Runaway baby Jesus

My 5^th grade CCD class has been busy since the Thanksgiving break preparing for our Christmas pageant. My class provides the readers for a fairly simple production. They read the Christmas story, while the third grade class acts out the drama, dressed as Mary, Joseph, shepherds, and so on. We have had three practices, and so far, while it won’t be a Broadway production, it won’t be a fiasco either. But it did come close.

Initially, one of the co-teachers volunteered her one-year old son to play the role of the baby Jesus. This was not a great idea. Young Brady was entirely too much into crawling and pulling himself up on anything that was handy. One of the third-graders (who is playing Mary) is disabled and has a motorized wheelchair. Brady pulled himself up onto the front of the chair and grabbed onto the control knobs. The chair took off with Brady hanging on for dear life.

It was very exciting.

For about five feet.

Until they ran into a pew.

Fortunately Brady was not hurt, which is what made the incident hilarious. In any case, the child has been cut from the pageant team in favor of a younger, more docile child. I think Brady was disappointed. If he could talk, I think he wanted to say, “That was fun!  Let’s do it again.”

The fifth grade reader team.

The big show will be at 4 pm Mass on Christmas Eve. Looking forward to it.

While we are on a Christmas theme, our friends Sam and Beth stopped by the other day with our “adopted grandchildren” Helen and Brittany. Mrs. Poolman and I got them each an animal-theme throw-blanket. One was a frog and the other a monkey. Too cute!

The monkey and frog.

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Busy spring weekend

Wow! It’s been a busy two weeks. Time to catch up.

Mrs. Poolman is half way through a two-step cataract surgery sequence. The first surgery was last week; the second next week. She is having new “multifocus” lenses implanted in each eye.  In addition to replacing the clouded lenses, the multifocus lenses will allow her to see without glasses or contacts for the first time since she was five years old. She is very excited.

We had a busy time last weekend. We were sitting around Friday night when we got a call from Poolboy. It seems he wanted to go out and party with his friend Ronnie. Unfortunately, Ronnie had not cleared his plans with his wife, Kate. Turns out Kate had separate plans also. The problem is the third member of the family is four month old Tommy.

“So do you think you guys could babysit Tommy for a few hours this evening?”

This actually isn’t as much of a stretch as it may sound. The mom, Kate, is one of Writer Princess’s closest friends and Kate has been hanging around our house since she was in middle school. She and Ronnie recently bought a house just a couple of blocks away from ours. ­­_­­­­She is well aware that when it comes to taking care of babies, Mrs. P is a legitimate pro (neonatal ICU nurse), and I’m a “gifted amateur.”

Mrs. P, Tommy and two of the furry ones who were fascinated by the little one.

We had a great time with Tommie. He is a real cutie with a very nice personality. I’m just sorry we didn’t have him a little longer.

On Saturday, we took off to shop second-hand shops for a set of dining chairs for Writer Princess and Son-in-Law. We had a nice lunch out; found the chairs; and even found an office desk for me. We found this desk at Goodwill.

The Goodwill desk

The finish is bad, but it seems structurally sound. WP swears she has a paint that will stick to anything. We’ll see.

Our plan on Sunday was for massive amounts of outside work. We are just coming to the time of year here in Savannah when massive amounts of biomass falls in our back yard, courtesy of this oak tree.

The oak tree is great during the summer, but a pain in the spring.

We really can’t do much fixing up for summer until the fall of leaves and seed pods stop. So I mowed the lawn, cleaned the pool, cleaned the solar blanket and put it on the pool, and raked, swept and cleaned up about a ton of leaves.

Unfortunately, this was a solo effort. Mrs. P had gone to run a couple of errands, and when standing at the vegetable stand, “fell out” of her flip-flops. She went down like a bag of wet cement (according to her.) The real damage was to her toe, which may or may not be fractured, but is definitely in bad shape.

Ouch!

She spent the rest of the day on the couch with her foot propped on the coffee table.

I don’t know what we will accomplish this weekend, but we’ll give it a shot. We’re trying to get the “heavy lifting” done before the pool and beach season begins, so we can kick back and not worry about major projects during the summer.

Grandmother of the year!

This doesn’t require any editorial comment.

PALMETTO, Ga. (AP) — Police in Palmetto are looking for a grandmother and her boyfriend after her 13-month-old grandson ingested cocaine.

Authorities told WSB-TV on Monday that the baby was brought to Piedmont Newnan Hospital, then to Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston. Doctors reported that the child tested positive for cocaine. The boy is expected to survive.

Investigators said warrants have been issued for the child’s 34-year-old grandmother, Ebony Daniel, and her 22-year-old boyfriend, Charlie Martin. Daniel and Martin have not been arrested.

Infant to 12 in under three minutes

I have some posts stacked up in the back of my brain for when I have the time to sit down and actually write something. In the meanwhile, I ran across this video featured on Huffington Post. A Dutch filmmaker, Frans Hofmeester,  has been shooting clips of his daughter since she was an infant and produced this time lapse. Very cool!

Bat crazy!

Some people are not fond of bats. Like snakes, just the thought of them makes some people’s skin crawl. I’ve never had a problem. with snakes or bats. I look at bats as furry, little mammals who fly around and eat lots and lots of mosquitoes.

I ran across this video earlier this week that is worth sharing. If you are not a “bat fan,” it might change you outlook.

 

Maybe I should keep my sense of humor to myself

I need to learn to understand that not everyone appreciates or welcomes my sense of humor.

Last evening, I stopped by the grocery store on the way home from work to pick up some things for dinner. Seeing as it was Halloween, I wasn’t surprised to see the woman behind me in the checkout line dressed as a dalmation — complete with floppy ears and a black spot on her nose. There was a baby-carrier in her cart.

I caught her eye and asked, “So you have a puppy there”

With the look of someone dealing with a lunatic , she answered, “Ah, no. It’s a baby.”

Sigh.

A busy weekend!

Our weekend got an early start when the power went out at my work. Without electrical power, I am useless. No power? Friday afternoon in the summer? Time to hit the bricks.

We had a mini-party going on at our house when I arrived home. Several of Mrs. Poolman’s friends had the afternoon free and decided to start the weekend part early by floating in our pool and working out with some weight lifting — 12-ounce curls in sets of six. Fortunately, one of the “girls” was able to walk home, and one of the others brought her daughter as the DD.

You know what they say, “no pain, no gain.” Neither  pain nor gain were present here Friday afternoon.

On Saturday, we cleaned up around the house and yard and took care of some errands, like a run to the recycling center (See paragraph above.)

I read at 5:30 mass on Saturday evening and that was a busy experience We had a visiting priest who wasn’t totally up to speed on the local protocol. Also, my reading partner was brand new – a recent graduate of the 8^th grade who needed a little guidance and support. Really, just a little. She did great. I also had two additional readings thrown my way, without any time to prepare. It was a busy time.

That evening, we went to see “Midnight in Paris,” the Woody Allen movie starring Owen Wilson and Rachel McAdams. Ever since my trip to Europe earlier this spring, I have been intrigued (Mrs. Poolman would say “obsessed.”) with anything having to do with Paris. So I really wanted to see this movie, even though it was playing in just one theater, all the way across town.

I enjoyed the movie a lot. Mrs. P and our friends enjoyed it also, just not as much as I did. It makes abundant use of the Paris scenery. Mrs. P became a little annoyed because I kept poking her in the arm and saying “There is another place I was!”

Even without the scene-spotting, it is a good movie. Owen Wilson does a great job portraying a very likeable character. You can see the plot synopsis here.

Today is Poolboy’s birthday, but yesterday was his “beach day.” We headed out to Tybee with Writer Princess around 11 am, early enough to get a parking spot. The rest of our group didn’t show up for several hours. It was actually about the time I was starting to feel like toast. We stuck it out a couple more hours and had a good time. One of Poolboy’s old friends is married and has two small children – a girl who is almost one and a four-year old boy. We had a fun-time playing with the kids.

The little girl did enjoy eating sand, however.

"That sand is salty. Yum, yum!"

We have had no reports on the status of diaper changes later in the evening.

They all should be over here shortly. We are taking them out to dinner for the b-day. Should be fun.

I was a pretty good bargain…if I say so myself

My father was cleaning out some old file boxes and came across some interesting stuff. He sent me a few hospital records from when I was born. (That’s 58 years ago!) It included the discharge bill for my mother and me. In the world of today’s price of health care, some of the charges are amazing.

• Six days of a hospital room for my mother – $78
• Six days of nursery stay for me — $15
• Delivery room charge — $10
• Diaper service – $2.40

The entire bill, less the doctor’s fee, came to $132.02

Mrs. Poolman laughed her head off. She was especially tickled by one of the itemized charges.

Circumcision — $5

As a neonatal ICU nurse, she has scrubbed in on more than her share of these “delicate” procedures. Her thoughts?

“Pretty good job for five bucks.”

Why blame God?

I had conversations with two women recently, who both expressed the same question in nearly the exact same words.

“What did I ever do to make God so mad that I deserve all this?”

Both women have had their share of tragedies and difficulties and are facing more now.

Julie lost her husband two years ago after a year-long fight with cancer. He was in his 60’s. Now, her 89-year old father just died, while, at the same time daughter delivered a pre-mature baby.

Sharon’s son (early 20s) was killed in a traffic accident three years ago. Now her husband has just been diagnosed with ALS.

My heart goes out to both of them. They both have taken and continue to take some hard hits. I would not want to trade places with either of them.

However, I cannot agree that they should be blaming God and themselves for their problems. A loving God does not punish someone by causing suffering to their loved ones. Sometimes things just happen. Diseases like cancer and ALS are tragic, as are fatal traffic accidents. However, they are not part of some sinister plot by God to inflict pain on the victim’s families.

It is a common religious belief, one to which I do not subscribe, that God has some sinister plan, and that everything that happens to a person is because of that plan. You frequently hear people say, “Everything happens for a reason.”

In the extreme, people see God meddling in the details of their life. This was a common theme among the ancient Greeks. The epics of Homer and the plays of Sophocles and Euripides were filled with the Greek Gods messing around and manipulating the mortals. To one degree or another, it remains a common theme among some religious groups today.

Some bad things that have known and tangible causes. A life-long smoker need not question the metaphysical source of his lung cancer, just as a drunk driver need not examine the reason behind his car becoming wrapped around a tree.

In other cases, like a brain tumor, a pre-mature birth or ALS, things happen without any reason, at least none we can fathom. Those breaks are not evenly or fairly distributed among us. Nothing guarantees that life is just. So there is no benefit to torturing yourself by asking what you did to deserve your fate. The answer may be “nothing” or “everything,” but your loving God doesn’t use your past actions to punish or reward you, at least not in this life. Sometimes stuff just happens. That’s life.

Life is full

It has been a cold week here on the Georgia coast, maybe not by Minnesota standards, but certainly by ours. Ugh!

It has also been a busy week to be back to work. One of our scientists died in a home accident late last week, and that has taken up a lot of time and attention.  That,  and all the beginning of the year issues, has made it a weird week.

We had what seemed like our first CCD class in months last night. We had a good turn out and the “little darlin’s” were fairly attentive and engaged. We covered the sacrament of Baptism, and next week one of our priests is going to conduct a mock-baptism and explain the steps and symbols for our class and probably one or two others. That plan prompted an interesting development.

When I first walked in the building, I saw a mother in the office, apparently registering her kids for classes. She also had a newborn baby in a carrier. At the end of class, I saw her again in the hallway and we started talking.  I asked her if the baby had been baptized yet, and she said that it was scheduled for the 31^st. Half-jokingly, I asked her if she would like to have the baby baptized next Wednesday night during our baptism program. Surprisingly, she didn’t think it was such a bad idea. I pointed out that the lad would certainly have a lot of god-parents. When we parted, she seemed like she was willing to go along with it. We exchanged contact information. We’ll see if she still thinks it’s a good idea after she’s had the chance to think about it. If she and her family go along with it, it would be a gas.

I stopped by the home-improvement store earlier this week and ordered the laminate flooring for our bedrooms. Mrs. Poolman has set up an appointment with an installer who comes recommended by several of her co-workers.

I installed the flooring in the rest of the house several years ago. After that summer-long project, I told Mrs. P early-on that whenever we finished off the bedrooms, we would have a professional come in and do the work. I am lacking the skills, the proper tools and the patience to tackle that again, especially with all the measuring and cutting involved in doing multiple rooms with closets, doorways, etc.

So we are looking at an action-packed Saturday, with a memorial service, the job to pick up the flooring and the “estimate appointment” with the flooring installer. However, the pressure is now on to finish the painting in our bedroom. For two people who don’t have much of a life, we sure seem to be busy.