Itsara

In no particular order:

1. When it comes to our kids, intuition trumps what we’re told.
2. Love is the most powerful weapon we have as parents, but it’s only effective over the long term.
3. A sippy cup can handle drops from great heights, but it can’t handle being crushed by a truck tire.
4. Neil Gaiman writes novels like he’s writing a movie, and that’s not a bad thing.
5. You cannot control kids, you can only love, teach, and hope, in that order.
6. Real love is pretty much the hardest thing in the world to do and the only thing that matters.
7. I can draw much better with an eraser than without.
8. For some kids, the way to stop complaining is to punish; for others, it’s better to pretend they’re not talking at all.
9. No two children will be parented in exactly the same way.
10. If a horrible noise can be made with a given object, Isaac will find it.

I’ve always liked to draw, but for many, many years I had stopped because I thought I wasn’t good at it and, therefore, could never be. A few years ago, I discovered that I could draw, or do anything I wanted really, if I was just willing to put in the effort to practice (I know that sounds obvious, but it was a revelation to me). So for those of you following my drawing career, here’s the latest offering.

It started with just the ship. I wanted to copy something and thought of pirates… cuz I usually do. I took the ship from the cover of Pirates of the Caribbean. Then I copied the skull and swords too, cuz they look cool. The ship needed a place to sail, so I gave it an ocean and an island.

At this point I realized I was not just copying a bunch of random things; I was drawing a whole picture. Since what I had chosen so far came from this story that’s bouncing around my head, I figured I’d continue. I chose faces that could be characters from the story, and I added the banner and title to finish it (and to give the cool skull and swords a reason to be there).

Anyway, click here for a really large version.

And because I know you’ll ask, the characters I copied are, from left to right: Donal (Marvel 1602), Dumbledore (Harry Potter, book 6), Zorg (The Fifth Element), Katsumoto (The Last Samurai), Nicholas Fury (Marvel 1602), Paul Atreides (David Lynch’s Dune), Spike (Cowboy Bebop), Faye (Cowboy Bebop), Ray Steam (Steamboy), and Jayne Cobb (Serenity).

Then Peter came to him and asked, “Lord, how often should I forgive someone who sins against me? Seven times?”

“No, not seven times,” Jesus replied, “but seventy times seven!”

I think most of us, myself very included, don’t have any idea what forgiveness really means. We think we do. We think we mean it - and in the moment we probably do - when we say things like, “No matter what you do, I will always love you and forgive you.” We think we will forgive just as Jesus said to when the time comes. But we’re a lot more like Peter than we care to admit; Peter, who, only a few chapters later, said to Jesus, “Even if I have to die with you, I will never deny you!” I believe Peter meant that when he said it, but none of us knows who we really are until we are tested.

Have you ever been betrayed by someone you trusted? If you have, have you forgiven them yet? (more…)

How to put Isaac to sleep:

1. Put him on your shoulder and hum themes from Hayao Miyazaki films.
2. Hypnotize him with Windows Media Player visualizations.
3. Swing him gently while breathing like Darth Vader.
4. Sit him on your lap and watch random Homestar Runner toons.

Okay, one of those is a lie. If you guess which one I’ll buy you dinner the next time you come out here. The rest are all proven methods, though.

Over and over again, I keep thinking about the same stuff. How can I help it? Parenting is all I do all day except when I find the time to write (and this last week I haven’t been able to do that at all what with trying to do my taxes and write a newsletter for you all).

It always comes down to this. One of the kids will do something. They’ll disobey, they’ll disrespect, they’ll complain incessantly, we’ll find out they lied about something… something. And I’ll get discouraged. I feel like I don’t know what to do, I don’t know how to help them, I should be doing more or spending more time with them or teaching them more or speaking Thai better… you know, discouraged. Sometimes this can be fixed when the kid and I make things right with each other, but with some of these kids they don’t want to make things right. Ever. I have to settle for doing my part, telling them what their part is, and waiting, hoping.

If it’s serious enough I can lay down consequences, and I often do, but sometimes they’re upset because of the consequences. That’s a normal kid thing to do, especially for teenagers, but some of them don’t get over it. They resent our authority because either they’ve never had it before or because authority has always failed them in the past. So it’s not our fault they resent us, but we still have to do the job we’ve been assigned to do, and that means punishing for wrongs done in the hope that they learn not to do them.

But I worry, you know? Most of them are teenagers now. Will they learn, or will they just get more and more bitter? I realize that I can’t let it bother me. Some things I can’t let go unpunished, lest the child or the other children learn that the rules don’t matter. They do matter, very much, and not because we’re mean or controlling but because our house has certain boundaries and because we want the best for them. So I’ve gotta punish, but whether or not they accept it and learn from it is up to them. It’s frustrating and worrisome when they don’t. I worry they’ll do something worse down the road.

And this is the part in my thinking where I remember that there are two sides to this parenting thing: truth and love. If all they see of us is consequences, they’ll definitely get worse, so we have to spend time with them and love them. But some of them, sometimes, don’t accept this either, and that’s where I am tempted to despair. If they won’t accept the consequences, and they won’t accept the love, what more can I do?

If there is something else, I don’t know what it is yet. Everytime we get to this point - and we’ve gotten to this point a lot more than is comfortable in the last couple of months - God encourages us to persevere. That’s all we can do. So we pray for love and patience and wisdom and courage and strength and everything else we need - cuz we just don’t have it - and we continue. And we hope.

And we remember that this is all temporary. Not only is this life temporary, but our time with these kids is very short. Some of them will be on their own in as little as three years, and in less than ten years all of our current children (but Isaac) may be gone. It’s a very strange thought - sad, scary, and comforting all at the same time.

I’ve been stomach sick and had a fever like 3 times in the past couple of weeks. A few nights ago I woke up in the middle of the night shivering uncontrollably. I’d never had that particular symptom before and it kinda freaked me out. It’s not the first time I thought I might die just because I lost control of my body and didn’t understand the symptoms. It probably won’t be the last either.

In any case, we had this symptom narrowed down to either a stomach virus or malaria. Actually the symptoms listed for malaria were really similar to what I had, except that they haven’t repeated and while I do live in an at-risk country, I don’t live in an at-risk area. So I probably don’t have it, which is good. I don’t know what it was I ate though. Hm, that’s the second time I became sick during or just after going out with Cindy. Gotta start praying for those dates.

Okay, sicknesses aside, we’re doing okay. We’ve been trying to take the kids out one at a time each week (not all of them each week… it’s complicated), and yesterday I took Pan out to lunch. We had a really great time and talked about all kinds of things. In particular, she is really happy to be here with us and I think she knows how much we love her. Sometimes she’s doubted because of things that have happened, but she seemed very sure yesterday. She is in 9th grade, and in Thailand 10th-12th grade are done at a different school - kind of like a junior college. So she’s excited about that, but she doesn’t know how it’s going to happen. It’ll mean driving into the city, and the school will probably be a lot more expensive than her school now.

She also told me the whole story of what happened to her parents. It’s really sad, though I don’t know if she’d want me to relate it here. Her mom died when she was in second grade or so, and her dad died just a few months before she came to live with us. And only a couple of months ago her grandmother died too, so I think her only family left is her older brother and now us. It’s hard on her, but she has a lot of faith in God.

I told her when she came to live with us I loved her because I decided too - I couldn’t do any different, I didn’t know her. But more and more now my love for her is much more than just a decision.

STATUS
Recently Read: On the Origin of PCs and Start of Darkness, Rich Burlew; Treason, Orson Scott Card; Next, Michael Crichton
Reading: Hart’s Hope, Orson Scott Card
Writing: Tales of Dark Water, finished a draft of Chapters 1-3, outlining other storylines
Last Played: Saboteur
Some of Isaac’s Words: “Bye bye”, “Hi”, “Daddy” (though he doesn’t really apply it to me yet)