Jodi

The Second Third, Week 21: Stay-At-Home Dad, Part 1

/ J. Thorp / 1 Comment

First off, let me say that initially I committed to a Second Third post every Wednesday for a year. The “every Wednesday” part came unhitched when I remembered that I had also committed to teaching confirmation classes almost every Wednesday. For awhile, I started adding (Belated) to the titles when I posted after Wednesday. Now I’ll just be satisfied to hit 52 Second Third posts sometime around the second week of November.

Long story short: this is last week’s post.

Our dear friends Todd and Suzette and their kids were here last week. The weather was lovely, so we went to the park and even improvised soccer and kickball games in our too-small front yard. I tracked a high fly ball with such laser-like intensity and speed that I collided with the neighbor’s basketball pole, which rang like a bell, but left no mark. Classic Jim. I ran, jumped around, got myself winded and sweaty and sore. The kids are still talking about it. Everyone had a blast, and it was easy. It just requires me to be home a little more during the daylight hours.

So I mentioned in an earlier, different Second Third post that I was making a transition to a new position that would allow me a great deal more flexibility to write (and finish!) a book of my own. My new position also enables me to work from home more regularly, which means less time on the road. We’ll spend less on fuel and parking, and I’ll be home for Trevor’s baseball games, Emma’s soccer games, fishing, canoeing, gardening, swimming. I lose 10 to 15 hours a week in traffic; meanwhile, Gabe bought a knife with his birthday money, and it occurred to me that neither he nor Brendan have ever really whittled or scaled a bluegill. And Jodi and I have so little time alone together that a 20-minute lunch conversation over PB&J is a tremendous blessing. I need to be home more, and not just to finish a book!

In my Second Third, I have been blessed with the opportunity to work from home more often, and I don’t intend to squander this gift. Indeed, at this point I’m counting down the weeks.

Colorful Language

/ J. Thorp / 2 Comments

Blogger’s Note: My friend, children’s author Jacqui Robbins (yes, the Jacqui Robbins, and don’t act so surprised!) posted this little gem, which got me thinking about when my own kids began to notice differences in people.

Let me say up front: racism is a real problem in the world. As a result, we have complex reactions to race — we notice differences between people quite naturally, and then (especially as adults) we sometimes overcompensate for our reactions. We react so strongly at times that we can confuse our children by overthinking it. This is how I remember one early incident.

Several years ago, Jodi and I took the older boys to a high-school basketball game. Brendan and Gabe were preschoolers, and we were seated in the crowded home bleachers. The visiting team was from a nearby city, and had players “of multiple ethnicities” on the floor. All one of the starters on the home team, the Warriors, were white — and when that one minority player hit a nice jump shot early in the game, the crowd cheered wildly.

“Who made a basket?” asked Brendan.

“Number five,” I said. “Do you see him?”

Brendan went down the steps a ways to get a better look at the scrambling players. “You mean the brown one?” he called back.

The crowd around us matched the makeup of the starting five: Mostly white, except one family seated across the aisle from us. Jodi and I glanced at them in sudden embarrassment. They didn’t seem to have heard.

“There he is,” I said, pointing. “Number five!”

Brendan craned his neck, then looked back at me. “The brown one!” he said. “That’s what I said!”

“I wanna see th’ brown one!” yelled Gabe.

“Listen,” I rasped as Jodi glanced across the aisle. “His name is Charlie. You guys can cheer for him by name. Cheer for Charlie.”

They did, and after a while, the family across the aisle noticed and smiled proudly. And I started to think: The boys didn’t mean anything by it; they’re just kids, pointing out the most obvious distinguishing characteristic. I laughed at myself. To think that I was worried about a color…

The cheer squad chanted, “Here we go, Warriors, here we go!”

“Let’s go, Warriors!” I shouted, and Bren repeated, “Let’s go, Warriors!”

“Who is ‘Warriors’?” asked Gabe.

“That’s the team we want to win,” said Bren. “The ones in white.”

The other team was pressing hard. “Let’s go, Warriors!” yelled Brendan.

“Yeah,” said Gabe. “Let’s go, whites!”

Holiday Letter 2009

/ J. Thorp / 3 Comments

At long last, here is the Thorp family Christmas letter for 2009. In future years, we intend to publish it electronically first and foremost. We’ll still send a Christmas photo or postcard with you, to let you know when it’s up and ready. If you strongly prefer (or require) a paper copy, drop us a line or leave us a comment here. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year, friends!

From the Archive: Holiday Letters 2006, 2005, 2004 and 2003

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Okay, thank you to those few people who told me to post the old Christmas letters online. I got a little misty reading them. Hope I can find back to about 1998 …

In the meantime:

One more thing: We celebrate Christmas at the Thorp house, but have called these letter holiday letters since one of the early ones didn’t actually come our until around Valentine’s Day …