A Root Cause for Fickle Emotions

I.

I woke up this morning feeling emotional.

II.

I usually sleep very well. Extremely well. But last night I woke up around three times that I can remember. I have a faint feeling like I was having bad dreams. But I cannot remember any of them.

III.

Which made me wonder what is really going on in my brain right now. I know I was fairly feisty and moody yesterday. I chalked it up to being tired from the night before. (I was out late on my weekly Taco Ride bike ride.)

But it’s clearly more than that.

IV.

I brought my mood up with a couple friends and they suggested that it might be that a lot of the emotions from the past couple weeks’ drama in my house is catching up to me. I’ve been on autopilot up until now.

I do think there’s truth in that. But it’s not the root. But I think I can identify the root.

V.

Micah.

VI.

Micah has been on an extremely low carb diet. This in and of itself has added stress to my life. Always having to think ahead about what he will be eating. What he is willing to eat. Limiting his carbs. And his constant nagging of saying that he is hungry.

Micah’s behaviors are a constant drain of energy. I cannot leave him alone for any amount of time. He has to be constantly observed and entertained, or else things get crazy. So just that in and of itself is a constant source of stress for me. But things between him and his brother have seemed to get worse. They are always fighting and bickering. Punching, kicking, throwing things, biting. It’s a battle everyday.

Micah has had lots of ear infections recently. Ones that seemingly never go away. And so, long story short, he is going to get tubes in his ears soon. They will also take out his adenoids. And while they are at it, they are going to clip his tongue tie. All in one surgery. He’ll be under general anesthesia, which is definitely a source of stress. And for me it’s bigger than I anticipated.

I imagine him lying motionless on a surgery table. His little self. And it really bothers me. I don’t really know why it bothers me so much, but that image is deeply disturbing to me.

Micah starts school on August 13th. He’ll be in a regular kindergarten. Riding a regular bus. All day. Every day. I just can’t imagine things going smoothly. I don’t anticipate it at all. Even within the first day he’ll be up and walking around on the bus. No doubt. And he’ll probably get made fun of by the older students. And I, I’m not doing well with that in my mind.

An entire day of school? Seriously? It sounds really great if it works out. I’m so excited for him. But I just can’t imagine it. He can’t stay seated in a chair for more than three seconds. I have no idea how this is going to work.

That’s probably the tip of the iceberg. But I know that.

VII.

Someone in one of the Kabuki Syndrome groups I am in posted that her daughter died. Out of respect I won’t say who or what group, but there’s a part of her post that really was just…I don’t know…so real to me. I can’t help but tear up when I imagine her life at this point.

Last night we lost our sweet ——–. She put up such an amazing fight until the very end. I really don’t know how I will adjust to life without her but my heart is shattered in every way possible. I cannot believe she’s gone, our little girl is gone…. I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. What a fucked up life this is… The only thing keeping me sane is knowing that she is no longer suffering. No more pokes, no more pain, no more wires, nor surgery, just rest.

What a post.

Because I do sometimes think, “What a fucked up life this is…”

I don’t mean to be crass. If there is ever a time for using the f-word it is in this context. But man, this world sometimes. The stories. The suffering. The struggle.

VIII.

Life is just too short to be angry. To buy lots of shit. We have to invest in each other. What else is there?

IX.

There are days where I just want to go through all my things and get rid of almost all of it. Cut down my belongings to my computer. camera and lenses. A few sets of clothes and shoes. My watch. My bike.

I sometimes have these nagging feelings to just do that. We have so many toys with so many small parts. The house gets messy every single day because of the kids. It drives me bonkers.

Laundry. Toys. Trash. Mail.

It never ends.

X.

The end.

Sifting and shifting

I.

My home right now is down to five girls. It feels a bit strange after having eight for most of this year. Two girls have left our home in the last week. And their departures were, well, not truly “successful.”

II.

It makes things complicated.

For one of our girls, she was in our home for maybe 10 months. And it wasn’t truly until the last couple months that things started to go downhill. And that’s really sad to me. There’s such an opportunity to leave well and with a good relationship, a lasting one in which we can stay in contact for years to come. But she did not leave in that way. She left by giving girls marijuana as a goodbye present. And manipulating things behind our backs (even though we knew she wasn’t being honest).

And to me, that’s just taking all the progress and social capital you’ve built and throwing it down the drain.

III.

The other girl who left our house this week left after only being in our home for about three weeks. And she had moved to our home from another because of her behaviors. She had some pretty nasty sneaky behaviors. She only needed a couple credits to graduate, however, and so we worked with her on a plan to be able to take two classes online intensively over the course of two weeks, while she finished up her summer classes, to be able to “graduate.”

Her situation is complex, but we do sincerely hope for the best for her and her family. Her parents are super kind and wonderful people, and I hope that things are able to settle down for them and her.

IV.

That’s one of the hardest aspects of this job. You can pour your life into these girls, and they can accept the help for a while, but they can still crash and burn out of here. Or reject your help at the end just because they are determined about getting out.

V.

It feels like sometimes they just think that we see our role in their lives as a job. But we don’t see it really as a job. We can’t. We see it as a lifestyle. A calling, almost. It’s something we choose to live and be, not just do.

VI.

So right now we are left with our five. And they’re all in trouble because of the weed that our former girl gave them. But this is our crew. I love the five of them dearly. I told them yesterday that I’d fight anyone for them to stay with us and be successful. And it’s true.

I hope they understand this isn’t a job to me. We’ve chosen to live this life because we care about them deeply.

Mo Cheeks in my ideal self

I heard a story recently that I want to share:

It’s 2003. The Portland Trailblazers are losing in playoffs 0-2.

(This story isn’t about sports, but hang with me…)

Before the game, a 13 year old girl name Natalie Gilbert, who had recently won the “Get the Feeling of a Star” promotion, stepped up to sing the national anthem. She’s wearing a nice dress. And she looks pretty nervous. She gives a small smile, gathers her composure, and once the applause quiets down she begins singing.

It starts off pretty well. It sounds like what you might imagine a good 13 year old singer would sound like.

“Oh, say can you see by the dawn’s early light
What so proudly we hailed…”

But then she messed up a few of the words. And she stops.

She gives a short and nervous chuckle as the place grows completely silent for a short moment. Then there’s a few encouraging cheers and yelps. And then cheers of 20,000 fans trying to reassure her.

The girl, still struggling, puts the mic up to her forehead in complete embarrassment. She then looks for her dad in the stands. She looks for some help. Some rescue.

And rescue comes.

A man in a grey suit approaches her and says, “It’s all right, it’s all right. Let’s go, let’s go.”

He walks up to her puts a hand on her back, and another hand on her hands in support, and attempts to jumpstart her singing. He tries to throw out the next words while singing himself. He doesn’t sing well, and he doesn’t even get the words right himself. But it doesn’t matter.

She starts singing again.

And he doesn’t stop. He keeps on standing there with her, singing along in the background, hand on her shoulder. His voice is actually pretty terrible, and she has just a couple hiccups herself as she continues. But by this point, it doesn’t matter at all. The whole stadium is now standing, and 20,000 people join in with Natalie as she sings the rest of the national anthem.

It’s a powerful moment.

The man who rescued her was Mo Cheeks, head coach of the Portland Trailblazers.

That man probably had a million things on his mind about that game before it started. Things he wanted to say and to do to make sure his team didn’t go down 0-3 in the playoffs.

But when he noticed Natalie struggling he instantly walked up to help. He saw the need, made himself vulnerable before a huge room of people, and did an amazing thing for a 13 year old girl.

That room was changed. People were inspired.

The story could have been one of pity and perhaps, sadly these days, one of ridicule – when a 13 year old girl messed up singing the national anthem. But Mo Cheecks stepped in along side of her and saw a much bigger picture at hand. He not only was rooting for this girl’s success, but he did something himself to actually help her to be successful.

Was it the most beautifully that she’s probably ever sang the national anthem? No way. But it was the best that she’s ever sang it because she stuck it through, accepted the help, and kept going. The entire stadium soon was singing too.

Two thoughts:
1. Mo Cheeks is my ideal self in this situation. I try to notice the bigger picture around me and ways to not simply root for people, and especially teenagers, to do well, but to do something about it myself. To metaphorically walk up to the 13 year old girl, show my support by leading by example and by being authentic, shaky voice and all. Because it doesn’t just help one person, it can inspire many others at the same time who happen to be witnessing it. We are always teaching and influencing those around us.

2. A challenge: Who can you notice today that you can step in and help by putting your needs on the back burner for a moment, humbling yourself, and supporting someone in need in a real way. How can you make your ideal self align with your lived out self today?

Here’s a video of it in case you wanted to see it.

One of those days

My attempt to make time to write have been somewhat of a failure recently. Life has been fairly hectic. But I did say that I wanted to write something, even it was only a sentence or two. My goal is simply to write. 

One of our girls leaves our home tomorrow at 4:00pm. Our time with her has seen a lot of ups and downs. I would say mostly ups. I really have enjoyed having her in our home since I think last September, maybe early October.

But recently things have been more frantic and chaotic. And she leaves tomorrow afternoon. I feel sad that she’s leaving because I personally do not believe she’s ready or that she’ll be successful once she leaves here. But her situation is now out of our hands. And so tomorrow we say our goodbyes.

 

There are still firsts

I.

Right now I am sitting a coffee shop in North Omaha with my wife. She’s sitting in a chair reading a book. I’m listening to light bossa nova play over the speakers while sipping my iced cold brew, and dabbling in a book about contemplative photography.

II.

The room is big, echoey, and bright thanks to all the floor to ceiling windows.

III.

Yesterday Sarah and I had the day mostly to ourselves. It’s our weekend off and my mom offered to watch the boys for the weekend. It’s been a few months since this last happened. March I think.

IV.

After Sarah dropped the boys off at my mom’s place she came back and we went out for lunch at a nice local restaurant we like. I always remark during these times about how nice it is for Sarah and I to actually have full conversations without interruptions from our boys. Conversations in which we don’t have to teach to teenagers.

V.

We recently got a cheap bike for Sarah, one that needed a decent amount of repairs, and so I brought it over to the local bike shop to be repaired. After that we headed over to our old neighborhood in Omaha with my bike and Sarah rented a bike so that we could go on a nice afternoon bike ride together.

VI.

We’ve never been on a bike ride together before. It was neat to think that even after fifteen years of being together we can still find fun, simple activities to do together that we’ve never done before.

VII.

After that we went to a local bar as we waited for a table to open up at the Korean BBQ place we made a reservation at. Sarah’s been asking me to go to a Korean BBQ place for probably ten years. It was very good. We ate SO much meat it was crazy. But it was all very tasty. Expensive, but worth it.

VIII.

We came home and watched a movie together. It wasn’t all that great, but it was still fun to be able to be in our living room with the sound turned up on our speakers as loud as we wanted without having the fear we were going to wake up the kids.

IX.

Here are some photos from the weekend:

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Date weekend

Gettin’ the Band Back Together

I.

Every Thursday, just across the Missouri River from Omaha, Nebraska there is a gathering of a couple hundred or so bicyclers who ride together on something called Taco Ride. We start in a parking lot in Council Bluffs, Iowa and bike ten miles along a limestone trail until we reach a small little restaurant in Mineola, IA that serves tacos, fried cheese curds, nachos, and pitchers of margaritas.

I go every week with my friend Jeff. I’ve gone I think nine or ten times so far thus summer. The only week we have missed this summer has been the week we were on vacation at lake Okoboji.

It’s my weekly ritual now.

We usually leave from our place around 7:30 and get there around 8:00. It takes about 45 minutes to bike the ten miles down to the restaurant. Along the way we pass all sorts of people. It’s quite the group of people. I love the cycling community.

Oftentimes our friend Drew comes with us, but he hasn’t been able to make it most weeks this year. But he came last night. And usually when he comes, the night is a lot more unpredictable and therefore more fun.

II.

Drew has recently been getting into drone videography and has started to take some photos on his Canon DSLR. So it was fun to have him come on this ride because he took some quick drone footage of us, and then later we took some pictures on the way back.

III.

The moon was about half full it looked like, so it wasn’t really a great night to take photos of the stars. But ever since this past Sunday when I took some shots, I’ve been wanting to take more.

So we took a few on the trail. I didn’t have my tripod. I didn’t really have a good way of setting down my camera for a good angle. But I still captured a few photos.

IV.

About a mile and a half into the ride back I realized that I didn’t have my phone on me and had left it on the trail. So Drew and I went back for it and eventually found it. Thank goodness. But it added a few miles to the trip back.

V.

Here are some of the photos I took yesterday:

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Spilling the Bucket

I.

Today is one of those hard days because it feels like I’m completely drained of emotional energy. One of our girls is struggling with her behaviors. This morning I confronted her about something and she cussed and yelled at me. She denied everything I was saying about her. Going on and on about all sorts of things.

Now, I was completely prepared for this. None of it was surprising. I probably could have written the script of what she was going to say.

It’s the actual encounter between us as human beings that drains me. On paper it’s nothing. But when you put two humans beings who’ve lived with each other since last September, and she’s talking about how she can’t trust me and how she doesn’t care and she’s cussing at me, yelling, saying I’m setting her up for failure – it does something to me.

II.

Part of this job that makes it vulnerable is that I am constantly rooting for these girls to do well, make good decisions, and build authentic relationships.

So when these girls make poor decisions and show their relationships to be phony and fake, or at best very shallow, it’s disappointing and I’m left with feelings of grief and sadness. I know that’s a constant risk of this job if I’m constantly rooting for them, but there is no other way to do this job. It’s what I signed up for, so these days are guaranteed to happen from time to time.

III.

It’s like our relationship is a big bucket being slowly filled up with experiences and laughter and trust and time. In instances like this today, it feels like she kicked over the bucket and all those experiences, laughter, trust, and time gets spilled out everywhere. And once it has been spilled there’s not really any that can get back into that bucket. You have to just flip that bucket back over and hope to start filling it back up.

IV.

But this girl is potentially leaving as early as next week. And so her behaviors are all over the place. When these kids don’t have a solid plan about their future, their behaviors and attitudes shift and ebb and flow constantly. Very few can handle such uncertainty. And so it is for her. But she thinks she’s for sure getting out of her, and it is very likely. But if she basically thinks she’s getting out of our home no matter what very very soon, what does it matter if she tries getting away with things she knows she isn’t allowed to do? At least in her mind.

V.

So here we are. A tough day. I feel drained. But I stay committed with faith, hope, love, and determination.

So I take a deep breath now. Pushing forward with a peace that comes from a sense of integrity and truth.

 

 

Instastellar

I.

Last night I met up with some fellow instagrammers from here in the Omaha area to take some photos of the stars and the milky way galaxy.

Before yesterday I had never done any astrophotography. But I was very excited to get a chance to do it with others out in a very small town about 45 miles east of the Missouri river in Iowa.

II.

I don’t really have a lot to say other than throughout the evening I got better and better with understanding what made a good quality shot. It’s a balance, and you have to learn your camera.

But here are some of the photos I took last night. Let me know which one is your favorite.

1.

Astro Meetup

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Astro Meetup

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Astro Meetup

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Astro Meetup

Chugging Along

I.

Saturdays can feel very long around here. Well, weekends in general. But honestly, today wasn’t all that bad. We only had three girls for most of the day, we had an assistant working with us, and Sarah’s feeling better. (She had been sick and in bed for almost two weeks as of a couple days ago.)

II.

It was Omaha Railroad days today. We took them all there today. It was a hot day, but overall it was quite pleasant. Micah’s attention was still as short as ever, but he we were able to move around to different exhibits enough to overall keep him satisfied.

III.

I was thankful today that one of our girls, the girl that has been with us the longest, really acts like a big sister to Micah. She kept her eye on him when he’d run away. She’d convince him to come back to us if he did.

I remember thinking back before we worked at Boys Town that Micah was such a handful it potentially would feel like less work to me if we fostered or even adopted a teenager. Someone that could be a big sibling to Micah. And here at Boys Town, Micah has a number of big sisters that really watch over him well. I am extremely thankful for that.

IV.

If I could, I would go out and take pictures as often as possible. Unfortunately I’m too busy. And even when I am out taking pictures it’s hard because I can’t publish any pictures of our girls publicly, and when I’m with the boys I feel like I can’t stand still long enough to take pictures because I’m always chasing them around.

V.

Tomorrow there is a meet up for Instagrammers from Omaha. It’s a astrophography meet up, something I’ve actually never done and have wanted to do for a very long time. I got a cheap tripod today because my boys ruined my other one. Good timing for something like this. I hope to come back tomorrow night with at least one good photo from the evening.

VI.

This evening, before the girls went to bed, I was contemplative. I had just been joking around with them a bit as we reflected on their behaviors throughout the day. And I thought about really how great this job is most of the time. I still haven’t lost that sense of privilege it is to live with and raise this girls. I love what I do. I love being able to do it with my wife. I love the support that we get in this role. And I love that my sons have big sisters that are with them all the time.

What a life.
I’m so thankful.

Until next time. Peace.

VII.

Pictures from the day:

Omaha Railroad Days

Omaha Railroad Days

Omaha Railroad Days

Omaha Railroad Days

Omaha Railroad Days

Omaha Railroad Days

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The Next Step

Writing is so important to me. And I often have blog posts that I want to write, that I end up never writing because I either don’t feel I have the time to focus on it, or I have so much to say I don’t know how to get it all out there.

So I’ve decided to try and write something each day. And not something preachy or intended to be click-bait or necessarily relevant to everyone. Just something from my own heart. Written down. Recorded.

So today, I start this. I assume some posts will be very short. Maybe only a few words. Some days, I’m guessing it could go a few thousand words.

I.

Last night I went on Taco Ride with my friend Jeff. It’s a 20 mile ride in Iowa that he and I do every week along with probably a hundred others (at least). You bike 10 miles on a nice limestone bike path until you get to a small little town called Mineola where there’s a little restaurant that serves tacos, nachos, fried cheese curds, and some great margaritas.

It was our eighth ride of the summer. It was a hot one. When we started the heat index was 108 degrees. But it was worth it.

I always like Taco Ride because it’s a time when we can get away from campus for a while. Talk through work related things as well as just life in general. It’s my favorite time of the week. Hands down. And I’m very thankful for the friendship that I’ve built with my friend Jeff.

After Taco Ride last night we stopped at a donut shop in Omaha that stays open late into the night. Jeff is a total sucker for donuts and other sorts of sweets. And it’s fun to grab food from these little sorts of hidden gems in cities like Omaha or Lincoln.

II.

I’ve been watching a lot of really good storytelling recently. I have so many things I wish I had time to parse out. But the overwhelming amount of things I want to write about has kept me from writing anything, which just seems silly.

I am always trying to watch TV shows with great storytelling or acting. I love a well-told story. It is one of the motivating elements in my life because I find meaning and inspiration from well-told stories.

I recently just finished watching the second season of Handmaid’s Tale. 
I watched the Netflix movie Come Sunday that was promoted by and I want to say made possible because of Ira Glass. I’ve seen it twice now.
I am still working my way through the third season of The Path. 

I saw the movie Won’t You Be My Neighbor almost two weeks ago.
This morning I went to a morning showing of Sorry to Bother You. 

A while back I finished Atlanta and Homeland.
I have watched a bunch of other shows too.

There are so many posts I want to write in relation to these shows and movies. But there’s some quality writing and storytelling in the shows and movies I just mentioned. But there are definitely themes that overlap between them all. And they tug at the deepest levels of my psyche and even identity.

There’s no doubt I’ll at least come back to writing about Handmaid’s Tale and Come Sunday.

III.

Ok. Time to get a bit real. I think this is the sort of writing that I anticipate writing more often, so thanks for following along with me and my life if you’ve made it this far. I really appreciate the time you’ve taken to read my words.

IV.

Today we had a day off of work. We did yesterday, too, which is rare. But we have two assistants working with us right now, which is extremely rare, and so we took a vacation day.

Micah is on a special diet right now. It’s supposedly called a “modified Atkins diet” but it is a keto diet. He started off not eating more than 10 grams of carbs a day. As of this past Monday he got bumped up to 15 grams. He’ll eventually make it to 30 grams. And we’ll see what kind of impact it has on his cognitive abilities.

But this diet definitely is stressing me out. Micah almost constantly says he’s hungry. And although he has done a phenomenal job of not sneaking foods he can’t eat, he hasn’t done the best job at being consistent with the foods he is able to eat. Sometimes he likes them, and sometimes he says he doesn’t like them anymore. And it feels like everyday is a constant battle for making sure he gets enough calories while also not eating any carbs.

Going out to eat with him was hard enough before this. But now it feels like it’s not even worth it. What can he eat? Will he eat something he can eat on his diet? Will he throw an epic tantrum?

Who knows?
Not me.

It kind of feels like hell sometimes.

And it makes me irritable. I get annoyed easily by the whole thing. Probably because I don’t really believe it’s going to do anything. We’re putting ourselves through hell for no real reason other than some distant hope that this diet will change the chemistry of his blood and therefore brain in such a way that he will be better behaved and be able to what, be smarter?

They are doing research with rats with this sort of diet now. But I don’t know. It seems like a long shot. Even the geneticist was saying this stuff is above her understanding. She doesn’t keep up with the studies. That doesn’t give me much hope.

V.

But today we went downtown in Omaha. Sarah could tell I was stressed out about it and offered a suggestion that she could take Micah someplace and I could take Ezra. And that really did lift my attitude. So that’s what we did. I took Ezra to a pizza place, and Sarah took Micah to a creole place, where apparently he ate and ate and ate lots of shrimp.

VI.

I’m sure I’ll get into some of my feelings about the difference of parenting Ezra versus Micah. But not today.

VII.

For memory’s sake I’ll quickly write about what we did this evening.

We stopped at one of Omaha’s few sausage shops to look for good sausage or meat sticks for Micah. It’s one of the things that he really likes, and well, our whole little family does. It’s the third sausage shop in Omaha that I’ve been to with Micah in the last week or so.

We miss the sausage shop we lived next to in Chicago.

I had dinner with Ezra at Zios. He was so well behaved. He loved his time with me. He was quiet and thoughtful. We talked about various details of his day. We did a word search that was from his kids meal. He had a big piece of cheese pizza and I got a cheese calzone.

Afterwards we went to Ted and Wally’s a local ice cream shop and got ice cream together. While I was there I noticed they served Keto ice cream, too. So Micah could have some ice cream after all. And he eventually did! (Coffee flavored of all things!)

Ezra and I went to our favorite place in Omaha, Hollywood Candy. He got a light up candy. I got an old fashioned ginger ale.

VIII.

After Sarah put the boys to bed tonight I took a short nap on the couch because I was so tired. She started watching Come Sunday because it was a movie I knew she would find thought-provoking and interesting. I came in when she was about halfway through, and I watched it with her.

That led to a long discussion about heaven, hell, the Bible, Jesus, religion, etc.

We talked about our world today. Evangelicals. Religion in general. Trump. Etc.

And then after about an hour we knew it was probably time for bed. So she went to sleep and my mind was still racing. So I knew that it was time to finally start writing something down on this blog in a way that I know I will keep up with.

Until tomorrow. Peace.

Images from the day:

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