The boys are asleep.

I stir from my upholstered island
to wade out between the day’s debris
of train tracks and crayons, legos and laundry.
I follow a trail of Pokemon cards and marbles
up the stairs, breadcrumb-like,
all the way to their rooms.

And here I stop to visit each of them in turn,
amazed in this moment by their united quiet,
by their collective lack of activity.
It’s as though they filled the day
with such relentless noise and feverish enterprise
because they were saving up all their silence,
all their idleness and inaction,
to spend it here, now, all in one stretch.

I sit with Levi, first.
His head is buried under the pillow,
and his comforter is knotted around his body
from consistent rolling in the same direction.
The turbine sleeper.
I push his pillow off to the side,
and he draws a deep breath of relief.
Lord, grow this one in wisdom and restraint.
Guide his steps, and draw his heart to you.

I come to Logan next.
His bed looks empty at a glance,
but a large lump under the blankets in the middle
gives him away.
The fetal ball sleeper.
I scoot him back up to his pillow,
and tuck the blanket under his chin.
He twitches, cocking an eye half open.
Lord, grow this one in courage and perseverance.
Guide his steps, and draw his heart to you.

Then last to Cambren.
His blankets are flung off the bed
and he’s laying with limbs spread in all directions,
perpendicular to the mattress.
The exploding sleeper.
I straighten his little body
and cover him up again.
He grits his teeth.
Lord, grow this one in patience and compassion.
Guide his steps, and draw his heart to you.

I hear pattering on the roof. It’s starting to rain.
Looking once more over the placid faces of my sleeping sons,
I wonder where their journeys will take them.
I whisper a final prayer for the night:
Guide their steps, Lord, and draw their hearts to you.

To celebrate this auspicious day I’m going to revisit some of the funniest quotes and conversations that we’ve collected from Logan over the past year. Here they are, sorted from earliest to most recent:

Dad: “Wow Logan, you built a Lego man with three heads. That’s great.”
Logan: “And two pee-pees.”
Dad: (Laughing) “And… what?!”
Logan: “Three heads. And two pee-pees.”
(August 2007)

Dad: “Logan, you need to stop jumping now and hold still.”
Logan: “Why?”
Dad: “…because if you don’t stop… I’ll have to cut your legs off.”
Logan: (Laughing hysterically) “You can’t do that! You don’t have a saw!!”
(August 2007)

Mom: “Logan, would you like to help me put away the silverware?”
Logan: “No…”
Mom: “I’ll let you put away the knives…”
Logan: “OKAY!”
(September 2007)

Logan: “Crocodiles share their food. Like the Bible says: ‘Share.’”
(March 2008)

Dad: “Let’s pray.”
Logan: “I’m gonna be a leopard seal when I’m done.”
(May 2008)

Logan: (Crying) “Mommy! I need a kiss on my owee!”
Mom: “Okay.” (Kisses it) “Is that better?”
Logan: “It still hurts! It hurts like a dinosaur bite!”
(June 2008)

Logan: “Mommy! Levi says that he’ll never be done — never EVER!!”
Levi: “I’m done.”
Logan: “Yay.”
(July 2008)

So, yeah. It’s been a fun year. Happy Birthday Logan!

The first booming peals of thunder were so loud that they shook the entire house, woke us both, and set our hearts racing. Lisa hurried to check on the boys, and I hurried down to open the front door and stand staring at the spectacle. The sky was strobing, seemingly from directly over the house, and the lightning and thunder were coming right on top of each other. The thunder had that crisp, cracking attack that sounds like tearing fabric. The air was warm and thick, and as I stood there, the rain came like a wave sweeping over the yard. It poured down heavier and heavier, building into a deluge, until standing there under the eave was like standing under the rim of Silver Falls. Suddenly everything was rattling, and I was laughing in disbelief.

It was hailing. In July.

I reached out and picked up a hailstone and it was just a bit smaller than a marble. Lisa joined me at the door, and we both stood and watched the storm for a few more minutes. Amazingly, the boys all slept right through it (they’ve become pretty sound sleepers in learning to live with each other in a single room).

Taken together with the tornado that we had in January, this is shaping up to be a year highlighted by some truly freakish weather. Maybe we’re seeing the first symptoms of climate change.

Or maybe God has been amused by the amateur pyrotechnics of our roman candles and sparklers, and He decided to remind us what a real fireworks display looks like.

Either way, what a show.

Levi threw up all over the inside of the van.

We had just come home after a busy day and were in the very act of exiting the vehicle, when Levi, who sits in the back, suddenly stopped and braced himself between the two middle chairs. “Come on Levi, let’s go,” I said. In reply, he made a little burping noise and released a volley of puke all over the upholstery. A moment of stunned silence prevailed, with Lisa and I looking on in muted horror. Then came a second, even more productive heave, as Levi began hosing half-digested foodstuffs like he was Linda Blair. By the third heave I became aware of a desperate and pleading voice crying, “No! No! Noooooooooo!!”, and by the fourth heave I realized that the voice was my own.

Lisa and I spent about two hours last night conducting a hazmat cleanup of the van after the boys were asleep. We removed all 3 carseats, 4 of the chairs, and about 4 bags of belongings, and then scrubbed down and sanitized everything.

This morning the van still smelled like vomit. We went through a second round of scrubbing, but with less hope for a completely restored vehicle.

At this point I’m thinking that our family car has a lot of evergreen-scented air fresheners in its future.

To recap for anyone just joining us, Shepard is conducting some kind of mystery game and I’m trying to facillitate discussion by blogging about the whole thing. You can read part 1 here, part 2 here, and you can reference all of the clues here.

One note about the new clues: They all shared the same footer, which read “You are invited to visit ‘Clintonium.com’ and help solve the mystery!” As with the “say hello to the folks for me” footer, I decided that this wasn’t part of the clue itself, so I stripped it off.

Other than that, the first thing I noticed about these new clues is that the same set of lowercase letters make yet another appearance, this time in the order “ather” and repeating in the duplicated text of each clue instead of spread across all three.

I had a new thought about these letters over the weekend. Aunt Joan had pointed out that there was a fourth english word you could form out of the letters: rathe. That word seemed somehow familiar to me, but I couldn’t immediately place it. Then on Sunday it came to me: Rathe was the name of the villain in Young Sherlock Holmes. He was the likable professor who turned out to be the evil cult leader, Ehtar (and eventually Moriarty himself, if you watched through the closing credits).

John Watson: Amazing, Holmes. Simply amazing. Of course, you did forget one very important clue.

Sherlock Holmes: Oh? Please enlighten me.

John Watson: Well, “Rathe” is “Ehtar” spelled backwards.

Sherlock Holmes: Very clever, Watson. Well, I’m certain I would have arrived at that conclusion sooner or later.

John Watson: [smiling] Sooner or later.

I’m a big fan of the movie (it’s in my top 100 list), and I’m pretty confident that Shepard is a fan too. The Sherlock Holmes angle ties in well to a mystery game, and the Rathe/Ehtar cypher could be looked at in a few different ways. So this feels more like a solid lead than anything else that has occurred to me so far. But even if it is the intended inference, and not complete nonsense, it’s still only a clue that leads to another clue. And I’m again left wondering if there is any meaning to discover at the bottom of all this…

So Shepard had sent me a cryptic email, and it appeared to be the first clue in some sort of mystery game. There were 12 broken addresses in the CC field, and it looked like the only way to advance the game would be to “say hello to the folks.”

After spending a few days wondering whether I really wanted to pester some of the straight-laced older folks in the group about something as frivolous and odd as a mystery game, I decided to step up to the plate. (Shepard had started it, right?) I repaired all the addresses and emailed everyone asking them whether they had received any strange emails from Shepard.

After about a week, Shepard’s brother, Evan, and then his Mom, Joan, forwarded me the emails that they had received. But I never heard back from the other eight people. I touched base with Shepard and confirmed that I had all the email addresses correct, then tried mailing them again. But still nothing. Eventually Shepard decided to follow up with them himself.

As it turned out, real life concerns had derailed most of them from participating. Little things like undergoing major surgery, or fleeing from their burning homes in California.

Anyway, as the whole thing was predicated on everyone in the list working together and pooling their clues into one knowledge base, the game stalled out and died. After a couple of months it became obvious that there would be no resuscitating it in its original form.

So Shepard got in touch with me, and together we hatched a new plan.

That’s where you come in.

Yes, I’m recruiting a new set of collaborators to help me solve the mystery. Shepard has sent me all 14 of the original emails, and I’ve posted them here.

I should mention that I’m not sure whether these 14 emails constitute the entire body of clues, or whether there will be more to come once we reach a certain milestone… all I know is that this is everything so far.

So who’s ready to roll up their sleeves and help me solve this thing? Post your thoughts and theories here so that we can all discuss them.

A few months ago, while he was still serving in Iraq, my cousin Shepard sent me a very mysterious email. It really made no sense at all, and I found myself wondering if his account had possibly been hijacked by someone else. This is what it said:

THe MUPPEt SHOW (i.e. An ichthyic act)

 

P.S. Save this e-mail and be sure to say hello to the folks for me.

In addition to the weird text, the CC field was littered with email addresses for friends and family that were all intentionally broken by at least one character. I scratched my head and sent him this reply:

LOL. I’m a bit confused… did some attachment not make it through or something? All I got was the text below, and I can’t make heads or tails of it…

Also, all of the CC addresses are hackerized/corrupted with weird characters… *queue twilight zone music here*

You okay? )

He then replied with this:

To the best of my knowledge, the following observations are correct Sir:

1. You are “a bit confused”.
2. All you got was “the text below”, as there are no signs of attachments having been included.
3. You “can’t make heads or tails of it…” (yet).
4. Some characters in the CC addresses appear to have been deliberately rendered so that they are not quite deliverable in their displayed condition.
5. Twilight Zone music ought to be playing right about now. (I can’t believe what it costs to rent an orchestra these days!)

For the present, I must respectfully disavow any and all further knowledge of the E-mail to which you refer. And yes, I’m okay.

 

P.S. Don’t forget to say hello to the folks for me.

After reading that I felt reassured that I really was talking to my cousin, and that he was still more or less sane. But something strange was definitely afoot. Without any formal announcement or explanation to prepare me, he was activating me as a player in some kind of game. A mystery game. And the best clue I had to go on seemed to be the (repeated) suggestion to “say hello to the folks for me.”

Clearly, I was supposed to get in touch with the people in the CC line and work together with them to try and figure out what was going on… but toward what end?

Find out next time in… Shepard’s Mystery Clues, Part 2!

TO BE CONTINUED!!

On Sunday Lisa went grocery shopping while I stayed home with the boys. When she got back she told me she had been to Winco and Safeway and they were both out of bananas. A little inconvenient, yes. A little strange, maybe. But no cause for alarm, right?

Then yesterday night I stopped at Fred Meyer on my way home from work to grab us a few essentials and they, too, were out of bananas. So what’s the deal? Is this just an odd string of coincidences limited to our family? Or is Vancouver in the middle of a genuine banana famine?

At Fred Meyer I tried to hunt down a produce person and get a conclusive explanation, but they were all hiding in shame. Which, of course, leaves me to speculate in clueless torment. Maybe the banana supply always runs thin in February and I’ve just never noticed before. Perhaps there has been some kind of natural disaster in Argentina. Or maybe a monkey-heavy circus just passed through town. If you have a better theory (or better still some actual insight), please chime in.

So far, 2008 is shaping up to be an unusual year. First the tornado, now the banana famine… maybe next week it will rain frogs and the Columbia river will turn to blood.

Honestly, I think we could endure all the plagues of Egypt at this point if we could just get hold of a simple banana.

1. Dad: “That’s a nice picture Logan.”
   Logan: “It’s a dark forest.”
   Dad: “Oh? How dark?”
   Logan: “One hundred dollars dark.”

2. Logan: “Ask me to hear a joke.”
   Dad: “Okay, can I hear a joke?”
   Logan: “Why did a boy swim in a water with a bad sock?”
   Dad: “Uh… I don’t know. Why?”
   Logan: “Because he wanted to be EATED by the bad sock!!”
   (At this point I realized that he was trying to say “shark” rather than “sock”, but still…)

What can I say? He is a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma, that eats only fishy crackers.

There was a tornado here in Vancouver today. And based on the damage reports I’m seeing in the news and Lisa’s firsthand account of things, it passed about 5 blocks south of our house.

I happened to be talking with Lisa on the phone around 12:15 PM, and she said, “Ooooh, we’re starting to get some thunder and lightning.” We said goodbye, and I got back to work. About 20 minutes later, around 12:35, Eric piped up from the cube next to mine with, “Hey, we’re under a Tornado Alert.” I went straight to weather.com and scanned through the alert text:

THE NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE IN PORTLAND HAS ISSUED A
* TORNADO WARNING FOR… SOUTHERN CLARK COUNTY IN SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON
* AT 1220 PM PST… THE PUBLIC REPORTED A TORNADO NEAR HAZEL DELL… OR ABOUT NEAR VANCOUVER DOWNTOWN… MOVING EAST AT 30 MPH.

I called home immediately and was relieved to hear Lisa’s calm voice on the other end. “You wouldn’t believe the weather we had here for the last few minutes!” she said. I told her about the tornado alert and she told me what they had seen from the upstairs windows: dark, roiling clouds filled with debris like shingles and branches; sheets of hail rattling down; and a low, continuous, rumbling sound.

Apparently the tornado formed over Vancouver lake and cut about a 4 mile swath east through Fruit Valley and Hazel Dell, tearing up trees and toppling power lines along the way. It destroyed two portable office buildings and about 50 rowing shells moored at the Vancouver Lake Crew club, completely demolished a home near the lake, hurled shopping carts out into moving traffic at Fred Meyer’s, and flattened a pumphouse and tore parts of the roof off at Joel Olsen Trucking.

This is the first tornado to hit Vancouver since 1972, and miraculously, not a single person was injured today. I’m feeling very thankful for the safety of my family right now.

Wow. Talk about kicking off the new year with a bang. We’re not in Kansas anymore, are we Toto?

Hi Everyone!

Wow, 2007 has been a very busy year for us. On May 3rd we welcomed our third baby boy into the family – Cambren Louis Northstar. He has been a real delight to us. He has such a cheerful personality, and he can light up an entire room with his big, bright, two-toothed smile! He is seven months old now, weighs around 23 pounds, and is on the verge of crawling (and getting into mischief). So far he has only mastered scooting backwards though, which really frustrates him because he wants to go toward the toy, not away from it. I know it’s just a matter of time before he gets it. He is a stout little guy.

At three years old, Logan is enjoying his older brother status. He likes to let it be known that he is a big boy (although he still needs the comfort of his thumb and a blankie once in a while). He spends a lot of time pretending that his blankie is a road for his Hot Wheels cars. He can also be very particular about things being just a certain way, even bordering on obsessive compulsive tendencies at times. Hmmmmm… I wonder where he gets that from? Certainly not Daddy, the man who sorts his shirts by color and style and hangs them all facing the same direction? Logan is currently enjoying taking roller skating lessons. They start with the wheels tightened up quite a bit to help the kids build confidence, and then they gradually loosen them. It will be fun to see him do more rolling and less stumping as the weeks go by. The words that best describe Logan right now are sensitive and thoughtful.

At five years old, Levi is becoming a very capable young lad. Within one week this summer he learned how to ride his bike without training wheels, go across the monkey bars without any help, and pump himself on a swing. It hit me at that point that he is growing up! This November he developed a passion for swimming. After taking a few lessons he has become very confident in the water. It still looks half like drowning to me, but he nonetheless succeeds in paddling his way across the deep end of the pool each week during our family swim time. I stay close by just in case, but he insists that he doesn’t need any help. We decided to try out homeschooling this year and I have to say that I am so glad we did. It has been a learning experience for both of us, but well worth it. It has been such a joy to see Levi take his first steps in reading. I am amazed at how well he is doing, and how excited he is about making progress. Now he is trying to read everything, everywhere we go. Writing was a struggle at first, until I realized that I was expecting too much too fast. He seems to be a natural in the math department though. He is such a good and willing student. I hope to instill a love for learning in him that will last for a lifetime, so I’m praying for wisdom and guidance as I go. The words that best describe Levi at this age are confident and well-rounded.

I’ve been doing some painting. A couple weeks ago I stayed up almost all night painting the living room and the dining room. After grabbing a couple hours of sleep, I came back downstairs filled with the hopeful expectation of seeing a job well done. What I saw instead was red. A hideous and overwhelming RED from floor to ceiling. Did we actually pick that color?! I felt like crying over the wasted time, money, and effort. But Clint and I did learn something valuable from the experience: they’re called accent colors for a reason — use them sparingly. Besides painting and re-painting I have mostly been wrapped up in motherhood. I feel like I have grown to enjoy it more over the years as the surrender of self has gradually taken place. I have realized that parenting is one of those things not to be taken for granted. That, unlike painting your walls, parenting is a one time deal. Once my children grow up I won’t get a second chance to enjoy this time with them. So I am trying my best to make the most of it. My personal musical pursuits have been put on hold for the most part, although I still sing at church about once or twice a month, and I have also been teaching piano lessons a little bit. Oh, and I almost forgot to mention my month long obsession with origami! I think I liked it so much because I could whip out something so neat in so little time. That’s always satisfying.

Clint is going on about six years now working as a web developer for the Federal Highway Administration. Well, actually the agency is called something like Western Federal Lands Highway Division of Blah Blah and Something Something, but he just refers to it affectionately as “Wafflehead” since that’s how the acronym sounds out. He has received several awards for various projects that he has worked on there, and he is really good at what he does, even if I don’t explain it very well. When he is not at work he loves to spend time with family and friends. His favorite game to play with the boys is Tickle Monster. The object is to capture little boys and tickle them until they laugh so hard they almost wet their pants. He has even given names to his various patented tickle moves, which he shouts out with glee in advance, like called shots. Favorites include “button eel”, “thighmaster”, “filet-O-foot”, and “catch 22″ (which consists of tickling both the neck and armpit simultaneously so as to maximize the vulnerable territory and render the victim defenseless). This game probably explains why none of our pictures are hanging straight, as they get jostled from all of the running and tackling throughout the house. Clint has also taken more of an interest in “blogging” this year – posting family news and pictures on his website at Clintonium.com. Feel free to drop by his website any time for up-to-date family stories and photos.

Well, we are gearing up to celebrate Christmas and to press on into a new year. My hope for this year is that it will be full of good memories together. As I am so clearly aware these days of the passage of time, I want this to be our motto, taken from Matthew 6:19-21 – “Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasure in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Merry Christmas and God Bless,

The Williams Family

Bit 1: Our friends Anne and Sean Denniston are flying in to PDX tonight just after 8 PM. They’re planning to stick around through the new year before flying back to Philly. We’re planning to drive down and meet them at the terminal with all three of our little guys to give them an appropriately rowdy Northwest welcome. And to drive them home. Aughhhhhhhhh!! Look out TSA, here comes chaos!

Bit 2: Our cousins Evan and Maureen Williams have now officially brought their twin boys, Leo and Seamus, home from the NICU! Aughhhhhhhhh!! I mean, hurray! As they’re only about 5 pounds apiece, I propose using them as stocking stuffers. You can check their myspace page for ongoing updates.

Welcome home everybody! Aughhhhhhhhh!!!

This is the first time we’ve done the real tree thing together as a family. Up until now we’ve mostly done the fake tree thing, with an occasional no tree at all. Lisa reminded me that we did have a real tree once as a couple, before we had kids. It was the year that my Mom found a ratty little Charlie Brown Christmas tree in a garbage dumpster somewhere and brought it over as a gift. Shortly after that, our apartment became infested with fleas.

I expect better of this Thornton tree.

The kids really enjoyed the trip to the tree farm, and I guess I did too, even if it did feel a little like the macabre opposite of Arbor day. I patted the tree and tried to console it about its destiny until Lisa told me to stop talking to it. Once we got it home the boys had a blast decking it out with garland and oranments. And it looks good.

If we get any fleas though, that’s it. Fake trees forever after.

On Thursday, November 1, my cousin Evan (Shepard’s brother, for those of you who haven’t met him) and his wife Maureen welcomed their twin boys, Leo and Seamus, into the world! The boys are around two months premature, but they’re apparently quite healthy and active. I’m not sure how long they’ll need to stay in the NICU, but if you have a minute please pray for their continued healthy development, as well as for Maureen’s recovery from the C-section. Congratulations Evan and Maureen! Welcome to the adventure of parenthood!

And no less exciting is the news that my cousin Shepard returned home safely this weekend from his first deployment in Iraq. He’ll be stateside now at Fort Carson in Colorado for six to seven months until his next deployment comes up. I imagine he’ll probably get a chance during that time to head out to the east coast and meet his new nephews. Thank you to everyone that was praying for his safety, and thank you to God above all for bringing him home.

They tell me that Columbus is a decent guy, but they’re getting awfully tired of seabiscuits.