The big push before the big push

I've noticed over the past eight months or so the way that expecting a baby can reorder life. I'd noticed it in other people before myself. In some men, though I wouldn't have called them irresponsible before, there's a marked difference in the seriousness with which they begin to approach life, and they really turn into good husbands and dads. As far as I can tell, at least - but it's hard to chock it all up to appearances when their kids are turning out so well, and I see firsthand (even if only once in a while) how they interact with their wives and kids. (In case you're the type of reader who likes to reread sentences in your head and make things sound weird, I should clarify that last sentence by saying that I don't personally know any polygamists.)

I've even thought some about my dad lately, and the good examples he sets. He would always drive the older (at times junkier) car and let mom drive the better or newer one. He would go out of his way to set up activities where he could spend quality time with me - including such things as building uneven bars for me in the backyard when I was in gymnastics, or pouring a concrete slab in the backyard and putting up a basketball goal when I was in basketball, or coaching my YMCA soccer team, though I'm pretty sure he'd never played soccer before, and I can only speculate as to whether he'd ever even seen a match prior to hanging the whistle around his neck. Probably, but who knows? He's also always gone to great lengths to engage me spiritually, and teach me the importance of knowing the Lord and making that central to everything that I do.

Is Kathryn's and my first child having the same impact on me? It's hard to tell - change for me usually tends to happen so gradually as to be difficult to notice on my own (maybe others can see it more clearly). All I know is that there hasn't been an abundance of time lately to sort all these things out. I would have strongly preferred to have all the major work on the house done months ago and spent most of 2010 reading and thinking deeply about the upcoming change to our family. As it stands now, cosmic diaphragms are starting to get sore for all the laughter at my naiveté for thinking that, amid all the things that we decided we needed to get done in the last several months, somehow we could have completed them in a more timely fashion than all the other do-it-ourselves endeavors.

Does God laugh at us the same way we laugh at children? Since I'm pretty much always laughing at them, I think I'm a more likely candidate than some to be a source of heavenly amusement.

I think this will be the perspective to help me be a good sport about achieving the following in the next few weeks:

-Planting six raised garden beds

-Installing window blinds throughout the house

-Finishing baseboards and trim

-Organizing a very unorganized house

-Finishing dining room table and chairs

-Having gutters installed (thankfully not something I'm doing myself)

-Refinancing the house

-Doing taxes

-Setting up a baby room

I'm sure there's plenty I'm leaving out, but that hits most of the big stuff. It's funny to think that a little baby could inspire such a frenzy of activity, that we begin to suddenly realign our whole lives in anticipation of something we know is coming, but isn't fully here yet in the sense that we know it will be soon enough. Yes, it's pretty obvious I'm going somewhere with this, which is here. Pretty amazing the way God has knit together all the kinds of new life he brings. It comes subtly, but surely (though, ask my wife, and she would say there's nothing especially subtle about the active little boy in her belly); hidden for now, but with signs, and the anticipation of a glorious breaking-in to the world. This is comforting for those of us who find difficulty living in the reality of a kingdom that we can't see by looking at life as it's packaged and sold by an eager world. Despite appearances to the contrary, I can say this with confidence, and in more ways than one:

He's coming. And I'll be ready.

Close Call on Crappy Coffee

A little over a week ago I nearly sold myself out for recognition and compensation. These guys were doing a jingle contest and I attempted to enter, only to be denied at the last minute by the contest website (yes, I waited until the last minute to try and submit my entry, but it was a very busy weekend).

That "SERIOUSLY?!" moment was quite a long time in the making. At first, I was hoping to do the contest with this guy, until we found out he makes too much of his money as a professional musician. Oh, well. Then I thought this guy would be fun to put a jingle together with, but it turned out to be not a good time for him. Oh, well. But all was not yet lost - we have no shortage of musical talent among our comrades, so I gave this guy a call, and he returned an enthused, "let's do it!" Only, schedules didn't jive, I think some illnesses got in the way (oh, well), and long story short, it's February 27th and I've got less than 48 hours to put my song and video together.

So I decide to go solo (well, sort of - I know I can talk my lovely wife into putting something amazing together for the video in a very short amount of time, and she certainly did, as you'll soon see). Oh, and this is the weekend that we're working on the house, have both sets of family in, have our first baby shower, and meet and chat with our future housemate for the first time - but no big deal, we'll squeeze in cutting a music video, somehow.

The deadline is 11:00 PM (midnight Eastern Standard Time), February 28th. Wouldn't you know, we get to about 9:00 PM and I'm still finalizing the song, no video shot yet. We get to about 10:00 and we're just getting the camera rolling. 10:30, Kathryn's editing the video on our low-end laptop (PSA: don't edit video on low-end laptops). 10:48, the video file is exporting. 10:53, I'm furiously typing on the first of three screens on the contest website, hoping to get my personal info and the video submitted in the next 7 minutes. 10:56, the website malfunctions and won't take me to the screen to upload my video.

This is a true story.

10:59 - 11:01ish, Kathryn pulls up the correct screen on the other computer, I throw the video on our jump drive like a mad man, rush to the other room, and get it uploading.

Shortly after that, we get a failure message from the website - they obviously shut it off at 11:00.

No problem, I'll just email the company, explain the issue their website caused, and hope that someone will have the consideration to let me send in my video still, somehow. Two days later I receive a CYA response, with the applicable portion of the contest rules copied and pasted into the email. I was actually impressed how many scenarios they'd thought of beforehand, that they did have actual control over, for which they found a way to excuse themselves of any liability or responsibility.

Oh, well. I suppose the bright side has two parts to it:

1) I don't have to endorse coffee I would never drink, and

2) I have a fun song and video to share with you today*!

*Video does not constitute an actual endorsement for any products it may seem to be actually endorsing. JoeZone and its affiliates are in no way responsible for any dissatisfaction, bad tastes in mouths, vomiting, regrets, wasting of a few dollars or more, or yuckiness of any sort that are in any way connected to you seeing the preceding video and finding yourself unable to control the urge to go out and purchase the coffee advertised in the video.