A Journey in Simplicity: Breaking Bad Habits
The last several days have been interesting, I often walk toward the computer just out of complete habit and slide it onto my lap from the table and then back realizing I don't even know what I am doing. It reminds me of when I am working with our youngest son on not sucking his fingers (security thing he has done since 2 months old), it is a mindless, habit, just a go-to for him just as the computer is for me. The computer may not be your thing, but think about it for a second and figure out if it is food, relationships, entertainment or what fills you but leaves you lacking-what is your filler bad habit.
The first step in breaking a bad habit is to look at why you find this action so compelling. In other words, what's the payoff for doing this seemingly negative thing? Since you've already classified this as a "bad" habit you may be tempted to say there isn't one. But look closer. There is always a payoff. Let's say your bad habit is yelling at your kids. What's in it for you? You let off some steam and feel a little better for the moment. Or you have a bad habit of leaving the dishes unwashed? The payoff could be that you get to spend more time on the Internet! (Bad Choices, Bad Habits by Nancy Schimelpfening)
According to Nancy (let's just call her by her first name) there is a pay off which is why you practice the behavior, but also there is a trade off. The trade off is what you are loosing by exercising your go-to bad habit. Using the example from above, yelling at your kids, it is obvious what the trade off is: low self-esteem, guilt, shame, sadness, the tearing of bonds, anxiety, stress, and emotional pain. When you act on this bad habit, you are choosing your outburst of relief over your children's well being, and really even your own. When you break it all up like that it is pretty clear that bad habits, although habits should be broken because a new pattern needs to be established. Each time you are faced with a choice between the bad habit pay off and the trade off, and now you'll realise that it is a choice even though it is programmed a certain way you can work to break that. Wise choices are not easier, but they are wiser.
Bad habits are started up for a reason, once you understand that you can form good habits in their place- a positive go to so that you don't keep going back the the bad habit. Make an active choice, one that you can feel good about. Habits aren't bad, bad habits are bad. Instead of releasing your frustration in yelling choose to go for a run in the evening! It isn't bad to need a release, but you can choose where to channel it.
Once a different habit pattern is established the only way you'll meander back is if you are in denial about the original model of pay off and trade off mentioned above. If you find yourself justifying a bad habit go back and remind yourself of the reasons for not indulging, there are repercussions-some bigger some smaller but bad habits are labeled bad for a reason.
Just writing this and reading up on bad habits, I have almost wanted to write a list of things that I do on a regular basis and attack them all. But I need to have wisdom and in faith come at these bad habits one at a time with God's guidance.
Take Action: Jot down the habit you want to deal with, pick one to start with. Pray about it and ask God which one He'd have you work on first. Write out your list of "pay offs" and "trade offs". Remember it isn't easy to break a bad habit, there is a reason it was there in the first place. Establish a substitute good habit in its place.
Are you realising, as I am that you have bad habits that need to be broken in order to live more fully?
If you are just tuning in now to the simplicity posts and are interested in joining us be sure and check out my first posts about this voyage:
A Journey in Simplicity
Starting Out
Fasting for Simplification and Re-Sensitization
The Moment of Truth
The Husband: I Think I Might be a Soccer Fan
Those of you who read the dreadlock girl's blog on a regular basis know that she is not, in fact, an American. Now wait, wait, hold on. Before anyone goes calling Immigration Services, let me clarify. Bethany is, of course, a U.S. citizen, but her heart belongs to Spain, where she grew up. And because of this, she has a tendency to display some very un-American characteristics at times, one of the most prominent being a rabid passion for a strange sport called football. We call it soccer here in the U.S so that we don't get it confused with another sport involving big beefy guys in tights throwing a ball around and wrestling with each other. But if you try to call football soccer in just about any other country, you will get your face kicked in.
Yes, football is a very, very big deal in many other countries that are not America. I mean, they are really serious about it. Deadly serious. The last time we were in Spain I tried to joke with Bethany that I was going to walk around downtown Madrid wearing a jersey for the Barcelona football team (Madrid and Barcelona being arch rivals). Bethany gave me the look the she reserves for when I am being dumb and explained that if I did that, I would be dragged into a back alley and beaten to a pulp. I laughed. Bethany did not laugh, because she wasn't joking.
By simple virtue of the fact that no one cares about soccer in America, I had not, until recently, ever really watched an entire soccer game. All of that changed a few weeks ago, however, when the 2010 World Cup started. I watched almost every single game up to and including Spain's victory over Holland in the final. Hours and hours and hours of soccer. I have watched this much soccer because my wife wants to watch it and I love her and also because I want to eat and wear clean clothes, and I won't get to do either of those things if my wife is not happy with me.
But having watched this much soccer over the last several weeks, I have developed a certain appreciation for it. Following is a list of three things that I find particularly endearing about this strange sport. At first glance, these may seem like criticisms. But they aren't; they are merely appreciations for some of its wonderful oddities. Because if soccer is anything, it is most certainly odd.
Three reasons I think I might like soccer:
1. No one ever has any idea what's going on. Soccer has no instant replay rules and no time outs. When the ref doesn't like something, well, that's all there is to it. He pulls out a little card or waves a little flag and whatever he says goes. He doesn't have to give any reasons for the calls he makes. He could be running down the field and think to himself, "You know, I really don't like that guy's hair. I mean, who wears a hair band these days? What is this, the 70s? That's it, I'm giving him a yellow card." And bam - yellow card. No explanation. No arguing. You'll notice that after the majority of calls in a soccer game, everyone looks confused. All of the players on both sides, the coaches, the fans. Even the refs. They don't know why they made the call half the time either.
Stoppage time is even better. Theoretically the refs are keeping track of how much time is wasted during the game on account of substitutions, injuries, the players styling each other's hair, etc. Then, at the end of each half, an appropriate amount of time is added to the game to make up the difference. But anyone who watches more than a couple of games quickly realizes that the refs are not really keeping track of anything. When the end of a half is approaching, they pull some random number out of the air and slap it on. As a result, no one ever has any idea when the game is going to end.
I like all of this ambiguity because it is so contrary to the razor-sharp preciseness of American sports, in which games times are counted in milliseconds and every inch of the field is measured with microscopic accuracy. If the typical American sporting event is a timed game of chess, an international soccer match is a fist fight in the back room of Biffy's Tavern.
2. Everyone is always falling down. Apparently one of the most important skills that a professional soccer player can posses is the ability, when touched in any way by another player, to convincingly make it appear as if he has just been creamed in the head with a baseball bat. This is so that the ref will call a foul on the other player, resulting in valuable safety and penalty kicks and yellow cards against the other team.
Soccer players have really transformed flopping, as it is commonly called, into an art form. It's always fun to watch a player throw his arms up in the air, scream like he's been shot, do three somersaults and sprawl on the ground clutching his leg and then, when looking at the replay, realize that no one actually touched him. After the ref issues the opposing team a yellow card, the player, who has been lying on the ground writhing in apparent agony, will suddenly hop up, dust himself off and continue playing as if nothing happened (and nothing, in fact, did).
Flopping is a great way to liven up otherwise long and uneventful stretches of a soccer match, which leads to my final point . . .
3. No one ever scores. This is one of the most incredible things to me about soccer. The players run their guts out for more than 90 minutes, and one team wins because their striker kicks the ball at exactly right second, usually when the opposing goalie has just taken a quick break to pick his nose or something. And that's it - the score is 1-0 and the game is over. All that effort for one point.
Now what makes the almost non-existent scoring in soccer fun is that when someone does score, people get really, really excited. I mean, they get so excited that their eyeballs explode out of their heads. Take all of the excitement that has been expressed over every single baseball World Series in history and you will have about two thirds of the emotion expressed over one goal in the World Cup. You can pretty much justify anything - setting cars on fire; throwing hand grenades; dumping cans of paint on people - if it's in the name of celebrating a goal. (Just to clarify, I do not do a majority of the things on that list when I am celebrating a goal).
And in the end, I think that's probably why I am at, at least nominally, a soccer fan. It's such a passionate sport, and it's hard not to get caught up in that passion. Watching the World Cup final the other day, I actually did feel like a part of huge global community - a very loud, rowdy and belligerent global community. So, there's a good chance that I will keep watching soccer - to stay a part of that community. And also so that my wife will keep making me food and washing my clothes.
The Husband: Thank you, donut farmers
On June 4 2010, something incredible happened, though you may not have realized it. First of all, it was my birthday, which is pretty incredible by itself. But not only that, my birthday this year fell on a Friday, which happens to be my favorite day of the week. I know what you're thinking - Whoa, this is getting freaky - but wait, it gets even more amazing. This year my birthday also occurred on NATIONAL DONUT DAY. No I am not joking. I would not joke about something like this. And as if all that was not unbelievable enough, this was also my 29th birthday, which is PRECISELY the number of donuts I could eat in a row without throwing up. The last time this many numbers matched up on the same day, all of the world's computers crashed from the Y2K bug.
Okay, let me back up. Probably like you, I did not realize that the first Friday of every June is officially designated as a day of honor for the most perfect food that Mother Nature ever produced. But it's true. A friend sent me a message on Facebook and then I looked it up on Wikipedia, so the facts here are full proof. Apparently this special day was created in 1938 by the Salvation Army as a fundraiser to help feed the hungry during the Great Depression and as a way to recognize the hundreds of Salvation Army volunteers who served food (mostly donuts) to US soldiers during World War I. I also think it's a perfect day to offer gratitude to the many fine donut farmers who grow this magnificent crop.
I was essentially raised on donuts during my childhood. My dad often took me to work with him, and just down the street from his office was an oasis of deep-fried goodness - a Dunkin Donuts. I recall being six years old or so and sauntering into the sweet-smelling shop with my dad early in the morning to order up a bag of bear claws and maple bars. Then the two of us would sit at the Formica counter, staring blearily out the window, sipping black coffee until our brains started to function. I am, of course, kidding about me being six years old and drinking black coffee. I took a little bit of cream in it.
What is it about donuts that makes them such a perfect food, worthy of their own day? I suggest a few things. First, they are round, and a circle is a perfect shape, so that's a pretty good start right there. But when you add that hole in the middle, things start to get mind-blowing pretty quickly. The hole, of course, allows one to grip the donut in a firm manner and thus consume the donut more rapidly, which is important because, if you are doing things right, there are more donuts waiting to be consumed and you need to get to them before some other guy does.
I challenge you to think of another food that has the unique hole feature. Go ahead, I'll give you three seconds. Time's up. If you said "bagel," I'm sorry but you gave a terrible answer because a bagel is, in fact, nothing more than a failed attempt at a donut. It's a donut that never got sweetened and deep fried and instead had to settle for sesame seeds and some cream cheese. People who eat bagels don't even use the hole feature; they use little plastic knives and nibble delicately about the edges like squirrels.
Finally, donuts have a spiritual quality to them. They are literally good for your soul, in the same way that really good drum solos and movies featuring Rusell Crowe are good for your soul. This is why so many churches have donuts in the foyer after Sunday morning services.
I've examined a calendar (actually I didn't, I'm just guessing) and the next time my birthday will fall on a National Donut Day will be something like 2030, when I will be 49 years old, which is going to be another astounding alignment of numbers because 49 is the number of donuts I could eat in a row with the help of a stomach pump and an IV.
In the meantime I will continue to celebrate many days, even days that are not Friday, by visiting my local bakery and consuming various kinds of donuts. And if I see anyone buying a bagel I will make little squirrel noises at them and challenge them to man up and order a bear claw or six. Because as far as I'm concerned, every day is National Donut Day.
A History of Christianity: The First Three Thousand Years
What is the real story of Christianity? It is not only a belief that has driven people to compose, create, design and destroy it is part of human history, a unifying yet dis-unifying joint in who we are as civilizations.
Diarmaid MacCulloch's DVD series journey starts out in Jerusalem and then soon after he takes a tour through orthodoxy and Catholicism. Visiting chapels and many ancient churches of the east he finds things are not always as they would seem. He is not afraid of ancient arguments about the christian faith, this is not a series on theology, but about history, the history of Christianity.
When Christians were fleeing from Jerusalem, many of them didn't head west toward Rome because of the prior treatment of the disciples, but on east to Turkey and Syria. Monasticism and the death of self came out of the these first Christians from the east, shunning the later alliance with Constantine and the powerful Rome. It was a desire to not affiliate with wealth and power. Many gathered in communities to worship God in purity and serenity. Christianity deepened divisions between the east, Antioch and the west, Rome. The biggest dividing question being, who was Jesus and what was his relationship to God? Christians believe he is the Son of God, and if He isn't his death on the cross would not be enough to get a sinner, or all sinners to Heaven.
In this first DVD episode, Diarmaid MacCulloch follows Christianity eastward, even after the splits and divisions all the way to China. Through the next discs he will take 
a turn from Jerusalem to the west, to see what happened to Christianity when it was backed up by powerful friends.
Right after I finished the first I wished I had the second disk so I could keep right on watching. A History of Christianity is a marvelous tool to learn where our ancestors fought and what they fought against- many times they fought in different places than we live, but we are overcoming the same struggles- against power, wealth and to come to a place of closer unity to the Christ of the Bible. I HIGHLY recommend this BBC series, very well done, not another boring history lesson. I love it!
Q & A with Diarmaid MacCulloch
Host of A History of Christianity
Q: A History of Christianity corrects several misconceptions regarding Christianity’s past and traditions, beginning with the earliest days of the fledgling religion. How does the true history of Christianity’s origins differ from the version most of us know?
A: Today, Christianity is seen as a Western faith. Indeed, many in the Muslim world would see Western lifestyles as Christian lifestyles. But Christianity is not by origin a Western religion. Its beginnings are in the Middle East, where there still exist churches which have been Eastern since the earliest Christian era. For centuries, Christianity flourished in the East, and indeed, at one point, it was poised to triumph in Asia, maybe even in China. The headquarters of Christianity might well have been Baghdad rather than Rome, and if that had happened, Western Christianity would have been very different. The story of the first Christianity tells us the Christian faith is, in fact, hugely diverse with many identities. The history of Christianity has been the never-ending rebirth of a meeting with Jesus Christ, the resurrected son of God. For some, like the Oriental and Orthodox churches, the meeting has been through ritual and tradition, or the inner life of the mystic. For Western Catholics, through obedience to the Church. In Protestant churches, through the Bible. And it’s the variety that is so remarkable in Christianity’s journey. It’s reached into every continent and adapted to new cultures. That’s the hallmark of a world religion.
Q: Why does Christian history fascinate you?
A: When I was a small boy, my parents used to drive me around historic churches searching out whatever looked interesting, but soon, they realized they had created a monster. The history of the church became my life’s work. For me, no other subject can rival its scale and drama. For 2,000 years, Christianity has been one of the great players in world history, inspiring faith but also squalid politics. It is an epic story starring a cast of extraordinary people—from Jesus himself and the first apostles to empresses, kings, and popes, from reformers and champions of human conscience to crusaders and sadists. Religious belief can transform us for good or ill. It has brought human beings to acts of criminal folly as well as the highest achievements of goodness and creativity. I will tell the story of both extremes. Christianity has survived persecution, splits, wars of religion, mockery, hatred. Today there are two billion Christians, a third of humanity—Protestant, Catholic, Orthodox, Pentecostal, and many more. Deep down, the Christian faith boasts a shared core—but what is it? This is something I wanted to explore on a truly global scale.
Q: Your search for Christianity’s true history begins with a visit to the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. Why does this location tell us about the Christianity’s global roots?
A: The Church of the Holy Sepulcher is said to have been built where Jesus was crucified and buried. At its heart is what’s believed to be his tomb. The church built around the tomb of Jesus is the starting point for a forgotten story, a story that may overturn your preconceptions about early Christianity. Pride of place in this building goes to two churches—the Greek Orthodox church and the Roman Catholic church. It’s true that Orthodoxy and Catholicism dominated Christianity in Europe, in the West, for its first 1,500 years. But as you walk around the edges of the church, you can’t fail to notice other curious little chapels. They’re not Western or European. They’re Middle Eastern and African, and they tell a very different story about the origins of Christianity. Around the back of Jesus’ tomb is Egypt’s Coptic church. There are plenty of other churches at this location, but you need to know where to look: the Syriac Orthodox church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, to name a few. Many versions of Christian history would make these churches unorthodox, yet they are far older than better known versions of Christianity like Protestantism. It’s easy for tourists to dismiss these ancient churches as quaint or even irrelevant. But that would be a big mistake.
Q: What are some general differences between the expansion of Western and Eastern Christianity?
A: In the West, Christianity became the religion of an entire empire. This meant the end of persecution. It brought power and wealth. It gave the Christian faith a chance at becoming a universal religion. In theory, it embraced Christians in the Eastern Empire as well as in the West.
But in the east, many Christians were unimpressed by the new alliance—even hostile. At stake were fundamental disagreements about the direction the faith should take. Jesus had told people to abandon wealth, not to ally with the rich and powerful. It was Eastern Christians in Syria who led the way, showing Western Christianity a pattern for spiritual life. We call this pattern monasticism, a way of life involving isolation from the world, austerity, and suffering. The expansion of Eastern Christianity has often taken place apart from any empire. It has often been a religion of dialogue, not conquest.
Q: In the series, you point out that the big theme that distinguishes Roman Catholicism from other denominations is the centralization of power, both in the church as an institution in the lives of its followers and within the church itself. When did this transfer of power take place?
A: The crucial steps toward centralized power were taken 30 years after Constantine’s death in 337, during the time of Pope Damasus I, when the Bishop of Rome was established as bishop in unbroken succession from St. Peter. I’ll stick my neck out and say that I don’t believe that Peter was Bishop of Rome. And you’d be hard put to find anyone before the time of Pope Damasus who would make that claim. But as the successor to Peter, the Bishop of Rome became the Holy Father, the pope of all Christians in the West. The Catholic church was no longer an upstart. It had friends in high places now, a religion fit for gentlemen. The centrality of church power increased further during the time of Pope Gregory, around the fifth and sixth centuries. Gregory wanted to micromanage the fate of every soul in Europe. And to drive through this change, the papacy first targeted the clergy. Gregory made a change that was to redefine the popular image of the catholic cleric. Before that, most clergy who were not monks were expected to marry, but Gregory started a campaign to make all clergy to be automatically celibate. That’s because he wanted the best, the most disciplined, and the most loyal clergy possible. With its foot-soldiers in place, the Catholic church now had a presence in every village, town, and parish doing its best to control every aspect of people’s lives. What emerged was a single Latin Western society, unified by the Latin language and underpinned by a complex religious bureaucracy
Q: What really happened in the time commonly known as the Dark Ages?
A: In the 5th century, Barbarian invaders overran the western half of the empire. And in 1410, they took Rome itself. At that moment, the Latin church could easily have crumbled and become a footnote in European history. The centuries while the church stood alone after the fall of Rome are often referred to as the Dark Ages, as if civilization collapsed. Actually, that’s not true. The Church was not about to die with the Empire, but it was at a crossroads. How did the Latin Church survive on its own? Well, the decisions made by the wily politician Pope Damasus began to pay off. The church still had influential friends, and it survived because of the great choice made by the people still holding to the last shreds of imperial power—the Roman aristocracy. Once they’d ruled the Roman Empire, and now they decided to rule the Church. Roman nobleman became bishops to preserve the world they loved. When the empire collapsed, the church stepped into the power vacuum. The Western church had survived. It had adapted. 400 years earlier, Christianity was against the establishment. Now it was the establishment.
Q: What has been the prevailing religious feeling in the “Christian West” for the past fifty years?
A: I come from three generations of Anglican clergy. My father was a good and faithful priest, much loved by his congregation. His was still the church of Christendom, which had endured since the time of Constantine the Great. But even as a boy, I could see that the sort of church and society he served was dying. My own life story makes me a symbol of something distinctive to Western Christianity—a skepticism, a tendency to doubt which has transformed Western culture and transformed Christianity. In the years after WWII, I was a little boy growing up in Suffolk. I knew of the challenges facing Christianity. In the 1950s, church attendance actually increased in a chastened, frightened Europe. But that mood passed. The horrors of the first half of the 20th century had raised the old question Voltaire had posed about the goodness of God: In Auschwitz, where was a loving God? Europe was sickened by any system which made absolute claims to truth: Communism, Fascism, Christianity. So it was hardly surprising that in the second half of the 20th century an unprecedented, almost frivolous mood confronted European Christianity: religious indifference and apathy. Social changes brought a more relaxed attitude toward sex and marriage, movement between social classes, and more individual choice. In the face of that, fewer people chose to spend Sunday in church. For 2,000 years, the Christian answer to the big questions of existence was faith in God, as revealed in Jesus Christ. That made sense of life and death. It taught right from wrong. But the recent history of Christianity has been described as a sea of faith ebbing away before the relentless advance of science and reason and progress. It’s actually a much more surprising story. The tide of faith, perversely, flows back in, for Christianity has a remarkable resilience. And in crisis, it has rediscovered deep and enduring truths about itself.
Q: So where is Christianity going in the twenty-first century? Should God be worried?
A: It depends where you look. In my journeys around Asia, Africa, and Latin America, I’ve been struck by the exuberance of Christian life. Pentecostals, in particular…I think they surprise us. In fact, they may surprise themselves by what they find on their own Christian adventure. Outside Europe, numbers of Christians are rising at a phenomenal pace, but in the West they are falling. So what of the church here, in the Christian continent which first discovered doubt? If the history of the church teaches us anything, it’s that it has an exceptional knack for reinventing itself in the face of fresh dangers. The modern world has plenty to throw at the church—skepticism, freedom, choice, but modernity can’t escape the oldest questions at the heart of the messy business of being human, questions of right and wrong, purpose and meaning. A wise old Dominican friar once reminded me of the words of St. Thomas Aquinas: “God is not the answer. He is the question.” And as long as the church goes on trying to ask the question, it will never die. Remember that Christianity is a very young religion. It spans a mere 2,000 years out of 150,000 years of human history. It would be very surprising if it had already revealed all of its secrets. We’ll wait and see. That’s just what Christians have been doing ever since they gathered as the sky turned black in Jerusalem at the foot of the cross on Golgotha.
The DVD set is available at retailers, including Sam’s Club. The series is also available on Amazon.com and www.ambrosevideo.com.
The Husband: She Excels Them All
In a previous post about how my wife and I first met, I mentioned that before she was dreadlock girl, Bethany was punk girl - spikey hair and face piercings included - and a few of you commented that you'd like to see photos of my lovely bride when she was in her punk phase.
Well, I am pleased to share a wonderful development. We have a good friend named Phil Cacka who is a professional photographer and owner of Hawthorn Photography in Portland. Bethany and I went to college with Phil and his wife Michelle "back in the day" when both Bethany and Michelle were classic punk queens.
The four of us once took a trip to Seattle with our college church group, and Phil snapped some absolutely fantastic pictures of Bethany walking around downtown, wearing a ratty old fur coat. Several days ago I emailed Phil to see if there was any chance he still had these pictures, which are now ten years old. And miracle of miracles, he did.
These pictures still make me weak in the knees, just like they did a decade ago. There's just something about them that makes me want to go out in the street, do a little soft shoe and croon in a deep voice at the moon (which for obvious reasons I will not actually do).
I think my favorite thing about them is that they capture something important about Bethany's personality: she's just a little bit insane. You have to look closely at her face, but you can tell - there's a bolt loose in her brain somewhere. To quote Stephen the Mad Irishman from Braveheart, she "isn't quite right in the head." And that is a very happy thing. I'm so glad I didn't marry a normal person.
I'm not sure why, but for some reason these pictures bring to my mind one of my favorite passages of scripture: Proverbs 31. Now, a college professor once warned me never to end a piece of writing by quoting someone else, admonishing me that to do so is to "surrender the key rhetorical space" or something like that. But in celebration of finding these pictures (thank you Phil!) and as a late tribute to Mother's Day, I think ceding the key rhetorical space to King Lemuel is entirely appropriate:
but you excel them all."
The Husband: Boys – I Highly Recommend Em’
In addition to my occupation as a devoted and loving husband to dreadlock girl, I am also employed as a wise, patient father of two small boys - Jackson and Oliver. Although, if you were to ask them to describe my parenting abilities, they might not use the words "wise" and "patient." They'd probably say something more along the lines of "silly bottom" and "diaper head." ("Diaper head," by the way, is term of deep respect and reverence in Jackson and Oliver's vocabulary.)
Now, don't get me wrong - all children are gifts from God. And little girls are sweet and they smell nice and they are always smiling and the way that their dresses swish about is truly delightful. But there are some very distinct advantages to parenting boys. If you do not yet own a small boy, let me share three of the more tangible benefits with you:
1. Boys are economical. There are really only a few essential supplies that you need to care for a small boy: a pair of jeans (patch as necessary); a t-shirt (dark-colored to hide stains); a box of instant oatmeal; and some jelly beans. You can raise a fine young man without having to buy much else. Any other nutrients that he might need he will get from eating dirt (which he will do whether you like it nor not) and from licking the slide at the playground. You can buy more clothes if you want, but I'm telling you, after one day on a small boy all clothes look the same - dirty. If you really need some wardrobe variety, you can always turn the t-shirt and jeans inside out.
2. Boys are low-maintenance. A few Saturdays ago our family spent a fabulous afternoon at my grandparent's cattle ranch. Jackson and Oliver, clad in rubber boots, stomped and jumped in mud puddles and cow pies - frequently ending up on their backsides. At one point during the day they smeared mud on their faces for "war paint." Jackson got his head caught in a cow fence. It was a fine outing.
But I'm not going to lie to you, on the way home, Jackson and Oliver smelled a little like, well, cow manure. They didn't reek of it; it was more like well-applied cologne. There was the essence, the hint, of cow manure about them. By the time we pulled into our 
driveway, it was very late and both boys were almost asleep so we sent them straight to bed. The next morning we had to wake them up early for church, and there just wasn't time to give them a bath before we rushed out the door.
The conclusion that you are about to draw is correct: I dropped my two sons off at Sunday school that morning smelling of cow poo. I own up to it. But here's the thing - no one cared. No one noticed. Little boys are supposed to smell. In fact, all of the little boys in Sunday school that morning smelled of one thing or another. Now, you just try taking a little girl to Sunday school smelling like cow manure and see what happens.
3. Boys are intellectually stimulating. The other evening I was enjoying a quiet night at home with Jackson and Oliver. The three of us sat in front of a blazing fire in the living room, the two boys wrapped in warm blankets. All was peaceful and quiet. And then Oliver, with a deeply philosophical look on his face, asked the following question: "Dad, what would happen if we threw a monkey into this fire?"
If you had offered me the choice that night between dinner with the President of United States and a rigorous discussion with my sons about the possible outcomes of tossing a monkey into a fire, I don't think I need to tell you which I would choose. It is a conversation that I will remember until the end of my dying day.
And so, for those of you who are considering picking one or two up, I hope I've clued you in to the considerable perks that come with having small boys in your household. Just be prepared to adopt "diaper head" as your new name.
The Husband: love and mathematics
You may be wondering how a guy like me ended up with dreadlock girl. The answer is simple mathematics.
I mean that in the most literal sense possible. Bethany and I fell in love in a math class for dumb people. We were both in college, both terrible at math, and we both needed to pass calculus in order to graduate. Well, it turns out they have a special class for people like that. The professor talks really slow and loud and uses big hand gestures.
So Bethany and I ended up together in the front row of this class. We already knew each other from church, although we hadn't spoken much before. I think Bethany said "hi" to me on a Sunday morning once, my reaction being to run away giggling like a little school girl. But we suddenly found ourselves with three hours every week to get acquainted (because goodness knows we weren't paying any attention to the professor).
Before I go any further with this story, let me clarify an important detail. At this point in her life, Bethany was not dreadlock girl. She was punk girl. She had short, spikey hair that changed to a different neon color every few days. She had sharp pieces of metal stuck in both her eyebrows, her nose and her lip. She wore lots of camo. To say that I was attracted to all of this is a serious understatement. I was, shall we say, smitten.
As the days wore on, I felt a growing need to express my affection for Bethany in some tangible way. I wanted her to know that I like, you know, liked her. And so one morning as the professor shouted to us about irregular hypotenuses or something like that, I went for it. Bethany had an open bottle of Snapple next to her (cranberry flavor, I believe). At one point she put her pencil down and bent over to get something out of her bag. When she sat back up, the pencil was, get this, IN the Snapple bottle. Brilliant, right?
No. Not brilliant. Bethany did not think my flirtatious little joke was cute or charming. She thought it was juvenile and even a little bit alarming. She asked me to please not do anything like that again.
But, of course, I didn't learn. I just can't help it - my love has a tendency to express itself in awkward ways. On our first date, for example, I placed a large dead salmon on Bethany's front step, rang the doorbell and ran away (an absolutely true story). This got pretty much the same reaction as the "pencil in the Snapple" trick, only this time there was yelling involved.
After eight wonderful years of marriage, I have calmed down considerably and, in fact, my attempts to show affection to my wife are basically normal. Why, just the other day I brought her a lovely bouquet of flowers. But our anniversary is coming up, and writing this post has got me thinking that it might be time to spice things up a bit. I was thinking about possibly tricking her into believing that it's our tenth anniversary.
This wouldn't be terribly difficult to do. After all, dreadlock girl is terrible at math.
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