New Children's Book

I just thought this was funny, a children's book titled:

Help! Mom! There Are Liberals Under My Bed!

Look for it under your tree this Christmas!

Hurricane Rita

I was going to start this post by saying that I have been under the weather so I have not felt like writing for a few days, but I'm sure there are many on the Gulf coast that would take the allergies and congestion that I've been feeling in exchange for the 'weather' they are about to be under.

I have to admit that when I first heard that Hurricane Katrina was headed for New Orleans I was not as sympathetic as I should have been. I didn't wish any harm on the people of that city, but as a result of my one visit to New Orleans many years ago, I thought that a good cleaning was certainly long over due. My only memory as a child was that it was a dark, dirty, scary city. A storm headed towards Houston has an entirely different meaning to me. I was just there earlier this month. I have family members and co-workers who live there. I've been there numerous times in the past including trips to the beach in Galveston and the boardwalk at Keemah. An eerie feeling comes over me reading Brad's Hurricane Rita updates like he is an embedded reporter sending reports back from the front line. I hate that he has to be there, but I know his leadership is needed by all those around him.

My prayer is for the safety that all those in the hurricane's path. My prayer is for comfort on those who are going through their second hurricane in as many months. My prayer is for peace for those families who have been separated by these storms for whatever reason. My prayer is for strength for the rescue workers, emt's, firemen, policemen, coast guard, national guard and all those whose job it is to protect and serve and maintain some sense of order. My prayer is for weakening of Hurricane Rita so that damage is minimized. My prayer is for forgiveness of my own hardened heart for taking so long to understand the impact of these storms on so many lives. Finally, my prayer is that God Himself will wrap his arms around the hospital where my brother will be for the next 48 hours so that he and all those with him will be protected.

Lord, listen to Your children praying,
Lord, send Your spirit in this place;
Lord, listen to Your children praying,
Send us love, send us power, send us grace!

Our First OU Football Game

Saturday was a monumental occasion. I took my children to their first OU Football game. As I've mentioned before, I have great memories of going to Sooner games as a child and I wanted to share that with my kids. It may have been a little early for them. They did really well during the game and made it through all four quarters, but most of the credit for that goes to their mom for packing a backpack full of paper, crayons, colored pencils, stickers, fans, snacks, etc. The football game didn't really keep their attention, although from what I've heard on the radio this week the other 84,000 people in attendance weren't all that impressed with what they saw on the field either.

When OU scored, fireworks shot off from the scoreboard which was both exciting and frightening for Clark, who sat in my lap most of the afternoon. He was funny. After the fireworks and the loud cheers from the fans he buried his head in my chest, but only for a few seconds at a time. The noise made him anxious, but then while still clinging to me, he would twist the top half of his body around to see what was happening on the field so that he wouldn't miss anything.

Ryleigh and Clark both got excited when the horses ran onto the field pulling the Sooner Schooner. Ryleigh got involved in kickoffs by saying "Ooooohhhhhh" and holding her index finger in the air with the rest of the crowd until the ball was kicked and then letting out a resounding "U!". Both OU and Tulsa's bands performed at halftime, which both of the kids enjoyed, but the highlight may have been towards the end of the game when the 9 year old boy behind us gave Ryleigh his souvenir red foam finger (on Ryleigh's hand in the picture above).

When I tell stories to Ryleigh at night (when I don't sing them) I try to come up with a story that relates somehow to what we have done recently. I had already told her plenty of OU football stories so I related a story about going to Kansas City with Brad, Jeff and my Dad to watch the Kansas City Royals baseball team play. Jeff maintains to this day that we would have made better time if we'd taken the Topaz, but that's a totally different story.

Anyway, as I was telling her the story I reminded Ryleigh that Andrea used to go to the Royals games with her dad. That fact led me to think, what if Andrea and I were both at that game watching the Royals and White Sox play. What if we bumped into each other at the concession stand. What if my future wife and I sat beside each other at a baseball game 20+ years ago. So I told Ryleigh that she better hang onto her ticket stub, because some day she and her husband might be talking about their childhood, and recalling a football game they went to with their parents:

Ryleigh - "I went to an OU game once with my dad."
Future husband - "I went to a game with my mom."
R - "We watched OU play Tulsa."
FH - "WE watched them play Tulsa, too."
R - "We sat in the south end zone."
FH - "WE sat it the south end zone!"
R - "Well, some nice boy game me a big, red foam finger."
FH - "I gave a nice girl my foam finger!"

You never know Ryleigh, that nice boy might be your husband some day, and you can prove when you met by keeping that ticket. Wouldn't that be something?
"Daaaaaad!"
Well I thought it was funny.

Updates

I thought I would update you on Ryleigh's bedtime routine. The good news is that she still needs me. Putting herself to bed only lasted one night. A new twist has been added, however. Instead of telling her stories, she now wants me to sing her story songs. I don't know where that request came from, but the first song that came to my head was "Grandma's Feather Bed" by John Denver. It meets both criteria - story and song:

"When I was a little bitty boy, just up off the flo'
We used to go down to Grandma's house, every month end or so.
We'd have chicken pie, country ham, homemade butter on the bread,
but the best darn thing about Grandma's house was the great big featherbed" and so on....

I remember singing it in school during music class, and even going so far as to explain some of the lyrics such as "forty-leven geese" and "took a whole bolt of cloth for the tick". If pressed I can recite the first few lines of the preamble to the Constitution, the Declaration of Independence or the Gettysburg Address, but I can recall every word of "Grandma's Feather Bed". I'm not sure what that says about me, but it's not something that necessarily makes me proud. Maybe if someone put the Declaration of Independence to music I could remember it.


On a separate note, I'm not the only one who was impressed with the way the people of Texas responded to the hurricane relief effort. Vice President Dick Cheney is quoted as saying, "he [Cheney] was impressed with the sophisticated planning Texas has in place, in case a major hurricane hits the state." See the entire article here.

What is a Dad to do?

It has just been a few weeks since Ryleigh started Kindergarten, and she has already grown up so much. Usually after we read books at night, she wants me to lay down with her, tell her some stories of my childhood, sing some songs and stay with her until she falls asleep. Tonight was different. She told me earlier in the evening that she wanted to try going to bed by herself, but I didn't really think much of it. Well when it was time for bed, we read some stories, we said our prayer, and then she disposed of me:

"Dad, you don't have to lie down with me tonight. I know pretty soon we will have a new baby and I will be sleeping on the top of the bunk bed and you won't be able to lie down with me every night. So I just want to start getting ready for that so I want to try going to sleep by myself. I think I will feel better if you wait outside my door for a few minutes just to be sure."

And with that I turned on her music, walked out the door and stood their sulking. My 5 year old daughter no longer needs me to put her to bed, what else is there for a dad to do?

The Eyes of Texas

It's September, Fall is approaching, school is back in session and football season has started. I grew up going to OU football games with my dad. For several seasons we made the trip to Norman on Saturdays, parked the car miles from the stadium and made the long walk across campus, stopping only long enough to buy a great big brownie, carefully wrapped in plastic wrap, that was just big enough to sustain us until we got to our seats.

Being raised an OU fan not only made me want to cheer for the Sooners at every opportunity, but it also conditioned me to cheer against Texas every chance I had. Texas is OU's biggest rival. You just can't be an OU fan and a Texas fan at the same time, so I cheer for OU and against Texas. That "us against them" mentality seems to find its way into politics as well. The idea of keeping up with Texas was used in ad campaigns to help promote the lottery in Oklahoma. In recent years Texas has taken some of Oklahoma's larger companies and relocated their headquarters south of the Red River. These are just a few of the many reasons to be down on Texas.

After this past week I may have to change my attitude towards the Lone Star State. I traveled with my family to the Houston area to spend Labor Weekend with Brad and his family. While we were there the city of Houston was receiving thousands of evacuees from New Orleans and other coastal cities whose homes had been destroyed by hurricane Katrina. During one of New Orleans' darkest hours (literally and figuratively) the Houston Astrodome, which must have seemed like the Ritz Carlton compared to the decimated Louisiana Super Dome, was opened to house thousands of people. In a time of need Texans welcomed their neighbors with open arms. Thousands of well organized volunteers prepared cots to sleep on, food to eat, clothing and other supplies to make these victims feel comfortable, safe and secure.

The citizens of Houston rallied together, donating supplies to fire departments and churches, the Red Cross and the Salvation Army to the point where donations and volunteers had to be turned away. Since then many cities and states, including Oklahoma I'm proud to say, have shared in the responsibility of caring for those made homeless by the hurricane. A month from now when the OU and Texas football teams meet at the Cotton Bowl in Dallas I won't have any problem pointing my horns down and cheering against the University of Texas. But for now this Sooner fan will gladly give credit to Texas for leading the way with their initiative, their organization and their generosity, and I'm sure many citizens of New Orleans are glad that the eyes of Texas are upon them tonight.

Bubble Bath

I laughed after reading Brad's blog about Bubble Baths because the night before I had taken these pictures of my kids in the bath. They always want bubbles, but when they take a bath in mom and dad's tub, it's even more special. They climb in the tub and immediately Clark points to the controls and says 'do dat daddy, do dat'.

'Dat' in this case means to turn on the whirlpool jets. A bubble bath takes on a life of it's own when whirlpool jets are added. I had to turn them off before bubbles started climbing over the edge like the washing machine in the Brady Bunch episode where Bobby and Peter add a whole box of soap. Now that's good clean fun!