Saturday Morning Post (1 Day Late -04.19.09)

First of all, let me apologize for my lateness on this post. It is most certainly a mix of mine and other people’s fault; mostly other people. Let me start at the very beginning, a very good place to start.

Let me first blame the person who decided to sell a 1993 Jeep Wrangler at a ridiculously low price. Let me then blame my wife, who actually let me go through with purchasing it, using money we were surprised we ended up with, which led to us owning a 1993 Jeep Wrangler, an even greater surprise.

Let me blame mother nature, who, decided to give us one of the best days in the last four months on Saturday, complete with sunshine and temperatures near 75°. It’s the first time we’ve been above room temperature since April of 84.

Let me then blame my children, who are so fun to play with that I find it very difficult to keep commitments like this. I’m sorry — that’s just the way I am.

All right. I feel better now that I’ve laid some blame on some people. But I should probably take the blame on myself. You see, I’ve said before and I’ll say again that getting a blog is like promising your neighbors that you have the nicest lawn on the street. Sure, it may be possible, and even very nice, but now you have to go out and water, fertilize, comb, paint, etc. While the rest of your neighbors are out playing frisbee or, say, “hacky sack”, you’ve become an accidental investor in the Scott’s Lawn Chemical Corporation.

I’m writing this Saturday morning Post on Sunday night. It is 11:58 PM. Everyone is asleep at me, even the cat who is sitting on my lap making it really hard to type. But that’s not a problem, because I have this really cool thing called voice recognition software. It actually works! I haven’t touched the keyboard yet. Seriously. I’m working on gobs of homework right now, and this is the real timesaver. The strange thing is, that you have to speak every punctuation mark into place. In order for me to have put a period on the end of that sentence, I have to actually say “.” See — that didn’t work. But for the most part, it’s flawless. And I don’t look like a weirdo. Okay… maybe a little.

It is now midnight, officially making it Monday morning. In a few hours, I will get up and wander into a radio station, all the while wondering why I signed up for such a stupid gig. Then, after a few breaks, and a few laughs, my outlook will change and I will think to myself “why did I sign up for such a stupid gig?” Of course, I kid.

Okay I’m done with my blog now it is up to turn this headset thing off and go to sleep sweet sleep in and water is a salon yet pants and a toothbrush take a swig of that they’ll swallow no restless legs dream of Jeannie dancing bears the pope swears Emily a no no I’m finishing my blog but the headset won’t turn off yet I just finished ordinations stuff five minutes ago in what the

Saturday Morning Post 04.11.09

“I hit my foot again” shouts little Malachi, and rightly so. For some reason, he and gravity are at odds today; so are he and pieces of furniture. I woke up to a “ka-klunk, ka-blammy, ka-owww” sound from the kitchen, a very comic-book collection of exclamations. It was Malachi, falling off of a chair. We’ve asked him several times exactly what happened, only to get the same answer “I told you already! I fell off the chair!”
Yeah, we know that. The question is how… how did you fall off? Answer: “I told you already! I fell off the chair!” Ohhh… okay. Got it.

Waking up to this classic parenting scenario is becoming more and more common as the kids get older and more climb-y, as if the greatest adventure in life could be to get from the couch to the chair without touching the floor. I remember those days and still have the scars.

At least we all got a good amount of sleep last night, which is good given that this is a big week in the life of Adam Davidson. The life of Adam Davidson directly affects 5 people, which means its been a big week for 5 Davidsons. Over at SAFMC, we’re celebrating Easter in a grand way by doing a musical called “The Choice”, complete with drama, Orchestra, set, lights, hazer, thunder, tickets, etc. We’ve been getting ready for it since October and, lo and behold, it’s happening this weekend. The first performance was last night, the second and final will be tonight at 7pm. I would tell you to come, but the tickets are gone and that would be very thoughtless of me. It’s a big production with lots of very talented people involved, and God has already used it, as we hope He will again tonight. As of this sentence we’re 7 hours and 15 minutes from curtain.

I was in the ER this last week and in the Doctor’s office not once but twice, all for a pesky sinus infection that angered up the maxillary sinus and trigeminal nerve quite a bit. Pain level 10 (on a scale of 1-5). Pain meds wouldn’t touch it, and I found myself looking for a wall to put my head through so I would at least have something else to think about. It wasn’t pretty and couldn’t have come on a worse week, with the musical being right around the corner and all. Fortunately, my wonderful wife took great care of me — on top of the already full load of 3 kids. Also, many people at the church pulled together and did great things to get us ready. One fella was at the church until 3:30AM, only to turn around and head to work at 6AM. Whoa. I’m thankful.

Our Easter plans are as follows: 2 services, then it’s off to nothing. Sweet nothing. That’s about it. The kids will have baskets and we’ll try to explain that, while they are surrounded by colorful eggs and candy, that the real reason for Easter is Jesus. They’ll get it… eventually. I saw an interesting commercial whose tag line was “Wal-Mart makes Easter possible”. Wow. A corporation raising Jesus from the dead. Amazing.

I can tell that my writing is influenced by various anti-inflammatory medications and antibiotics, so I’d better knock it off before I start typing even more gibberish. Until next time…

Saturday Morning Post \/ 04.04.09

Spring Arbor Township must have won some sort of weather lottery that awards people with abundant sunshine. It pours into the windows of our homes this morning, that yellow golden haze that brings warmth and joy at the same time, slowly heating our section of the globe to a respectable 54 degrees on the Fahrenheit scale. The sun is like a slow cooking Crock-Pot. A very bright Crock-Pot.

It’s been a few weeks since time made itself available for me to sit down and type out a little diddy, mostly because last Saturday was a work day at churchy. The week before we had some sort of in-home crisis involving formula and the resulting “processed” formula (if you catch my drift). I was reading a collection of essays by English author Nick Hornby, who makes the suggestion that parents should give each other a bunch of “2 hours of uninterrupted reading” certificates at Christmas. Hornby says that it may seem corny but to a parent of multiple children, it is worth a small fortune. I would agree and would also add that kids are a great joy and should be avoided at regular intervals, for the sake of retaining sanity.

It’s because my sister-in-law is having a baby; that’s why Emily has left the house for the day. Oh, sister is not having the baby today. Instead, they are all participating in some sort of ceremonial gathering of women involving gender declarative wrapping paper and “awwwwwwwws” as the mother-to-be lady holds a tiny outfit up to her convex stomach, which houses a womb, which houses a small miracle, which is to be avoided at regular intervals upon arrival.

I hope it doesn’t sound mean or insensitive to say that a couple has a child and should cook up strategies for avoidance. A statement like that sounds utterly absurd to some people, all of whom do not have children. To those of us who have “joined the club” and “conceived” (if you know what I mean), it is true. You are a parent for 24 hours a day and 7 days a week; there is no release from your job. Ev. Er. You hold a child close and snuggle them, taking in that new baby smell, a delightful amalgam of joy and newness that refreshes the soul. The next thing you know, the new baby smell is replaced by new output smell and is joined by a new baby sound — screaming — and you do the parental thing and change them, hoping to 1. comfort them and 2. comfort you. It works, but only for about 9 seconds (if you happen to have one of my kids), which is how long it takes for the whole process to cycle again. As you can imagine, this can get a little old after a while. It’s not all bad, though. Thankfully, for you parents-to-be out there, the newborn infant fully respects both your schedule and the time of day, and would never even think of waking you up during your much needed 8.5 hours of sleep per night. The child will also respect Saturday mornings, noting that you have worked all week so that they can eat and have dryness near their bum-sides, and wouldn’t think of interrupting your slumber before 10AM. Also, they don’t drool on your stuff. While I’m being a sarcastic blogger by saying this, I will sum up this short idea by declaring with great boldness that the commandment about remembering the Sabbath has a new, refreshing sound to a parent who has been around the block a few times.

Emily is at the baby shower with Zach, the new one who totally respects our way of living. This leaves Lexi, Mac and me back in Spring Arbor. Right now, Lexi is enjoying the abundant sunshine which continues its appearance here in 49283. Malachi is playing a video game involving Bob the Builder. Have you seen this guy on PBS? Bob is a stop-motion animated handy-man who has a tendency to find himself always in crisis. “Hey, Bob”, one of his talking machines might say, “Farmer Pickles needs a new tool shed, and he wants you to build it”. Bob immediately springs into action, drooling like a bell has been rung, drawing up blueprints and ordering supplies from his local lumber yard (Bob buys local), much to the appeasement of Farmer Pickles. In the middle of the project, however, everything falls apart because one of his personified construction characters gets lost in the woods or falls into the scrap yard compactor or something. It all works out in the end, right down to the cast laughter to closing credits motif, a classic Television formula that has been in full swing since the Carter Administration. Thanks to countless episodes watched, I can now easily spot a Bob the Builder plot structure and offer Malachi a fairly accurate foreshadowing of what is to come, though he doesn’t appreciate it. He just likes Wendy. Oh, and by the way, Wendy and Bob have some tensions between them that we parents pick up on rather quickly. They’re not married, nor are they dating. But Wendy clearly cares about Bob and Bob clearly cares about construction, so it’s a pretty standard High School crush. Oh, Bob…. will you ever see that what you want is right there, a lovely stop-motion woman who cares about you, likes construction and machinery, and who is cherished by all of your talking earth-movers? What more do you need? What’s the deal, Bob? Can’t commit? You need to guest on stop-motion Dr. Phil and get that worked out, buddy. Your clock is ticking; so is hers. So is Dr. Phil’s by the way. Maybe you can build him a chicken coop. That’s why the call it “the trades”, Bob.

Lexi is now singing in the sunshine, some song about laaaaaaaa and oooooohhhh. I’m going to try and record it for the album, because it’s the sound of pure joy from a child. Sunshine does something to her, an almost prozac-ian relaxation that brings effervescence both to her and her daddy. I’m going to join her now, because it’s Saturday and that’s what I do on Saturdays.