of saying to each other: "So what you wanna do?" "I dunno. What you wanna do - eh, now don't start THAT again!"

9. Doug - Up
I have just one thing to say about Doug..."Squirrel!"




10. Kronk - The Emperor's New Groove
He's giant. He has muscles. He cooks. He wrote his own theme song. He has a shoulder angel and shoulder demon. Is there no end to the awesomeness that is Kronk? "Have you seen that sky? Talk about blue..."

Follow up

So I have one more response to add to my list from Monday.

11. Sociologists tell us "the strongest predictor of marital stability is the presence of small children in the home."*
Dude, we are going to have the MOST STABLE MARRIAGE EVER!

The End.

(I can't believe I just said "dude." What's wrong with me? I'll just blame it on the fact that it's a Monday. Oh wait. It's actually Wednesday. Phoey. Ahem. "We are enjoying very fine weather...")

In other news, I went shopping for jeans and tennis shoes today. Guess what I bought? A white knit shrug and some earrings.

*from the book "Love your husband, love yourself"

Monday's Top 10: Big Families

In today's world of 2.3 children (that poor .3rd child just HAS to feel inadequate compared to his whole-number siblings), large families are not viewed favorably by most people. In fact, despite the fact that it is considered politically correct to claim each person "choice" is their own business, many seem to have no problem with telling parents of large families just how wrong their choices are. With only four children so far, which I don't consider to be a terribly big family, Robert and I have certainly come up against MANY people who think it's their right, nay their responsibility to make comments about the fact that we have four kids five and under. This attitude, which I expect from the world, has sadly come from fellow believers in many instances. I've gotten tired of trying to explain that we don't "plan" our children but have chosen to trust God to send them to us in His perfect timing. Generally the person either thinks I'm trying to be "holier-than-thou" or they give me a blank stare. So I've come up with a list of 10 ridiculous answers to give them instead:

Top 10 Responses to "Why do you have SO many children?"

1. We're trying to beat the Duggars. 4 down, 16 to go!

2. We just want to make sure we're REALLY well taken care of in our old age.

3. It's an addiction. Like cocaine, only more expensive. We're addicted to babies.

4. We're doing our best to contribute to global warming. Did you FEEL how cold it was last winter? Brr.

5.  We have all these baby clothes that are just going to go to waste otherwise.

6. We keep trying for a redhead.

7. We're working on a starting lineup for the NBA. And the WNBA.

8. Once we're done having babies, I have to lose all the ice-cream weight I packed on during pregnancy.

9. 15 passenger vans are TOTALLY stylin'!

10. We'd hate for our midwife to go out of business...

My Plan for World Peace~

I have come up with a foolproof plan for America to win every war we enter.

Step 1: I offer my children to the military as part of a secret task force. Initial skepticism is overcome by field testing, which leaves the brass with wide eyes and dropped jaws, saying "Holy *****!"

Step 2: Under the code name "Operation Adorable," my children are deployed into the enemy country in a Trojan Horse scenario. Their innate cuteness disarms the enemy and creates instant trust.

Step 3: The full destructive force of my children is unleashed. Within a week, the entire country's infrastructure is in shambles. Half their population has gone insane. Weeping, they beg to surrender to us, their only demand being "take them back! just take them back!"

Step 4: Returning to our country as heroes, the children are awarded numerous medals and free candy for life. However, they decline a victory tour due to naptime schedules. (The one drawback is that we must send billions in foreign aid to the conquered nation, as the remaining population is now suffering from shock and post traumatic stress disorder.) As they are saluted one last time and send back to their home, the Generals turn to one another and remark:
"I pity the poor fool who has to supervise those WMDs for the rest of their lives."
"Amen, brother," the other replies. "Amen."

Bathroom Remodel (finally)

So I happened upon an SD card the other day which contained a bunch of pictures I thought I'd lost when the camera broke! There are some fun pictures of the kids and Aunt Rachel's visit and Auntie Daniella's visit...but really what I wanted to show you was the pictures of our bathrooms! As you all remember from The Great Mold Incident of 2010, we had to totally redo our bathrooms (as well as rip out all the carpet and wash everything that was made of fabric and throw away a lot of stuff) to get rid of it. BUT the upside was that A) we got to live at Grammy and Grandpa's house for 4 months, which was especially nice cause I was down with morning sickness almost every day and B) we got lovely new bathrooms out of the deal. We finally got them all spruced up and prettified for our visitors, and I took some pictures to post here but then the camera broke and I figured they were gone. Surprise! Here they are!

(Disclaimer: Our bathrooms no longer look like this - at least, not this nice and neat and pretty. The kids have painted all over the walls in their bathroom and our bathroom got a bit torn up when they installed new windows. But this is what they're SUPPOSED to look like!)

Here's the guest bathroom:

 Yes, that mirror over the sink is not actually white - it's off white. I was quite annoyed by this because it specifically says "GLACIER WHITE" on the package. But I never got around to returning it to Home Depot and exchanging for the actual white one, so it's still there. Maybe I can paint it white. Someday.

The bathroom is not really that big, but I kept trying to get the whole thing in one shot and failing. This is my best effort.

And now for the master bathroom. Everything else is exactly the same, but I changed up the color scheme to black and white:

The shower and counter tops are cultured marble with kind of a grayish-black pattern and oh, so much nicer than what we had before!  Oh, yes, and the floors in the master bath are wood, while the floors in the guest bath are squares of linoleum stuff that refuses to actually stick to the floor. (Someday Jeff is going to fix that for us. Who is Jeff, you ask? Well, that's another post but basically he is our Mr. Fix-All handyman. ;-)

It is so nice to have two full working bathrooms and no mold! (Well, okay, 1 and a half working bathrooms...the kids have appropriated the "guest" bathroom as their own and broken the shower handle so now only the bath works...maybe Someday we will get them both fully working again!)

You can't please everyone

 You can't please everyone - so the saying goes. Nowhere is this more evident than in the life of a mother. The more children you have, and the older they are, the more opinions they seem to have between them, and it can drive you crazy trying to keep up with all their likes and dislikes, especially since those likes and dislikes can change daily, if not hourly. ("What do you MEAN you don't like carrots? Yesterday you refused to eat anything BUT carrots! I bought 6 bags of carrots and now...") And yet, somehow we still find ourselves trying to make everyone happy.

A perfect example of this is peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. "PB&J?" you say. "But that's so simple. How could it possibly be complicated?" Watch and learn, my friends. Watch and learn.

1. The bread. James and Gabs are gluten intolerant, which mean they have to have special gluten-free bread. Daddy has a strong dislike for gluten free bread, even the homemade one, so he has to have regular bread from the secret stash. Joseph and I can go either way, depending on how we're feeling and how much gluten free bread we have left. Elora isn't supposed to have bread at all yet, although she likes to scavenge for crusts on the ground when I'm not looking.

Then, of course, is the question of toasted vs. untoasted. James wants his untoasted. Gabs and Joseph like theirs toasted. If it's gluten free, I like it better toasted, but if it's regular bread, I like it untoasted. And Daddy always wants his toasted.


2. Peanut butter. Once again the allergies come into play. James, Joseph, and Daddy are all peanut butter fanatics, so we buy peanut butter in the giant container at Sams. Gabriella isn't really supposed to have peanut butter yet, because she's only 2, and I am allergic to peanuts, so we have almond butter. Fortunately I think everyone likes creamy (unless grandparents are over, in which case the crunchy question enters the equation...) And don't get me started on thick vs. thinly spread!


3. Jelly. Or jam, depending on which you prefer. Everyone seems to have a different favorite flavor. Daddy likes grape jelly. James like "orange jelly" which can mean either apricot or orange marmalade depending on what we have in stock. Joseph likes strawberry. Gabs likes strawberry or raspberry. I like apricot or raspberry, but I'm rather particular about my brands, because I really hate the taste and idea of high fructose corn syrup, and it's hard to find a jam that doesn't contain it. (Trader Joe's has some good ones, and Bonne Maman, which you can get at the regular grocery, is also a good HFCS-free option too, although it's expensive!) And then there's always honey...

4. Presentation. Once all the options have been chosen, there is the question of how everyone wants theirs served. James freaks out if you cut his sandwich in half (which is unfortunate because then the jelly from his giant sandwich runs all down his arms...), while Gabs can't actually bite into her sandwich UNLESS it's cut in half. Joseph doesn't want a sandwich at all - he wants one slice of toast with peanut butter and the other with jelly. Daddy usually opts for just peanut butter toast, unless he's in a particular sandwich mood. And I...well, at this point I am just lucky if I get to eat at all.

And did I mentioned that Elora doesn't even EAT PB&Js yet? I'm sure that will throw a whole new level into the madness.

Forget it. From now on we are all eating steak. It's one-size-fits-all!