A Chocolate Lobster

It has become a sort of tradition to make Rob a cake in the shape of something different on his birthday. His preference is yellow cake with chocolate frosting - regardless of shape. I kept this guy a secret until I pulled him out last night.

I've heard that technically lobsters are bugs and it sure seemed like it while I was assembling him! It was actually very easy and only took one cake. The legs are chocolate coated pretzel sticks. The eyes are Tic Tacs.

Easier Than It Looks!

The winds of inspiration blew across South Florida this week! Actually it was a cold front that dropped our temperatures (for Friday at least) from the 80s to the 60s in a flash. Our house came with a screen door, and I'm not sure if I should blame a hurricane or a furry dog, but somehow it fell off the rollers and onto the grill and it had a big hole right in the middle.

A couple of weeks ago we were cleaning out the garage and I found a roll of replacement screen and that started me thinking that maybe I could fix that old door. Just maybe.

Well I want to enjoy every glorious second of our cold fronts and we're supposed to get another one tomorrow, so I searched online how to repair screen doors and found this helpful link from Popular Mechanics. I got the parts and tools I needed and less than an hour later I had a newly re-screened door! It is really easier than it looks as the website proclaims.

I also decided to replace the rusty wheels. I think this was the hardest part.

After laying the screen over the door, you have to put a plastic rope called "spline" over it to hold it in place. You have to get a special (and fortunately cheap) tool called a spline applicator to install it. It is kind of like using a pizza cutter. I am pretty sure this is the only thing it does.

After the spline is in place you have to trim off the excess. I used an exacto knife. It was a breeze.

Success!

Since there are much fewer bugs here in the winter, you can actually just open the door to let fresh air in, so I had tried putting a babygate in the door, but Caleb LOVES to throw toys over the babygate into the yard. I was so excited that I could get fresh air without losing Little People in the yard, but when Caleb came downstairs this morning, he quickly showed me that a screen door is no match for a curious toddler. He can open the door.

Teaching and Learning

It is definitely true that you learn more by teaching a subject than your students ever will. You learn things you never end up telling them, you learn things better by helping them learn anything at all, and, I'm finding, you learn how to teach...well rather how not to.

For however long or how short (the church is searching for a youth pastor to hire) I'm teaching this Wednesday night Bible study for the teenagers. I spent most of last fall as a helper watching the kids in the room be bored to tears by lectures. So when the baton was passed to me, I was determined not to just get up there and talk.

But it isn't that easy! I didn't know that lecturing a lesson is the easiest way to present it. It puts the responsibility for learning almost fully in the lap of the student, and frankly, 25 teenagers who really had no choice in coming to Bible study weren't going to do much with that. It requires little creativity and no props. I knew it was ineffective, so I tried to supplement with interactive illustrations, but still gravitated back to the lecture for the meat of the lesson. I didn't know that it might be possible to pass the main point of the lesson on the the learners with very little lecture, maybe none at all.

Right before Christmas I was given a stack of youth oriented Bible studies published by Gospel Light called Pulse. It is specifically designed for junior high aged students and uses almost no lecturing. It goes through a series of steps increasing the intensity of the lesson (making it more personal). One thing really nice about Pulse is that you can tailor the lesson to fit your group. You can make the lesson more challenging for kids who're accustomed to giving Sunday School answers. But the best part of Pulse is that the whole lesson is presented in a way that engages the students.

Our Awana books were delayed and we did two Pulse lessons. Neither lesson had as much content as a typical Awana lesson, but honestly, I think all of the students left with much more in their heads and in their hearts.

So here are two things I've learned while teaching these young people who are no longer children, but not yet adults:

1. I cannot control or know what they're coming to church with. They might have only slept 3 hours last night, they might have just broken up with a boyfriend, they might be hungry. I can be fully prepared to deliver the most important information in the world, but they might not be prepared to receive it. I can't take that personally, but I can't let that make me discouraged.

2. Sometimes the best way to deliver a lesson is to say it plainly (in a lecture), but each time I prepare these lessons I need to step back and ask, "Is there a more effective and more efficient way to give the exact same message?" Many times the best way will be in a story or game.

I sure hope it doesn't come across as offensive to the adult helpers, but next week we're studying creation and I had some of the students help me make a video interpretation of Genesis 2. Regardless, I don't think any of them will be asleep!

Bigfoot

He doesn't look very happy in this picture, but this is something Caleb loves to do these days - try walking in big shoes, particularly Mommy's and Daddy's shoes! Actually I think his favorite pair to swipe is my sandals because he can walk easier in them. It is pretty funny, and I can fold almost an entire basket of laundry while he amuses himself with our shoes.

Right on Time...afterall

Everybody warns you not to compare your kid with other kids, and you swear you won't do that, but I think there are just some things that overtake us when our guard is down. Playgroup just makes it too easy to notice that little Millie (born the same day as Caleb) has a whole paragraph of words in her vocabulary or that little Jack (two months younger) runs circles around the others. And then being at home, I watch Caleb do things that make me swear he must be a prodigy - as if there were something really spectacular about using a hairbrush correctly, pretending the remote control is a telephone, or carrying his cup to the table.

I subscribed to a weekly email update from Baby Center that gives examples what's normal, what to expect, what not to stress over and it seems that all of Caleb's behavior and achievements are...normal. His aparent advances - right on time. His lagging vocabuary, exactly where he should be (Ma-ma, Da-da, plus 3 other words.) He follows simple commands, pretend to read books, and gets frustrated when he can't have his way - all normal, normal, normal. It's like the 15 month update used Caleb as their poster child.

Well it's fun to play with other kids, but it is just amazing to watch my newborn morph into a little boy. It's like an indulgence. Which is why I don't want to go back to work while he's little. There is no amount of money that could buy this.

Oatmeal Explosion

This is what happens when you step away from a toddler eating oatmeal.

Diaper Dad

Not that anyone has expressed any doubt, but I have two pictures to offer as evidence that Rob changes his fair share of diapers.





Actually, during our Christmas trip, Rob changed more diapers than me. He is a great dad!

(By the way, we put a shirt down under Caleb when Rob changed him on the picnic table.)

The Nativity Thief

I remember when my mom first started collecting Fontanini nativity pieces. She started off with a pretty standard set – Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus in a manger, a rustic looking stable, an angel, wise men, a couple of shepherds, a lanky camel, and a small sheep. Over time she collected a wide assortment of animals, people, and heavenly hosts. She sewed a dark green table runner to serve as the ground. Every year she sets up the pieces carefully on the sofa table behind the couch in the living room.

At 15 months, Caleb is curious about everything above him. He likes bigger kids, the big table, big chairs, big dogs. With his newfound ability to climb, the world above is coming in to his reach.

When we first arrived at my parents’ house, Caleb ignored the twinkly lights on the Christmas tree and headed straight for the Fontanini figurines. It seemed like every time he came around a corner he had a stray shepherd or camel in hand. One day, while we were distracted by a movie, he carefully brought 4 or 5 pieces, one at a time, and set them side by side in the doorway. When a old friend came to visit, Caleb presented her with several wise men and Bethlehem villagers.

The figurines had been spread out over the table runner in careful arrangement, but my mom began pushing them closer to the stable until they were clustered around the manger like teenagers in a mosh pit. Caleb strained onto his tiptoes and kept taking the figures. Eventually, Mom stopped replacing the figures and set them aside in a neat little group that made them look like captured chess pieces.

Then Caleb moved in for the win – he discovered that he could scale the couch and climb over the back to actually get on top of the sofa table. My mom conceded. She brought out the nativity set’s summer home – a large cardboard box and began wrapping the figures in tissue paper.

I guess it can be my mom’s consolation that we’re due to be in Ohio next Christmas!

On the Road...Again

We just returned from a truncated version of THE ROBBINS FAMILY WORLD TOUR! (Ohio came to us this year, so we only went to Arkansas). I had already discovered the strange fact about children that they make every minute half as long, but I was delighted to find that this truism extends to unpleasantries as well! That was about the nicest 22 hour drive I’ve ever experienced. (As you can see, we took turns driving.)

About 6 hour before we left, Rob announced that he wanted to drive “through the night” rather than rising before dawn the next day. I was already packed, so I said, “Let’s go!” This turned out to be a smart decision. Rob drove all night and Caleb and I slept – Caleb slept, I tried 60 different positions before we stopped at a rest area around 4 am for an hour*. I slept there and I guess after the initial dose of sleep, I was able to sleep in a moving car for a little while longer. Still, we were several uninterrupted hours down the road when we stopped for breakfast and it really had not seemed as long as usual. We got to Mobile, Alabama by lunch time and this is a REALLY BIG DEAL!

We had a picnic lunch at a rest stop somewhere in Alabama.

Part of going on road trips is boiled peanuts – Rob always stops for them at the same fruit stand in Alabama and buys a POUND and eats them all. I have tried them – they taste like really salty beans (same consistency), so they are not inedible, but not something I crave.

After the boiled peanut stand, we stopped at another local shop for a baby-leg-stretch (we tried to stop every 2 hours or so). This shop sold boiled crayfish (in Arkansas we all them crawdads). And Rob bought a POUND of them and ate them too. When we were discussing where to stop for dinner, Rob said he wanted to stop somewhere that would agree with all he had already eaten and I commented that there are very few restaurants that have Alka-seltzer on the menu.

We stopped around 4pm, and Caleb was so glad to be out of the car! He wiggled constantly until bedtime.

Both coming and going we stayed at a lodge (Econo Lodge that is) because they allow dogs. Mako scratched the bathroom door at the one in Mississippi. It was the next morning and we had made coffee in the little in-room coffee maker. Rob “made like McGyver” and used the grounds to color in the scratches. It did look better, but not perfect. I would have felt really guilty, but we did pay a pet deposit and it wasn’t in the best shape to begin with. Anyway, Mako had to stay in his crate at the hotel on the return trip.

We drove from 9pm EST to 4pm CST the first day and that left an easy 4 hour drive for the next day. Caleb needed a break about 15 minute north of El Dorado – 45 minute from my parents’ house, so we stopped at the Arkansas Museum of Natural Resources (aka the Oil and Brine Museum). It is in the middle of NOWHERE!!! We were the only people there, but it is a great museum! You should go…next time you’re 15 minutes north of El Dorado, Arkansas!

On the way back, we again drove through the night. This time Rob was better rested and didn’t need a break. He drove from 8pm CST to 8am EST. Somehow on the trip up we managed to stop for gas without completely waking Caleb up, but EVERY time we stopped for gas on the return trip he woke up thinking it was time to play!

When I woke up Saturday morning we were 30 miles from Tallahassee – I was very impressed. It was worth sleeping in the car. We chose at that point to get off the interstate and drive through central Florida. It was a nice drive and the speed limit was only 5 mph less than the interstate. Most of the roads were almost empty. Around Ocala, we got stuck in traffic next to two very noisy motorcycles. At first Caleb seemed bothered by the noise, but once they moved away from us, he started making little motor noises – he is all boy!

We had another picnic lunch near Ocala, Florida.

One of our baby-leg-stretches was at the Citrus Tower in Central Florida. They have something for towers in Central Florida. We saw at least 3. We stopped and looked up (no dogs allowed…and not free) and then went to Burger King so Caleb could play in the play area and burn off some energy. Although I am over 4 feet tall I went in the play area with him, which was really fun or me. When I was a kid I never got to play in those things. I was kind of tall for my age and never seemed to fit the height requirements.

We stopped halfway between Avon Park and Sebring. There is a state park in Sebring called Hammocks State Park; hammocks are patches of trees bunched up together. The one in Sebring is 600 acres, the Everglades is full of smaller ones. Sebring is 70 miles or so north of the Everglades. It was a very nice state park.

We drove through lake country, orange country, and sugar country. There is so much of Florida I have never seen – even though I have lived in Miami for 7½ years. We were especially curious about the sugar part. It was about 5pm when we drove through that part and there were lots of sugar trucks on both sides of the road – empty and full – and we could see them harvesting sugar cane in the fields. It was 5pm…on a Sunday…that just happened to be New Years Eve.

So here we are back in Miami on New Years. It is one of Rob's pet peeves to be in Miami on major holidays. He complains that people shoot guns into the air and he's right. A man died in Miami last night from stray gun-fire.

These 3 pictures show Caleb's progression to sleeping in the car. Stage one - denial. Stage two - resignation. Stage three - submission. He was actually a pretty good little traveller!



*We’ve already had MANY people tell us how dangerous it is to stop at a rest area in the middle of the night, but we weighed how tired Rob was with a rest area cram packed with holiday travelers, a very visible security guard, and the fact that Mako acted as sentinel during the stop and it seemed like a great idea at the time.