Old Man Christensen

Our (mostly) happy family at Dad's Birthday party

My Dad turned 75 today. Yep, 75. I looked on as a picture was taken of he, Jen and Dave (partners in the birthday celebration we were having) and Dad is still full of life but he's 75 and you can see that - especially when you contrast it to the faces of Dave (no spring chicken himself at 46) and Jen (39 I think). I sort of think of my father at an eternal 40. The pictures of him at this stage of his life are the ones I remember the most. At this time, he had dark hair, overly bushy eyebrows, a bit of a belly and a tendency to be captured in pictures where he was playing with the kids. His hair is now much whiter, he's lost most of that belly and he still is often pictured with kids - just his grandkids now.

Dad mentioned today that he plans to live to 100. In fact, he said that if he doesn't life to be 100, it'll kill him. What a cool Dad. I love that he loves life but he's also not afraid of death. I can see Dad dying happy - which is a great statement on the quality of life he's led. Awesome man.

Bouncy Reward

The kids have accomplished the goal to do 50 good things so we took them to celebrate at a nearby bouncy house place. These are warehouse spaces that have been filled to the rafters with inflatable slides, bouncy cages, and obstacle courses. They are often themed to some kid-friendly locale or animal and the one we visited tonight is called Monkey Island. The kids loved it. Ethan was bright red with over-exersion by the time we left and even Ben had gotten into the fun. We found a toddler bouncy house which he crawled around in until his siblings found him and started scrambling around him, jostling his little body around with every foot or fist fall on the structure. Claire kept toddling from structure to structure exclaiming "Fun!"

Amazing What a Dinner and Movie Can Fix

Ethan began the day resisting his Mother's requests to get ready for school. Alicia punished him, Ethan resisted more, Alicia punished, resistance, punishment and on and on until this afternoon there were no punishments left. I got a call at work from Alicia and she was sobbing so hard that she could hardly speak. I excused myself from the one on one I was having and told Alicia that I would be home as soon as possible.

When I arrived home, they were on opposite sides of the house. It was clear that Alicia was deeply hurt. I also suspected that Ethan was feeling like a very bad boy. They both needed some way to show an increase of love towards each other. I suggested that they go on a date together. Alicia resisted at first but I assured her that she needed some fun, reconnecting time with him. And Ethan needed it too. She finally agreed. When I told Ethan that he would be going on a date with Mom, he lit up. "Really?" He hopped off the couch and did one of his fastest getting ready's that I've seen.

When they came home they reported that they had gone to dinner and a movie and had a great time. That was evident from the pictures they took. It was heartwarming to see a day filled with such negative things end on such a positive note. Alicia loves Ethan deeply - more than I know. And Ethan loves his Mommy.

Easter

Will you look at that ham? Alicia fancied it up with scoring, cloves, cherries and fancy glaze. It felt like 1960 in our home for a minute there. Tam also helped to make a scalloped potato thing for dinner too. She and Mark were feeling a little Christensen kid deprived so we arranged for them to join us today for the afternoon and dinner. The kids loved it and Tam and Mark did too.

This year the kids received a letter from the easter bunny stating that he'd come after church. Then when everyone got home from church there was a picture of Jesus in everyone's basket and another note leading to the first of many scavenger hunt locations where candy was placed. This was done as an alternative to hiding candy or eggs all over the house for free grabbing. It was a bit more paced and equal in terms of candy distribution but it might not have been as exciting for the kids.

Emily asked a lot of questions about how the easter bunny knew our day and knew Tam was coming over (there was a bag for them too). She's right on the razor's edge of discovering the grand deception. Alicia and I don't know what to expect when we break the news. I think she'll know the truth of Santa, the Tooth Fairy and the Easter Bunny this year.

Especially if she happens to read this blog.

The Best Graduation Ceremony

I'm not much of a fan of the typical graduation ceremony. When there are hundreds of graduates - each with a need for a moment of spotlight, the event seems to seep from the moment into the expanses of space and time. Think spinning clocks and hour glasses spinning into a very slow vortex.

So, Alicia came up with something much, much better for my graduation with my MBA. We invited the family over for a dinner at the house, she laid out a red carpet our of house blankets and prepared a black garbage bag as my gown and a cardboard cutout painted black for my cap (with a yarn tassle) and I walked to the music of pomp and circumstance through my kitchen and then accepted my diploma from my five-year-old boy who read it to me (with help from his mother) before handing it over. Then we ate food and one of the most glorious cakes I've ever eaten.

Absolutely perfect.

Corporate Immune System

I had to defend the celebrate success mobile today. There is a potential tour of the office spaces from our upper leadership on Friday and the casual character of the mobile and the associated small trophy of a lego guy was challenged by my boss. As I mentioned in the post linked above, I've seen great motivating and unity emerge from this little thing. So in the face of his directive to stop, I spent an hour with my boss illustrating its benefits. At the end of the discussion, he and I agreed to keep it going for another month or two and measure whether it's making the intended difference.

Generally, my boss is very supportive of new ideas and I'm grateful for that. It's liberating to have the flexibility to look at new ways to try to achieve the objectives of great products, satisfied customers, and fantastic teams. But sometimes my ideas and the ideas of my team raise a few eyebrows in the long-established culture of Church headquarters. My boss is concerned that too many people are starting to think of the team that I lead as "that team" because we're so different. The part of the story that also needs to be told is that we're different but we're also effective. We've showed strongly in our key metrics and continue to to climb as one of the top teams in the department.

I believe that cultural tactics like the mobile, the lego guys, meetings, reminders, and many other things are a large part of our performance. Now I need to make sure that my belief is correct and then keep others outside of the team aware of our successes as well.

Hope of a Return to Sanity

If a person has more than one or two blog entries a year including the words potty, poop or pee (or equivalents) you know right away that they either have small children in their lives or never really exited adolescence. In my case, the former is true (hopefully not the latter also). You also know that their reality perception is skewed further when they speak about these nouns with great excitement. So let me preface my upcoming statement by saying that the ongoing cost of buying diapers, the often unpleasant experience of changing them, the lack of human dignity in having to pick up mini human droppings off the carpets of your home and the uncomfortably intimate understanding of how certain foods alter various attributes of another person's bowel movements are enough to challenge the sanity of any person. To see hope of these things diminishing brings an almost giddy elation.

So with that preamble established, Claire peed in the potty today for the first time. Alicia called me while I was on the bus ride and had Claire tell me what happened and with piles of strangers seated mere feet away from me I had to stop myself from exclaiming back, "Good job for peeing in the potty!" Instead I toned it down to a mere "Good job." When I got home, I hugged her and gave her the full praise. Hopefully, this glimmer of hope gets brighter for Claire. Then there's only one more left.