Go to sleep Lucy

I was digging through our pictures trying to find something and came across this gem I took of Lucy about a year ago. I think I was in the kitchen cooking and Lucy was playing on the carpet in the hall. When I noticed how quiet she had become I walked over to check on her and found her asleep, doubled in half from where she'd been sitting. If I did this I would disconnect ligament from bone in several places.

This is how I feel some days right now because Lucy has turned into a very sporadic sleeper. In fact, several of the kids are difficult this way right now. It seems like almost every night our sleep is interrupted by someone screaming, scared or peeing (sometimes even in the toilet). It messes up what little exercise routine we have and makes Katie and I look and feel like this picture most nights by the time we go to bed.

As an aside, I'm sure having teenagers/puberty will present it's own challenge, but so far I'll gladly take 6x college, weddings, terrible twos, dance recitals, birthday parties, etc., but 6x potty training is for the birds. I can't express enough gratitude for Katie, that she's the one that has to deal with this 90% of the time. I think the only one more grateful than me is Molly.

Mary Creesmus

What a difference a year makes. Last year I was frantically selling cookies - December was where we made all of our money. As we came out of the holiday season last year, we had a very disgruntled customer who got word from a recipient of a gift basket from her and was able to return the "custom gift card" to us that he had received. Every single word in the card was misspelled. I think you could shake up a game of Boggle and get a more coherent message. Call centers rock!

Now here I am in the southern hemisphere, living behind electric wire and enjoying summertime. We'll spend this weekend on the beach in Durban. We sent out our Christmas cards early this year in hopes that any cards we might receive, we might actually receive. We were concerned about our buyers in SLC getting a mailbox full of cards that we'd never see. As a result, I've started to notice a trickle of visitors hitting my blog since we published Katie's blog address on the card. Hers is the official version of the story - mine's a footnote. Despite the fact that my blog is on the Internet (by definition) I like to believe that Katie and a few others are the only ones that read it. Therefore, I felt a sense of panic when I realized that others may suddenly be reading my thoughts. You're reading my mind! Yikes.

Well, at this point I guess all I can say is welcome and I hope you have a vary mary chreesmush.

What I know about you

I've been tempted to bag this whole blogging thing from time to time.

Usually I give up because I realize that no one's actually reading my blog but Katie, so why not just email? Occasionally, I give up because I realize someone else is reading my blog and I've just offended them. oops.

Then I get back in the game. This usually happens because someone emails me and asks if I'm dead or something because I haven't posted in weeks. The other thing that happens is that I have something I really want to publish to the world, even if the world turns out to just be Katie.

Well, I'm back, but for a different reason. A month ago I installed tracking tags on my blog. One advantage of working in eCommerce for a while is that I know about such stuff and have limited html skills (Napoleon's got nothing on me). As it turns out, 60 people have visited my blog this month, which is 20-60x more than I would have thought. Here are a few things I know about you (in addition to your credit card numbers, PINs, weight and other things that I can track but shouldn't share):

* (Obviously) Katie is my #1 source of visitors - 50% come from her blog
* I've had visitors from the US, Sweden and South Africa (thanks Katie)
* From the US, my visitors are from quite a few places: Utah, TX, WA, OH, CA, ID, WY, MT, IL, MA and so on. May I just tell the guy in WY that I don't like BYU either, so please don't throw beer cans at my house? I don't know for sure who you are, but suddenly I have a much better idea.
* 83% of you are still using Internet Explorer. Welcome to the 21st century: Use Firefox
* One of you is still on dialup. Email me and I'll send you $100 to get you started toward a future of broadband bliss. This is surely tax deductible. This is probably the guy from WY.

I know, you all want access to such groovy stats and want to see neato graphs like I can. Well, it's free since Google has taken over the world (and I, for one, welcome our limitless P/E multiple overlords). Check out Google Analytics if you haven't already.

And my sincere apologies to my cousin in WY for the jokes - no offense intended, I'd hate to quit blogging again so quickly because I've given offense.

And for the literalists among you, I can't really track your weight, at least not yet.

Lastly, yes Katie, I've installed tracking on your blog too!

Dare I Admit It?

The classic move of a family that has too many kids and is totally out of control is the "forgotten child". I think every large, Mormon family of my youth had this story somewhere in their family history. I only had one brother, so I always thought this was ludicrous and irresponsible. The story usually goes something like this:

"We were on our way to Disneyland in our 1977 station wagon when we pulled over for a rest stop somewhere in the Nevada. The kids all got out and ran to the bathroom and we broke out licorice and water bottles. We all piled back in and headed on, hoping to make it by sundown. About twenty miles outside of Podunk, someone asked where Jimmy was. Stunned, we all turned at once to Jimmy's vacant spot in the back of the station wagon. Well, the highway patrolman was very understanding when we returned to find him next to his car, with Jimmy sitting in the backseat playing his video game with tear-stained cheeks. And so forth."

I'd be really embarrassed if that every happened to me. Really, really embarrassed. I'd be mortified if it wasn't a rest stop, but my client's house. Please let such an embarrassing thing never happen to me (again).

*sigh*

I can die now.

Trip to the orphanage

I wish I could tell you about this wonderful experience, but I was at work. Katie and the kids will hopefully report in detail. Here are a couple of things I was touched by in the telling though:
* Trust had never been to an orphanage. He was deeply touched and could barely sleep that night.
* Madison had the kids giggling as they ran to her and then she chased them.
* Mason held babies the whole time lovingly.
* Bryn had the kids dressing up. She felt like an old hand in charge.
* The little kids looking sadly on while the older kids ate first because there weren't enough spoons - the orphanage pecking order.

What a nice experience to have regularly.

Sign of a busy man

I found Nelson Mandela's house underwhelming, which I think is the point. There are really only three rooms that he lived in inside his modest red brick house - front room, bedroom, kitchen. The house was burned on the inside so little still exists from when he lived there, but it has been filled with sundry memorabilia, honorary doctorates and the like.

This is what struck me. The rain gutters were atrocious. They were mostly rusted through and needed to be cleaned out. Noticing this made Mr. Mandela seem a kindred spirit. My rain gutters always need work. Isn't that a good sign that he was away doing more important things than cleaning his rain gutters? I'd like to believe mine look horrible because I'm busy changing the world.

The reality is that I'm probably just busy playing a boardgame.

Six kids

Any other questions?

I've Been Here Before

Katie and I finally go to go to Soweto. She'd been there before but I hadn't. Soweto's probably the first thing anyone should do that visits Joburg. Soweto is short for "Southwestern Township" also "So Where To?" - the ghetoo the blacks in Joburg were forced into in the run-up to Apartheid. More importantly, it's where Nelson Mandela lived in the years before he was put in prison, and where the members of the ANC plotted and schemed to get their rights. It's the epicenter of the dawn of South African civil rights.

We went to the Hector Pietersen Memorial (he's the boy that was shot and became the poster child - literally - for the global sanctions against the South African government), Nelson Mandela's home (then, not now), Wandee's (sp? "real African food" really not very good), and for a walk around a real township (the African euphemism for shantytown).

I think for most people, a walk through a township is a real eye-opening and potentially life-defining experience. We got to go into one of the small corrugated huts and talk to a couple of Xhosa women with a baby (shown above), ask them questions, and see how they live.

The township experience is set in the backdrop of a day of learning about Apartheid. I think many people define the township as a relic of Apartheid. As I learned about the Apartheid years, I felt sorrow for the atrocities committed by whites against blacks. However, I had a different take on the township. You see I've been there before.

I've met, loved and taught so many people in abject circumstances that don't know what Apartheid is. I've sat on their floors, eaten a few morsels of their humble dinner, talked with them and learned from them. I don't believe the poverty I see is a relic of Apartheid. Katie saw more extreme poverty in Haiti, I've seen it in Costa Rica and Mexico, and I'm sure you'd see it in any country south of the Sahara. The people of South Africa are not unusually poor - unfortunately, poverty is not unusual at all. They've suffered unusually. They've been treated unequitably. They were once trodden upon. But that is not the source of South African poverty, only its disparity.

Today I feel for the people living in the townships. I feel for them as I feel for any that live in such poverty and struggle to rise above. I feel for them as they try to find a few rand to feed their children, without speaking English, without clothes and transportation. But I also feel for them because they have to live life believing that this is their legacy - that Apartheid did this to them. That has to be very disabling. As crippling as poverty can be, it seems it is far more crippling when it destroys hope because one believes that it is a legacy, something handed down and must be suffered, if not with anger then at least with resolution - misplaced resolution - not the sort of resolution that moves one's family out of the townships, but the sort of resolution that takes fate as it is unquestioningly.

I understood a different sort of resolution on the drive home as Trust told us about his family, about how his father was beaten and killed by members of the Mugabe regime. As an 11 year old boy Trust watched his dad slowly die of his injuries and then lived with a resolve to take care of his family. That's the sort of resolution I can most admire. The gospel eventually gave Trust the peace to leave the anger behind and the satisfaction that his father awaits him and is well-pleased. How beautiful to see the stark contrast of different resolutions.

I've made a few of my own.