Fathered Five

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20 years ago, while I was a missionary in Brazil, Her Hotness was at home living her normal life as a gorgeous 18-19 year old. That is to say, she dated a lot of guys. (Let me be very clear: “date” in my culture means just that—go out on dates. It doesn’t mean “bonking,” like it so often means in the glittering and chattering classes today.)

I doubt she spent a single weekend night at home during the two years I was gone. One guy, in particular, she dated a lot. Name was Jeff. But they split up before I got home, and the rest was history.

But a couple of years after we got married, Jeff resurfaced. He called my wife at work, just to chat, and wondered if we would like to get together with him and his wife just for kicks.

She told him she’d check with me and call him back. I thought about it for about a second and said No Way. She called him back and told him no and that was that.

Today’s post brought to you by Mr. Thompson, who comments on the His Needs, Her Needs post:

Well i haven’t got this book yet but i will get Soon ; For now i have a questions for everyone especially Husbands ? My wife told me a old friend of hers call her job and Ask will she go out to lunch with him later on this week and she told him of course i will . And then she call me and told me this and i was mad because she didn’t evite me she thought i was going to be ok with it ; I don’t think so big No, No No ! I said to her babe i’m going with you . He not going to be with you alone for Lunch ! All the Husbands do you agree with me or Not agree with me . And she’s 13 weeks pregnant with our 1st child !

First, Mr. T, congratulations on the baby. You’re in for a heck of a wild ride. Second, I agree with you. Third, even though this reunion with her old friend is probably completely innocent, I think your comfort level gets to dictate what does and does not happen in this situation. (Assuming you’re a reasonable person and not a yutz.) Marriage is a long process of give and take. She should give in this case.

Husbands, what do you think?

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The boys introduced Girl 2 to king of the hill over the weekend. The couch was the hill. A large stack of pillows and towels and blankets made for a soft landing.

Yesterday, Boy 4 and Girl 2 wanted to play it again, but we were trying to get the house in order and wouldn’t let them make a mess with the blankets and pillows. They decided to play it anyway. You see where this is going.

Not long into the game, Girl 2 was thrown off the couch. She landed on her feet but couldn’t hold it and fell hard on her bum. Hysteria ensued.

She came to me for sympathy. I rubbed her owie and kissed her and told her I was sorry she was hurt. She got irritated and squirmed off my lap. She went into the living room, still howling at the injustice of it all, and said, “I want to play king of the hill!”

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Her Hotness and Girl 16 were gone half of last week for Girls Camp. The other four stayed with my in-laws, and Joe had two glorious nights alone.

When I went to the in-laws’ house to pick up the four on Friday, we’d been apart since Wednesday. I packed them and their gear into the car and started the short drive home.

Boy 4 piped up from the back seat, “I’m happy to be a famowee again.”

Is that not the sweetest thing? That one will carry me for a while.

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There were eight of us on the ridge, roped together in two teams—my son Samuel (thirteen at the time) and me, Morgan, and our guide. … We climbed the Grand in two teams of four, using a hip belay. … It’s a choice made in favor of speed, being faster than using various climbing gear to set and then remove fixed protection at every belay station. And speed is one of the nonnegotiables on the Grand. You want to get up and off the peak before there are any thunderstorms so common to the West, which bring with them the deadly lightning strikes. …

Once you commit to the ridge there is no turning back, no down-climbing option is available. The only way off is up. The faster the better. It adds to the drama of the climb, facing each tough move with no choice but to do it. Several times I would make a move or climb a section of a pitch and think to myself, I hope Sam can do this—he’s never made a move like that before. We’d done quite a bit of climbing, stuff much harder than the actual moves on the Grand, except for the thousands of feet of exposure on three sides. There was no one to coach him up, and no communication between us except tugs on the rope to signal “Ready to belay—you can start climbing” and “Okay, I’m climbing.” Eighty to a hundred feet or so of rope lies between, and with the arc of the ridge sweeping ever upward, you cannot see the climbers above or below until you are nearly upon them, or they upon you.

So begins John Eldredge’s chapter on the next stage of boyhood, the Cowboy.

He took his Boy 13 to climb the Grand Teton so he could challenge himself and confront the burning question at the heart of masculinity: Do I Have What It Takes?

Who are these superdads?? Are they independently wealthy? Unemployed? Parents of one child? How do they do it? (It’s rhetorical. If you are one of those dads fresh off your latest skydiving adventure with your adolescent son, I so don’t want to hear about it.)

And how’s the average Joe supposed to measure up to that? I mean, my Boy 13’s rite of passage is going to have to be his grilling of a steak all by himself (and it wasn’t easy NOT to go “help,” let me tell you). The day I climb a mountain with him is the day he carries my ashes up in a little sack on his back. (Hills near our home excluded because at no point do your feet leave the ground.)

You see, the Cowboy’s greatest need is adventure so that he can prove himself. A good dad, an initiating dad, will provide those opportunities. And he’ll do it by his son’s side, not having relinquished his responsibility to make the world safe for his wandering, wondering boy.

Maybe I’m too uptight. Is it wrong not to let him make bombs? Should I have let him keep his knife after he sliced his leg open while—I’m not making this up—cleaning it on his pants? (That was two weeks ago. The stitches are out. The gash is still open.) Scars are just part of the adventure, no? Part of the proving it to himself. His latest self-inflicted injury is a black eye. He was chopping wood with—I’m still not making this up—a shovel, and somehow the handle bounced up and smacked him. He’s lucky he didn’t send shards of his glasses into his eye.

I’m only human, is all I’m sayin’. An average guy with an average income and more demands on him than time or temperament to meet them. Maybe Boy 13’s big adventure and challenge can be proving himself despite me.

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Boy 4, looking over our tomato patch: How did dose apples gwow dere? (green tomatoes)
Me: They’re not apples, they’re tomatoes. Pretty soon they’ll turn red and we can eat them.
Boy 4: And then dey’ll be apples?
Me: No, they’ll still be tomatoes.
Boy 4: Will dey be pumpkins?
Me: No. They’ll always be tomatoes.

The little guy gave up, never having quite wrapped his head around how something that looked just like the green apples on the tree could be tomatoes. Everybody knows tomatoes are red.

It rocked his world that something that looks like apples now but will soon turn red—and apples are red when I eat them—will not be apples. So if apples can become tomatoes, I guess they can turn into pumpkins, too, which are not quite red but hey, anything’s possible in such a mixed up world.

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