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Family

Ready or Not, Here I come…

I was playing hide and seek with Zander today – actually for the first time.  He had this idea that he would hide and call out to me – “come find me”.  At first I was caught up in getting things done for work so that I could take the next week off without ‘too many’ worries. I didn’t want to stop to play with him, but reluctantly I did.

After a couple of half attempts to ‘find’ him and get back to my computer, he comes to me and says, “your turn daddy! Go hide!”.  I realized that he has never played hide and seek and came by the game naturally.  So I turned off the monitor, stopped being annoyed, and started to cherish the moments I had with him.  I explained to him that he had to count to 10 and then come find me.  He counted, then ran straight to me – I was ‘hiding’ down the hall.

So being ‘it’ I told him to go hide, while I counted to 10.  I shouted out, “Ready or Not, here I come!”  Then despite the fact that I knew he was hiding in the den, I walked around the house, jumping around corners shouting “Gotcha!” then in a disappointed tone I would say, “No, he’s not hiding here”.  Each time I would hear Zander giggle in the den.  Finally, I got to the den and he took off running.  I chased him around the house, both of us laughing and sliding in our socks.  He naturally ran to ‘base’ where I had counted.

Then he started, “1, 2, 3…”  I started looking for a place to hide. “4, 5, 6…” I decided on hiding behind the kitchen island. “7, 8, 9…” My heart was racing, “10! Ready or Not, Here I come!”  Zander copied my example to a tee – shouting “Gotcha” and “Nope, you’re not in here” as he want around the house.  Then he jumped into the kitchen and the race was on!  We had a lot of fun and I’m glad I took the time.

Well, Zander isn’t the only child of mine shouting “Ready or Not, Here I come!”  Today is the eve of the BIG day!  Dianne is coming over around 6:30 am to watch Zander.  Stephanie is packed.  The appointment is at 8:00 am.  Everything is set, everything is ready – well… not everything.  I’m not.  In less than 24 hours I will have a new child in the world, and a daughter at that!  Alexis Carol Sackrider is almost here.

I look forward to many great moments with her like I had with Zander today, but I also dread the first time she falls down, the first time she is disappointed, the first time she is embarrassed.  I don’t even want to consider first boyfriends, first dates, first kisses.  Ready or Not…Here she comes!

Categories
Family

Zander Stories…

Ok, Zander is growing up everyday but I haven’t put anything up here in a while. Here are a couple of the latest cute Zander stories:

The Drive Through

After church recently, Stephanie and I stopped at a drive through to pick up a quick dinner. Usually when we are going out to eat, we order Zander something too, but since we were headed back to the house, we figured we would save the money and just feed him from what he had at home – he gets more groceries than Stephanie and I combined.

Anyway, as I was ordering, Zander started to tell me he wanted a milk but I quickly hushed him up so that I could finish my order and we pulled around to the window. As the girl handed out our drinks, saying “This is the diet … and here is the regular”, Zander rolled down his window and very clearly and politely says, “And I’ll take a milk, please”.

The girl must have thought this was cute, because she promptly brought him a milk.

Bedtime

We have a bedtime routine with Zander where we let him know he only has so many minutes left before bedtime, then we take him ‘potty’, then to bed where I read him a story, sometimes two before lights out. On days where we relax his bedtime a little and he is up much later than he should be, we sometimes skip the bed time stories.This particular night, we were watching TV and let it get later than we should have. Stephanie and I paused whatever show we were watching and took Zander to bed. It was so late, that I almost forgot to take him ‘potty’, which you just cannot do unless you want to wake up at 3am with a screaming kid that doesn’t understand why his belly hurts until you tell him to get up and go to the bathroom (at least he doesn’t wet the bed).

So, he was already in his bed, when Stephanie reminded me to send him ‘potty’. On the way to the restroom, he asks, “Can you read me two stories?” and I wasn’t paying attention and said, “yes”. Stephanie knowing that I wasn’t paying attention and that it was late enough that Zander would go to sleep without a story (and perhaps motivated by the fact that we would not be able to finish watching whatever the show we were watching was until I finished) looked at me and said, “you just agreed to S – T – O – R – Y!”

My son stopped walking toward the bathroom, turns and says, “S – T – O – R – Y is in my room!” While my first thought was, “I have the smartest three year old in the world!” – my wife wisely asks Zander, “what is S – T – O – R – Y?” to which he replied, “my doggie!”

Categories
Family

Quick Note…

Just so you know, I haven’t fallen off the face of the earth. My brother-in-law and his wife and two daughters have been in town and staying with us for the last two weeks. Its been great having them and we have spent many nights talking about the Bible, ministry, great movies, and life (not in that order). Well, tonight is their last night with us and I will miss having them around. There are challenges to having an entire additional family living in the same house,

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but Stephanie and I both want large families, so the benefits far out way the challenges. I will miss those long debates. I will miss watching Zander play with his cousins. We really enjoyed having them as our guests. Anyway – I haven’t posted in a while and I wanted to drop a line saying I’m still here… consider this line dro…….