Mandy's 26th Birthday

Mandy was born 26 years ago today. She was a beautiful baby and a very happy one. Her name (Amanda Jean) means lovable gift of God and that is what she is. When we took her to have her picture taken when she was six weeks old, the photographer said how unusual it was for a baby that age to smile for the camera. I have an old cassette tape that has a recording of her laughing when she was 7 months old. She really brought joy into our lives.

She wasn't always laughing though. Bob says Mandy was one extreme or the other - laughing or crying. When she was around 2 or 3 years old, we would sit at the dinner table and pass around the food. Once we started to eat, we would notice Mandy quietly sobbing into her plate. "What's the matter?" we would ask. "No one gave me any mashed potatoes." would be her response. (Or something similar, as it was a recurring event)

Mandy loved little furry, snuggly creatures. One time she came running in the house and said, "Mom, we found a mouse outside. I have it in a bucket." I came out to look at the "mouse" but it turned out to be a gerbil. We put him in our old hamster cage and named him Gerry. He was Mandy's pet for several years.

On another occasion I came home and found Mandy sitting in the front yard holding a baby bunny. "He won't go back in his hole." she said. "He will if you let go of him." I said. (which turned out to be true) Mandy always wanted us to buy her a rabbit because her science teacher had one at school. We never gave in. It was enough for us to have a gerbil, a cat and a rowdy dalmatian.

Growing up in the church, Mandy often said she thought God wanted her to go to South America. She had a little scar on her elbow in the shape of South America. I was a little skeptical of that being a valid sign. One day Mandy was eating Tostitos and pulled a chip out of the bag and said, "Look, Mom. South America." Sure enough, the chip was shaped like the continent. Mandy began to prepare for possibly becoming a missionary. She listened intently when missionaries came to the church. When we started going to a new church in 1994, we met Dennis, a man who was preparing to be a missionary with New Tribes. He talked to both of our girls about missions work and even gave us videos to watch. Mandy went to Bolivia for the summer after she graduated from high school. She was the only one on her team who could speak Spanish, so she helped them get through the airports in South America.

I talked to Mandy while she was in Bolivia and made plans for our family to drive down to Miami and meet her plane when she arrived back in the U.S. She told me they would be in at 5:45 on the 18th. We left home the evening of the 17th and drove straight through. We arrived at the Miami airport before 3:00 on the afternoon of the 18th. We soon learned that you need to speak Spanish to find your way through the Miami airport, too. Bob eventually figured out that Mandy's plane had arrived 5:45 AM. We called New Tribes Missions and found out Mandy's team was staying at a hotel near the airport. The family never trusts Mandy and me to plan things anymore.

Mandy went back to Bolivia the following February. She taught in the school for the Indian children. She got very sick while she was there and was still recovering when she returned a couple of months later. It took her about 24 hours just to fly back because they rerouted her plane through New Jersey. The airline gave her a voucher to use on a future flight. I remember that Lisa Lauter was there with us to meet Mandy returning from Bolivia. Lisa and the voucher are important elements in the rest of Mandy's story. The short version goes like this...

Mandy's sister Darcy left for a one-year mission trip to East Asia in July 2000. Adam, who was also going on the trip told Mandy about a band named Pavement (because Adam and Mandy both have the same weird taste in music). Mandy began listening to some Pavement online and liked their music. She decided to buy a Pavement album on ebay, but she was cautious because Bobby had bought something on ebay and got a homemade copy of a CD. So Mandy emailed the guy who was selling the Pavement CD she wanted. In his reply email he told her he was a Christian (even though Pavement is not a Christian band). Turns out the guy's name was Brooks and he lived in Phoenix. Mandy emailed Brooks that she had a friend (Lisa Lauter) who moved to Phoenix. He wrote back and said, "No way. She goes to my church." Brooks and Mandy started emailing each other regularly (even though someone else won the Pavement auction). Darcy asked Mandy to come visit her in Thailand in January. Mandy prayed that she would be able to go even though she didn't know how she would pay for it. Our insurance agent called and said he wanted to give a check to Mandy for $1,500 for an accident she had the previous year. When Mandy booked her flight through Priceline, they routed her through Phoenix. Lisa and Brooks came to meet her at the airport. She had a five hour layover so they went to dinner. Brooks also met her plane on the way back. Later Mandy used her voucher to visit Lisa in Phoenix for a week. Brooks and Mandy were married in May 2002 and are now the parents of the cutest baby in the history of the world, Rhys.

Bobby's 24th Birthday

Today is Bobby's 24th birthday. Here are a few of my favorite Bobby stories...

He was the second smallest baby of our four. Weighing in at a little less than 7 pounds, he was born hungry. He grabbed the blanket they wrapped him in and began to chew on it. We were excited to have a son and we named him Robert Joseph Cross III.

I have a very distinct memory of the Sunday after Bobby was born. Bob was the songleader in our church and I was the pianist. At one point in the service, Bob slipped out of the auditorium and retrieved Bobby from the nursery. Bob looked very proud as he carried (like a football) his first-born son down the center aisle of the church and handed him to the pastor. The pastor then held him and prayed a prayer of dedication that God would work in Bobby's life and use him in His service.

Bobby was a very sweet and loving boy. When he learned to say "mommy" he said it ad nauseum. It didn't bother me, though. He also called anything round (peas, bubbles, etc.) a "ball!" Bobby was very excited when his little brother Jeff was born. He was a wonderful two-year-old big brother.

Bobby was more rambunctious in the grocery store than the rest of the kids. He's the only one who bumped into things and knocked them off the shelves. Breaking a jar of jelly was bad enough, but when he spilled cooking oil on aisle 3, he earned a reputation with the store's cleanup crew. I think they had his picture posted in the stock room.

One warm summer, we took the kids to King's Island (amusement park). Darcy and Mandy were the only kids tall enough to ride The Beast (roller coaster), so Bob and I took turns taking each of them on the ride. While I was with the other three kids, waiting for Bob and Darcy to finish the ride, Mandy saw a little inchworm crawling on the sidewalk. She and Jeffrey stooped down with me to look at it. We were just amazed at how God had made this little creature that could "walk" across the pavement by drawing its body together and then stretching it out. Suddenly, a foot came out of nowhere and stomped the poor critter. Bobby!

On one occasion, we thought we'd be facing a personal lawsuit for Bobby's actions. He and his friend Matthew were walking around K-Mart with Matthew's parents. The parents made the mistake of letting Bobby and Matthew go to the toy department. Matthew had smuggled in a can of "fart spray" and the boys decided to covertly spray it around the toy department to test people's reactions. They got a reaction all right. One mother's toddler started crying and the mother accused the boys of spraying something in her baby's face. She dragged them up
to the Service Desk and paged Matthew's parents. Thankfully, we never heard from anyone's lawyer.

At Stonybrook Junior High, Bobby was voted the funniest guy in school. He and Jeff are both extremely funny, but in different ways. Getting the two of them together can be dangerous, so maybe it's best that Jeff moved halfway round the world. They still like to cut up on family vacations.

In high school, Bobby joined the Color Green drama team with Mandy. That was a pretty surprising move for both of them since they have a morbid fear of speaking in public.

One friend Bobby met while in high school was Stephen Scharbrough. That's another dangerous combination. One night Stephen said, "Let's go get thrown out of Marsh." So Bobby and Stephen went into Marsh grocery store and began bumping into displays of cans. Bobby already had experience in this area. Of course, being polite trouble makers, they said, "My fault." and picked up what they knocked down. Since no one was throwing them out of the store, they decided to get into the party ice freezer. As shoppers passed by, the boys would knock on
the glass door and motion to them that "it's cold in here." The manager threw them out.

One a really windy night, while Bobby still lived at our house, he was awakened by a loud sound like a door slamming downstairs. He knocked on our bedroom door to make sure we were awake. Bob got up and began searching the closet for his shotgun. Bobby grabbed a pocket knife and headed down the stairs. By the time Bob got to the stairs, Bobby had already determined the house was undisturbed. We never figured out what the sound was, but I was impressed with his bravery.

On family vacation in Orlando in 2003, we went to a Japanese steakhouse. They seated the 8 of us at a table for 10. I pointed to the two empty seats and told Bobby and Jeff they needed to have wives in these seats by vacation next year. Bobby looked at Jeff and said, "We'd better get busy." By the time family vacation rolled around a year later, Bobby had married Leigh Ann, my favorite daughter-in-law. Jeff is running a little behind schedule.

Bobby and Leigh Ann are very well-matched. They are good "parents" to Barkley and Weezer, but they need to have a real baby. How about by vacation time next year?

Asantists

I'm the youngest of five children. Christmas at my house growing up was pretty much the normal American Christmas except for one thing. Our parents told us there is no Santa Claus. That's right, I grew up in an Asantist home. But one Christmas Eve, I went to the grocery store with my sister-in-law. I was four years old. At the store I saw Santa. I couldn't believe my eyes. There he was in the flesh, walking around and handing out
candy canes to everyone. My little four-year-old brain wasn't ready for this paradox. My parents either (a) didn't realize he existed, or (b) were lying to me. Upon arriving home, I confronted my mother in an excited voice... "Mom, I saw Santa Claus at the grocery store!"

"It was someone dressed up in a costume." she said, smiling.

I hadn't thought of that possibility. Why would anyone do that? That would be deliberately misleading the public, four-year-olds in particular.

I came to grips with the feigned, wink-wink existence of Santa Claus and began to realize I was privy to a secret—a really BIG secret. In the first grade, I told the girls sitting at my table, "There's really no Santa Claus."

This made them very angry... livid, even. And they responded, "He's not going to bring you any presents."

"He's not going to bring you any presents either." I shot back without thinking. "It's your parents! It's my parents! What, are you idiots?"

I was ostracized.

When I became a mother, I had to ask myself the hard question, "Am I willing to let my children go through the ridicule I've endured being an Asantist? ...You bet I am!"

So Bob and I told the kids there is no Santa Claus. Ironically, Jeff played Santa Claus in the school play when he was a first grader. Come to think of it, he played Peter Rabbit in Kindergarten. That was the same Easter when he got put in time out for telling the class there's no Easter bunny. (See my previous blog entry.)

When our kids got older I asked them if they thought it was the right decision to tell them there's no Santa. They all said yes. Darcy went on to say, "If someone wants to marry me, I'll tell him we have to tell our kids there's no Santa Claus. If he can't go along with that, then the deal is off."

The Naugahyde Davenport

Today is Jeff's birthday. He is 22. How time flies.

I can't remember when we started calling him Jeff. We named him Jeffrey when he was born, and the formal name stuck with him almost all the way through high school. Our friend Jeremy even remarked about it at one point. Jeremy moved to Huntington and when he came back to visit, Jeffrey's name had changed to Jeff without us even noticing. That made Jeff the only kid in the family whose name didn't end with Y.

He has always liked being different from everyone else. For example, I think he enjoyed it when they put him in Time Out in Kindergarten for telling the rest of the kids, "There really isn't an Easter Bunny." I blame that teacher for skewing my son’s moral compass. Not long after that, the school's bus driver approached me and asked, “Is Jeffrey really your son?”

“That depends,” I responded. “What has he done?”

“He told me you’re not his real mom. He says his real parents were killed in an accident, so I asked him who’s that lady that brings you here? He says ‘oh that’s my aunt. She and my uncle are my parents now.”

Not knowing how to react to my son’s newfound propensity for fiction, I told his father about it when he got home. Bob called Jeff into the room, sat him down, and explained to him where he really came from…

“Jeffrey, one day, the five of us, your mom, your sisters, your brother and I were all going to shop at Sears. As we passed by the dumpster near the catalog pickup entrance, we heard a sound. We thought someone had abandoned a poor kitten in the dumpster, but as we lifted the lid and looked inside. There was a fat little baby with a big head – it was you. You were lying right next to a discarded Happy Meal and you had a few stale french fries clutched in your little hands. I thought we should call the police, but your mom wanted to keep you, so we took you home.”

Jeff handled the news pretty well.

Later when Jeff was in the second grade, his teacher had all of her students keep a journal. She gave them a subject to write about each day and would periodically read and comment on their writing. Bob and the kids and I all went into school one evening for open house. Jeff had some his best work laid out on his desk. We looked inside and saw his journal. Oh, isn’t this cute – the musings of a second grader. Bob paged through and came to the phrase “I’m sad when my dad beats me up.”

Jeff had his ups and downs as a student. In fourth grade, the school labeled him gifted and creative. In fifth grade, the teacher labeled him hopelessly disorganized. In High School, I realized my youngest son was not normal. He would stay up till the wee hours of the morning finishing a paper and then leave it in his locker when he went to class.

After graduating high school, Jeff came up with a home remedy for his apparent attention deficit problem. He began drinking mass quantities of iced tea and sleeping about three hours a night. He decided to use his new surplus of time to begin writing a 500-page self-help book for people with attention deficit disorder. He never finished it though.

One night, when Jeff was still living in Indianapolis, I took him out to dinner. As the waitress brought his third glass of iced tea he said, “I read somewhere that nicotine is a stimulant.”

I said, “Hey, maybe you should start smoking.”

To which he responded, “No, I was thinking about just wearing the patch.”

Recently I ran across a little note in Jeff’s handwriting. At first I was a little concerned. It says, “Appeared Friday. No hair. About 3/16 inch. Light brown. Slightly raised. Talks to me on occasion.” Then I remembered that I had told him to call the doctor and describe his mole.

Since high school, Jeff has had a serious interest in politics. He listens to political commentary on the radio, frequents political websites, attends political events and reads political books. He even watches C-Span. One of his favorite authors is a slim, attractive blonde named Ann Coulter, who I might add is more abrasive than Comet cleanser. Jeff went to a local book signing and met her in person. After that he was smitten and convinced that he and Ann were destined to be together. He would talk about her as if they were an item. Playing along with the fantasy, one of Jeff’s sisters asked him how things are going with Ann. He said, “Things are going pretty well. We just need to get past this restraining order.”

Jeff has now lived in Phoenix for over a year. He constantly rubs it in that the weather is wonderful out there (except when it's 116 in the shade, if you can find any shade). He is the proud owner of Middle Floor, a multi-dollar web/design/media/whatever-else-makes-money company (middlefloor.com). I'm proud of you son. Happy birthday!

Outlet Covers May Present Choking Hazard

It's time to childproof our house in preparation for a visit from Rhys, my one-year-old grandson. He's much more mobile than the last time he visited us seven months ago. For some reason, this blog title came to mind in the process. Being the mother of four, I know it's only by the grace of God my children survived their childhood. I'm just now learning some of the crazy things they did without me knowing. What can you do to ensure your kids don't fall victim to some terrible sickness or accident? Bobby and Jeff could easily have wound up in the Darwin Awards. I remember the time Bobby came home from his friend's house (he was about 12 at the time) with a hole burned in the leg of his jeans. He said they were lighting bottle rockets and one came straight at him and went up his pants leg. I didn't believe him. To this day he swears that's what happened.

Mandy tells me that Rhys has taken a liking to deliberately thumping his head on walls and furniture. I was considering stapling foam padding to the walls in the guest room, but Mandy is trying to avoid chemical toxins that come from things like foam padding. If anyone has a suggestion on natural wall padding that won't pose any other risk such as choking or suffocating, please feel free to list it in the comments. Owens-Corning fiberglass insulation is not an option.

Mandy, Rhys and Jeff are all coming to town for Thanksgiving and to throw a big party for Bob and me for our 30th wedding anniversary- they're having a game night for all our friends. Darcy is doing most of the planning. She is the main reason they're having a party for our 30th - she was in China when we celebrated our 25th. I can't imagine Mandy, Bobby and Jeff planning a big event without her. Brooks will be out of the country this time, but Craig and Leigh Ann will both be there - hopefully not making death threats to each other like they usually do. Now play nice.