What is that about?  I can hike this very quickly and calmly by myself or with a friend.  The danger isn’t as real or evident.  But put me with my children and family and my anxiety level skyrockets.  I know I have a fear of heights.   Am I really afraid of heights or am I a fraid exposed heights, I feel safe in an airplane but if it had a see through floor, I think I would just be beside myself, what has ever given me reason to believe I will fall from a height?  I have never had an experience where my life was threatened by being in high places so is my perception a trained condition or an experienced response?  I am exploring that answer every day…

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This young father’s voice became my heavenly father’s voice proclaiming, No matter what happens with your current situation, I will always be your father, and I want to cherish every day we have left together, even if it may be 99 days.  Let’s live every day to the fullest, together.  I am God and I LOVE you, enjoy!

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But what made this day more exciting was waking up and not being able to speak clearly due to a rather coarse sandpaper feeling in my throat.   So when I got to the dentist and sat down to be cleaned, rather hacked at with metal toothpicks and fingernails on a chalkboard type instruments, I was rather unconversational with the dental hygenist.  One word answers flew out of my mouth as reluctant and nasaly as a cat in a room full of rocking chairs with a clothespin pinching it’s tail.  I know that makes no sense but hopefully it made you laugh! 

Now that in itself would all be a wonderful blog, but the main reason I write is something the real dentist said to me. You know how the dentist comes in to check the hygenists work and pokes you with the longer more painful metal toothpick searching for cavities by pressing the pointed metal tip in those sensitive areas on your teeth and waiting to see you flinch or squirm in pain.  Well lucky for me I was cavaty free, bummer for the dentist.  I don’t know how they stare at mouths all day, after just a minute looking at my teeth in the mirror, I begin to see why dentist are some of the most depressed MD’s in all of ‘doctordum.’

But my point.  As he was examining my teeth he noticed the gap I have in my upper 2 front teeth and he made this comment, "You’re son has the exact same gap in his teeth!"  Wow.  He doesn’t know our kids are adopted and I wasn’t about to correct his innocent comment, because I love to hear stuff like that, it makes me feel humbled and helps me remember that God does know what he is doing when he enlarges families through adoption.  I am a happy dad, with clean teeth today! 

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This weekend we had several soccer games with our three little ones.  They went well, we won 2 of 3 but no one was keeping score. Something that disturbs me about youth sports is the insane amount of stuff parents use to validate themselves or impress people.  What we end up with is a snack that is large enough to replace a meal.  Our 7 year old daughter and 5 year old son came home with more sugary snacks in gallon sized ziploc bags than they eat in 2 weeks.  The assortment included in one bag, yay; a banana, capri sun, cupcake, twinky, ring pop, fun dip, cheetos, fun straw you eat, and cracker jacks.   Did we miss the memo?  Is this what snacks are?  How do we keep up?  I didn’t know we had to go in debt to provide snacks for our kids recreational sports teams!?!?!

All this made Supermom and I recall a particular Everybody Loves Raymond episode, see video, where Raymond doesn’t pack an “Approved Snack” and the snack coordinator lets him know his disappointment.  We laughed as we headed to the car, but soon our laughter turned to this serious discussion of what is expected of us.  We don’t want our children eating all this crap all the time.  We don’t think a snack needs to have more than 2 items included, one of those being a drink like a juice box, capri sun, or gatorade.   The other being 1 piece of fruit OR bag of chips; banana, apple, orange, cheetos, or fritos.  That to me is a snack for a kid.

Plus, this got me thinking, if this is what kids parents pack for snacks to sporting events, what must they be packing for kids lunches on a daily basis?  Is this the reason many families grocery budget reaches the 4 digit category with 2 kids and 2 parents at home?  I say enough, of the craziness, ENOUGH.  Be a rebel, bring a snack that really is a snack.  See what the other parents say about your “SNACK!”  What has been your experience?

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With the widespread loss of power and the bone chilling cold, many of our neighbors sought shelter in other neighbors or other friends or families homes that happened to have either a fireplace and wood or propane for cooking.   Some lost lives burning charcoal grills inside, others were overcome with carbon monoxide from the generator running in their garages.  Still we are left with the remnants of the deadening ice.

It has always been amazing to me to think of the gulf coast, in and around New Orleans, and how they could still be cleaning up.  But now I understand, sure it’s only been a month, most houses are repaired, and for the most part people are back to their routines, yet we are left with cluttered curbs, ditches, sidwalks, lawns and homes.  Branches, big and small, are piled up all along any road you drive in any direction from here.  So today, I had an epiphany.

Why do I just drive by it all, waiting, hoping, praying that the ‘city’ (government) will come to the rescue anytime soon?!  It’s been a month and it feels like they are happy that we have restored power, nevermind the little beaver dams that line our city streets, and drainage systems.  So, this afternoon after work, I took my kiddos to load up my truck with our neighbors branches and limbs to haul them to the city dump.  When my children asked why are we picking up the sticks from their yard; I replied, “Because we are helping our neighbor, that’s what neighbors do! It’s what Jesus would do!”  “OK, Papi!”

Then it hit me, the church needs to wake up and help their city, NO, it’s not an emergency, and yes there are people with big machines that will make lots of money chipping wood for months, but can’t we as the body of Christ restore our community? Do we need to really wait on the government to remove the debris?  Is this how lazy we really are?

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So I ran to the toolbox grabbed the appropriate supplies and began the tedious task of cleaning out the closet and contorting my body into the tight small space the water heater occupies.  So I got it turned up and now the fun part….  Putting the cover over the dial.  When all of a sudden, the metal door I am getting ready to screw in place makes contact with a couple of the exposed wires causing a “harmless” spark that then starts the insulation on a burn. “OH CRAP!” and like superman, I rip the sliding door off its hinge, throw the paint cans off the fire extinguisher we bought because of our adoption pre screening.   Rip it out of a box like a baby during a C-section, and pop the little pin off, AIM, FIRE,  the fire is out…..YAYYYYYYY.   Now I gotta clean up the mess and reset the breaker, all is well in the Huerta home.

Thanks to the adoption Home Study which scared us into buying a fire extinguisher!

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We feel this pressure as parents, I surely understand it from my childhood experiences, but when I watch what is being promoted and fed to American children through the “Tube.”  My knees get weak and my eyes swell up.  I want to throw the TV out the window.  I want to move to Alaska or Iceland and live at the foot of some mountain.  It breaks my heart to see kids forget how to play, how to show grace and mercy to one another.  I want to scream, STOP!

My heart aches for the millions of children who will grow to be adults and not know how to say “NO” to stuff, to things!  The rise in weight related illness amongst children is staggering.  Kids are sedating themselves to death, and the collective ‘we’ as parents are allowing it to happen.  But The cycle has started, how can we break it?

(Here is the trailer to Consuming Kids)

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the ride, originally uploaded by Abba’s Girl.

When did you learn to ride a bike? Remember your first time? I sure do.

Just the other day I took Monkey and Mowgli on their 1st mountain bike ride. Although it isn’t completely fair, they had to ride their single speed ‘bmx’ style bikes. Although singlespeed is really cool, not so on a bmx bike. They were tackling the heavy roots with ease. Bobbing and bouncing as if they were riding a bucking bull.

We ended up getting through the 4 mile trail unscathed. As I reflect back on that afternoon under the canopy of trees I will always remember their giggles as they were laughing so hard when we were going over a very rough patch of roots sticking up. They had so much fun. So did I. We were able to enjoy seeing the swollen Ohio river as we rode along the mountain 100ft or so above the rivers edge.

Is this what God feels like? I wonder, if our heavenly father who has adopted us into his family has as much joy as I had exploring a very familiar mountain bike trail with childlike awe!?!?

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Originally uploaded by Abba’s Girl

I wish I could describe to you how much fun I am having with my kids this week.

OHHHHHHH….However, I must be honest…10 hours one day of working with our eldest on being obedient and his refusal to listen obediently to our directions took its toll on this “old” man. It drove me to exhaustion and precipitated some feelings of anger and hurt. But we worked through it, albeit slowly and painfully, he is beginning to understand what obedience looks like. Thank you Jesus.

After our struggle to be obedient this week we did something today that we haven’t done in a couple weeks. We went fishing. That’s right I took the 3 Amigos out for a day of fishing. WOW, I am so glad SuperMom, Grandad, and I taught them how to fish a couple weeks ago. Once we settled into our spot, they all visited the woods to pee at least 4 times each before we even all got to cast once. (frustrating)

Once we got to fishing those pesky little fish kept stealing our worms, so every 30 secs to 1min, we were replacing worms…then it happened. Mowgli bagged a largemouth…however he swallowed the hook and died so we kept him close to shore to take home….then after catching more weeds, a small tree, and the trees on shore, I finally bagged the finale fish of the day…about one and a half the size of Mowgli’s, we now have a pair of largemouth bass that we are going to filet and enjoy this evening…

I am glad to share these memories with my children. As their father, I desire to see them grow up and I hope and pray they will still be able to tie a knot, cast a rod, throw a frisbee, catch a ball, play an instrument, read and comprehend, kick a ball, ride a bike, and ultimately Love; God and others, like they see Mami and Papi do.

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His family and his wife then recall how they continued to disobey their strict parents by doing things as teens and young adults that their parents didn’t know about.  Raymond then goes upstairs and offers this not-so-great parenting advice to his 5 year old twin boys. 

"Promise to obey what your mother and I say until your 65?" "yes, dad!"  "We know you will do things when you get older and we can’t stop you or there is nothing we can do about it…just don’t let us find out.?"

First off, let me acknowledge that I believe our children will make poor decisions as teens and young adults, but I don’t believe there is nothing we can do about it.  We, as parents, have a great responsibility to not only try but seek help from others to help our child go from good child to Great Man or Woman. 

The second piece of his advice also rubbed me the wrong way because it told me as well as his twin boys.  Everything you do is okay with me especially if I don’t know how stupid you are going to be, or how close to death you come.  That kind of parenting is a lot like russian roulette… load it, spin it, then pull the trigger.  In other words what that says to kids is this, I give you permission, just don’t tell me, you can do whatever you want, I will close my eyes and pretend to not know, and hope you survive. 

Turn your head, close your ears and deceive yourself kind of parenting doesn’t work.  Instead we should, Open our eyes, turn our hearts toward God and our kids, and always correct and love them. 

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