Can I Just Say...

Regardless of where you stand politically, can I just say that there was a lot of beauty in today's events? I think I got one of the best seats in the country for the inauguration...I sat in on the assembly of K-8th graders at the school housed at Circle, here on the West Side of Chicago. I'd have to say that this student population is 99.7% African American, and as we all know they had never seen a president who looked like them...until today. It's hard for me to articulate my thoughts on this, but it was a thing of beauty...even if our country's history denies the dignity of a group of people and through historic exclusion and injustice tells them what they can and cannot be...man, just a wonderful thing seeing this historic barrier destroyed. Something very just and beautiful about this.

New Mentoring Newsletter

Boring project cookie

Okay, I realize (Sara) that I'm a week behind, so you'll get two posts from me in the coming 7 days.

So today, we told Gabe he could have a fortune cookie (leftover from Chinese takeout from Friday night) after he ate his breakfast. For breakfast, he said he wanted plain oatmeal, which I warned him, wasn't very tasty like his favorite: maple & brown sugar. So, when he tasted it and didn't like it, I added brown sugar and pancake syrup to it (which is quite tasty), and Gabe refused to taste it. Sidenote: He's on a big kick where if he isn't sure about a given food, he refuses to taste it b/c "I don't like it."

Anyway, so I tell him that he needs to at least taste it if he wants his fortune cookie, and he refuses. So, I tell him I'm putting the fortune cookie, which he keeps referring to as a "project cookie," away in a cupboard. And he exclaims in a sing-song way, "BO-RING!" His tone was more fitting for "That's ridiculous, Daddy. I don't like your strong arm tactics..." But, while he apparently doesn't know the definition of "boring," he knows it has a negative connotation, and that made it good enough. It made me laugh.Probably a you had to be there thing, but I owed a post anyway.

On another exciting note, our Neon is broken down, parked at the El parking by my work...Erg.

Gabie and Miracles

Gabie and I have been reading in this children's Bible the last several nights at bedtime. We've been focusing on stories about Jesus, and I'm really enjoying his response to a lot of what we read and talk about. The other night, one of the stories we read was a paraphrase of when Jesus miraculously feeds a multitude using 5 loaves of bread and 2 fish contributed by a boy in the crowd. I love that, even as a 3 year old, Gabe isn't taking what he hears at face value. He wants to understand how it worked. He was like, "How'd [Jesus] do that? Did something come out of his arms or something?" I asked him if he meant like a bread-shooter or something, and he said, "Yeah." And I told him probably not, that it was a miracle (how do you explain that to a 3 year old?). A page or so later, we read the story of Jesus walking on that water, and Gabe wanted to understand what Jesus must have had on his feet to make that possible.

I have more thoughts on this...just having a hard time articulating and getting tired of sitting at the computer, so I'll end here, for now.

There was poop in Gabe's cereal today

I might ask for a refund.

Resolutions

I hate making New Year's resolutions for the simple reason that, for me, they tend to be a public declaration of the things I won't do well in the year to come. For that reason, I can't remember the last time I made one. Might have been the '90's (e.g. "I resolve to wear my clothes backwards, because inside out is wiggida wiggida wiggida wack")

Anyway, I'm going to go ahead and set myself up for failure once again in 2009. Here are the resolutions I'm making:

1. This has turned into one, but doubled as a Christmas present for Sara. I am committing to make a post on this blog once per week. My brother-in-law asked me if I made any commitment re: the length of these posts, and I didn't. My hope, though, is that I'll make a thoughtful entry most of the time, not too wordy, but definitely keeping it real, which is hard to do when you're basically journaling in front of an anonymous...albeit quite small, I'm sure... audience.
2. Sara and I made a joint resolution to stay on top of mail/bills/budgeting this year. I am terrible with this (remember I just said I'd try to keep it real?), and I think if we can do what we've planned on, it's going to really be good for us.
3. I have been sensing the need to spend less time in front of the TV each week and more time focusing on the important things in life. I love TV, and I hate it. I love that I can sit in front of it and be entertained while forgetting about all of the day's concerns, just for a while. I hate that even the dumbest, most ridiculous show can grab my attention and make me care about what's going to happen after the commercial, and when it's all said and done, it really doesn't matter. I love turning my brain off for a while, but I hate that it doesn't do anything to help me be the person I hope to be. Part of my faith as a Christian is the firm belief in the importance of regularly spending time in prayer and studying the Bible. My own experience has been that these times have been critical in providing direction for my life and shaping my character (plenty of work left to do there...), in shifting my perspective from the temporal and selfish to those things of lasting significance and to concern for others. So, I want to make sure I'm doing this at least 5 days a week, and if that means less or no TV on those nights, I think it will truly be worth it.
   

One post down, 51 to go.