for Jeremiah, the son I do not know.

People who have stayed overnight at my house have wondered aloud why I check on my children every night before I go to bed, even though I put them there, and I have been within 20 linear feet of that same door that I shut since I put them there. My only answer is a question: "Ever lose one?"

This time of year is a torment of emotions for me. I have a birthday of my oldest son to celebrate. I have a feast of Thanksgiving to celebrate. I have the anniversary of our marriage to celebrate. And I have the anniversary of my son Jeremiah's death to mourn. Sometimes one outweighs the rest of these.

Can I be honest? This is the only thing in my life that will bring me close to tears. In the midst of reminiscing about the last 12 years on our anniversary, Wifey brought it up and it almost ruined my otherwise incredibly good day.

If you don't already know, it was about 6 years ago that we lost a baby well into the pregnancy. I am not good at remembering the details, and frankly, I don't have the guts to ask my wife. All I know is that he was a boy, his name was Jeremiah, and I got a call from my wife in tears after a pre-natal check-up to tell me that he no longer had a heartbeat; and we were scheduled to go to the hospital and deliver our dead baby. After having 3 relatively easy births, I remember thinking that this whole thing was impossible; I didn't understand how someone could be expected to have to deal with this. To deliver a dead baby... the horror of it. It was just so overwhelming. Also, we were desperately trying to finish our new house to get moved into, as we had already sold our other, so we had plenty of stress to deal with besides.

When I got the phone call, I had two friends there working with me, Jeremy and Paul, helping build the stairs down to the basement.

After I hung up with my tearful wife, and I don't know why I remember this so clearly, but I remember turning away from my friends, staring at the grey concrete wall; embarrassed to show such emotion as I explained the details of the phone call with my back to them. I don't remember anything else after that.

It seems strange even to me, even through my own perspective, that it should still matter so much to me, that I don't know this son that I lost; this son I do not know. Maybe because I see it as a failure of the most basic of Fatherly duties; to shield, defend, and protect from physical harm. I will have a few things to say to this son when he and I meet:

"You are loved." I miss you; you, whom I do not know. You would fit in here. You would like us. You would belong. You would be "us."

"Who are you?" As I watch my other sons morph from babies to toddlers, to little kids, to bigger kids, and then hopefully into the young men that they will be, it makes me wonder who you would be. I have a peacemaker, and I have a fighter; how would you fit into this? Even as I write this, I realize that simple math dictates that if we hadn't lost Jeremiah, we wouldn't have our youngest.

"why me?" Not "why me" as in: why did this happen to me; but why me, as in why does this affect me so much? I am the very model of that callous, unfeeling alpha male that can blow off anything once I just decide to. I don't have any hang-ups. I almost don't have any feelings at all; just impulses. Why not my wife, who is the very model of that loving tender caring mother figure, especially of tiny infants and small children?

"Thank you." I cannot possibly imagine a worse way of learning it, but through this I have learned things about myself and about God that I wouldn't otherwise know. I could explain this, but it would take days and days and pages and pages. I am, and will be forever, a different person because of you.

"I'm Sorry" I know that I get a "pass" on some of this stuff, but I am truly sorry that I couldn't protect you. I am your Daddy, that's what Daddies do. I am also sorry for actually saying out loud in front of people after discovering that we were expecting, that I didn't want a fourth child. What a truly horrible thing to say about a person, much more about your own son; even if I didn't truly mean it. How many times have I regretted saying that? If I could only take that back... I am so ashamed, and justly so.

And lastly:

"You're my favorite; don't tell the others." (Reference to another post.)

I have a favorite cast iron skillet in our kitchen, it is a #8 Griswald, which, inexplicably, is a 9" skillet. I've done a little research and I've learned that it is anywhere from 85 to 100+ years old. It isn't much to look at, but the cooking surface is worn smooth as glass by many years of steel flippers turning pancakes, eggs, frying chicken, stirring sausage gravy, browning ham steaks, and more recently, stir-fry. Scraping, scraping, until the surface is worn perfectly smooth, much smoother than anything you could buy new. I liken my life to that skillet; the older I get, the rougher I look because the use of the skillet is abrasive, but I hope that the constant scraping will smooth out the inside until polished enough that the Chief Cook can see His reflection in me. It is no easy thing to have your heart shaped, bent, or scraped by God.

I am somewhat horrified that I have written this deeply personal stuff to share, especially as a blog; it seems even to me a horrible place to vent. I don't even have a good reason for doing it, except maybe for something of a tribute to Jeremiah. I am a private person; I don't tell just anyone how I am doing, even when asked. I don't go on to people how busy I am, or how overwhelmed I am, or sad, or whatever, etc. I really don't know why I wrote this, I just started writing, and know don't know what else to do with it, so I guess I will post it.

Two things I wanna make especially clear about this post. Firstly, this is not a cry for help. Secondly, no, I do not want to talk about it. Wanna say something? Leave a comment...

Its just taken me about six years to turn back around from staring at the grey concrete wall.

business part of KC trip '11

Monday we were packed up and out of the Hotel before 7:00. Herself made the comment that I was "out of Slow mode, and into Go mode." Good thing, too; I was to pick up my trailer at a place called Holt's Summit, which turned out to be what would be about 3 hours the other side of KC to most drivers. Let's just say that I have mutant powers of shaving off time from traveling. 'nouf said. It was further than expected, but still quite worth going to go get.

We picked up the trailer and made good time doing it. We made it home through some very intense rain which obviously had started just the other side of Reno county, although we are very grateful for the .5" that we got. I'm sure that just north of Wichita they got several inches, just looking at the fields swimming in water. Yes, I'm jealous...

We had one very close call on the interstate highway where some dude went sideways and crashed into another car in front of us and we almost couldn't get it shut down in time, but we had good rubber and good brakes, and God was gracious to us.

So good to be home! One of the best things of the whole trip was that we found out when we got most of the way back home was that our eldest had thrown up 5 times that night before, and the youngest once!

How sweet was that? Nice timing, Huh? Way to go, kids; do that stuff when you are at Gran's house!!! I'm typing this Tuesday morning, after a nice full night's (for me, anyway) peaceful sleep. Thanks to everybody that made this fun trip possible; all you Sitters of Kids!

I'm just throwing in this pic because Herself loves these tile steps for some reason; they do look cool when you look up at them, there are about a hundred of them probably.

KC trip Sunday '11

At the swanky hotel we stayed in, we were among the select few that have certain privileges; we have access to the "Club Lounge" on the top floor where we and all the other "quality" people stayed. That way we didn't have to go down stairs and rub elbows with the Great Unwashed in the (and I shudder when I say it) the Lobby. Ugh. The Club Lounge was nice; but the nicest thing about it was the server; Monique. She is an African-American gal, about my age, maybe older, and very friendly, with a touch of southern lilt, not enough to identify from where she was from, just enough to give her the atmosphere of being from somewhere that Truly Knows About Hospitality.

Now it is my inclination when thrust into a social situation that I feel that I am out of my element to pull a mean face, scowl quite a bit, and act irritated that I seem to be the only deserving person around and all these other people don't really deserve to around me, but Monique warmed me up out of that. Her job was to be hostess to us important VIP guests of the top floors, where she offered free foods and drinks. She pulled it off quite well, and is so friendly that Wifey and I instantly hit it off with her, even though we know that she probably hits it off with nearly everyone.

Sunday morning I woke up the usual time for me; 4:00, except it was really 3:00 AM this day (the Lord's Time, as Charlie Palmetier would have said, who didn't believe in or use DST) . Since Herself hasn't historically appreciated being awakened when I do; and most likely especially on a day where we have nearly nothing planned, I wisely don't wake her, and go downstairs to the weight room and work out for an hour or so and still have plenty of time to kill before Herself wakes up. I go to the entirely empty "exclusive" 18th floor lounge and begin cleaning up my rough draft of Saturday's blog for a while when Monique comes in to prepare the mornings offerings.

She is obviously not a morning person, so after exchanging the perfunctory "Good mornings", she turns the Lounge TV on to a TV Preacher and really blasts it! Remember, this is all at around 5:something AM, when in stumbles a large man, whom, I'm guessing in

retrospect, hasn't yet been to bed. He's looking for breakfast, and it isn't ready yet. I can't really hear the words; I'm engrossed in my blog, and sitting 3 feet away from the blasting TV preacher at the computer, but I can tell he is getting ugly. As I turn, stand, and focus, I hear Monique; I hear the experienced voice of someone who deals with belligerent drunks on a near daily basis. She rebuked him in her very firm and polite voice that clearly (but still politely) informed him that he was being very disrespectful, rude, and that he can keep his tip wherever he wanted to; that God had blessed her beyond what she needed, and that she wasn't dependent upon anyone but Him for her sustenance. And that guy that made 3 of her beat it right out of the room. She just looked at me, with one hand on hip and other hand stretched out, palm up; very cool and dignified, raised an eyebrow and said in her accented whispery soprano: "Can you believe that man? He interrupted my CHURCH!"

I just wish I could phonetically spell out the scandalized intonation she had in her voice... She called security told him what happened and the manager came up and told us that the drunk dude went down to the lobby (shudder; that's how drunk he was!) and made a fuss down there about her being rude and not serving him breakfast (an hour before it was supposed to be served). He had even included how scandalized and incensed the other gentleman (me?) in the room was as well. I told the security guy exactly what happened and made sure that I laid it on thick about how professionally Monique had responded and impressed I was with the good job she was doing, etc. For the rest of our trip, we had the inside line on anything we wanted from the Hotel! If we asked for 1 of anything, we got 2 or 3 of whatever it was! She hovered over our table; it was as if we were her personal guests, and again we were her favorites. Speaking of which, brings me to a sign I saw at a Plaza shop that reminded me of a recent blog posting:

Anyway, that's about the most remarkable thing that happened to me Sunday, that I can blog about anyway. We didn't even go out for lunch Sunday, we had gone to Dean & DeLuca Saturday and stocked up on bread, olives, hummus, crackers, specialty cheeses, tapenades, little red peppers stuffed with cheese wrapped in prosciutto, etc. In other words, food so rich it would choke a horse. Yum. We had never been before, and it was cool and all, mostly because the old guy doing the cheese samples was quite engaging and very knowledgeable about his cheeses. He could have been Mr. Bloom's (last blog) brother. But we decided that while it had good "atmosphere" it didn't have even as much selection as our Dillon's in Maize that we go to sometimes when we go out on a date, and much cheaper at Dillon's, too. (Yeah, I know, awesome, huh?! Take her to Dillon's for a date?? Oh, Yeah! that's how I roll!) But we didn't have Reward Card's for Dillon's; we had them for Dean & DeLuca.

Here is a picture of my particular friend

Here is a picture of my particular friend at Fogo de Chao: you know, the one with the lamb. Notice his look of delight at getting rid of his burden. You can tell we were hitting it off quite well.

Saturday, we went to City Market; this is a terrible picture, I don't know why I didn't take another picture of where all the vendors were, but this is how it looks when you first see it...
Mr. Bloom would make a great Dickens character. Very personable, we remembered him from last year. He tells you all about his baked goods, and guesses what he thinks you would like while giving out samples with occasional outbursts of "FRESH BREAD, GET YOUR FRRRRREEE SAMPLES RIIIIGHT HERE!!! FRESH BREAD!!!" as other people pass by. Wifey and I find it refreshing to find people who are really proud of what they do and are confident that you will enjoy and appreciate it as much as they do.
Brynn really liked these apple things. They are apple slices arranged to look floral-y-ish on a crust.
This Italian grocery store was a little more my speed. Whole barrels of olives!! thas wat I'm talking about!
This was almost an assault to the olfactory nerves. This picture doesn't even do it justice; there was more spices than you could imagine. All for a dollar a scoop! Really cheap for spices. Quite cool to see the riot of colors!
Then after the City Market, we went to an exotic place full of wonder and delight. It's called "Target." Its a magical place where they have things like, say, underwear, and shorts, and toothbrushes or other sundry items that someone may forget on an out of town trip. These things that they sell aren't unlike or dissimilar to anything that they sell on the Plaza, but the real magic is this: They cost a third or a even fraction as much at this magical store!!!

From there we went to a movie called "Courageous." Its a good movie, and that's all I will say about it, other than I'm glad that people out there are trying to make a difference in the world. I hate to be so "ho-hum" about it, but when you had a dad that deliberately exemplified those things, and the importance of passing them on, you don't so much thrill at seeing it taught in the theater. It really was good though. But it takes more than that to jerk tears from this hill-billy.

Saturday night was really fun, too. We decided that we were actually going to spend some money and go to a Tapas Restaurant. If you dont know what that is, click here. We decided upon La Bodega; Here is their Menu; it is worth looking at. We couldn't find coupons for it, so we decided to just go anyway. While we were eating, we overheard our neighbors talking about the "happy hour" menu prices. We had looked, and thought that there was no happy hour menu on Saturday. Brynn encouraged me to ask about it, so when we got the check I did. Our server informed us that we came too late; OK, no big deal. She came back in a few, and informed us that we did come in a few minutes before six, and we should have been able to order from that menu, so the manager gave her permission to discount EVERY thing we ordered by HALF! even though we ordered virtually nothing from the Happy Hour menu!! She got a good tip from us!

Sunday, we plan on Going Nowhere and Doing Nothing; something pretty much unheard of by Herself and me in darned close to 12 years of marriage. We are going to try relaxing. All day long. Try it anyway; we both get restless and feel the need to go do something outside most of the time. If it works, there won't be much to blog about...

Food, Fun, and not Fighting (in that order)

This is the weekend that we have designated to be our FF&nF weekend, where we take a trip to anywhere, sometimes with friends, sometimes without, find awesome food, hang out, and you know; not fight. Not that we spend a lot of time fighting, but I want to make for sure that we have a time and place that Wifey and I can connect and just be together without interruption. It is funny how many times you can be interrupted with the same question when you have 4 kids. You wouldn't think more than 4, right? Wrong. But the irritation level increases each time you get asked "Daddy, can we watch a Movie?", until usually the last one comes in and it FEELS like you have been asked 12 times, and the poor little fella gets unloaded on, when in truth it may have been the first time he asked anything.

Anyway, I have spent the last two weeks working on making things run smoothly at work so that I can take 2 days off for a long weekend in KC with my little wifey. We are packed and ready to go; the kids are packed, and bouncing off the walls. I walk outside and as the sun comes up, I see it is the first hard frost of the year. How sweet is it that I actually get to be here for this event, instead of at work for hours before anyone notices that it happened; it is much less cool at my office. Anyway, after we boys remove shirts and walk around in this amazing reflecting crystally wonderland, we finish hugging/kissing/I-love-you-ing-the-kids/loading and shove off. In my mind this Frost is momentous, foretelling good things to come for our weekend.

We kick off our week end of Food, Fun and not Fighting with a stop in Topeka at the TupTimThai restaurant; one of my favorite Thai places. I love me some Thai Red Curry and peanut sauce! I get the "Hot" rather than the "Thai Hot" and then I can add my own spicy pepper oils, red peppers, etc off of their condiment tray. I like to get it just right, where I can just barely stand it; then I wolf it down quickly, because it tastes SOO good, and it hurts SOO bad if you stop. Then I kick back and get "buzzed" as the endorphins kick in. I know, its pretty weird if you aren't a spicy food aficionado, but you know what? I've heard that some people go out and RUN for several miles in order to get their endorphin fix, and that seems pretty crazy to me!

Part of the fun of this trip is that we are doing it on the cheap. I use my Citi Credit Card quite a bit for my work related purchases, so I accumulate a lot of reward points. I can use those for flights (which I don't need to get to KC), Hotels, and gift cards for various things. I booked the hotel in the plaza, and Wifey got online and found several restaurants that we could use reward points for, so we don't have to use any money out of pocket. Coupled with the fact that I am picking up a trailer east of KC Monday in order to save 300.00 shipping, I feel pretty darned good about the amount of money coming out of my pocket for this trip.

Friday night we went to a "Authentic Southern Brazilian Steakhouse" called Fogo de Choa where you go help yourself to the salad bar (not bad) but the real deal is they have the chefs dressed in Brazilian Cowboy (Gauchos? I think) garb with great hunks of meat on skewers wandering around each with one of 15 different styles of meat that they will carve off of their roast and onto your plate. These guys seem as if they are desperate to get rid of the awful burden of these chunks of meat and gladly express their appreciation of your help in getting rid of it. My favorite was by far the lamb; and the chef was so pleased that he had someone that would relieve him of his burden every time he walked by. You could really tell I was his favorite customer. I really broke some personal rules of eating at this place; I quite overate. We have this thing about eating; we love food, not eating. It kind of makes a difference, if you know what I mean; it keeps me from ballooning. But there are a few things that I just do not have access to, but lamb is just so expensive, even unprepared, and most of the time the cooks don't know what they are doing and it "ain't for eating" by the time they get it done. Which is why most of the time people say they don't like lamb. Don't blame the lamb! Look at their little lamby eyes, they just want you to eat and enjoy it!

I am posting from Hotel Lounge computer at 4:00 (I get strange looks from staff) and smart phone, so I will have to figure out how to post some actual camera pictures later. Saturday we will go to the City Market, a farmer's market kind of place that had coffee shops, bakeries, grills, middle eastern food, and big barrels of spices for sale, cheap. We went last year, but it was during the week and they weren't open, we are headed back!

Brynn always wanted a room that had a balcony that we could actually go out onto:

Here is our view from our balcony. I had to call the hotel staff prior to trip and ask them if they had a room on the top floor that had balcony access with a view of a construction project; they were very helpful!