The thing is, I lied about being able to dance when I was courting my wife. How often do people dance any more? Sure, people put on some kind of godawful thumping tribal ritual-sacrifice music and grind up against each other, but that’s not dancing. Nobody dances any more, right? Until there’s a dance, to …
“Dad,” asks Isaac, “do you think it was disrespectful of you to leave the music playing while we prayed?” “I guess so. I’m sorry. God will forgive me.” I notice the boy is wearing a big triangular colonial soldier hat. “Do you think it was disrespectful for you to wear that hat while we prayed?” Isaac …
The thing with my 11 year-old Caleb joining Boy Scouts is that finally I can learn how to tie a sheepshank knot, and start a fire using only a fork and dental floss, and how to evade bears, and all the other stuff that I never learned how to do, never having been a Scout …
Yesterday it was just me and my three year-old, Isaiah John. We were cruising down the road in my truck, past bars and tattoo parlors. Yes, there are tattoo parlors in Wichita. The sun was out, the wind was blowing, and we didn’t have anywhere to be for a couple of hours. It’s times like …
I didn’t mean to be gone this long; the hours piled up into days and then weeks, and once again I was a negligent blogger. Sometimes I think there should be a social services hotline for blogs, to have them removed from the homes of people like me. I’m talking about people who let our …
You know you’ve been flying too much when you sleep through the better part of an in-flight emergency. It wasn’t the exclamations of my fellow passengers that stirred me from my takeoff doze, so much as the sense that what had been a lifting sensation was now most definitely a sinking sensation. And most of …
As is true of anyone who is long on love and short on cash, Isaac likes to find things around the house, wrap them up in scrap paper, and give them to people. Tonight at dinner he gave me a present wrapped in old construction paper and about a half-mile of tape. The words “I …
I’m trying to do sit-ups. I’m inhibited by three year-old Isaiah, who has crawled onto my chest and put his warm face against my neck. He’s crying in frustration with a shirt that he can’t seem to make fit right, but which he resists letting anyone help him with. I wrap my arms around him. …
Yesterday we cooked and cooked and cooked, and ate and ate and ate, and it was delightful, even the cheesy squash casserole that makes my children instinctively gag just from looking at it. Especially the squash casserole, you little ingrates. My friend Johnny Utah, newly paroled, spent Thanksgiving with us. In order to make up …
On the giving of thanks, stomach viruses, and giant Christmas ornaments Read More »
Me to Isaiah: “Go tell your brothers to put on their pajamas and come down for a story.” Isaiah, without taking a single step: “BRUDDERS!!!! PUT ON YOU PAJAMAS AND COME DOWN FOR A STORY!!!!!!” Oh yeah, definitely getting out the whiskey once everyone’s in bed.
The woman in the last booth guarding the Wichita airport parking lot exit likes my music. She has gray hair and a hardworn, windswept face, the kind you see here on the heartland plains. We don’t speak, except for her to tell me how much I owe at the end of the week, me leaning …
Filing off the plane with our recalcitrant roller bags, our ponderous satchels. Ahead on the jet bridge, an elderly woman stumbles and goes down hard, face first. A young woman drops her own bags and kneels beside the old woman, who is disoriented, who is bleeding from her face, who should not be traveling alone. …
I think the cook at a local eatery gave me an e coli burger because he didn’t like my hat. That’s the theory I’ve been operating under the last 48 hours. We went to the pumpkin patch as planned yesterday regardless, and it was lovely. I was miserable, but it was lovely. It’s good to …
Six year-old Isaac had a running argument with three year-old Isaiah for a few weeks, on the question of who owns Isaiah’s car seat. Isaac, more than any of my other children, has seized on the God trump card in arguments. “You’re not the boss of me,” he will declare to one of his older …
Today is William Isaac Woodlief’s sixth birthday. At lunch, he asked me how many days until he’s seven. He likes to plan ahead that way. Isaac is full-hearted and brave, and one day I hope to be just like him.
More on the Great Woodlief Vacation of 2010, which might also have been titled: “You do know it’s 1400 miles to the East Coast, right?” When last I left off, I had just extricated the Big Love van from a midget-sized parking garage, and relocated it to West Virginia. Let’s pick up again outside the …
I took six books with me for a two-week vacation. Since I also took my four children, we have a clear indication that I understand neither math nor children. This may also explain why I found myself, through a series of events with which I won’t bore you, driving a 14-passenger van into Washington, D.C. …
Isaac is standing at my hip as I make omelets. He’s giving advice. “Dad,” he says, “if you have to sneeze when you’re cooking, turn your head.” I suppose that’s helpful, but I can’t help but be a little offended that he thinks I need to hear this.
Home yesterday afternoon. The boys drop toys and ditch bikes and jump off swings to come hug me, before I’ve even all the way out of my truck. Isaiah insists on being held. He wraps his arms and legs around me, like he is a bear cub. I lug him and my luggage and my …
Tonight I introduced Isaac and Isaiah to the Tickle Monster Game, which I used to play with Caleb and Eli. (And which I write about in my book. Have I mentioned the new book today?) I armed them both with rubber swords and told them I would be hiding somewhere in my bedroom. When I …
Wife is gone with the older boys for a few days, leaving me with two year-old Isaiah and five year-old Isaac. We’re going to have some man time, I tell them. This evening, Isaac comes to me before dinner. “Dad, is it alright if I just wear a t-shirt and underwear?” Alright? It’s the classic …
Driving down the highway a few days ago, we pass a motorcycle. “Dad,” Isaac says to me, “do you know why that man is foolish?” I know what he’s going to say, but still I ask, “Why?” “Cause he’s not wearing a helmet.” “I know. That’s foolish, isn’t it?” “But there’s one good thing.” “What’s …
Isaac, at bedtime: “Dad, what does ‘thisino” mean?” Me: “Huh?” Isaac: “Thisino.” Me: “I’ve never heard that word before.” Isaac: “You know: Jesus loves me, thisino, for the Bible tells me so…”
Whenever I listen now to Van Morrison’s “Caravan,” I think of driving with Eli and Isaac in my pickup, the three of us chiming along with the horn section at the end of the song, dot dant, dot dant, dot dant, dot dant . . . their eyes shining and the two of them grinning …
Caleb has been on a robotics team. They use Lego Mindstorms equipment to overcome a variety of obstacles laid out for them in an annual competition at Wichita State University. It was his first year, and I think he must have relied on genes from his mother, given that I have the spatial reasoning skills …
Monday was Eli’s 8th birthday, and Wife’s . . . significantly more than 8th birthday. She’s always been gracious about sharing her day. And her life. And whatever’s on her plate, when some hungry little boy asks to sit in her lap at dinner time. Tonight at bedtime I gave Eli his birthday blessing. I …
You would have been fourteen today. Amidst the chaos of cobbled-together derby cars and robot obstacle courses and four sweaty boys we might have made a cake just for you. I would have made you spaghetti, because it is your favorite. We could have walked across the bridge in the late afternoon, to sit on …
Five year-old Isaac decided that he wanted to ride his bike without the training wheels. “They slow me down,” he explained. If you knew this boy, you would understand why I was reluctant to give him more speed. But there he stood with Eli, who volunteered to “learn him how to ride.” If you had …
“Isaiah,” I ask him, “what color is your balloon?” “Green,” he says. This makes me happy, because we were beginning to think the boy is color blind. “What color are your pants?” I ask. They are yellow. He bends at his ample waist to look at them. He looks at me. He looks at his …
Caleb is now ten. He’s a “ten-ager,” as he likes to say. The boys come to work with me on their birthdays. I don’t know what they’ll do once I’m a world-famous author who writes full-time for a living. Perhaps sit in a corner in my little barn office and stare at the back of …
