JoJo Sabbath Rhythms...

Hello, friends! 

Last week I wrote about how becoming a "Dog Dad" has changed some of my daily rhythms. One of the other changes this Fall has been to weekly rhythms, particularly my Sabbath rhythm. This one has some to do with a dog and more to do with a JoJo. 

Both Megan and I take Mondays as a Sabbath. It used to be that we would wake up in the morning, head our separate ways, and be back together for dinner to share about our Sabbath experiences. Of course, that all changed with kids and really changed once they started school. For the past few years, it was one of us taking either the morning or the afternoon and then swapping around lunch time. 

Last year, we tried a new rhythm to try to change the timing a bit. I would get up early and do part of my Sabbath until it was time for the older kids to go to school. Then, Megan would take the older kids to school and JoJo and I would hang out until the early afternoon. Sometimes we'd go to the zoo. Sometimes we'd take the bus to the trampoline park. Sometimes we'd go to the library. Sometimes, we'd just stay at home. Then Megan and I would swap and I'd take the second half of my Sabbath time. It worked out well enough.

However, we had a new wrinkle in the timing of everything when Jonah started pre-school. Added to that, with Phoebe, me getting up earlier to go downstairs and do Sabbath stuff wasn't going to work. Once she heard me, she was going to want to be up. My options were to either get up earlier like it was a work day (not exactly the most restful of options) or get up later and we switch things up. 

The new rhythm seems to be working well. I get up later than I used to (extra sleep? Count me in!) and get the kids (and dog) ready for the day. Megan heads out for her Sabbath as soon as she's up. I take the kids the older kids to school (with JoJo in tow), head home to let out Phoebe one more time, then take JoJo to pre-school. I then have 2 hours to chill before picking up JoJo, grabbing some lunch, and heading home for his "resting time." Megan and I will then switch and I'll have the afternoon.  

Do you know what my favorite part of the new rhythm is? It's not getting up later, although that's great. It's not a more time in the afternoon, although that's also great. It's not even having an extra chunk of time in the late morning while JoJo is at pre-school. It's not the run to Burger King for lunch that JoJo insists we do every week. My favorite part of the day is picking up JoJo from pre-school. 

JoJo's preschool has one door in and one door out so there's a bit of a logjam at pickup. The teachers have all the kids sit on a rug and the parents enter single file to pick up their kids. Usually, I can spot JoJo before he spots me, mainly because he's looking longingly at the other kids around him who are getting picked up by his parents. Those 3 seconds when I see him, say, "JoJo!", he turns towards me, and his face lights up because he knows that he wasn't forgotten and that he's going home, is the highlight of my day. To be loved by your kiddo like that, to be seen as safe and to be happy to be seen, is something that I love and will never get tired of it. 

This new rhythm will just be for the year. After this, JoJo will go to elementary school and his rhythm will change again. But for now, we've got a good thing going and I don't mind it one bit. 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam

Dog Dad Rhythms...

Hello, friends! 

As you know, this summer we got a tortoise as well as a dog. Phoebe the goldendoodle has been with us for just about 2 months and I've been learning about what it means to be a "dog dad." 

See, when we decided to get Gus and Phoebe, I was fairly certain that Megan and the kids were going to dote all over the dog and that Gus and I would spend a lot of time hanging out by ourselves. Honestly, I was totally fine with that. I'm not antagonistic towards dogs, I'm just not a traditional "dog person." 

The thing that changed things was morning rhythms. Since having kids, I've found myself to be more of a morning person. I like to get up early and do my morning routine (hang out with Jesus, practice Mandarin, exercise, extend my Wordle streak, start work) before the kids are up and the day starts. Pre-dog, I would get up around 5:30 (sometimes I'd let myself sleep in until 6:30), head down to our basement, and come back up around 7ish when I heard the kids (read: JoJo... always JoJo) come out of their rooms. It was a nice rhythms. 

You know what you can't do? You can't sneak past a hungry dog. I learned this when I tried to keep my rhythm but heard the very distinctive whine of a hungry dog who had to go to the bathroom. Of course, I don't want an accident so I let out the dog. But then the dog is awake and my whole morning routine is out the window. 

So, I've had to adjust. There are a few things I've learned how to do to get back my rhythm. 

- Get up earlier. I learned that if Phoebe is awake when the sun is up, she's up. HOWEVER, if I let her out to go to the bathroom when it's still dark outside, she'll go back to sleep when she's done her business. So, now I'm up at 5 when it's still dark and she'll sleep until about 6:30 or so.  

- Give up on work. Getting Phoebe out of her kennel, waiting for her to go to the bathroom, and feeding her take up just enough time for me to not be able to get substantial work done. It's OK. I've come to terms with it. 

- Get better at doing things one handed. My number one job when I'm up with Phoebe in the morning is to make sure that she doesn't make enough noise to wake up anyone else in the family. This is obviously easier said than done, especially since she's recently been convinced that the dog she sees on our TV screen (read: her reflection) is her mortal enemy who must be barked at in order to show dominance. The solution I've found, is belly rubs. If I keep scratching her, she stays chill. That means everything else needs to be done one-handed. 

Phoebe and I have worked out a nice little rhythm in the mornings. Honestly, she's a pretty chill dog until the kids get up and she tries to eat their clothes as they're wearing them. This Dog Dad life isn't one that I would have necessarily chosen for myself, but we've worked out something nice and I don't mind where we are. 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam

Gus' Big Adventure!

Hello, friends!

There are a lot of great things about having a pet. The unconditional love is great. Most pets are super cute. Really, it's mostly good stuff. However, there is one thing that makes having a "free range" pet difficult... there's always a chance they'll run away. 

Gus had quite the adventure last week. Tortoises are naturally exploratory animals. They love to walk around and find just the right spot to dig a little hole and burrow in for a nap. Honestly, it's pretty fun to watch. Because we have him in a relatively small enclosure inside (it's not tiny but I'm sure he wouldn't mind more space...) while the weather is nice, we've been letting him roam around outside for 15-30 minutes once or twice a day. He'll usually make his way towards the back of our yard and hole up until it's time to go back inside. You can tell he's not the happiest about going back inside because he never kicks his legs when we're holding him to take him outside but he's ALWAYS kicking his legs to try to escape our grip when we take him back inside.  

On Tuesday afternoon, Gus decided to go for an adventure during his time outside. I had my eyes on him (as normal) so there wasn't any big concern. Based on the surveillance footage from our doorbell camera, there were about 4 minutes when I wasn't watching him because I was talking to Megan and helping get Phoebe inside. During those 4 minutes, he made a break for it and when I went back to look for him, he was gone.  

Usually, he heads to the right, where there is plenty of chain link fence and high rock walls to keep him on our property. He'll try to climb up the rock walls but it's just too steep for him and we can keep tabs on him pretty well. However, the left side of our backyard has no chain link fence and a lower rock wall that is a little less steep. Guess which way he went on Tuesday...

As I was frantically looking around and calling his name (as if he'd actually come to me), I saw that he could have gone one of 3 ways. He could have made a break for the front yard. The gate was closed but maybe he found a hole and was out to explore the world. A second option was that he climbed the rock wall and was heading towards our neighbors. As I was looking around, I discovered a third option: there was a little hole underneath our shed from when we used to have a groundhog in the neighborhood and he could have burrowed under there. 

Megan thought that he was under the shed, so Tuesday night, while she took the kids to scouts, I took everything out of the shed and started tearing up the floorboards. 

Friends, this was a very delicate operation! On the one hand, I wanted to work quickly. On the other hand, I was swinging and axe at the floorboards. If Gus was under there, I didn't want to accidentally cut him in half. I was very tense with each swing. Eventually, it got too dark to see anything and I called it a night. Megan let all our neighbors know we were looking for Gus and I posted on Nextdoor before heading to bed, ready to take the next day off so I could finish the shed job. 

The next morning, before starting demolition again, I went to my neighbor with the fence and asked if I could poke around his backyard to see if I could find Gus. When I went back there, I knew I wouldn't have any luck. The grass was too high and there were too many places for Gus to hide. If he was back there, I wasn't going to find him. I had to hope that he was under the shed. 

I'll pause here and note how geography affects timing. My parents have a tortoise in California. He's an outdoor tortoise and sometimes they don't see him for a few weeks or a few months but they don't worry about it because they know he'll turn up. Why? Because they live in Southern California where it never gets below freezing. Tortoises aren't built for sub-freezing temperatures like we have in Nebraska in the winter. I knew that if we didn't find him Gus by November, our best hope is that he found a new home but what was more likely was that he froze to death. Not a great thought... 

Back to the shed. My friend from scouts offered to come over and help me tear up the rest of the shed floor, so we spent the rest of the morning doing that. We tore up everything but alas, there was no Gus. (we did find a possum skeleton though, so I guess that's something...) As a thank you, I offered to take him to lunch and since we finished right when Jonah finished preschool, He and Megan joined us for lunch. 

We were in the parking lot of the Chick-Fil-A, about to head home when Megan got a notification from our video doorbell. Our neighbor's granddaughter found Gus in their front yard and had brought him home!!! Even though looking in their backyard didn't yield any fruit, apparently telling my neighbor that Gus was missing was what we needed to bring him home! 

After making a fool of myself dancing in a Chick-Fil-A parking lot, we headed home to recover Gus. Both Megan and I gave him a stern talking talking to but we were happy he was home. Once we put him back in his box he started clawing at the walls. It's pretty obvious to me that he'd rather be outside, which makes me conflicted but for now, he's still with us. 

Luke 15 is Jesus telling a 3 parables about how great it is to find what is lost. The most famous of these parables is the Prodigal Son but after finding Gus, I now have a brand new appreciation for the parable of the woman and the lost coin. The woman swept the whole house to find her coin then celebrated with her friends. I tore up a shed floor to find Gus and when we found him, the family went to a pumpkin patch to celebrate. =0). 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam

The Power of Prayer...

Hello, friends! 

Last week, I wrote about processing loss and how Jonah was doing with the loss of his friend. It was such a blessing to see the outpouring of love and support from everyone. Since I started blogging in 2011, last week's post was the most viewed post ever. Apparently, something about processing lost resonated with people. From the bottom of my heart, I thank you. 

If the past few days have shown me anything, it's that there is power in prayer. I'm not sure that I could have said that with all integrity a week and a half ago but I have more evidence of it now. 

One of the things that I didn't mention when I first told the story was the prayer part. After Jonah's friend drowned, he was on life support, functionally brain dead but being kept alive so that organ recipients could be found. While we were on the way home from daycare, Jonah and I prayed that his friend would miraculously be healed. It was a short prayer but it brought up a lot in me. 

Jesus said that if you have the faith of a mustard seed, you can tell a mountain to be thrown into the sea and it will be done. I've read all the Bible stories about people being brought back from the dead. In that moment of praying with Jonah for his friend, I wanted to have the faith of a mustard seed; I knew that I didn't. It wasn't quite a crisis of faith but it was a humbling experience for sure. 

Fast forward to last Wednesday. I posted about Jonah and was immediately flooded with comments and messages from people offering their condolences and saying that they were praying for our family and for Jonah. It was comforting and heartwarming to say the least. 

The next day, Thursday morning, was another daycare day. After the rough Tuesday we had, I wasn't sure what to expect. Friends, I have no problem telling you that Thursday morning felt like a miracle. Jonah had no problem getting into the car and there was no crying on his way to daycare. When I walked him into daycare, in the lobby was a collage of photos of his friend. Jonah looked at the collage, found a few photos where he was in there too, smiled, and walked right into the cafeteria. I honestly felt like crying for the 3rd time in 2 weeks, except tears of joy (I didn't). 

At drop off today, Jonah had a bit of a rough time but it was better than last Tuesday. It's possible that last Thursday was a fluke and he was just excited about the donut that we got on our way to daycare. Still, I'm choosing to believe that he was helped by all the prayers of friends, family, and loved ones. 

What's wild is that I still need these reminders of the power of prayer. I've experienced the power of prayer in my own life in different ways. I've experienced physical healing, both on the giving and receiving end. I've seen demons cast out and words of prophecy given that were spot on and only could be from the LORD. I know that prayer works. I'm so glad that I get reminders like this every now and then. 

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam

Processing loss...

Hello, friend!

Last week, when I went to go pick up Jonah from daycare, the woman who owns the daycare informed me that one of the students from Jonah's class died over the weekend in a pool accident. The student's older brother came to tell Jonah's class about it so everyone knew. Obviously, any death is a tragedy but this one hit especially close to home because it was a friend of Jonah's. I don't think that I had met the kid but I knew the name because Jonah always identified him as one of his friends. 

Taking Jonah home from school that day was pretty tough. I wasn't sure of how Jonah would be processing everything. He was just a baby when his great grandmother died. Our pet fish, Fluffy, died last summer but Jonah didn't think too much of it. We had some friends from church who had one of their little ones die last year but Jonah didn't know him well. This was really the first time that someone close to Jonah would die. 

As we rode home, Jonah was pretty open in talking about things in a matter of fact way. He wanted to know if each ambulance had his friend in it and had some of the normal questions. I almost lost it when he asked if his friend was going to see his great grandma in heaven and again when he said that he didn't want his friend to go to heaven because he wanted to see him at school. As someone who hadn't cried since 2021, things got really close. 

We finally hit critical mass on Thursday, the next day Jonah was set to go to daycare. He had his first day of preschool the day before so he was crying the entire way to daycare, yelling, "I don't want to go to daycare! I want to go to preschool!" I know at least part of that was because of how much fun he had the day before but I also believe that he was sad about his friend. After dropping him off at daycare (while he was still crying), I couldn't get all the way back to the car before breaking down. It was too much. 

On Monday, the daycare had a ceremony to plant a tree in the student's honor. We asked Jonah if he wanted to go but he said that he didn't need to go because the tree was to remember his friend but he already remembered his friend so there was no need to see it. #KidLogicFTW. Yesterday was another tough day a drop off. The whole way there, Jonah cried about not wanting to see the tree. I offered to go in to see the tree with him but he was a no go on that. I dropped him off crying again, then cried myself, the second time in less than a week. 

Looking at it now, the thing that evokes so much emotion in me is that Jonah is hurting but he isn't sure how to process it. On top of the crying on the way to daycare, he's also ad trouble falling asleep. He's also perfectly fine for a whole bunch of the time. When I pick him up from daycare, he's been in a good mood. It sucks that my boy is hurt and there's nothing I can do to help make it better. I can't bring back his friend... 

Friends, if you are the praying sort, please be praying. Pray for the family of the child who died, that God will bring them the comfort they need. Please pray for Megan and me as we try to help Jonah process. Pray for Jonah that he will be able to process his emotions in a healthy way and know that he is loved. 

Have an excellent day!

~Adam

PS: I thought about posting some photos of Jonah and his friend here but decided against it as a way of respecting the child and his family. I don't know them and don't know if they want a photo of their kiddo out in the world. Just know that he and Jonah looked like they were having fun. =0)

Bellevue Kickoff!!!

Hello, friends!

Last night Bellevue had its kickoff event. We decided to go with the classics: Chick-Fil-A nuggets and Uno. =0). 

Our start was a little bit hectic. I picked up the food at 5, thinking we were starting at 5:30. Our student intern Jill called me at 5:05, asking where I was. It was then that I realized that we'd changed the time to 5 last week. When I got to Bellevue and started setting up, I was worried because no one was there. It turns out that Jill had changed the time back to 5:30 and hadn't told me. Whoops! 

When 5:30 rolled around we had a few students show up. Jill was excited because none of them were athletes. Increasing non-athlete participation was a goal of hers for this year, so this felt like a win. We'd ordered for 25 and only had about half a dozen there, so we opted for a divide and conquer. Jill stayed with the students who showed up and learned more about them, connecting and such. Kaylee, one of Jill's teammates, and I took the big dish of Chick-Fil-A cookies and some InterVarsity flyers around the student center, offering cookies to folk eating dinner and inviting them to next week's Bible Study. Most of the people just took a cookie, thanked us, and went back to their conversation. However, we did me Princess and Kimberly, two students from the DRC and Kenya. They were looking for community on campus and came by later to hang out with us for a bit. 

All in all, it was a great event. Jill was encouraged, Kaylee was a huge help, and we got to meet some new students. Woot! 

These NSO events are a good reminder for me that we all have different expectations and that ultimately, God is the one with the plan. My biggest fear for these events is that no one will show up and the student leaders will be disappointed. Attendance was considerably lower than what we were hoping for but it ended up working out for the best. Because there were fewer students, Jill was able to connect more with them on an individual level. Because there were leftover cookies, we were able to go into the caf and meet Princess and Kimberly. Because the volleyball team had a match (they won, btw), Kaylee had space to step up. God does his thing, and that's OK.

Have an excellent day! 

~Adam

Soccer Season!

Hello, friends! 

It's about 100 degrees here in Omaha this week, which means it's the perfect time for soccer season to start! This year, both Jonah and Ezra are playing soccer. We had our first games of the season last weekend. 

Last year, we tried having Jonah play soccer but he really wasn't ready for it. He loved the practice time before the game but as soon as the game started, he didn't want to go in any more. It was a pretty frustrating experience so we held him out of Spring Soccer. This year though, he was really all about getting in there. He scored a few goals, had a big smile on his face, and overall, had a great time. It probably helped that one of his buddies is on the team with him. Except for the times when they stole the ball from each other, as 4 year olds are prone to do, they had a great time playing together. 

Ezra has been playing with the same group of kids for the past few years now, with me as their coach along with a friend of mine. The team we were playing was playing the second leg of a double header so they were gassed and we won handily. However, what was even more fun that seeing Ezra score 2 goals and the team cruise to victory, was seeing the growth from last season. Every season, we try to introduce new concepts to the team. This year, it was staying onsides. It took some getting used to but everyone did a great job of adjusting. The team continues to grow and get better, which is fun to see. 

Oh, and we got sick new jerseys... =0). 

We'll see how the season shakes out. The goal for Jonah is for him to participate every week. Ezra's goal is an undefeated season. I think both are possible. There are a few times when the games overlap so I'll be able to see most but not all of Jonah's games. Still, I'm looking forward to another great season of soccer. 

#GoBlackWidows

Have an excellent day!

~Adam