Keal Family Letter, October 2005

Hello Friends and Family! October. Autumn. Red-gold leaves. A
late afternoon stroll as the sun sets. Putting on a sweater and
grabbing a cup of hot chocolate. The smell of pumpkin pie. The taste
of ginger bread and apple cider. It's a good time of year.

Well, September has been sort of a stressful month for us. I've been
having a few difficulties in getting the final details of my Christmas
CD, Advent, finished on time. And Tirah and I have been having a hard
time not getting depressed by the reality of our financial situation.
It's a real exercise to try to maintain a trust in the Lord, when our
account goes down to zero every couple of weeks. And the fact that our
back yard is just dirt, is fittingly analogous of our finances. It's
like reverse feng shui, where our moods change our environment. I
know money doesn't grow on trees, but maybe if we find the right grass
seed...

But enough about the boring and depressing details of adult life, lets
move on to the heavenly joys that our children bring to us:

Cirdan is turning into quite the little boy. He walks everywhere, he
climbs everything, he loves cars and trucks, and he loves to play in
the dirt. Fortunately, he also still loves flowers, rainbows, babies,
and hugs. He has started singing, just like his older sister. All he
knows is the four notes from the end of the theme song to Elmo's World;
"That's Elmo's World!" He can't say the words yet, but he goes: Ba,
Baa baa, BAAAAAA!, and he frequently gets the notes right on.

He can say a few more words. He can say "Car," although it comes out
in more of British; "Caah." (I know there's a joke in there
somewhere, about a car and a British crow, but it's just not coming.)
He can also say "Up" and "Down," although once again, "Down" is more
like "Daah." He plays a game where he sits on the bottom step of the
stairs, and he quickly stands up while saying, "UP!" and then sits down
while saying "Daah." He is also learning to say "Please" and "Thank
you" in sign language.

Cirdan is a thriving and successful manufacturer of Joy and Cuteness,
but he's lately branched out and started a small side-business in
Naughtiness and Trouble-making. He will climb into a chair, reach
over and grab a lamp, and shake it hard, while grinning at me, as if to
say: "Come get me Papa!" He also pitches his food off his high-chair
tray, and then laughs and laughs when we tell him "No!" He seems to
find our serious, reprimanding faces amusing. "That's a funny face
Papa, do another one!" Oh well. I certainly get my exercise, both
physically and emotionally.

Thea is such a big little girl. And by "big" I mean personality-wise.
She loves to help me do the household chores. The other day, she
helped me put away all the clean laundry, and I mean she really helped
me! I sorted into piles, and then I told her what drawers to put the
piles in... and she did it! Cool!

She loves making comparisons and finding analogies. (Not surprising
really, since I love that too.) The other day I showed her a picture
of a Star Wars Star Destroyer. She asked me what it was. I told her
that it was a spaceship. She responded with, "Oh. Sort of like a
helicopter!" She made that comparison all on her own! She's
starting to make connections with who and what people are. She knows
that I have a name which is Solomon, but that she calls me Papa. She
knows that other kids have Papas too, and they are different from her
Papa. She knows that there's some sort of connection between men and
women, and Mamas and Papas. The other day we were talking about a man
that had walked by on the sidewalk. She asked me who it was, and I
told her that it was a man, (not knowing who he was). She responded
with, "Papa is sort of like a man!" A couple days ago, I was
changing her diaper (a number 2 diaper) when she looked down and
remarked, "Oh, it's sort of like Play-dough!" "Um... yes..." said I,
"but very different!"

Thea is very aware of everything we say. The other day Tirah was
making zuchini bread. She pulled the last loaf out of the oven too
late, and it had burned on the bottom. She set it down on the table
and said, "That Stinks!" The following day, Thea came up to me and
said, "I want some Stinks." meaning zuchini bread.

Now that Autumn has arrived, and some of the leaves are falling, Thea
has developed this strange fear of dead leaves. She's constantly
asking Tirah and I to move dead leaves so that she can walk by. I'm
hoping it's just a phase, or this Fall is going to be really
interesting.

Thea is getting old enough that I'm starting to become aware of how she
is a little tiny feminine being. My real challenge, as the
stay-at-home parent, is going to be making sure that Thea's emotional
needs are met. I'm starting to see first hand, why women are made for
this job. Very simply; children are pretty much all emotion for a
while, especially little girls. And women are better tuned-in to
emotion than men. And especially since Thea is a girl, I need to make
sure that I don't just treat her the way I instinctively treat
Cirdan... as a little version of me. Fortunately, being married to
Tirah has taught me a lot about how to work very closely with a
feminine being, and I've learned how to respect emotional boundaries
that we men don't have a natural clue about on our own. It's not an
impossible job; I just have to work harder at it than Tirah does. And
it's very odd to have learned relationship skills with my wife, that
I'm now needing to apply to my daughter.

To aid in all of that, we've started having special times where Tirah
and Thea hang out, and Cirdan and I hang out. Good Mama and daughter
time, and good Papa and son time. We've been noticing that Thea tends
to flip-out and have tantrums when Tirah is home, and we've finally
caught on that it's not because she doesn't want Tirah around, it's
because she feels safer to let out all her emotions with Tirah, than
with me.

Thea is still potty training. We have a little chart by her potty, and
she gets a little silver star every time she uses the potty. According
to that chart, she uses the potty 2.0625 times a day... on average.
We're trying to boost the numbers on that 0.0625 time, because it would
be much easier if it was an even three.

One of the things I love about being a full-time parent is that it's
not an hourly rate. I don't have a foreman standing over my shoulder
saying, "Come on... you can change that poopy diaper faster! I'm not
paying you to make faces at your son! Hurry up, you're taking way too
long with that!" I can take as long as I want. In fact, the more
time I spend with my children, the better! (Maybe not as far as diaper
changing goes.) It's about quality time, not efficient time. It's
a nice change.

Tirah is still working hard at Jo-Ann Fabrics. It's a hard job, that
doesn't pay very well. Fortunately it involves two things she really
likes: 1) sewing-type stuff, and 2) helping people. We don't have a
stereotypical normal life like we did when I worked in carpentry.
Tirah hardly ever has two days off in a row, and is often working
weekends and evenings. Neither of us have much free time to speak of,
but we try to find the time to relax together and remember our
marriage. We don't have the time or money to do traditional date
nights very much anymore, but we can read together, or play games
together. We just got into reading Clive Cussler novels. He's the
guy that writes those Dirk Pitt Adventure novels. They're sort of
"Indiana Jones"-like books. So far it's fun!

I'm going to try to start watching Monday Night Football... something I
haven't done in years. Any free time I have (after taking care of the
house and kids) goes towards my music business, and I need some regular
down-time / guy-time in my life, so we're going to try to make that
work.

That's about it for now. We hope you are all doing well.

May the Lord bless your lives.

Love,
Solomon (28), Tirah (25), Thea (2 and 2/3), and Cirdan (15 months)