Mr. Handsome

From Mr. Handsome…

After reading the title of this post, I’m sure all of you are thinking to yourselves, “No kidding–thank you for sharing this, Mr. Handsome Genius.” But unfortunately, Ellie just doesn’t understand that sometimes you have to be willing to spend a little extra money for the children. Let me recount a recent conversation at the breakfast table that illustrates my point.

“Ellie, I’m thinking we should be more prepared for emergencies now that we have two children,” I said between bites of oatmeal.

 “I think that’s a great idea,” she replied. “What did you have in mind?”

“Well I should have plenty of tools around in case the baby crib breaks,” I explained. “It would really be awful if we had a crib emergency in the middle of the night. I was thinking a new drill, table saw, planer, jointer, and chainsaw would sort of be the bare bones emergency tools.”

Ellie put down her cup of coffee and laughed. “Jointer, planer, chainsaw? Are you planning on cutting down a tree and building a new crib from scratch?”

“One can never be too prepared,” I said. The one thing I didn’t think through was that at the time of this conversation, Littlest Buddy was sleeping in a pack n play in our room. Ellie intelligently reminded me that my tools wouldn’t be useful.

“And aren’t those the exact tools that have been on your wish list since we got married?” she asked, furrowing her brow.

I leaned back and sighed. “Yes, and I’ll admit that they were once wishes, but now they are essentials.”

Ellie rolled her eyes. “How about we compromise with a new hammer and some nails? Maybe a screwdriver too.”

As I’m sure you readers can see, Ellie just doesn’t understand that having kids is expensive and that you have to be willing to spend the necessary money to raise them. I decided to bring up a few more items that we needed.

“A healthy diet is essential for growing children,” I stated, playing to her love for healthy food. “We need to order a bigger blender so we can make our own baby food.” She matter-of-factly informed me that our current blender is the perfect size for making baby food. Then she accused me of wanting a bigger blender to make bigger milkshakes.

I shrugged. “Well now that you mention it, that would be another perk,” I replied. Ellie rolled her eyes again.

“And what about new leather seat covers for the front seat of my truck? Babies are messy, and we need to protect the seats.”

“Honey, the children sit in the back. And you wouldn’t possibly be talking about the fancy leather seat covers I saw you googling yesterday, would you? The ones that cost almost as much as the truck itself?”

“Spit-up travels far, and you can’t put a price on peace of mind,” I said. Ellie rolled her eyes a third time and got up to walk out of the room.

“One more thing,” I called after her. “I was thinking that a pool table would be a great activity for Little Buddy and I to do together”

“Little Buddy isn’t even tall enough to see over a pool table,” Ellie called back.

“I don’t suppose now is a good time to discuss a new big screen TV? You know, so the children can watch their educational videos more clearly?”

I could hear Ellie groaning in the next room. “I think the best thing ‘for the children’ is for us to end this conversation before you spend every penny of our savings.”

Hopefully you readers you are with me on this. Ellie just doesn’t understand how expensive raising children is.

At the end of summer, Mr. Handsome took part in the Terrain Race here in Nashville. Little Buddy, Littlest Buddy, and I–along with my sister-in-law–watched Daddy and his brother run a 5K and complete about 20 obstacles.

In addition to basic ladders, ropes, and walls to climb, some of the obstacles involved trekking through mud. But the most epic one of all was the mud pit. Participants got down on their bellies and crawled through a pool of mud that was about a foot deep. There were ropes directly overhead that you had to stay below, so if you did it right, you ended up covered in mud from head to toe.

Most of the obstacles were set up in the woods, where spectators weren’t able to go. The mud pit was off in the distance, so I didn’t get any good pictures. Hopefully the description paints a nice picture in your mind.

Have you ever participated in any sort of race with obstacles? Would you crawl through a mud pit?

It’s been a while since we’ve had a humorous post from Mr. Handsome, so here goes…

For those of you who haven’t spent a lot of time around babies, this question will sound absurd and barbaric. In fact, if you had asked me such a question before we had children, I would have recoiled at the disgustingness of it. But hey, here we are.

No matter how careful you are, there is simply nothing you can do to prevent getting spit-up on your clothes when you have a baby. You can use burp cloths, towels, or bibs, but there is just no way to catch the mess 100% of the time. More often than not, your baby will choose the most inopportune time to spit up…right onto your favorite article of clothing.

With the first child, you start off changing clothes every time you get gunk on them, but then you have to do laundry twice as often. So one day at 2am, you wake up to feed the baby and he spits up on you, and you say, “Well it’s just a little bit. I’ll wipe it off and deal with it tomorrow.” This of course starts the rapid descent into spit-up covered clothes.

So now I have to ask, what is an acceptable level of spit-up to have on your clothes and still consider yourself to be a functioning human?

From Mr. Handsome:

Little Buddy is right in the middle of a “Can I help? Let me do it!” stage. No matter what kind of project Mommy and Daddy are doing, he wants to be right in the middle of it. It is really quite sweet that he is so eager to help, but it makes it virtually impossible to get anything done.

There is no job too small. He wants to cook, clean, paint, drill, hammer, shovel, and just about anything else he sees us doing. I used to be able to give him a different task to do alongside me, such as bang his plastic hammer against a random board, but he is quickly becoming too smart for that. He wants to do big people tasks.

I try to let him do as many things as he safely can, but there are still so many jobs that are too dangerous. I just love his helpful spirit, and it always makes me sad to tell him that he can’t help with something. It’s an unfortunate paradox that a child’s motivation to help is highest when the amount of tasks they are able to help with is lowest. I’m really hoping that as his ability to help increases, his interest in helping will not decrease. However, it’s a sad truth that teenagers, who are old enough to do many of the household tasks that adults can, are often very much not interested in working alongside Mom and Dad.

Does anyone else feel the same way?

From Mr. Handsome…

How many of you, in your teenage years, saw adults do something you thought was lame and said to yourself “I will NEVER do that”? I would like to take a minute to apologize to my 16-year-old self. I think he would be very ashamed of the older version of me.

It all happened last week, when our friends were nice enough to babysit Little Buddy for the evening. We kept the baby, but he is pretty chill and does well when we take him out and about. So in theory, we could have gone to see friends, had dinner at a restaurant, shopped at the mall, or gone bowling. The world was our oyster.

But you know what we ended up doing? We stayed home, watched Netflix, and took a nap.

When you have small children, all you really want to do is sleep. Sometimes even when you get a full night of sleep, you still feel tired. So staying in and relaxing was the best thing we could think of doing.

We greatly enjoyed our wild night of relaxation. We decided to liven things by having not one, but two, scoops of ice cream with homemade maple syrup drizzled on top. Take that, 16-year-old self!

Is there anything you do that your teenage self would be ashamed of?

A few years ago, we posted about the bachelor party that Mr. Handsome planned for his youngest brother. His other brother recently got married, and Mr. Handsome helped plan that bachelor party, as well.

Bachelor parties get a bad rap because some people engage in inappropriate behavior at them, but if done well, bachelor parties can be a great way for men to bond and strengthen their friendships.

Of course any time men get together, the highlight is food. Mr. Handsome chose pulled pork for the occasion. I bought fifteen pounds of pork shoulder on sale at Kroger, and he spent an entire day smoking it. He used hickory wood from our yard to add flavor to the meat. He was a bit on edge because the smoker, which was a gift from a friend who was upgrading, is new to him, and he didn’t want to ruin the party by messing up the main dish.

Thankfully, the pulled pork turned out delicious (I had it for dinner the night before), and the men loved it. Several of them said they thought Mr. Handsome should start a BBQ restaurant.

Mr. Handsome and the guys had a great weekend. They ate BBQ and then shot clay targets at a local shooting range. Later, they camped out at a remote location with incredible scenery. My thoughtful brother-in-law carried in all the ingredients for campfire spaghetti for dinner and pancakes for breakfast.

It always makes my heart happy to see my husband enjoy fun and fellowship with other guys who desire to live for the Lord. He said they had some really deep conversations around the campfire about marriage and faith.

Have you heard of any good bachelor (or bachelorette) party ideas?

When we first got married, I started asking Mr. Handsome why he ate so fast. In the six years since our wedding, he has thankfully kicked this habit, but his reasoning for why it was so deeply ingrained is pretty funny. To bring you your regular dose of Mr. H humor, he wrote a post:

“Babe, why do you eat so fast?”

The question startled me so much that I almost choked on the T-bone I was inhaling. “What are you talking about Ellie?”

“I’m talking about the fact that I’ve hardly sat down to dinner, and you have almost finished 16 ounces of steak.”

That wasn’t the first time that someone commented on the speed at which I used to consume my food. My answer was always the same: “I have six siblings.”

All of you who come from big families know exactly what I’m talking about. For those who don’t, I’ll explain. We had to eat fast in order to survive. It’s called natural selection; only the fast eaters make it. Watching a big family eat dinner (or lunch, since most of us were homeschooled) is like watching a small rabbit being fed to a pack of starving hyenas.

In all fairness, we never went hungry, and there was no real shortage of sustenance. But there was always a shortage of “edible” food. After all, cooking in bulk when you have a bunch of little kids pulling at you is hard.

On a typical morning, Mom was trying to get seven children up and dressed, teeth brushed, hair combed, and diapers changed, all while cooking a pound of bacon and a dozen eggs. Inevitably, about a third of the bacon was as soggy as a wet noodle, another third was burnt to a crisp, and the other 33.3333 perfect was just perfect. (Soggy bacon was how I learned to convert fractions to percentages.) Keep in mind that the two best pieces were saved for Dad, so if you didn’t your eggs fast, you got the bacon that was less than desirable.

The situation was the same by the time lunch rolled around. There would only be a small amount of food that you really wanted to eat, maybe three or four hotdogs or a couple of hot ham and cheese sandwiches. And if you didn’t eat quickly, you weren’t getting any of that.

But have no fear, Mom would supplement with something that still sends chills down my spine: leftovers. Big families are the kings of leftovers. Was that green bean casserole so unpalatable that no one even touched it at the church potluck? No problem, feed it to the kids as leftovers. Was that hamburger helper so atrocious that the dog went howling into the backyard after smelling it? Just add a little salt and pepper, and it will taste like a 5-star restaurant. And as much as I loved mac and cheese, leftover mac and cheese is just plain gross. Somehow it succeeds at being both dried out and soggy and the same time. But Mom wasn’t going to waste 99 cents on a new Kraft package.

Of course, Mom was always willing to quickly slather some peanut butter and jelly on two pieces of wheat bread and call it a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, but she never got the proportions right. Just last year, I learned about one of her tactics to save money. She would take the end pieces of each loaf of bread and turn them inward so the sandwich looked like it was made with two normal pieces of bread. Peanut butter and jelly still makes me gag to this day. Somehow Ellie and Little Buddy eat it all the time, but I just can’t.

As I got older, I started to figure out the system. I would wake up early and eat the good food before anyone else got up. For a while, no one could figure out what was going on. “I could have sworn that there were three pieces of pizza in the fridge last night, but they’re gone,” my brother would complain. “What happened to the dozen homemade cookies that I made last night?” Mom would ask.

Please don’t tell Ellie, but I have continued some of these food consumption tactics into marriage. I would hate for her to figure out why I always wake up early in the morning when there is only one doughnut left.

Due to some scheduling conflicts, we were not able to celebrate Ellie’s birthday on the actual day. As a loving husband, I suggested that we designate another day as Ellie’s Day, a day to be focused entirely on Ellie.

 “What would you like me to buy you for your special day?” I asked my wife. “How about something really nice? I want you to treat yourself.”

“Well I was thinking that Little Buddy would really like a toy sandbox, and I would just love to see him play in one.” That seemed like a good idea to me. Ellie picked out a turtle-shaped sandbox from Walmart and had it delivered just in time for Ellie’s Day.

To start the day off, I insisted that she sleep in and I get up with Little Buddy, who is a very early riser. As I crawled out of bed, I whispered “Is there anything I can make you for breakfast?”

“There are two of my favorite jalapeño cheddar sausage patties left in the fridge that would be delicious,” she responded.

As I was cooking breakfast, I told Little Buddy that we were letting Mommy sleep in and that she would wake up to the sweet fragrance of sausage cooking in the fry pan.

 “Is something burning?” Ellie wrinkled her nose as she stuck her head out of the bedroom.

“No, everything is going great” I stated as I fanned the billowing smoke away from the smoke detector.

“Fire, Mama!” exclaimed Little Buddy, as he pointed to the pan.

“One of my greatest desires for Ellie’s Day is that you don’t burn the house down,” Ellie explained gently. “Maybe you should just microwave some oatmeal.”

After breakfast, we loaded up the minivan and went to visit the historic Carter House in Franklin, Tennessee. This has been on Ellie’s to do list ever since we moved to Nashville. She enjoyed it so much that she already wrote a blog post about it. Unfortunately the weather was a little rough (approximately 37 degrees Fahrenheit with freezing winds). But thankfully only half of the two-hour tour was outdoors.

On our way home, I decided to really treat Ellie and let her do some birthday shopping.  She chose Kohl’s. As we walked in, I handed her a $100 dollar bill and told her that she was required to spend it. Unfortunately she couldn’t find anything that she liked, but there was a nice leather jacket on clearance that was perfectly my size. It was usually $180 but was on sale for 50% off, putting it right at $90.

“That still leaves $10 to spend on a pair of socks for myself!” remarked a happy Ellie

“Well this is Ellie’s Day,” I exclaimed. “So go for it!”

We also stopped at one of Ellie’s favorite places in the world, Costco. She loves the good deals and free samples. I took her straight to a beautiful display of organic goat cheese and gluten-free crackers.

“This looks delicious!” exclaimed Ellie. “Can I try a sample, please?

“Sorry, no free samples due to COVID,” the clerk replied.

“Oh well,” I consoled Ellie, “It’s been such a good day for you already, and of course nothing is perfect.

“You are right about that,” replied Ellie. “Nothing is perfect.”

We each took a cart and decided to meet at the cash register in 30 minutes. Ellie came back with food, tissues, and paper towels. I had also picked up a few essentials.

“Why is your cart filled with new power tools and a pellet grill?” asked Ellie.

“I thought since it was Ellie’s Day we could celebrate!” I exclaimed.

“We are not buying any of that,” Ellie informed the clerk at the checkout line.

Next we stopped at the Vegan Vee Gluten-Free Bakery to get Ellie a delicious pastry. Unfortunately, the Vegan Vee had new hours that they hadn’t yet updated on their website, and they were closed. I have to say, that put a bit of a damper on an otherwise perfect Ellie’s Day.

But thankfully there was a grocery store down the street, and we were able to buy her a loaf of plain gluten-free bread. And it turned out that my favorite donut shop was just down the street, so Little Buddy and I ate donuts while Ellie enjoyed a plain slice of bread.

“This has really been a special Ellie’s Day,” I said.

“Yes it has,” she responded. “Very special.”