Dainty

MY wife and I are always arguing, its always the same fight, and it always ends the same way. She always wins and I always cower. The argument is about which day was our first date and when did either of us decide that we liked the other. The argument really steams form me trying to remember if I was a douche or not. I have been a douche to so many women in the past, its hard for me to remember some times but I like to think that things are different with my wife. I try to think of how Malia deals with guys who are douches nowadays and I just can’t believe that she would have let me of the hook and yet I don’t ever having my soul crushed by her.  

Sometimes malia will come home and say “I didn’t want to tell you over the phone but today...” Some boy at the bank or in line at the grocery store will have stared at her and maybe asked for her number or something and that she had invariably turned them down and not gently she will have given them the “No Im married.” Now I don’t have a problem with her not accepting dates while married to me. What I do have a problem I have is that she just doesn’t have any tact when it comes to this little boys hearts. I use the term “little boys” because malia pretty much always indicates that they look like children incapable of growing beards. Which lets face it is the primary reason we are married to this day. So my wife is going around breaking hearts, and all of the sudden she comes home the other day (and yes my wife is a mega hottie, disagree, I dare you) The other day she comes home and says that she is waiting at a stop light when a boy rolls up in his small penis truck. (when we pass people with lifted trucks malia screams small penis at the top of her lungs, she is precious) So he pulls up, honks his horn checks her out and gives the “how you doin” smirk. 

At this point my dainty wife turns into something very different. She is a mom now so she totally has the power to rip lions in twain, lift cars off of babies and do that bulging neck vain thing. So he honks and my wife smiles signaling for him to roll down his window. Then while still stopped at the light in the lane next to she begins to rake him over the hot coals of, “Do you know how disrespectful that is, besides the fact that I am married, I have a baby who is asleep in the back seat. If your dumb ass had woken him up I would have gotten out of this car and kicked your ass.” He then proceeded to stammer his apologies and proceeded to drive off when the light turned green. Then still in a huff my lovely wife turned the corner to enter the parking lot where she works... At a small church. 

Needless to say my wife is awesome, I often worry that she will shoot someone if given the opportunity; but said opportunity has yet to present itself. Back to our argument, I am obviously sad for these guys whom’s dreams she has so recently crushed because I remember what it was like to be a bachelor. No matter what anyone tells you, asking a girl out is scary. The amount balls it takes to ask out a girl is way more than it takes for a girl to ask out a guy. Guys will get a yes maybe 5 times out of 10 but most decent guys won’t ever ask out 10 girls. Where as girls just have to trick guys they like into asking them out. WE ARE STUPID THAT IS EASY. Lets not forget the momentum killer that is a no. You spend weeks building confidence and talking to your buddies who are not supportive at all and when you finally have enough to ask. Her saying no can set you back for months. 

You are about to be part of a select group of two people who have heard this conversation. As I am bad at quotations I will write it like a movie script. 
To set the scene, I have just driven malia back to her house from some of our friends house after a rainy day spent at the beach were malia wore my wool coat and I wore a cold t-shirt, one that possessed little to no water retardant properties.

Mark: So I guess we should have that talk? Im sorry ______ drove with me, it was good to catch up, but I know that we had said we would talk during the drive.

Malia: Ya no, its totally ok I had a good time in  _______’s car we had a good conversation.

SILENCE

Mark: So I know that I’m not looking for anything casual so if you are thinking that this could just be a fling, or if you know you are leaving. I mean really neither of us know what are plans are for the fall so?

Malia: Well lets be honest, we hangout everyday and most nights Im at your house until 4am while we watch cartoons or documentaries or whatever. I mean really thats called dating.

Mark: Well when you put it that way its really hard to argue with. Then you have to know, I really want to get married and I know that I want to have babies so unless you want to date to see if we can get married this isn’t going to work.

Malia: I completely agree.

Like four months later we were engaged and three months after that we were married. So when I state my case in the argument of was I a gentleman when we were dating, and she always say no “you were a dick”. I retort back that I was nice and I invited her to hangout and go to barnes and noble (a reoccurring location on my places to take girls I like list). I invited her to watch stupid movies and boring documentaries about failed resort towns just north of palm springs. “You were a dick, you were always standoffish and made me feel like you didn’t like me.” Then I bring up the fact that I was the first one to say “That thing people say to each other when thats not like, I feel that for you” it was fourth of July and she had just jumped into the sound off the third story of a friends houseboat. Then there was the proposing with a vending machine ring that I found in my bedroom. The skipping down the isle at our wedding. My sweet beard, have I mentioned my sweet beard! 

No matter how hard or long I protest she is always adamant that I was a jerk, and thus she liked me first because even though I was a jerk she stilled hung out with me. That no matter how cute I was at any stage of our relationship, she was still better, firster, correcter. Now I must divulge that this fight is the kind of fight that you have either form different sides of the bed or from completely different rooms. You don’t need to be near one another because neither of us really have a dog in this fight. I know that she loves me and she knows that I love her. I can admit that I wasn’t super suave at any point ever! And she can admit that she was right. 

Here is the problem, there is this guy “LINK” and as far as I can tell he is totally for serious. I think that this may be a set up, but I prefer to believe that this was totally legit and on the up and up. To be fair, he is rather handsome so this would not work for every guy also she totally has that air or giddy freshman who just got hit on by someone she didn’t attend K-12 with. So while I can blow holes in this all day long I would rather think that it really is all just this easy. My wife is the outlier that will always ruin this idea but it should always be this simple. It shouldn’t involve discomforting glances, whistles, honked horns, or even sending drinks, however I do appreciate that hard rock cafe glass that guy sent my wife awhile back. Men everywhere should take a lesson from this guy, and realize that so long as its not my wife you probably have a chance. Certainly more of a chance than if you honk your horn at a woman with a carseat in the back.

Almost but on my way

So the way it starts is with me walking over to the computer and folding out the shelf cupboard thing. Then I adjust the green exercise ball into the compressed spot in the carpet so that my arms are resting on the shelf and my fingers are over the home row of the keyboard. I then curl my toes under so that its almost like Im standing on them but really it just makes it so that my lap is parallel with the ground. At this point I either open up a pages document as of late because I really want to start keeping track of my word count per day as both malia and I think about perusing the prospect of writing a book. (separately obviously) or I will just open up the internet and log into blogger and start typing directly into the window. I might have had a conversation with malia, or heard something on the radio, as anyone who reads my blog can tell most often its because I am really frustrated with something that I have recently heard or seen. I then begin to rant with only the occasional glance at the red squiggles underneath the words that I can’t spell or the apostrophes that I think should insert themselves in this day and age. 

The sad part is that without fail I get to about the three quarters mark and I realize that I don’t know how to finish. (insert joke) I look over what I have previously written and I realize that I have obviously strayed form my original point. Which is genuine because what is truly bothering me is genuinely never what is really bothering me. After I make a vague attempt at getting back on track and answering any of the questions I had previously posed and failed to give a response to I find myself still almost finished but none the less further down the page. I stop. I wait. I come back to it several hours, maybe even days later, having lost the flame I originally struck the keys for and now find myself just playing catchup to what I was trying to say before. I have also invariably done more research to the subject and often time now see the text from another sometimes different view. I find this frustrating.

Im not a writer why put this pressure on myself to write. I can’t even speak well and that’s like  writing but no one checks your spelling, and often time grammar doesn’t exist because of location or context or the group your speaking to. Where as on paper every is grading my spelling and grammar haters are just rolling on the floor unsure which sentence to make fun of first. But still I find myself addressing the keys making another attempt. And why shouldn’t I Mcklemore tells me that great painters weren’t born great, they were great because they never stopped painting. I can resonate with that, I once tried painting, well really it was a few times, but finger paints are disgusting and I feel like Im painting with someone else's puke. Then there was the time in college when I went to the art supply store and used my credit card (that was essentially maxed) to buy some canvases, some oil paints, and some nice brushes. Then I came home and having just watched a documentary on Rothko’s panels (which I think are beautiful) and proceeded to paint one six inch by six inch canvas with one small yellow rectangle stripe and a larger reddish orange square. It took me about 2 hours. I used my other canvas to try and do abstract art and see if I was any good at that. I was not. 

Then I think of all the things that I have heard about other actual famous successful (read, people who have written at least one book.) writers. Roald dahl, He wrote in the same room under the same blanket, in the same chair for like ever. I think he may have even eaten the same sandwich for lunch every day as well. Dr. Seuss was similar I believe. But I can’t do that I have a wife and a baby, it was all I could do to get one load of laundry done and feed Rory at the same time. I read 6 pages of a book over that time as well. I find myself completely incapable of doing anything consistently, I hate change but consistency is like the devils dad. Obviously there are things I do the same every time but I don’t think that makes me consistent. I always wash my left arm first then my and down my left foot. I always start brushing my teeth on the top right side, always floss before you brush thats just right its not about habit. Then when you think about the fact that I now have a job, that requires me to type some times then you think about the chances that I might in fact be harming myself because I want to write more. 

This is a whole whirl wind of ideas but as you the reader may have noted we seem to be winding down and that must mean that we have reached the magical last quarter of the story. Where in mark runs out of words while not having reached his word goal set out by himself. Well guess what dear awesome, astute, insightful reader you. You’re right. We are currently sitting at my proverbial 3/4 of the way done. Ive gone back and re-read what I started this with and realized how truly ritualistic I truly am. I’ve tried to fix the unfathomable amount of errors and that occurred above this point. I’ve thought of some poignant last words to impart on you that would make me think that I for some reason used this writing to answer my own questions and have now come to share with you my new found knowledge.

Guess what I’ve got nothin. What I do know is that if I just keep plugging away I will eventually reach my goal and the little train that could will be proud. I know that by just starting this little tale, lambert would be proud of me for trying to make something of myself instead of just staying inside my little cave or winter hiding. Dr. Seuss himself taught me that this whole thing started with one simple step and that where that one step leads me only time will tell. Obviously I know to stay golden, duh. The bouncing ball guy with a sad face from the old zoloft commercials definitely told me that being a boring sad ball sucks so go outside and play in the sun so that you can be a happy jovial ball... Or something like that commercials in the early 2000’s were really vague. The BFG taught me that being who you want to be is always better than being who everyone else thinks you should be. Countless other authors have taught me about ecology, conservation, restoration, social justice. Shell Silverstein taught me just about everything I needed to know about nothing and calvin taught me everything about everything  that has ever or will ever be important, he also taught me the kind of life I should aspire to while I’m here. (My wife informs me that I need to make it abundantly clear that I mean Calvin and hobbs and not john calvin, that guy was a downer)

What I’ve learned is that everyone had something to say, everyone had a reason to write. Until their reason was realized I’m sure they wrote things that never got finished. I can’t imagine that everything Dr. Seuss wrote was published. So maybe now as Im just getting into blogging and writing I might have as many drafts saved as I have published. And maybe my average page views in a day can be counted on the had of a mammal without opposable thumbs, and or a missing another flange as well (three toed sloth is the answer.) But eventually some day at some point there will be a time when I get to say just like all the rest. Ya I write, its not all gold but some people like it, and if nothing else at least Im willing to put myself out there. Sometimes if I’m lucky I even reach my word count goals. 

Dang only one thousand four hundred words

How the world turns

Pretty sure thats a soap opera tag line. When did everything change? When did it all go different? Who the frak knows! all I know is that my two week old baby is now five and a half months old and wholly crap time is moving fast. Its not that he is bad, he is a baby and when he doesn't get what he wants then he gets upset, when he gets upset that usually means crying, grunting, or screaming and honestly I can't blame him. I would love to be able to scream every time I didn't get my way, if nothing else I would at least feel like I had made a final attempt to get what I wanted. I think of when he gets older and how we will teach this out of him, if you protest about not getting your way that makes you a poop face and no one will like you. But that is crap! I think of Rory going through school and wanting to know more but being unable because "it isn't on the test" well guess what there is a bigger test coming!



-Right, about the test.Listen closely: The test will measure whether you are an informed, engaged, and productive citizen of the world, and it will be administered in bars and offices and dorm rooms and places of worship and hospitals and yes even schools.. You will be tested on first dates, in job interviews, while watching football, while scrolling through your twitter feed. The test will judge your ability to think about things other than celebrity marriages, whether you'll be easily persuaded by empty rhetoric, and whether you'll be able to place your life and your community in a broader context. The test will last your entire life, and it will be comprised of millions of decisions which, taken together, will make your life yours. And everything-everything- will be on it. I know, right? So listen up: 

-@realjohngreen

I look back at my own school and while I am unable to write this without spelling (even when aided by spell checker) or perfect grammar, that is by no means the fault of my schools fault. There were obviously lunchrooms, classrooms and the football field was more expensive than all the textbooks in the school combined, plus the tech levy of the year it was built. (but football brings in money when people come watch the games, its there money to spend) if you said that, stop reading this and go sit on a thumb tack. Someday I will lay out why I have a problem with organized sports but today is not that day! Again I digress, there were good teachers and there where bad teachers at my school, there were teachers who needed to retire, and there were teachers who loved to teach so they would retire every year and re apply and interview every summer so that they could continue to teach without breaking the schools budget. There I learned many lessons such as, don't have fun, always do your homework, and if your likable you can get anything.

There were other lessons that I learned while in school that were less than positive. Don't ask questions, especially if the teacher doesn't know the answer, don't be inquisitive, if you need to know something someone in charge will tell you. School will train you to work on an assembly line, they will teach you to read directions, count, and write down what you did. I am now 25 years old and I can honestly say that I have spent the last several years trying to break the non learning cycle. Mr. Soldano taught me who things while I was in class, but I learned three. What I learned was that sour patch kids are a necessary addition to popcorn. Now for what he taught me, 

"maybe you shouldn't read next time" 

was said to me after getting a daily quiz back after having actually read the material, I was told that I did better when I just guessed. 

"History is written by the winners"

The second thing he taught me and the second most important thing I learned next to the sourpatch kid thing.

So if the winners are recording the truth and then that one sided truth is being taught to us, how are we supposed to say that we are learning anything. Ask any brit how they feel about the US and the revolutionary war. I am 25 and only now am I actually thinking critically about the world around me and how I fit into it. We raise all these people and tell them that they are ready to go at 18, your done this is the bare minimum you will need to get through life, then on the first day of college they sign up for a credit card to get a frisbee and by junior year they commit suicide because they have $20,000 in credit card debt. Only now that I am hoping to leave on mission am I wanting to research an Archimedes screw, as opposed to a sleeve pump, or a piston pump. That makes me ashamed of myself for not trying to learn something everyday. 

Look at Rory, add more to his collective knowledge in 20 minutes than I do in a year. Ya obviously I have already mastered many of the things he is weeks from approaching, but he is always trying! He is five months old and moments away from crawling, moments from saying his first words and getting a grasp on language. Every second that he tries something new he is improving and his time is never wasted. Imagine if babies got discouraged and quit when they couldn't get something right off. I quit trying to paint because I painted two canvases and decided that I was no good. Rory has spent his whole life trying to pick his head up, crawl, walk, communicate, breath! Think how fast humanity would end if babies were as apathetic as most people you know, never striving, trying, persevering. Even in our schools we are told you preserver, unless you get a bad grade, or if the levy doesn't pass, then we will cut the program. 

Between TED.com, youtube.com/crashcourse, youtube.com/scishow, THE INTERNET! why are we thinking that school is the only way to teach. Rory will not be going to public school and that means especially public schools in America. That is coming from someone with two teacher in-laws. Why do we stop complaining, why do we stop crying when we don't get what we want. Why don't we scream when we see people who stop learning, people who get stagnant, when we get stagnant. Aside from screaming how do we change something that we don't even recognize as broken. We all need to be a little more like babies and a little less like adults, it might save the world.

Wide spread Hypocrisy

I don't really know how to start this or even more so what it is exactly that I want to say. I live in washington, so pretty much by the time that I got up and had my second cup of coffee and checked my twitter, there had already been news of the sadness in Connecticut. By the time I picked my wife up from work the news from China had already come out. First and foremost I want everyone to know that my heart yearns for the hearts that are broken, bleeding, or extinguished. I am disgusted at all news affiliates who feel it appropriate to interview a child about what happened. I agree with a tweet from joe bereta.

Joe Bereta‏@joebereta

A motive will not provide closure. Details will not help us understand. Stop interviewing kids. Embrace them. Protect them. Spread love.

from there I diverge from this pathway and I explore something very different. I am a youtube watcher, there have been countless videos trying to explain what happened, the tragedy, the sadness. There will be countless people who will shout at the top of their social network lungs that they have the answer, that they are outraged, that they are an expert. There will be info graphs, there will be MEMES, jokes, commercials, videos and bleeding heart statuses and tweets stating that they are hurt the most. There will be people who shout about how this is the final straw, this is the worst tragedy ever and then they will try to quantify it with weighted numbers from a study someone else did. 

Why, what will it solve, why are you angry. Don't pretend like you feel their pain, you know what they are going through. Now comes the hard part of this post. Here comes the scary part, here comes the part where I give my opinion and open myself up to everyone else's opinion. Why are we all hypocrites? Why do we call it a tragedy because it happens to kids and we pick a villain, in this case a gun or a knife. We say that its the implement that did the killing. We forget that there was a person who wielded that weapon, we forget that people kill people and not guns, or knives, or bombs, or ships. But guess what else kills? We do, all of us collectively commit widespread genocide  everyday. Everyday people die and we all, each and everyone of us could do something about it, but instead we only see outrage when the news and social media tell us to.

Now I would like to give you some perspective about some things, all these facts can be found on the internet from reputable sources and if I neglected to put a link to a fact simply google search it and see if I am correct or not. In 2012....this happened
deaths by gun by country

Japan 48

Great Britain 8

Switzerland 34

Canada 52

Israel 58

Sweden 21

Germany 42

United States of America 10,728

Total 10,991 among 8 cherry picked countries

To give you some scope that less than .0003% of the US population, conversely there were 35,900 deaths in car accidents over three times as many. 1,897 people died from stabbings. Now I can't say that I am completely in favor of gun control, I love shooting guns just as much as I love throwing darts in a basement with a pint and some friends. I also can't say that stricter gun control is a bad idea, did you read the facts that I just presented? But that is where my unrest on that issue ends. For those of you who are going to spend energy trying to place blame on a political party, people group, or inanimate object, you... should punch yourself in the throat. 

Now lets revisit what I said about us all participating in mass genocide and not even batting an eye about it on a daily basis. Just guess how many people die every year from pooping, well specifically diarrhea, yes shitting themselves to the point of death. 1,500,000 yes you read that correctly 1.5 million people die every year from diarrhea, most often because they don't have access to clean drinking water. A smaller 655,000 die from malaria die every year, again a curable disease for which there is a vaccine available. How about things that happen right under our noses, even here at home, men and women with breast cancer die every year, 39,920 to be exact. Men with prostate cancer who find it, 28,170. each of these diseases gets one month out of the year where people care about it. Lets ramp the sadness back up in 2012 two hundred and twenty two combat related deaths for America, 158 veteran suicides. We aren't even at war anymore. Do you remember that genocide thing that happened in Darfur, over a six month period 70,000 people died, Bill Clinton said that not intervening was his biggest regret during his presidency. 

Now that your warmed up to what you should be upset about everyday lets get to the heavy hitters. Remember these things are happening every day, they aren't happening just when they are in the news they happen all over the world, over every second on the clock. Human Trafficking 30 million, your impotent 10,000 gun deaths feels pretty petty at this point doesn't it? Did you know that the average age of a child involved in sex slavery is between 12-14 years old? Now here is the big hitter, the big bambino of sorts, guess how many people die of hunger? 10,000, 1 million, 2? Well in a tangible number 16,000 people die of hunger. PER DAY! That makes 5 million 840 thousand people every year starving to a point of death.

This is not to diminish those who have felt loss today. This is not to berate everyone who doesn't quit their job and go feed the children and hold a cool cloth on their head as they die like a Mother Teresa. I am not saying that we shouldn't be an uproar about a few dying under sad circumstances. Purely I am pleading with you that you hold on to this outrage and you send letters to millionaires and billionaires, politicians, celebrities, delegates, the United Nations. Do something Be outraged, Do not let this sadness die because there is so much sadness that deserves our attentions, that are insulted when we tumble, tweet, status and blog about finite seldom tragedy as their world is ending. Cherish your life, every time your baby wakes in the night to wake you up, cherish it. Every time your wife asks you to do the dishes or the laundry, cherish her. There are far worse villains than governments and taxes, an isolated incident deserves just as much of our attention as wide spread sickness, famine, death, disease, tyranny, injustice.

I am a bleeding heart, I don't have the ability to save all those who need saving, I cry just thinking about all these numbers the large ones just as much as the small ones. So I leave you with an unrelated note about who is writing this to you.

I love my wife and I love my son.

mark.

Today in which something sad happened

That something sad happened and honestly I didn't see it coming. Today I was going to be a good boy and do something that I have been putting off for years. Today I was going to keep up my part in a bargain that I made back in 2006. I was going to write. While I have made attempts at this at times past I have always found myself lacking in the follow through. Today was going to be my day, today I was actually going to do it. The email, yes email I know that it isn't exactly pen pal status but we are talking baby steps here. The email was returned no such address.

six years go I was introduced to two little girls in a park on the west side of a field. These girls were playing on the other side of a chain link fence and they came running up smiling at the person who was with me at the time. They at the time had no idea who I was and certainly had no idea what they would mean for my life. I was in Cuarnavacca Mexicali, Mexico. Nallim was four and half, and her sister then Rebecca was a mere two years old. When we crossed though the gate of the fence and entered into the playground there were two slides, three swings and only two out of the three support bars connected properly with the ground. It was janky to say the least, but it was clearly a palace that only Shell Silverstein could imagine. "mya muah mua" was said to me by the taller of the breakable little girls, the girl whom I had come with was only worth laughter at my expense and as I only spoke the spanish taught to me by a band by the name of Offspring, if it wasn't numbers 1-6 then it sounded like charlie browns director. When finally I was able to get an answer out of someone I learned that I was to push harder and from on the plastic seat of a jenky park swing I was given a smile that I will never forget. For five years I went down to see that girls smile and her younger sisters, later meeting and falling in love for her caring mother Gaby and her hard working mother who I know prays for me and everything in my life every night. Over the last few years I had gone Gaby would make us a cake for her birthday and on the piece of card board she would right us prayers for our lives.

Now I have a child of my own, and for two years now I have had to tell myself and Gaby an excuse neither of us believe but both of us accept as to why I can't come down to Cuarna vacca with my family in early april. Now I have a boy of my own who smiles at me, and a child that I choose to raise on the mission field. The mission field can be dangerous, dangers that I can not imagine and I will need prayer for this part of my journey. This is a job for a small family. A husband and wife who have lived in the same house for over 20 years to make sure that their daughters can grow up near where the missionaries come every spring. Today in which something sad happened.

There is a thorny tree that blossoms the most beautiful red flowers that grows just inside my favorite front gate. bugambilia is how it is spelled but bugamvilia is how it is said, with love and admiration for a desert flower that blooms like fire. Inside that gate lives that family and today I tried to write them a letter and the address that I had didn't work, but that wasn't the sad part. The sad part was that I couldn't remember spanish, while I know after a day or two of speaking a majority of it would come back to me, but for now it is all gone. I have lost the ability to speak to the family that I love so much, while I know that there are things like Google translator that do a better job than I ever could have, there is still something to be said for the broken spanish that conveys desire and effort. That was my sad day, but tomorrow is chapter two in which mark breaks out his work book.

My Descent Into Insanity

I have been a father now for just under four months and up until this point I have been pretty upset with the amount of information that is not being passed down through the generations. I have been upset because all the things I thought that I knew were wrong or just at least fairly incorrect. Now however I am at a point of insanity. Now I am at a point were I truly feel I have been done a disservice by the previous generations as far as raising a child goes. Guess what world This is my first child and much to contrary belief I know absolutely nothing about what it means to take care of another human life! Sure clean it if it poops, cuddle when its upset, feed when cuddling doesn't work. (which really tells us a lot about people who emotionally eat.) Past that I am utterly unaware!

You would think that your child would give you some cues. I have spent a considerable amount of time in Mexicalli Mexico and I would say that I am fairly used to talking with and communicating with people who do not speak my language and vis versa. You can use hand gestures, you can use body language, you can even just use facial expression. With a baby none of those things are useful. There is happy, middle ground, sleepy, and cut your throat upset. up until now we had only a few times been met with the last of those emotions and felt as though we might in fact have a handle on what it meant to be a parent, thinking well I guess the really hard part must come when he is a teen and realizes he hates our stinkin guts. But holy can of man eating sand worms was I wrong. Over the past two maybe even three days, our beautiful, well behaved son Rory has started to be inconsolable at night until he again finds himself either fed or asleep, and post mid-day nap finds himself in an even worse state. When he would scream in his car seat all the way up to Seattle we just thought that it was due to a dislike of his car seat. This however is different, no matter how much cuddling, bouncing, singing, swaying or shooshing we do there is nothing but time that can console him. Todays tirade was solved by removing his pants and bending his legs so that he could fart. (hehe I spelled fart) Tomorrow we may find ourselves with no such luck. I can't help but think that we could have been more prepared for this moment, if nothing less than being warned that it was inevitable. My mother in-law muses about the year she spent up all night reading books and watching the sun rise while holding her crying whaling son, but everyone says every baby is different. Yet our baby is looking more and more similar to those babies we were so glad we didn't have. I feel unprepared for this outcome.

Also, everyone says when your pregnant you'll glow, and you will love it, its such a magical time. Like the magic of, how many times can you puke before you need to go to the hospital? Like the magic of loathing the idea of being pregnant because you feel like you may have actually killed your wife. That is just being pregnant, a part of this process that I had .0001% involvement in. Once you actually get the baby there are a whole new set of misnomers to deal with. "Its your heart living outside your body." No its having a baby and being responsible for something that can't yet take care of its self. Now yes when I had to spend a few hours away from my son helping some friends move I did miss him but I wasn't worried he might die, I just missed him like you miss skittles when you reach the bottom of the bag. Now here is the crux of this rant, the sentence "so mad I could punch a baby." is wicked true and the part of this that I am most upset about.

Honestly I think its totally normal and natural to get frustrated with a baby, all they do is take, take, take and take from you and they only occasionally pay you back with a smile or finally the first giggle. Then when they decide to go on a tirade at 4am all you want to do is shake them, scream, cry and ask them to finally please tell you what they want. No one has ever told me that they felt that way. Man rule is to never screw with a guy who is crying because he will probably kill you, that should be changed to never mess with a new dad, because he is cried out. When I wake up to my son crying in the night and I know that my wife is getting no sleep and there is nothing I can do to fix it, upset does not even begin to cover the torrent of emotion that I feel. Last night I was going to call the cops and have myself sent to prison for life, minority report style because I had the thought of screaming back at my child. To anyone who has a child who hasn't felt that way please hear me when I tell you its normal.

The dialogue between generation has to be opened up, we can not live in a place of "young hooligans" and "old fogies". We cant let the future generations see us as the enemy, and a place marker for I have to do better than those before me with less help than they have. We have to treat our next generation as our only hope and trust that to be true. We need to warn them of our own mistakes and not smother them with stories of our triumphs. We can't tell our children the way they should do it, more we should let them know how we did it so they can make an informed decision. Key factor is the transfer of information, not just telling them what to do because we know better. I wish I had been told that my son would probably scream bloody murder and that there isn't anything I can do about it. I wish I had been told that when he does scream I might run out of patients and thats when I would have to love him the most. That just because I got angry doesn't mean I should kill myself.

So ill equipped for life are we. One baby can try my patients to the breaking point. One baby, one good baby can bring me crying to my knees. Never in my wildest dreams can I imagine the amount of pain that God feels for all his children, who unconsolably scream and reject his comfort. How he tolerates my one unrepentant ever sinning sole without picking me up shaking me and screaming at the top of his lungs for me to just listen. But instead of escalating the turmoil, he whispers in the darkness. He calms my spirit and gives me the patients that I need to proceed with life. Ever present, always giving my God never abandons me even when I run from him.

Yesterday florida was windy. Why do I know that florida was windy, because when it is windy in Florida, they have problems with their internet. Why does wind interfere with the internet in Florida, well... here ends my knowledge of florida. But to explain why I know what the weather and the internet are like in Florida are like is because I had a skype call with a couple in Florida. They are the regional directors for Latin America and the Caribbean missions. As Malia and I have been looking to get into long term missions we have been unable to determine what and where we would be serving. We have obviously spent time on our own to see what we might do and thinking about what we would like to do, but it is nice to talk to someone who is in the know with what our options are. There was alway a chance that something would happen. Not the world would end or something like that. Like something would happen in the sense that they wouldn't be able to accept us because they don't want a family, or because they just weren't accepting new missionaries this year or something. Much the the contrary they seem to be really excited to add new missionaries. We talked for about an hour and a half, they had a lot of information for us and they generally seem very nice and excited at our decision to join missions with the convenient church. 

What does this mean for us at this point. Well really it doesn't mean anything we have certainly learned a lot more than we knew last week, but everything can change at a moments notice, or even at no notice at all. We are accepted to missions short term for now and we will soon find out where we are going and what we will be doing, but for now that is all we really know. We might not be able to raise the money. Between the down economy, kickstarters, youtube, friends, family, our own money, micro enterprise, the church, or anything else that we can think of to make money fundraising might not be enough. We are currently looking at South America and there is always a chance that we could be pulled out as soon as we arrive due to drug wars. There are a million things that could happen to us that would stop us from being able to serve abroad. There are a million things that could go wrong but everything only has a 50/50 chance. 

Just as scary as the chance that something could go wrong is the chance that everything could go right. We could find ourselves in location that will require us to be there for our entire career as missionaries. We could find ourselves serving in a country that loves and celebrates our arrival. A location that takes care of us and we could have people who support us throughout the years. Rory could love living in the jungle, being home schooled, living on the mission field. We might never come back, it might be perfect. This chance is scary because we are fallen and the idea that the lord would bless us without us being deserving scares me. For those of us that fall into shame and despair, we don't understand how to accept the gifts from God. We will always be waiting for the other shoe to drop. I can read the bible I can accept the love of Christ and know that he died for my sins and that all has been forgiven and that no matter what I have done God will always be there for me. That doesn't me that there isn't still the chance that the other shoe may drop at any moment. I am learning to trust God more as I am unable and unwilling to stand ever ready for something tragic to happen. He will take care of my family and I know that, but the fear of both failure and success are still ever present.

I understand that as christians we are always on the mission field. I often think that all churches should have "You are now entering the mission field." on the overhang of the sanctuary doors just like the church in El Centro, who's floors I have ever so lovingly slept on for many years on my way into Mexicalli in early April, so that you see it every time you leave. But as some are called to the mission field in Detroit, others to Compton, some even in their own town, My wife and I feel called to international missions so that is where we are headed. God has blessed our path this far and we pray that he bless it further. For myself, my wife and my son we are looking at a potential year left here in America before we are able to head off on our adventure. This year will be packed, probably even more than the last and we can't wait.