Tales From The Bullpen by Jared Cudd

Everyone has a fear. It doesn’t matter how big or macho anyone is, there is something that bothers them. There is something that scares them. For me it is snakes. A lot of people that know me know this about me. My students that I had in Science class would figure this out when we got to the reptile chapter. There were always pictures of snakes in there. I can’t see them in a book without cringing. I can’t see them on tv without getting queazy. My wife and kids love watching those types of shows on tv. If snakes are the topic I have to leave the room. I really think I have influenced Kristin to be scared of them too. They didn’t used to bother her, but now they do. She doesn’t want anything to do with them either. I’ve even had players try and play jokes on me. One day I got in my pickup after practice and they had one that hadn’t been dead long wrapped around my steering wheel. That crossed a line. I’m all about having fun and joking around, but that went too far. It’s funny now, but not so much at the time.

One thing people have missed during this quarantine, among a lot of other things, is interaction with other people. I don’t mean interaction with our own family either. While that is great, sometimes you just need to branch out of your own household for some conversations that don’t involve what our next meal is going to be or what we are going to do next to entertain ourselves. One thing I have missed the most is the camaraderie with other baseball coaches. So a few of our area coaches set up a Zoom meeting with several of us just to hang out and talk baseball and whatever else came up. This was set up for today, Monday afternoon. I was so excited to get to see and talk to some coaching buddies. It was going to be great.

I went to school today just like normal and got a few things done in the morning and served lunches to everyone that came to pick those up. I got home and as soon as I pulled into the drive, Channing met me where I park. She said, “Dad, you need to visit with Dax. He said he saw a snake go into the house.” My first response was, “Well, how did it get in the house?” I asked that for a particular reason. The reason is this. I hope our household isn’t the only one where children have lost track of a lot of rules they have known for years. Ours have suddenly forgotten some of those things. All three of ours are doing things that they have been told since 2007 were not OK. It’s like they think they get a pass because we can’t go anywhere. They think Kristin and I will just give up and let them run the place since we can’t go anywhere, which hasn’t happened and won’t. But what I am more amazed at is their ability forget how to do things that you don’t really have to be taught. These things just kinda come with being alive and seeing how things work. One of those things is shutting doors when you go in or out of the house. This has never been an issue. But it is now. They have completely forgotten how to do this, or the importance of it. Since the weather has gotten nicer I have seen doors just left wide open and not a culprit in sight. It’s not like they just didn’t shut good and they are coming back to shut it. They aren’t even around anymore. I feel myself sounding like my mother-in-law yelling, “SHUT THE DOOR.” If you are a child or grandchild of hers, or possibly a neighbor, you know exactly what I am talking about.

So, back to my original thought. I asked her, “How did it get in the house.” I knew that if the snake indeed went in the house, the open door policy that we have suddenly adopted must have been the reason. She replied with, “I don’t know. I’m not sure if it’s true or not. He says he thought it was a snake. But it might have been a leaf blowing. He doesn’t really know for sure.” So at that point I put no stock into there being a snake in the house. I thought, hey this is a time I can make a point about the doors always being open. All three of them were on the porch wondering what I was going to say. So I went with the scare tactic. I said, “Well, mom and I have been on you guys about leaving doors open all the time. So probably what is going to happen is that since someone left the door open and the snake got in the house and no one found it, it’s going to end up in someone’s bed in the middle of the night. All because we can’t just simply shut the doors.” Not sure that was the proper avenue to take at that point, but it’s the avenue I took. Like I said, I put zero stock into there being a snake in the house. Dax would be the one of the three kids that would notice something like that. But when he thought it might be a leaf as well, the idea of it being true was completely voided in my opinion.

So I sat down just before 2:00 to start our Zoom meeting. Everyone logged on and we were just getting started. I was really excited to get this thing going. About two minutes into it, something happened that was life changing for me. I’ll get to why it was life changing a little bit later. But, as I was listening to someone talk I just happened to look across the living room and saw a big ole snake crawling along the baseboard in our living room. At that moment, I was faced with a big decision. My wife and kids were outside while I was on this Zoom call. So I had to do something quick. The first thing I did was mute my microphone, because I wasn’t positive what was about to happen or be said. So I felt that was best for all involved. Next, I had to decide if I was going to (A) wimp out and go get one of my kids or my wife to take care of this thing or (B) completely fake bravery and be their hero. I unwillingly went with B.

So I went to the back porch where Dax and Chan were and asked them where Kristin was. They had no idea. That wasn’t really what I wanted to hear. Regardless of how all this went down, I was going to need a little moral support. I asked where the shovel was. Dax told me it was in the back of the Ranger. I had him go get it. I was afraid if I left the house and lost sight of this thing, it would never been seen again. At least not until it was in someones bed at night. The point I tried to make to them earlier all the sudden didn’t seem like too good of an idea. Now, if you are one of those people that likes snakes, I’m sorry. If you are one that says not to harm them because they eat mice, that’s why we have a cat. To me, the only good snake is a dead one, especially when it is IN MY HOUSE! Dax came back with the shovel. He asked me what I was doing with it. I just calmly, at least I felt it was calm, said, “I’m just gonna go kill this snake.” Luckily they were behind me so they couldn’t see my heart beating through my shirt. We later went back and looked at my watch and the highest heart rate of the day was during this time. So they of course then asked where it was and a whole lot of other questions I kinda blanked out on for a minute. Then they ran to tell their mom.

So, here I was all alone with this thing again. I needed to try and have this thing taken care of before everyone else got back in here for a couple of reasons. First, I didn’t want everyone giving me their ideas on how to do it. Second, I didn’t want them to see how awkward and pathetic their dad looked when he was trying to get close enough to this thing to get it, while seeing how far he could keep his feet from it and test his core strength as he bent over to reach out with the shovel in his hands. So I just took that leap of faith and put that shovel down right in the middle of that thing and had him trapped. At that moment, I felt like the toughest man alive. I was ready to do some MMA or something at that point. They came running in and saw that I had it pinned down with this shovel. They were so proud. They were probably just amazed that I didn’t have the house on the market yet.

What was surprising about this whole thing was how Kristin reacted. Like I said earlier, I think I have made her scared of snakes way more than she used to be. She came in with a hoe but wanted no part of it. Anyone that has killed a snake knows that they can still move for a long time, even after you think there’s no way they can. So I knew at this point this snake was not going to live through this, but it was still moving. So it came time to take the shovel off the snake to actually get it on the shovel to take it to the pasture. I was scared to lift the shovel and scoop it up. I eventually found the courage to do that and disposed of it properly. I then went back to my Zoom meeting and said, “Sorry fellas, I had to go kill a snake in my house.” I said it like it wasn’t a traumatic life moment for me, but they all probably knew better too.

So I tell you all of that to tell you this. Everyone in life has fears. Everyone is scared of something. It doesn’t matter what it is. What scares you may not scare me. What scares me may not scare you. You may be reading this and wonder how in the world someone could be scared of snakes. That’s fine. But, I promise there is something that scares you too. It may not be an animal or anything like that. It may be something completely different. Whatever it is, it is your fear and that is all that matters. No one else has to understand it. This snake in reality may have been small, as you can see below. But, to me it was a snake and that was all it took. It could have been a python and my fear wouldn’t have been much different. Your fear may seem small to someone else, but that doesn’t matter. To you it’s a big deal.

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I said earlier that this was a life changing event. Here is why. I came face to face with my fear. I conquered it. That doesn’t mean that I am not a little scared of them still. But I must say that I am not as scared as I was earlier today. I now also know that when I am faced with a situation like this again, I can handle it, even if I am still a little scared. I may have put on a good show for my kids. I may have acted like I wasn’t scared when in reality I contemplated running away from it. But, I got through it. I stood up to it and felt good about doing that. There’s so many things people fear in life. If you look up phobias there are thousands of them.

My fear of snakes has nothing to do with spirituality, at least I don’t think so. But it can be used as a metaphor for overcoming spiritual or worldly fears. What about spiritually? Do we have spiritual fears? Maybe the best way to overcome them is to face them or do something about them. Are we afraid of what will happen to us? Do we fear the final judgement? Do we fear everyday circumstances? Do we fear what others will think of us? Don’t be afraid to admit that you are scared of something. Those things in every day life that we fear, trust God with them. John 14:27 says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.” Let the peace of God and his Holy Spirit fill your heart. Let that help you defeat satan. So many of our fears are because we let satan into our lives. Let Christ’s peace defeat those fears.

My challenge this week is for everyone to first think about what your fear is. Think about a physical fear like my snake phobia. Find a way to go conquer your fear like that. We may not face these things very often, so we may not really think about them much, but they are there. More importantly, think about your worldly and spiritual fears. Find God’s peace in those situations. Take it to God in prayer. Don’t try to do it alone. So many times we want to do everything ourselves. But, God wants to help us. He wants us to trust him and to lean on him. So do just that. Whatever your fear is, find it, face it, and overcome it. It feels really good. I promise!

I’m sure many of you just had a Will Ferrell image pop into your head when you read that title. That has been my last 3 days, beginning with Saturday morning. This is a lengthy post, but none of it is complete without the other details. Saturday was April 11th. To some that date is insignificant. But, just like any other day of the year, to someone, somewhere that date means a lot. This was the date that 4 years ago my sister-in-law and her husband lost their son, Gibson. So this day has had special meaning to our family for the last 4 years. I woke up Saturday and when I looked at Facebook, my memories popped up on my feed. It was a picture of a day that we honored Gibson. My sister-in-law, Karmen, and her family live in Leedey. It just so happened, not intentionally, that we played Leedey at Arapaho 1 year to the day after Gibson’s passing. So we honored him with the Leedey players and coaches before the game that day. They were gracious enough to do that with us. Their coach, Bryan Shoaf, also led a prayer while we were out there. So that popped up in my memories first thing that morning. That got my emotions rolling. I knew what day it was and I knew that it was always a tough day. But, that hit me a little earlier than I expected. I text Coach Shoaf that morning when I saw it and we talked about that day and many other things. It just brought back many memories. So, although the emotions that started the day were tough, it also made me think of special times with special people. It made me think about Karmen and Nate and their family and how strong they are. It made me think about how they have been such a great example to so many people during these last four years about how to handle tough times in their lives. Then, things took a drastically different turn from that point on.

Kristin was outside, actually talking to Karmen on the phone, just a little bit later. I went outside on the front porch with her. We noticed that there was a calf in the pasture just north of our house all by itself. We have about 3 acres there that are fenced off and have a set of corrals that we use to sort and load cattle. There was not another calf or cow in sight besides this calf that was just a few weeks old. So I went and shut the gates to keep it in there by itself, hoping that the mom would come up there at some point and we would know who it belonged to. I went back inside and got on with the rest of my day and Traber came in and said, “Channing and Dax made the calf go through the fence.” Come to find out, Channing had chased it around trying to get it to go to Dax so they could pet it. It went through the fence, out into the great wide open where there weren’t fences for the next half mile. The only things out there were trees and canyons and 60 other cows and calves, all the same age as this one and they all looked the same.

So Kristin, Traber, and I rushed out to the barn and got on the ranger and took off looking for it. The other two didn’t get to come on this adventure because they were in extreme trouble due to the fact that they chased the calf through the fence. They were confined to their beds for awhile after that. So we went down into the pasture and we luckily found this calf still wandering around by itself. We decided to push it to the others since it was on its way there anyway. We hoped that maybe it would find its mama and all would be good. But we couldn’t get that lucky. When it finally got to the others, it didn’t seem one bit interested in any of the other cows. There weren’t any cows looking for babies. We thought that was strange until we remembered that the day before, we had found a dead cow. This had to be its baby. There was a reason that it was all alone. It had been on its own for the last few days. At that point, and for the next 10-15 minutes, I felt sorry for this calf. But, that would soon change. The objective of this mission changed suddenly as well. We had to catch this calf and get it into the corral and it would become a bottle calf.

We then ventured back to the house to get the 4-wheeler. That way we would have two forms of transportation down there and basically two forms of causing chaos. I did in fact let the other two get up and accompany us during this next episode of shenanigans. I’m not sure if it was because I wasn’t mad at them anymore, or the fact that I wanted them to see what they had caused. While at the barn, I grabbed my rope. Now, to say that I am a NFR quality calf roper would be a slight overstatement. But my grandpa did teach me how to rope when I was a kid and I have had to rope a couple over the last few years. I also practice on my kids sometimes. We line up next to each other and they take off and I take off after them and see if I can rope them. They love the thrill of trying to outrun me and I get to harness my skills. It’s the best of both worlds. So if it comes down to it, it can be done. It’s just not something I do on a regular basis. So we went back down to where all the calves and cows were. We figured out which one it was and got it separated from the rest of the crew. At the very beginning right after we got it separated, the rope was in the ranger. Kristin grabbed it and took off. I didn’t exactly communicate my plan to her prior to this. As you can guess, we had differing ideas of what might work. This was really the only time all day that we had a disagreement, which is impressive to anyone that has done anything with a spouse involving cattle and knows the struggle. She got mad at what I said after that and dropped the rope and left it on the ground and got back in the ranger. I didn’t have a horse so roping from that wasn’t an option. I was on the 4-wheeler, so catching up to the calf was not a problem. But, pushing the throttle with my right hand while roping with the same hand was. So I had to figure something else out. The calf ended up going down into the creek so I followed her in there on foot. I got one real legitimate chance to rope her, and it hit her head, but didn’t get all the way around her neck. So there went that chance. But, I stayed on her trail. While you picture this, I also need to throw in there that this all happened quickly that morning. Because of that, I had on shorts and a hoodie, muck boots, and a fishing hat. Those were the first items available to grab. As I continued to chase this elusive animal on foot through the trees and creeks I came to the realization that this wasn’t going to work. This calf was smart. It wouldn’t let me get close enough to rope it, which I’m not sure was really a concern she had. It also wouldn’t go out in the open. It stayed in the brush and trees making me dodge things constantly. So I stopped and told Kristin, who had been on this foot chase a lot of the time with me, that we needed to let it go for just a little bit and then give it one more good effort. If this didn’t work, we would let her (and us) rest for the rest of the day. She hadn’t eaten in two or three days because of her mom dying so I didn’t want to run her to death. I, on the other hand, had eaten the last two days. I had eaten a little too much as a matter of fact. So that was of a concern as well.

So I got back on the 4-wheeler and Kristin was in the ranger with the kids. The calf had went back to the rest of the cows and calves. It went into a mess of plum thickets for a rest when we met up with it again. I told Kristin we would flush it out of there and try one more time. If we didn’t get her that time, we were done. I was wearing down by this time myself. We were over two hours into this ordeal. We got her out of there and she took off. I hopped off the 4-wheeler and gave it one more try with the rope. Same thing, hit her head but didn’t go all the way over. Then I realized, although I was tired and slowing down, she had slowed down more. I could finally catch her on foot I thought, even in my muck boots. I got close enough to her and took her down like a steer wrestler. Going back to that earlier NFR comment, even though I got her, I don’t think I had quite as good of technique as a real steer wrestler. But, we got her loaded up and taken to the corral. We had us a bottle calf. Channing named it Poppy, from Trolls. So we went and fixed Poppy a bottle and that was the beginning of raising a bottle calf.

We got up yesterday to one of the best days of the year. The day our Savior, Jesus Christ was raised from the grave. It was Easter Sunday and our Church had a drive in service. It was so great to get to see everyone and wave at them. We stayed in our vehicles, but it was still great to see everyone. Our youth minister led singing and our preacher preached from a trailer that lifted them a few feet to make them a little more visible. We had an FM transmitter so their voices came through on the radio. It was just so great for everyone’s emotions and souls to get to worship together again in person, although a little different than normal. Then Sunday night we had our weekly Zoom meeting with our small group. We were on there for over an hour. It was such a great time with them too. It was just a great day that lifted spirits. It was just what we all needed. We know that God was smiling down on His children all day. We also know that satan was furious because he could see that he wasn’t winning. It was just a great day. Here is a picture of our best family Easter pic and our drive in Church crowd!

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Later Sunday evening we realized that our dog had gotten out of his pen somehow. He doesn’t like to go back in there, and most usually has to be picked up and put in there. He is a big Yellow Lab. He usually does a good job of staying around the house when we let him out. But, we went out and hollered for him and he wasn’t around. We kept yelling for him, and finally I heard him bark from a distance. We realized that he was up north of the house. By the calf pen. Where Poppy was. At the north end of that 3 acre fenced in area. So Kristin and I got in her vehicle and drove down there. Sure enough, he had gotten in the calf pen and didn’t know how to get out. He was running circles around Poppy and barking like crazy. We pulled up and I shined a flashlight in the pen and Poppy was looking at me like this dog has lost it’s mind. So we got Wrigley out of the calf pen and took him back to the house. We went from scared we had lost the dog, to being mad at the dog for making us go down there and get him when it was 30 degrees and 10:30 at night. Then we were amused at the scene of Wrigley running around Poppy barking all while Poppy looked as confused as we were as to why Wrigley was in her pen.

That brings us to this morning. Kristin and I got up and worked out like normal. That gave it time for the sun to come up so we could go feed Poppy. I’m still going to school each day to feed lunches and get a few other things done so I am still on somewhat of a schedule in the morning. So I had it timed perfectly to where we would go feed the calf and be done in time for my Bible study and get ready to go to school at the same time I do every day. Well, we got down to Poppy’s pen and I noticed that when it stood up it looked a little funny. It seemed a little wobbly. I thought maybe it was just cold. So I got to her and went to put the bottle in her mouth and realized that she wasn’t OK. It had poop in its mouth. It looked unstable and my first thought was it’s beginning to get the scours. If you have ever had a bottle calf, you know that isn’t good. I told Kristin we needed to load her up and get her to the Vet. Especially as cold as it was, it would have trouble keeping its temperature up if it was sick, and it needed some meds. So we go got my truck and brought it down to the pen. Kristin didn’t want to hold it, she wanted to drive. So I went into the pen and grabbed it and got in the front seat of the truck with it. What could go wrong from there, right? A lot!

Our Vet is only about 4 miles from our house so I didn’t think much about the trip. But, we got about a mile into it and I heard a slight explosion. Keep in mind that I’m in the passenger seat and the calf’s head is facing the drivers side and her rear is facing the passenger door. That slight explosion shot green sludge all down the side of the door and my arm. Luckily, due to the cold, I had on a jacket. Kristin was trying really hard to control her laughter, but that wasn’t working too well. There was a lot of laughter coming from over there. Although it was a little disgusting, it is just part of it. Then about a mile later, we figured out that her organs were still working well because here comes the pee. Yep, all down the side of the door. The silver lining in this was that it was a heifer and not a bull so it went on the door and not in my lap. The two made quite the mixture. The laughter was intensifying in the driver seat. Not so much from the passenger. We finally made it to the Vet and I got out and handed Poppy off to the Vet and they said they would call later and let us know what they found out. I turned to head back to the truck to see that the whole side of my passenger seat was covered in calf poop. My door panel was covered in the same thing. Except it had the pee mixed with it. Some of it was still on the door while some had ran down into the door pockets. I wasn’t sure what was going to happen from here. But, what I did realize was I was late for work by this point.

I have to give it up to my wife. Although I give her a hard time on here and also in real life, she’s really hard to beat. She cleaned up the passenger side of the truck while I went and took a shower and headed to work. She didn’t realize how many little cracks and seams were in a door. She worked for a long time before she finally got most of it out of all of those areas. I’m glad she did because I’m sure my cleaning wouldn’t have been as detailed and precise as hers. Last we heard from the Vet, they had given Poppy some meds and were going to keep her with the possibility of snow coming tomorrow to make sure she does OK. They think we caught it early and everything will be alright.

So you can see by this lengthy story how my emotions were on so many levels this weekend. I had everything from sadness and tears, to anger, to exhaustion, to confusion, to anger again, to relief, to joy, to concern, and probably many others. I’m not a real emotional person, but I’m exhausted. But, perhaps the most important thing that happened this weekend was that we got to celebrate the resurrection of our Lord. We got to remember the fact that He died, was buried, and was raised from the dead to save us. We always remember that on Easter, but may we remember that all year long. May we remember how much He loves us and what He did for us all the time. Hopefully that will help us appreciate the fact that we have the wonderful opportunity to be children of God! Even when we are in a glass case of emotion, it doesn’t get any better than being a Child of God!

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This is our youngest child. Yes, he’s a human. But sometimes he morphs into a cow. He has been known to be in the pasture on his hands and knees with the cows, acting like he is one of them. He knows the ear tag number along with every marking of every cow we have. He knows the calves too. He is obsessed with cows. I happened to catch him the other day (the picture you see above) dressed in all black and an ear tag in (a piece of paper cut out in the shape of an ear tag with a number on it taped to his ear) sneaking up on the cows. He does stuff like this a lot. I honestly think when he does this he truly has an experience where he feels like he turns into a cow for a few minutes. He also will go get the rubber surgical gloves we have in the house and fill them with water and find a way to attach it around his waist and he calls it his “gutters”. You can just use your imagination for that one.

When we have to go back to a normal lifestyle, I just can’t imagine the day I have to wear pants that might be somewhat tight around my waist and that have belt loops. I haven’t had something like that on in a long time. I have become accustomed to my sweat pants or shorts and crocs. While I have had to wear shoes when I go to the school for awhile each day, I spend pretty much every minute I have at home with my crocs on. I’m not sure who invented crocs, but I’d like to shake their hand. They are the ultimate shoe for so many occasions. They have to be one of the most versatile shoes there is. They can be for working, fishing, mowing, lounging (I wear them as house shoes), or even going out in public for certain occasions. Some can’t get past the looks. I’ve had some say they are ugly. Well, comfort before beauty is what I go for at this point.

We have gone fishing several times over the last few weeks as well. As much as I love teaching my kids things that will hopefully last them a lifetime, this can be exhausting and sometimes astonishing all at the same time. I am amazed at the amount of things that kids can find to hook their lure on. Sometimes it is pretty obvious what is in the water. There will be a log 2 feet in diameter right in front of them and they will see how close they can cast their lure to it and inevitably they get hung up. But, what about the ones that you can’t see from the shore? Those are the ones that amaze me. They say, “Dad, I caught one” as they tug and pull with all their might like they just caught baby Jaws, only to find out that it is just a log or something that is under the water and can’t be see from where we are. But I am impressed with the structural integrity of the rod and the line when this happens. Because, (and I will jinx it now I’m sure) to this point, those things have held together and not broke. We tend to give it about 3 cast each time before we either want to change lures or change locations because nothing is biting. But in the event that our lure is actually in the water long enough and someone does get a bite, the other two run and stand right beside them as if the fish is just sitting still waiting to find something else to bite. Then, you guessed it, their lines get tangled up with each other. Now we have a whole new mess on our hands. Not to mention an argument between them about who’s fault it was. Oh, the adventures of fishing with youngsters. When I think back to when my grandpa and dad would take me, I think I did the same thing though. I chuckle to think about how my grandpa and dad must have felt when I did these same things.

I’m not even sure what day it is half the time right now. I am a person that is obsessed with time. I am very time conscious. I always know what time it is and am very rarely late. But lately, I couldn’t tell you whether it was 10:00 AM or 3:00 PM. a lot of days. My sense of time has been messed up. I’ve had to look at my watch or phone some days to see what day it even was. I do know when it gets to be about 9:30 in the evening though. The way I know it is about that time is that we are usually watching a movie and that is also about the time I start to get sleepy in my chair. Some nights I make it though the movie and some nights I wake up when it is over. A few nights I have woke up about 2:30 AM and I’m the only one not in bed. I’m not sure when they went to bed, but apparently they made it through more of the movie than I did.

I’m sure I’m not the only one that has experienced this. My children are eating about 5 times the amount of food they did a month ago, or so it seems. We will eat breakfast at 9:00 and by 9:45 they are rummaging through the pantry looking for something to eat. I’m like, “we just ate 45 minutes ago.” They will say, “I know but I’m hungry again.” So either they aren’t taking full advantage at meal time of everything that we have cooked, or they are just eating out of boredom. I like to eat too. I would even say I’m pretty passionate about food. I’ve got a good friend that says he likes to watch me eat because of the smile I have on face when I do. He said it makes him happy just to watch it ( I know that sounds weird, but I don’t think he meant it in a weird way. I think he was more making fun of me). But, even in my prime, I didn’t get hungry that often I don’t think. We have saved money on a lot of things here lately. I saw a meme on Facebook the other day that said, “Is anyone else’s car getting about 3 weeks to the gallon right now?” That is about right for a lot of us. But while we have saved on things like that, we have made up for in the grocery bill. It is amazing how much food we can go through when we are home all the time. The crazy thing is we would only have to buy two things to really please our kids during this time. Pancakes and cereal. I’m convinced that we could feed them only those two things and be just fine. I just wish we would have bought some stock in Frosted Flakes, Rice Crispies, and Griffins syrup. We have kept those things in business lately. A side note to Rice Crispies. If you put sugar on top of them and the little mini marshmallows on top of that and mix it all up, it makes for a wonderful concoction. Kristin and I did that as kids. We introduced that to our children a few weeks ago. Maybe we should have bought stock in the marshmallows too. We had to kinda limit the amount they could put in each bowl. I just wonder though if other families with children from about 4 years old to 18 are experiencing the same thing. Surely so!

We have also watched hours of Family Feud. Our kids love this show, as do Kristin and I. But I have to say that there are times when it could just be called Feud and leave the Family part off. I have fielded about as many questions about awkward adult topics from that show as I did from that awful movie we started a couple of weeks ago that I referred to last week in my blog. I’m amazed at some of the things they talk about on there. It’s on the Gameshow Network. That sounds harmless, right. But, it isn’t always so harmless. Sadly, it’s about as clean as anything else you can find though. So we just take those questions one at a time and sometimes think of a way around it until we can think of a better answer later. Sometimes that’s also a great time for a bathroom break and hopefully they will ask their mom!

While all of this is comical and it also makes me a little crazy at times, I wouldn’t trade it for anything. Family time is a special time. Our oldest son is 7 years away from leaving home. Some of you with 12 year olds just got a little teary eyed I’m sure. Some may have just got excited too, I don’t know. But, my wife and I have talked about how it goes by so fast. As crazy as they make me, some day I will miss this. Some day I will wish he would catch his lure on the massive tree stump 8 feet in the water in front of him. Some day I will wish he would be mean to his brother again or that his sister would come tattle on him. There will come a time when I wish my youngest will be on his hands and knees with his “gutters” hanging down sneaking up on the cows. There will come a time when I will wish my daughter wanted to play dolls with me or paint my toenails again. That’s right, I said MY toenails again. When your daughter asks you to do that, you say yes. That’s just part of being a dad. I don’t like holding hands in public. My kids know that and so they do it to me just to aggravate me. No matter how hard I work to pull away, they keep ahold of my hand and just giggle. Some day I will wish they would hold Dad’s hand. I want to cherish these times as much as I can. I don’t want time to stand still, because I want them to be able to experience all the great things that happen as the grow up. But, as crazy as they make me, I will miss that they are not here to make me crazy because they have gotten old enough to leave home. But then I remember, I will always have Kristin here to make me just as crazy as they do!!! Everyone please continue to pray for our doctors and nurses and everyone effected by COVID-19, as well as our great country and its leaders!!! God Bless!!!