49 Reasons We Don't Throw Rich Into A Volcano, Assuming We're Incan.

1.        He’s a lawyer, he’ll slow down the process with paperwork.

2.       He’s friendly.  He’ll have to stop and talk to everyone along the way.

3.       He whistles.  This is a solemn occasion.

4.       He’s got nice teeth, which practically counts as a carnival side show in our society.

5.       He doesn’t have a temper.  The gods are looking more for someone like that angry chef, Gordon Ramsay.

6.       He’s fairly flatulent and we’ve got enough explosives to worry about just with the volcano.

7.       He’s scheduled for a massage.

8.       His wife doesn’t know the value of his flashlight collection.

9.       He’s almost finished writing his novel, If You Sacrifice me, I’m Taking You With Me.

10.   He’s got court on Tuesday.

11.   He alone knows how to clean the drains in his house.

12.   He’s a Republican, his party needs him.

13.   He once ate a steak the size of place mat.

14.   Fantasy Island was filmed near where he grew up, and as child he did stunt double work for Tattoo.

15.   He considers himself a Brady Bunch scholar.

16.   He endured a few Saturdays so boring as a child he resorted to watching Hee Haw.

17.   The gods are looking for a virgin, and he . . . let’s just say we’d be stretching the truth.

18.   The gods hate it when we stretch the truth.

19.   He’s not fond of hot showers, let alone hot lava.

20.   He doesn’t swear.  We’d like a few expletives as he bounces off rocks on his way to the bottom.

21.   He doesn’t drink which is a total buzzkill at the pre-sacrifice party.

22.   He hasn’t picked up his socks.

23.   He’s got to get his hair cut.

24.   The steam from the lava would fog his glasses.

25.   He’s got ears cuter than a hippos, and how many of us can say that?

26.   He’s not caught up on Dancing With The Stars.

27.   He still perfecting his cha cha.

28.   He’s nice.  The gods don’t mind a lawyer, but they draw the line when it comes to a nice lawyer.

29.   He donates blood. (Not really, but he says he’s willing to if it will get him off the hook.)

30.   He’s got three kids in college.  Hmmm…maybe sacrifice one of them.

31.   The hike up might be a bit much for him, since his calves are still hurting from his bike ride across Oregon.

32.   He’s been banned for life from medieval festivals because he has a sword that slices through boulders like they’re butter.

33.   He’s sensitive.  Being sacrificed will hurt his feelings.

34.   He’s got tickets to Comic Con.

35.   He’s never thanked Barbara Streisand for going into retirement.

36.   He’s considering trying his luck as stand-up comedian.

37.   He’s a summer, which would totally clash with lava.

38.   He’s got blue eyes, lovely blue eyes.

39.   He’s just started learning the accordion, a dying art form.

40.    He’s available to play at weddings of the hearing impaired.

41.   He’s just started to shift from buying flashlights to those really long horns that they blow on the mountain tops in Switzerland.

42.   He says he’s afraid of heights.

43.   He says his tummy hurts.

44.   He says he’s just not feeling it.

45.   He hasn’t brushed his teeth.

46.   He hasn’t been to Branson, Missouri.

47.   He once started a bonfire made up entirely of Hall and Oates records.

48.   He wants to be around when David Hasselhoff makes a comeback.

49.   And the best reason of all . . . IT’S HIS BIRTHDAY!

Gone With The Wind

The first year Scarlett ran in the Red Ribbon Run she wasn’t exactly dressed for racing success.  Having somehow avoided this event with my older children—a competition in which kids from all the schools in our city race according to grade level—it didn’t occur to me that maybe she shouldn’t wear jeans, hand-me-down sneakers two sizes too small, or the adult-size race T-shirt they’d given her (child sizes were reserved for children with parents smart enough to preregister.)  Sure, seeing Scarlett and her fellow kindergarteners race was going to be cute, but to be honest, I just wanted to get it over with so I could go hit some yard sales.  I didn’t give her any running tips, didn’t bother with a pep talk.  As she walked toward the starting line with the other five year olds, I yawned and checked my phone for messages.

The Red Ribbon Run at that time was held in a stadium.  Beginning with a sprint across the field, the runners would follow their guides out the exit, and not be seen again until the final stretch toward the finish line inside the arena.  I lost sight of Scarlett  before the starting gun sounded.  As that sea of kindergarten cuteness raced to the exit, I tried to find her--the runner in jeans--but couldn’t.  I was too far away and they were, though moving, a jumble.  

And so they left the stadium and I chatted with a few parents sitting nearby, until it occurred to me that I should probably check to see if any kids were coming toward the finish line, and that’s when I saw that Scarlett had already crossed it.  Huh?  Had she missed the exit and never left the arena? No, she’d left the arena, she’d run the race, and finished in third place.  Wearing jeans, Scarlett had won her first trophy!

Scarlett liked winning that trophy and announced that the next year she was going to win another one.  I panicked.  Should I warn her that we don’t always get to win in life? Tell her that sometimes other people are faster and get the trophy, which is okay, because the important thing is participating?  I didn’t want her to doubt herself, but I didn’t want her to think she had another trophy in the bag.  Not sure what to do, I did nothing, and Scarlett came in second.

The second place trophy was bigger than the third place trophy, which Scarlett preferred, and so she told us she planned to win first place the next year.  I told myself I couldn’t do it—watch my daughter race and possibly come up empty handed, especially when she was so convinced first place was hers for the taking.  It was too much stress for a person with my delicate constitution.  Okay, my constitution wasn’t particularly delicate.  Still, I had been the one biting my nails at the last race; it was time for Rich to take over.  And so Rich attended his first Red Ribbon Run and saw Scarlett win second place again, while I, too scared to look, heard about it on the phone.

I knew it was the cowardly approach—using our four-year old as a reason to stay away, but as the next Red Ribbon Run drew near, that was my game plan.  Rich would go, and I’d stay home with Peter who would have ended up bored or lost if we’d taken him.  And I probably would have kept to that plan if I hadn’t run (literally) into Bob.  Out for my morning run, Bob, asked me as I ran by if I was planning on being in the race that weekend.  Since he didn’t have a serial killer vibe, I stopped, told him that I wasn’t, but that my kids would be running the next week in the Red Ribbon Run.

Bob explained that as a member of the local running club he would be at the Red Ribbon Run helping out.  “So I’ll see you there,” he said.

“Maybe,” I said sheepishly.

Bob cocked an eyebrow. “Why wouldn’t you be there?”

And so I told him.  I told him about how she’d gotten a trophy every year, and that I was so worried about her coming in fourth or fifth or sixth that I dreaded the race.

“Disappointment,” he said with a wave of his hand, “she’ll face it at some point in life, but you should be there.”

Ugh.  I hate it when random strangers are right. 

Saturday, I went to race and watched Scarlett win third place.  She was happy, a little miffed that she’d been in first place right up until the last twenty five feet of the race, but still happy.  Later at the finish line I ran into Bob.  After reminding him of our previous conversation, I told him that Scarlett had won third place, and that I’d been here to see it.

He high-fived me.  “Now that’s the real victory,” he said.  "Her childhood will pass in a flash.”

Yes, it will, Bob, and I intend to see it, even the races.  

 

Making Room For Peter

I thought I was clever having Scarlett a few days before turning forty.  I was convinced she was my last, and I congratulated myself for sneaking her in before hitting my next decade.  Forty, as any OB will tell you, is when an expectant mother enters in earnest the danger zone.  Sure, Hollywood at forty is just getting started having kids, but when an average gal talks to her OB about having a baby in her forties, the doctor talk tends to get gloomy.  They throw numbers at you, scary numbers that left me resolute about one thing—child birth after forty was out for me.  And I was resolute, fixed in my opinion.  It was time to focus on raising our six children. 

And so that’s what I did.  For two years I focused on raising the kids we had, until one day Rich said, “I think we should have another.”  W-h-hat?  Now don’t get me wrong.  I thought it was sweet that Rich loved our kids so much he wanted another.  It annoys me when guys put the brakes on having more kids because, Hey, you can’t fit a car seat in the back of a Corvette.  Yeah, pal, that car only has room for you and your ego.  But sweet as it was to hear him say he wanted another, it was also infuriating.  I had crossed the threshold!  I was now forty-two!   There was no way I should try to have another child.  I showed Rich the scary numbers, rattled off all of Science’s arguments against such an attempt, and still he was convinced we should have another.

There was only one explanation for this:  Rich was delusional.  He wasn’t seeing things clearly.  I had the doctors on my side, some with open slots in their schedules to squeeze me in for a tubal ligation.  Not that I took a poll, but if I had, no one would have thought having another baby at my age was a good idea, no one but Rich. 

I dug in my heels and told him to be reasonable.  It was too late!   He remained convinced it wasn’t.  Some may say I was nuts to relent, but a marriage isn’t a cold-hearted corporation, making decisions that only make sense on paper.  It’s a pact, including not just the two who are married, but their God on whom they lean as they, hand in hand, navigate their way through this life.  With this understanding, I had to stop and ask myself if it were possible that Rich wasn’t just wanting another baby, but that he was sensing that another baby wanted us, to be a part of our family.

It seemed to me madness, but I knew that sometimes God’s ways appear so.  As Zechariah would have said (if he’d been able to speak) it was madness to assume his wife Elizabeth would have a baby boy named John.  And what sense was there in Sarah thinking she’d ever give birth to a boy named Isaac?  And so, though I didn’t agree, I consented to try, and when one miscarriage was followed by another, I still consented, for just a little longer, just in case there might be someone trying to make it here.

Peter made it here.  At forty-four, I gave birth to our fattest, healthiest baby ever.  The biggest danger to his life as a newborn was the constant threat of his siblings smothering him with love.   Yes, seven kids is a lot.  It’s expensive, it’s loud, it’s hard to fit in a car or vacation home.  But we’ve made due, made room, and Peter is here, just like his father knew he should be. 

As a post script I’d like to say that while Rich was right about Peter, I’ve been right about most everything else.