I’d Rather Be Writing – Tom Johnson

We started a blog for Sally last week. The URL is theordinaryprincess.com. So far she’s been excited about it, although one day she did ask me why we blog. It’s funny, because Jane and I both blog fairly regularly. Now Sally blogs too. Just today she was complaining that Mom didn’t help her on the computer and she didn’t get to write her post for the day. Seven years old, and already concerned that she didn’t get to write her daily post!

I think a blog can be a tremendous tool for teaching kids to write. Sally enjoys writing and getting comments, as well as participating in the same activities as Mom and Dad. We are strangely becoming a blogging family. We’ve always been writers, and now Sally is showing to be a real bookworm, just like Jane. Man, if I had been introduced to blogging at the age of seven, how would that have changed my life?

Jane uses pseudonyms for our family, so I’ve decided to do the same.  At first I really hated being called Dick. Now I think it’s funny. It provides some distance between reality and the written word, and it reminds me that what we write is a construct of how we perceive reality, rather than how reality actually may be.

To be consistent, and as a companion to Jane’s blog, whataboutmomblog.com, I’ve adopted the same pseudonyms.

Last night I took Susan to the hospital to get stitches for a cut on her forehead. She and Sally were playing behind the sofa chair. Following Sally’s instruction to pull the chair out a little, I didn’t realize Susan was perched on top, and she came quickly tumbling down, hitting her head on the windowsill ledge.

Going to the hospital with one of my kids is always an unsettling experience. To hold her little hand while she cried and cried as the surgeon stitched her up — it tugged on my heart. I don’t get too many experiences with my children in the hospital. I believe it’s one of those times where I really, really appreciate my kids. I realize how fragile life is, and how precious my little family is.

Now that we’re back home and things have somewhat returned to normal, I’m back to putting her in time out and telling her to return to her room (at bedtime). But that moment while we were in the hospital — just me and her, each of us pretending to be the doctor while waiting for the real doctor, raising and lowering the hospital bed like it was a circus ride — it was loads of fun. Susan has such a funny, playful attitude. Kids love to pretend. She kept wanting to be the doctor, holding a little notepad and asking me questions about what happened. I made up bogus stories about a cat attacking me.

Now Spot is sick with the flu, and Sally bonked her tooth at school. I hope we don’t all come down with the flu or end up crippled by tripping on toys. But if we do, it might be one of those experiences that brings us together.

Although it’s outside my blog’s focus, I’d feel remiss if I didn’t express admiration for Gordon B. Hinckley, president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, who just passed away tonight at age 97. Much unlike a prophet of doom and gloom, President Hinckley was an optimist who encouraged us to stand taller, to take longer strides and do better.

One of my favorite talks he gave was entitled “Slow to Anger.” Quite amazingly, he doesn’t recollect ever quarreling with his wife, who he’d been with for 67 years. In this talk on anger, he quotes a story that made me laugh:

Once a man who had been slandered by a newspaper came to Edward Everett asking what to do about it. Said Everett, “Do nothing! Half the people who bought the paper never saw the article. Half of those who saw it, did not read it. Half of those who read it, did not understand it. Half of those who understood it, did not believe it. Half of those who believed it are of no account anyway” (“Sunny Side of the Street,” Nov. 1989; see also Zig Ziglar, Staying Up, Up, Up in a Down, Down World [2000], 174).

For more info on his passing, see the LDS Newsroom, this article in the New York Times, or other tributes.

June 2008 Update: I know you probably found this post by searching for the word Grasshopper. Feel free to save this grasshopper image and use it however you want. I don’t know the official name of the grasshopper, but I took the photo in St. Petersburg, Florida. I then removed the background in Photoshop. If you know the specific species name of this grasshopper, let me know.

This beautiful grasshopper was hanging out on our patio wall all last night. I was able to get about a foot away and take this picture. The grasshoppers in Florida are gigantic.

Then we had some fun with photoshop. Notice how Lucy tries to save Avery.

I was reflecting today on Avery’s love of reading. When Avery was a baby, Shannon and I had a goal of reading her 3 books a night before bed time. We thought it would be a good idea, and this goal turned into a habit and routine that we have kept up over the years, for the most part.

I’ve watched other parents put their children to bed in 5 minutes, not reading them anything. Now that we’ve been reading to Avery at bedtime for nearly six years, it’s unthinkable not to read to her. This small and simple goal has given Avery a love of reading.  Little activities, magnified over time, can have great effects. I think these small, frequent goals are the best kind.

I’m on vacation in Utah right now. The other day Shannon’s dad and I rode four wheelers up the side of Tower Mountain. You have to know exactly where to get off the trail to find this monument, because there’s no marker indicating its presence, and it’s about 25 yards off the main jeep trail. Read the rest of this entry »

Shannon’s Makes Me Smile Topic asks what I would do with ten days to live.

Day 1: Absorb the shock and start planning. Let’s be real folks. The first day you find out about this, you’ll spend it second-guessing doctors, reacting defensively, and considering alternatives to prescribed ends (assuming its medical). Near the end of the day, you’ll begin planning how you’ll spend your remaining time.

Read the rest of this entry »

I went fishing last night with a couple of friends down at the North Pier by the Sunshine Skyway. We didn’t catch a single thing (except a tiny slender sucker fish). It was nice to spend the evening on the pier. It’s so picturesque. The appeal of fishing is to be near the water. Dolphins swim around constantly in the water; pelicans fly by and crash into the water or soar like planes in the sky.

I was so tired from having stayed up late the night before. One of my friends had a lawn chair and he let me use it. I almost fell asleep — the quiet of the ocean is really calming. At one point a dolphin grabbed the fish on my line and tugged it down. I feared he was stuck on my hook, but he easily pulled the fish off and swam around beside my line, as if to say hello and thanks.

As night fell and it grew dark, a new crowd began to replace the fisherman — crabbers. Using twenty foot poles with little nets on them, the crabbers concentrated at the water and looked for floating crabs to catch with their nets. Almost all of the crabbers were Asian, lined up on along the same side of the pier. One had a spotlight she was shining into the water.

Lucy has a great smile.

I wish I were always this happy, even when giants held me up.

Shannon’s latest Makes Me Smile Monday theme is fathers. When I think of my childhood and spending time with my father, I think of us playing catch in the field near our house. He always pretended I was throwing the ball so hard and fast that it hurt his hand.

He would also swing a rope with a ball around the end while I batted it. My dad was more supportive with me for baseball than any other sport — perhaps because he could participate. I know that’s partly why I enjoyed baseball so much, and when situations changed and I was in a new city without my dad around, I lost some interest in baseball. I haven’t thought about my loss of interest in baseball that way until just now, but I’m sure that was one reason. Read the rest of this entry »