The Best Secret Code Ever!
I loved secret codes! As a kid in school I would go to great lengths to remake the entire alphabet into something new and original. Just the idea that I had unknown knowledge was intoxicating to me. Sometimes the new code would be so sophisticated it was rendered useless. It was too much fun, and I would make them over and over again.
People use codes all the time. Parents use them to keep their children in the dark about certain things. Simple codes like spelling the words out now that Junior knows what they mean, or talking in a foreign language to keep them from knowing what we are saying. We have looks in our eyes that convey secret messages; gestures that keep things hidden from the uninitiated. Codes have their place and purpose. They can be extremely practical.
I remember putting my code making skills to use while our kids were still young. This particular code wasn’t like the codes I mentioned before. Nope! This code was different. It was uncommonly simple. It had but one meaning to it. It could never be misunderstood, and it was subtle. So subtle that even the few who knew its meaning might miss it when it was given. Until now only a few have known of its existence.
I first taught the code to Marm. After that I taught it to each of the kids one-by-one once they were old enough to understand. To this day we still use the code as a reminder of something very important. When the time comes I will teach it to all our grandkids if their parents haven’t done so by then.
Want to know what it is? Well…
It was a nice day outside and Annie and I were holding hands while we walked across the Wal-Mart parking lot toward the store entrance. We were maybe 20-30 feet from going in when I introduced Annie to the code. Once I had done it she looked up at me puzzled. “Why did you do that Daddy” she asked me. We stopped where we were and I explained to her what it meant.
“Sweetheart, when I take my middle finger and scratch it against the palm of the hand I’m holding, I’m telling you I love you.” She beamed with understanding.
Just as we were entering the store I felt a little finger scratching against the palm of my hand. I looked down to see her bright face looking up into my eyes. Had I been struck dead at that moment, I’d have died a happy man.
And so it went, Aaron was taught the code. Abbey was taught the code. Amber and Amy were both taught the code. At any given time, anywhere, anyone in our family could be secreting telling each other that they were loved and no one else around would know the difference. I always loved it when unannounced I would scratch a palm and within a second or two feel the little finger scratching me back. Not a word was spoken, but worlds of meaning had been successfully communicated. “I love you!”
Now you know the code. It’s simple. Be encouraged to use it, abuse it, and share it with the ones you love. It truly is the best secret code ever!
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Terror at the Coast
It’s a new parents worst nightmare. Your 13 month old child is nowhere to be seen.
Going to the coast is always a family favorite. The Oregon coast is beautiful, accessible, and the water is COLD. When the wind isn’t blowing and the weather is sunny and warm it is a slice of the heavenly.
When Annie was young we were on vacation from our home in Washington and had scored a beautiful campsite at Beverly Beach State Park in Oregon. Our small four-man tent was pitched, picnic table arranged, food stored, fire pit readied, and the sound and taste of ocean waves were lingering in the air. It was paradise.
Each night as we went to bed we made sure the tent was securely closed. Annie had been walking/running since she was nine months old and nothing was off-limits as far as she was concerned. We made sure that both zippered doors were zipped tight , the luggage was set up as a barricade at the exit, and Annie slept on the opposite side of us as far from the doors as was possible. With this set up in place, we went to sleep each night secure in the idea that we were safe. That was about to be proved frighteningly wrong.
It was early, too early when Marm asked me, “Don, where’s Annie?”
“She’s over there where she sleeps,” I said while loosely flapping an arm in the general direction of her bed.
“No, she’s not,” Marm insisted. “Where is Annie?” This time the question was tinged with alarm.
“I don’t know. She’s got to be here somewhere,” was my irritated response. I was trying to sleep.
“Don! The tent door is open and Annie isn’t in here! Get up and find her now!”
That got my attention. I jumped out of my sleeping bag, stood there in my underwear, and looked through sleep encrusted unfocused eyes at the loose tent flaps. Marm was right, Annie was gone.
“Don’t just stand there. Go find her,” was Marm’s repeated encouragement to me. As I was hopping on one foot while trying desperately to pull my pants on, she was frantically shoving me toward the tent flap.
“Stop it!” I said. “I gotta get my pants on first. She’s probably playing in the campsite.”
When I stepped outside the tent half-dressed and unshod it became obviously clear that Annie was not there. In fact, she was nowhere to be seen.
Marm tumbled out shortly after me and said, “She’s been up awhile. Look at the cans on the table.”
It seemed that Annie had taken out some of the canned food and had been playing with it on the table. Other things had been moved around as well.
“I’m going to go check the bathrooms. You check the road,” Marm said as she ran off down the path.
I raced to the edge of the road, which was actually a loop that ran circular through our camp section, and looked both directions. Nothing! I sprinted to the end of the loop where it connects with the main park road to see if I could spot her anywhere. I couldn’t find her. Then I heard him, an older man with an amused grin on his face standing across the road from me. ”You look like someone looking for a little girl,” he said plainly.
“Have you seen her?” I asked more frazzled than I thought.
“I’ve been watching her for a while,” he said. “I knew someone would be looking for her shortly.”
“Where is she?” I asked.
He turned and pointed to her. I stood there frozen by what I saw next.
Annie was a couple hundred feet to my right. She was sitting up-to-her-chin in a box happy as a clam. The problem was that the box was sitting squarely between two full length cots about four feet apart. On the cots were two women fully asleep. I thanked the man profusely for keeping an eye on our baby and then headed toward our girl.
As I approached closer a horrifying thought ran through my head. I’m going to get right up to her and as I reach for her she’ll scream, “No!” and wake them both up. They’ll see her, then me, and proceed to beat the living daylights of me before they know the truth. I involuntarily moved my index finger to my closed lips using the international sign for keeping quiet. I hoped she knew what that meant. Now I was stepping between the two sleeping ladies and was one foot from the box when she said, “Hi Daddy,” with a huge and happy grin on her face.
Reaching down with outstretched arms she leapt up into my grasp without another word. Tenderly and slowly we slipped out from between the two unconscious women and made our way back toward where the man was still standing and watching us. I looked at him quizzically.
“I wanted to see how you were going to handle that before I left,” he said with a twinkle in his eye and a slight chuckle. I thanked him again as he turned and left us.
I headed back toward our campsite and met Marm coming toward us. She was so relieved to see Annie in my arms safe and sound. She took her from me immediately and hugged her like she had been gone for weeks. Blood pressures were beginning to return to normal.
A word to the wise: Be vigilant, and if you think your kids can’t escape, think again. They’re too smart for their own good. Maybe duct tape is the answer…
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The Wonder Pup – Part Two
We went outside and started lining up the stolen goods on the curb. The least we could do was to try to arrange it so they were recognizable. While we were displaying the various bits and pieces our lady neighbor from across the street came over and said, “That’s my potted plant. Can I have it back?” We were mortified. Our explanation to her sounded a bit like a student saying to his teacher, “My dog ate my homework.” We were glad when all the mess was in a nice line and we could go inside and hide like reasonable adults. Except for the potted plant nothing else was ever claimed. We bagged up the remnants after a few days and with more than a little guilt tossed them in the trash.
Later in the spring it happened again, but we were quicker that time to hide the mess. There was no lining up of the stolen goods. Once was enough for us. At this point we were baffled about what to do with our dog.
Time passed, summer was in full swing, and the 4th of July was at hand. Celebrations were going on all over town and barbecues everywhere were wafting delicious smoke-filled scent into the air. I was standing outside in our yard when I looked down the hill and saw Chet trotting up the road toward me. As he was getting closer I noticed he had something in his mouth.
“Where did you get that?” I asked him as I wrestled a half-baked chicken leg and thigh combo dripping in barbecue sauce from his mouth. I was aghast. He had stolen this right off of someone’s grill. It was still warm. I sternly scolded him and then watched him turn right around and head back down the hill. I just knew he was going back for another piece.
That was it! Chet had to have a new home. We quickly put an ad in the local paper about a wonderful dog who needed a new place to live outside of town. Nothing happened for a couple of weeks when finally I got a call from an interested person. Chet sounded perfect to him and we made arrangements for him to be picked up the next day. I was so excited to see Chet go I never bothered to get the man’s name or phone number. All I could think about was it’s over. He’s gone. Hallelujah!
A week or so had passed since his departure. I drove up to the house after work and once again saw Chet sitting in his hole in the front yard. “NO!” I yelled out loud while I was still in the car. This wasn’t possible. He couldn’t be back. Sure enough it was Chet. He had returned. Then it hit me, I had no information on the man who had picked him up. I had no way to tell him we had his dog. Grrrr….
Marm and I agreed to put another ad in the paper. This time it was directed to Chet’s new owner. It went something like this: To the man who owns Chet, he came back to his old home. Please come pick him up. Thank you.
It was only a few days or so later and we never saw Chet again. In fact we never saw the man either. Chet simply wasn’t here anymore. I wince when I say this now, but back then I didn’t care at all about not knowing why he was gone again. He was gone. That’s all that mattered.
Our best guess on how he got back to our house was that he was in the back of his new owner’s pick-up truck which was in town for some reason. Chet remembered where he was, hopped out, and followed his nose back to the ole’ hole in the ground.
I’ve never had any other animal experience that rivals this one. I guess all that’s left to say is this, “To the man who owns him: thank you and I hope you’ve had amazingly good success with Chet the wonder pup. Found anything new in your yard lately?”
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The Wonder Pup – Part One
“Why do we have all… these… animals?” A real question flung out into space by parents just like us all across the face of America.
All of our children were raised with pets in the home. For the most part this was a good thing. There were those days however, when I wondered.
Over the years we have racked up quite the array of species who have called our house home. Let’s see: dogs, cats, fish, birds, a rabbit, hamsters, gerbils, mice (in a cage), guinea pigs, and turtles. Some of these have left indelible marks on us because of their love and devotion to us. Others simply lived here, ate the food, and either moved-on or passed-on. For me, however, there is one pet so infamous I am scarred for life. His name was Chet.
We purchased Chet for a reasonable price and were very excited to get this basset hound for our family. We loved the look of him from the start and all of us took to him immediately. He had the usual basset hound coloring, and a mild-mannered personality to go with it. It was a home run for us and he was the center of attention. He loved all the kids, both our kids and the rent-a-kids Marm watched in daycare. One small problem cropped up though. In his exuberance he would jump up with his front paws and knock them flat. Bassetts are low to the ground, but are hefty. When they jump up they have some girth behind them. The kids went sailing when this happened.
Chet was now an outside dog during the day. We made a comfy spot for him off the edge of our front porch and tethered him there. All seemed well. WRONG! He was a hound dog. Bassetts howl…loudly. No amount of encouraging, threatening, promising, or the like curbed his noise. He wanted off the tether and that was final! We caved and let him off. Big Mistake! Huge!
To top things off it was now autumn and the rain began to fall. We weren’t worried about him getting wet since he had the entire covered porch to lay on. Again WRONG! He chose the mud. He lay there like a pot-belly pig in heaven. He had dug out a shallow hole in the flower bed the size of his body and lay there in the rain. Dumb dog. After some encouragement from Marm, I built him a doghouse. I proudly placed it on the porch out of the weather and introduced him to it. I showed him the nice construction, dry comfy blankets inside and the roof overhead. I pushed (forced) him inside so he could get the true feeling of its warmth. Minutes later I found him in the wet muddy hole again. He never used the doghouse, ever.
This was our winter. We worked hard trying to keep him warm, dry, and feed. Curbing his howling was top of the list. We were hopeful that once spring arrived things would be easier. Again WRONG!
Spring did arrive and we let Chet roam. It was the only way to keep him quiet. One morning we awoke to a horrifying sight. Looking out at our front yard we saw it covered with the oddest items: a coat, a boot (just one), a shoe (again just one), a potted plant, a plastic bag filled with garbage, a baseball mitt, and a random sock or two. Chet had raided the neighborhood during the night. He was a canine kleptomaniac. I looked at Marm and said. “What are we supposed to do with this stuff now? We can’t take it back, we don’t even know where he got it.”
(To be continued…)
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Landmines in the Bedroom
I remember listening to a teaching once in regard to couples who were engaged to be married soon. Each of the couple grew up in a family where that family dynamic was their “normal”. Instinctively each of them would be bringing that “normal” into their new marriage. The opportunity for a collision of worlds was inevitable and to be expected. The goal in understanding this truth was to begin making their own new “normal” together as a new family.
My personal enlightenment to this truth hadn’t come from a nice clean-cut teaching early on in our marriage, but rather in the trenches of real life experience. Like many newly married couples Marm and I worked out our “normal” as each situation arose.
I grew up in a “normal” where bedtime was strictly observed and routine was important. Brushed my teeth, went to the bathroom, got my drink, said goodnight to the folks, and went off to bed in my room. There was no talking or making noise, and I certainly didn’t come out again until morning. I had no problem with this routine what-so-ever. It was my normal.
Fast forward with me now and you find a married man with a house full of children. The crib over the years had always been beside our bed. The babies were at hand in our room for easy access during the night, and for a sense of belonging and being close to us. Our family “normal” looked completely different from the ones we had grown up with as kids.
Our children loved to sleep with us. This was fine when they’re very little, and very practical. Having the baby in the bed with us was amazing and I loved it. As they grew bigger and slept at every angle known to man, it became more of a challenge.
To solve this dilemma we made beds on the floor in our room for the kids. Sleeping bags, pads, blankets, pillows, and “stuffies” of varied shapes and sizes were everywhere. A birdseye view of the room would never be a picture that made it into a “Boudoirs of the Rich and Famous”. It was a deliciously chaotic scene.
After the bedtime preparations were complete the kids would crawl into their floor beds and begin dropping off to sleep. We loved having them so close, and they did too.
Mornings were a bit trickier. I was the first to rise in our family, the proverbial early bird. 4 or 5 o’clock was my normal time to wake up, and as such required the utmost quiet. The first thing I had to do before making a move of any sort was to remember where the kids were on the floor the night before. Let’s see, one on the floor by my side of the bed, one at the corner at my end of the bed, one over on the floor by Marm’s side at the end, and so on. That’s how it looked when we put them to bed anyway. It’s morning now and they have had the entire night to change things up. It was that “move at every angle known to man” thing.
The second thing to do was make a visual inspection. At 5:00 in the morning it’s still dark outside, so night lights were my heroes. “Shoot, they’ve moved,” I would whisper under my breath while beginning the assessment. Once I made out their new general locations it was time to move on to step three. Where are their appendages?
I can still feel to this day placing a carefully misguided foot down on top of an arm or leg that shouldn’t have been there. How can a child all curled up at the bottom of a sleeping bag have their arm sticking out just waiting for me to step on it? I wish I had home movies of me negotiating this maze. I would carefully thread my way in and around their little bodies silent as a mouse . More than once I had accidentally stepped on the long hair of one of the girls and felt it tugging on their head. The little groan from within the pile of blankets confirmed my findings. Yep, that was hair.
Ultimately and after a wildly awkward balancing act that should qualify me as a prima ballerina I would make it to my dresser and closet for the much-needed clothes for the day. It didn’t take me long before I was putting said clothes in the hallway the night before.
Marm and I would laugh together as I would relate these morning antics to her. We would remind each other that it wouldn’t too long and the kids would want to move to their own rooms and beds. Sadly, that was all too true.
It’s ironic that I am actually the only one who remembers these morning moments. After all, I was the only one awake to see them. Secretly I’m nursing the idea that some day soon my grandchildren will be old enough to sleep over, and maybe they’ll be the next set of landmines in the bedroom.
In coming!
Curls & Capes 