Random Thoughts On Life Right Now

Let’s see, what are things like lately?

Well, we’ve had lots of broken sleep on account of the boys. I can feel the effects of sleep deprivation. Thankfully, the last two nights have been a fair bit better, but this is probably not the beginning of a pattern. I can hope though!

Our house—where do I begin? I’ve almost given up on trying to keep up with housework. Clutter punctuates every room, some worse than others. Baby stuff is everywhere. Some is organized, some is simply there. No sooner do we straighten a room out then it’s back to its original state. Makes me pretty hesitant about opening our house to company, especially when clutter covers furniture, leaving precious few places for people to sit!

And yet.

There are two little creatures that have invaded our homes, our lives, and our hearts. Both are unique. Neither is like the other. Their differences are pretty clear. These two boys—Henry and Eli—are unspeakably amazing. Even I can’t fully appreciate their beauty. They evoke wonder. I have two sons! Isn’t that a crazy thought?

Adjustment remains. Our little girl has definitely been feeling the stress of having two infant siblings taking time and attention and energy away from her. She’s not really the jealous type—her feelings come out in other ways: frustration, disobedience, strong-headedness, asserting herself. But still, she’s been an amazing big sister. In fact, she’s an amazing little girl: full of feelings, thoughtful and smart, a silly tease.

And then there’s my wife, more attached to the boys then either Ella or I. I mean that pretty much in a literal sense since she’s nursing. She handles the varying moods and fusses of these two little boys with astounding grace and love. While it’s not always easy pulling yourself out of bed in the middle of the night to care for them, not once have I heard her complain. Motherhood comes as naturally to her as breathing. Very much deserving of a break for all that she does—course, I’m deathly afraid of being left with all three kids at this point!

Me? Not as tired as I was for the first half of the week. Wishing we had a cleaner, neater house. Looking forward to getting into more of a routine as a family. I confess sometimes my patience is not as deep as that of my wife’s. Over these last couple of weeks, it’s been strained a few times. Lack of sleep doesn’t affect me in pleasant ways.

With new kids in the home, it’s astonishing how much time it takes to just take care of them. It’s not a surprise that so little housework gets done. When much of your time is consumed by feeding, cleaning, changing, soothing, holding, settling down, and otherwise being with your new sons (still a thought that has yet to fully hit me, I think!), doing dishes, laundry, sweeping floors(much less mopping them!), dusting, organizing clutter, etc. become luxury items in the catalogue of life.

Oh well. At some point you do have to let go. At some point I have to let go; that is, I have to let go of my relatively obsessive need to clean house. I have to relinquish control. I have to admit to defeat—I can’t do it all, at least not without driving myself nuts. To gain more, I have to be satisfied with less.

Since Spring is now here and the weather and our days are beginning to reflect this seasonal truth more frequently, we can start getting out more as a family (though it takes the better part of a day to get us ready to go out!). We’ve got a nifty double stroller for the twins, a tricycle for our girl, and feet for us. And this is important—it can get a little claustrophobic when you’re a family of five in our house! I’m just grateful the thaw has begun.

And what else? People at our church have been generous and supportive, especially since they haven’t even met the boys yet! Being preemies, we’ve sort of kept them under wraps and limited human contact. I’d have had them at church the first week home if possible—but I wisely listen to my wife. Hopefully on Easter Sunday will be the first occasion for going to church as a family again.

All of this is part of the process. This is life. Frustration usually occurs when I fail to accept the unchangeable or the inevitable, when things aren’t how I would like them to be. But how I would like things to be isn’t always possible. Truth is, I have so much to be thankful for and can so easily forget that. Isn’t that bizarre? I have two new sons, yet there are moments when I forget to be grateful for simply that. Lord, have mercy.

Anyway, this is it for now. Time to end the rambling. Time to move on for the rest of the day, like breakfast, being with family, maybe listening to Stuart MacLean and the Vinyl Cafe on CBC. Later I will be finishing my sermon (nearly done!) and getting a couple of other things ready for church tomorrow. And perhaps at some stage, I will get at least a couple of rooms straightened up—and try not to feel too frustrated if that doesn’t happen!

Random Thoughts On Late Night Parenting

Getting up at 3:3oam to help feed and change your twin boys and not being able to go back to bed because one of them refuses to settle down and because your wife has what is probably a gall-bladder attack and because your daugter wakes up at around 5am due to all the commotion is, contrary to some opinions, not all that it's cracked up to be. That was last night (yesterday morning). Tonight (this morning) has been a little better. I actually got a few hours sleep so far. Though we still had to separate the boys -- I ended up in the living room with Henry. I love my boys, Henry and Eli, but I'll be very happy when (and if??) they start to sleep through.

Around 6am yesterday I realized there was really no point in trying to go back to bed. I had been up for nearly 3 hours. It was hard for me to relax because I was always thinking about the boys and hoping (and praying!) they'd stay asleep. So I stayed up. And around 7 or 8am I got sort of second wind; that is, I no longer quite felt as though I had been up all night. I anticipated crashing either later in the day or the next day. And I did, thanks to my mother in law who came to help after I gave her an early morning call. Thank God for family living nearby!

Now the funny thing is, these sorts of things -- family incidents, let's call them -- often, if not always, seem to happen on Saturday nights. This, for most people, would be ideal. It's the weekend, right? At least we don't have to work in the morning! That would be true for many, but obviously not for me (and if you're wondering why, just look at the name of this blog again!).

This means I had to go to church -- and not only go to church, but play guitar for the worship team and preach and lead the service. I'm not complaining, mind you. But most pastors do this with more than a couple hours of poor sleep behind them. Thankfully everything went well. Actually, it was a meaningful time of worship and fellowship. Odd though it may seem, God sometimes does his best work through us when we can in no way rely on ourselves. When it seems like we're in no position to work on his behalf, in those moments he graciously equips us. How else to explain the fact that one of my church people told me that yesterday's sermon was one of my best in awhile? (She was quick to add that I always do well, but was just particularly impressed and/or moved by this message).

As I write these words, it is around 6:38am on a Monday morning. I've more or less been up since 5am. Henry has still not fallen asleep, despite having been fed and changed. I don't hear Eli's cries from the bedroom anymore, so I take it that he's conked out. It could be that Henry is hungry -- again!! These guys have quite the appetite. So I'm slowly getting some milk ready for him to eat, since I want my wife to be able to sleep.

Having said all of this, I am still a grateful father and husband. Tired, yes. Somewhat delirious from said sleep deprivation? Yes, but still grateful. And I will be until after I've fallen asleep for too short a time and one of my kids, probably our little girl, wakes up in time to get me up before I've gotten enough rest. Oh, I'll still be grateful even then. Because I know that, hopefully, later I get to take a nap!

Music to My Ears: Part 1

I don’t buy many CDs these days. And that’s not because I download my music, either dubiously or officially; rather, as a married man with three kids it’s not often I have income expendable enough to indulge personal interests. I suppose it’s also because I am embarrassingly out of touch with music these days and I don’t get to hear much by way of new music. Most of my CD purchases are of music from bands or artists that I’ve listened to for 10 years or more. I also tend towards specific bands and songwriters so my music collection is not exactly a smorgasbord of diversity. When a band I like puts out a new album, that’s usually the occasion that I fork over the cash. Or I let someone else do it for me! And over the last few months, I’ve gotten more new music than I have in the last couple of years.

The first CD was Saudades de Rock (translated, ‘a longing for rock’) by 90s rock band Extreme. They’ve actually been inactive for roughly 13 years, the different members having become involved in other solo or band projects after the lukewarm response to their last album, Waiting for the Punchline (1995). I haven’t listened to them much in these intervening 13 years but I will say that, musically, this is an impressive collection of songs.

One of the elements of Extreme’s music that I always appreciated was Cherone’s lyrics, which were often satirical, thoughtful and, especially on Three Sides to Every Story, filled with Scripture references and themes. Three Sides in particular is arguably a concept album that moves from the political to the personal in order to portray humankind’s need for God. Punchline continued this tendency but with a darker edge, both musically and lyrically.

This was also true for Cherone’s one-album stint with Van Halen on Van Halen III (1998), particularly on the songs “Once” and “Fire in the Hole.” On the latter you could hear him belt out the passage from the Epistle of James on the tongue as a fire as the song faded—and that passage holds the key to understanding the rest of the lyrics. After leaving Van Halen Cherone recorded an album called Exit Elvis with a one-off band Tribe of Judah, and this album was permeated with ideas both theological and philosophical, with many of the songs unpacking Dostoevsky’s words, “If there is no God then everything is permissible.”

So getting back to Extreme’s new CD, I was hopeful and interested to see if Cherone’s lyrics would continue to explore spiritual issues. While the lyrics remain thoughtful and, at times, politically conservative (“Flower Man”), there is not much by way of overt spiritual exploration. I must confess, this was somewhat disappointing given Cherone’s record thus far.

The album is filled with guitarist Nuno Bettencourt’s trademark virtuosity and riffing, often betraying the influence of Led Zeppelin and Van Halen. Though he is probably a better guitarist than either Page or Van Halen from a technical perspective, his playing is also melodic and song-driven, making this an incredibly listenable album. So for fans of straight ahead rock music with intelligence who are looking for something to sink their ears into, Saudades de Rock will satisfy that longing.

Apneas, IVs, and Respirators

We had something of a scare with one of our new little boys this past weekend. Later on Saturday night we got a call that Henry, who’d already had to fight off one virus, had contracted another one. At that point they didn’t yet know what it was but he was having what are called apneas—moments when breathing stops. It’s not uncommon for premature babies to have it, but it is more unusual when a premature baby is already a month old or so. So he was put on a respirator, was put back on IV, and taken off breast milk. We were also told that they were going to re-culture earlier fluid samples from a spinal tap to check for meningitis. That was a scary thought. The fact is, if the NICU calls you about your kid, there’s usually reason for concern if not outright worry or fear.

So this all began to come down late on Saturday night; it was after 10pm when we got this call. My wife, understandably, wanted to go in immediately. But of course it was more complicated than that. It was late on a Saturday night—the night before Sunday, and being a pastor, I was supposed to assist in leading worship and preach the next day. We also have a four year old little girl. Waking her up late at night was not exactly a joyful prospect.

But once we decided to go in we had to get ourselves ready for a potential two or three days away depending on how things went with Henry. Once we had loaded the car, we quietly and gently woke Ella up. Well, we may have tried to be quiet and gentle, but that didn’t prevent her from protesting vehemently—at the top of her lungs—about being woken up and put in the car seat for a late night trip. Thankfully, her grand-parents are close, so that’s where we dropped her off. And thankfully once she was settled there, she fell asleep quickly.

I had already left a voice mail message with one of my deacons that they were going to have to have church without me, knowing they would understand. I called the next morning, after about four hours sleep, to confirm he got the message and to let him know any more details.

Needless to say, we were surrounded with prayer over these last few days. Wonderfully, Henry’s condition began to stabilize later on Sunday/early on Monday once he’d had enough of his respirator and tried to pull it out! Well, they left him off the respirator and he has needed it since. The apeas have not gotten serious again. Thank the Lord!

So now we’re home again. And I can tell you that while this will not be the last time one of my boys (or my girl!) will scare me, I can say that I will be very glad to have all my family home. That day will come, and not too soon.