The Ranch Files: Zadie Wonders About the Afterlife

Zadie and my dad at my Granddaddy Kirk's grave.

My mom with Zadie in front of the old ranch house, where my Great-Great-Uncle Arthur used to live.

Zadie got to stay a few extra days at the ranch with my parents, while Tori took the two boys home to L.A. and I (the clear victor in this arrangement) went to Austin for a few days of glorious adult time (more on that in a later post).  Zadie loved all the special attention from her grandparents and they had a picnic in a deer blind one day and got to watch the wildlife from way up high in the sky (sitting very quietly so as not to scare off the animals).

But as they were leaving the ranch and heading to the airport, my parents took Zadie to Tilden's Hilltop Cemetery, where many of my relatives are buried.  My Granddaddy Kirk, with whom I was extremely close, is buried there (see above photo of my dad and Zadie in front of his grave).  When my dad told me that he took her to a cemetery, I asked whether this caused Zadie to ask a lot of questions.  "It sure did," he said.  From the cemetery to the airport (about an hour's drive), Zadie interrogated both of my parents about the afterlife.

What happens after people die?  Why do people die?  Why are they buried underground?  Do they grow back?  After all the people die, will there be any more people left?  Am I going to die?

My dad said he tried to dodge some of these questions, but that Zadie was a very skilled interrogator.  He tried to tell her that these were questions that she needed to be asking her moms.  But, since she would not relent, he finally told her that no one is 100% sure what happens after someone dies, but that he believed the body died and the spirit continues living.  When I got home a few days ago, one of the first things Zadie asked me when we were alone was, "What happens after people die? Granddaddy Hal said there's a spirit inside you that runs away."

As my dad said, "In retrospect, maybe taking her to a cemetery wasn't such a hot idea after all!"

The Ranch Files: Granddaddy Hal in Full Splendor

My dad is really good with kids.  He has no compulsion about being totally goofy and making a fool out of himself to entertain children.  His most famous trick is "checking for bugs," which is when he finds imaginary bugs running all on kids' stomachs and under their arms and he tickles them while trying to kill the bugs.  I've seen many a child make a request for a bug check.  He also counts ribs to make sure there aren't any serious medical concerns, which is also a very ticklish experience.

This past week at the ranch, Granddaddy Hal was in full splendor.  He must have taken the kids on 25 rides in the electric golf cart, full of all kinds of antics like launching attacks on the people at the campfire, singing songs, and starting and stopping.

In this video, Skip kept hiding a wooden snake in the bushes to try and scare my dad.  My dad would then act really scared and scream.  Unfortunately, this time Zadie cut the game short by telling my dad it was just a pretend snake, so this wasn't quite as extended of a performance by my dad.  But you can get a little taste for how crazy he can be.  Part of why I'm posting this is because I would love to have a video of my granddaddy playing with us as kids -- he also had some signature tricks (namely turning into a gorilla).


Granddaddy Hal & the Wooden Snake from Kate K. on Vimeo.

The Ranch Files: Christmas Day

Sophie, Zadie, and Izzy showing off their Christmas presents (they also got the matching polka dot outfits).

As part of a Christmas Eve tradition that we've taken over from Tori's family, all the kids get to open one present on Christmas Eve and it's always pajamas.  How cute are these five kids in their matching outfits?

My mom has a knack for making every occasion very special, so of course she wasn't going to let having Christmas at the ranch thousands of miles away from home, with limited provisions, stop her.  Christmas morning she had the kids' stockings all laid out and everything wrapped neatly in tissue paper with names on everything.  I did not inherit my mother's ability to present things beautifully and personally, but I'm certainly a beneficiary.

This Christmas, I think the very favorite gift was the cameras that the three girls received from Santa (my parents).  The girls felt very important photographing their experience and I love the photo above with them showing off their new gifts.  My mom also bought some fun musical instruments in the stockings for the kids.  And each adult couple received a new iPad, so that was very exciting but I'm also a little embarrassed to write that because I feel so spoiled by my parents.  I guess it's better to know you're spoiled, right?

Tori and I aren't real big on giving our kids lots of presents.  We gave Skip and Zadie their own water bottle to put in their lunch for pre-school and also some arts and crafts to work on while they were at the ranch.  Charlie, you didn't get diddly-squat from us, but you didn't seem to mind much!

The Ranch Files: Charlie Starts to Walk

As I've previously written, I'm really excited for Charlie to learn to walk, and I have very high expectations for how our life is going to improve once that happens.  Well, it hasn't fully happened yet, but he definitely did more walking at the ranch than he's ever done before.  Maybe the fresh air inspired him to be more mobile.

This is a video of him taking a few steps.  I love the sound of my Aunt Dana's Texan accent in the background saying, "Ride 'em, cowboy!"


Charlie Walks! from Kate K. on Vimeo.

The Ranch Files: Mud, Mesquite Thorns, & Campfires

My nephew Austin driving my parents' electric golf cart, along with my other nephew Nick and also Tori -- and a slew of children!

Skip felt like the king of the world on this tractor.

Here's a glimpse of the muddy conditions.  This is Zadie with her cousins Jonas and Max.

We just spent the past five or so days at the ranch in South Texas.  This ranch has been in the family for 100+ years and, though I only visited a few times when I was a kid, it was very significant in my dad and granddaddy's childhoods.  And it's very important to me that my kids get to spend time there not only because of the history but also because I want to have a place where they can run "wide open and sideways" (as my dad says) and also engage with nature.  According to my naturalist uncle, South Texas is one of the best wildlife spots in all of the United States.

Tori said she thought that was baloney because she's now been there twice and hasn't seen much nature.  It's in a very low rainfall area and is in the midst of a long-term drought, but somehow every time we visit it rains buckets, which means that Tori hasn't been able to see all the wildlife we've been talking about.  The local government should pay us to vacation there just to help them out with their drought.

Lots of rain means serious mud, so our vacation was full of rubber boots, muddy clothes, and the constant battle of trying not to get your vehicle completely stuck in the mud (which happened numerous times).  South Texas is also full of mesquite trees, which are great for more flavorful barbecue, but not so great for having around small children.  Each of our kids had to have mesquite thorns removed, which made them a lot more careful about where they were walking.

This is the first part in a series of blog posts I'm going to do about our trip to the ranch.

Catching Up: Thanksgiving

I fell behind on posting about Thanksgiving because I was waiting for a great photo, and now I have one!  Tori's sister Katie is always responsible for getting a group shot and it's amazing that she manages to get all of us together and even knows how to use the timer function on her camera.  Far beyond me.

We rotate holidays between my family and Tori's family, so this year we spent Thanksgiving with her family in Seattle.  Her brother Zach has a big house with lots of room for our enormous group and her mom rented a 15-passenger van for all our adventures.  Our adventures were cut a bit short by the fact that it rained most days, but we made the most of it.  This photo was taken during a break in the rain, when we all scrambled to a beautiful park and played kickball (a family tradition).

It's fun to just take a few minutes to look at all the people in this photo.  Now that is a big and crazy family!

Charlie is Officially Adopted!

 I'm happy to report that Charlie was officially adopted on Friday, December 16th.  We've been eagerly anticipating this moment for a very long time.  I'm fortunate to have a wife who is very talented at pursuing social workers and lawyers with her own personal blend of friendly stalkerism -- without her follow-up there's no way that this could have happened before the end of the year.

What does this mean?  First and foremost, this means that Charlie is officially our child and no one can ever, ever take him away from us again.  As they said in court, we have all the rights and responsibilities of parents and Charlie is due any inheritance as a "natural" child.  Sorry about that last part, Charlie.  Not sure how much help we'll be in that department.

It also means no more visits from social workers, no more paperwork, no more locking up all our knives, and no more smoke detectors (just kidding about that last one!!).

This tuxedo that Charlie was wearing was a hand-me-down from a friend and it happened to fit him perfectly.  He was quite adorable in court, especially after they gave him his little teddy bear (all kids get teddy bears when they're adopted).  The judge and other staff were quite smitten.  And so are we!

Mom to the Rescue

Five days ago I crashed my bike with poor little Charlie on it.  Although I say "poor Charlie," actually the whole thing was his fault.  We were going down a big hill and he was giggling with joy about the wind in his face and the whole experience.  I was turned around smiling back at him and saying, "Woohoo!"  Then I turned my eyes back to the road (where they should have been in the first place) and swerved to avoid a big pile of dry leaves and branches from our recent windstorm.  The bike skidded out, and we crashed.  So my point is that if Charlie hadn't have been such a cute, giggling ball of joy, the whole thing never would have happened.

In all seriousness, I learned my lesson and will be much more cautious in the future.  Not only because I feel like a totally irresponsible parent and bike rider for crashing with my baby on the back, but also because I got five stitches above my eyebrow and lots of painful road rash and I've been a total wimp about the whole thing and don't want to ever go through this again.  Charlie, I'm happy to report, is 100% fine and he was safely ensconced in his bike seat and helmet.  It would have been MUCH worse if something bad had happened to him.  Awful to think about.

Anyway, the point of this post is that my mom kindly offered to take all three kids for three whole days this week.  It's true that the road rash on my hands makes taking care of the kids difficult -- and Tori basically has to take care of me and the three other kids -- but the truth is that we could have managed.  Tori felt guilty about my mom taking all three, but I felt sorry for myself and decided to take her up on her offer.

So thank you, Mom, for juggling all three kids all by yourself (my dad was out of town).  The kids had a great time and are anxious to return.  And Tori and I got to go on two date nights and sleep in!

When Charlie Starts to Walk...

I've always been pretty good at being content.  I know some people who struggle to enjoy the moment since they're kind of preoccupied with the next thing, whether that's a new adventure or a new material good or a change in status.  Unfortunately, since I've become a parent (of multiple children at least), I find myself guilty of the same compulsion.  I often find myself looking forward to the next developmental stage because I like to imagine that life is going to be soooo much easier once I get to that next stage.

When Charlie was an extremely unhappy newborn, I was very focused on making it to three months because I had heard that's when all that colic-y stuff ends.  As my dad would say, I was in "survival mode" to make it to that milestone.  Turns out that crying stuff didn't go away until the six-month mark and when it did, life was definitely much easier but I quickly found something else to focus on.  I remember one big milestone I was focused on was when we could transition him off the bottle.  I thought that was going to be a big life-changer.  I did a Facebook post about never washing another bottle again for the rest of my life.

But somehow I don't think that really changed much (it's not like you don't have to wash sippy cups!).  My latest preoccupation is Charlie walking.  This child is pushing 15 months and still not walking (although he has definitely taken steps and I need to catch it on video).  It seems like I've been telling anyone who would listen for the past six months that as soon as Charlie starts walking, things will be a lot easier.

This time, I can't help but believe this is going to be a game-changer.  First of all, he's really heavy.  I think he weighs around 35 lbs and that's a lot of weight to be lugging around all the time.  Secondly, he's really happy when he's playing with his siblings, but he gets sad when he gets left behind all the time because they're running around without him.  I have a vision that involves my three children frolicking together, skipping around and running, just as happy as can be.  When Charlie starts to walk, they'll be so happy playing together that there won't be any crying or fighting and there probably won't even be much need for parenting, really.  I think I'll just sit at the kitchen table sipping my green tea and casually reading the newspaper while glancing up occasionally to watch them frolicking around in the yard.

It's gonna be great.