DELINQUENT!!

Yeah, I know. For those 2 of of you out there that are living and dying but what gets put on this blog, I'm sorry. I have been "blog-slackin" as my friend Jeremy Bear says. I look at his blogger and the guy has honkin 50 different subjects that takes me an hour to look at...

...yeah I need a life too.

So here goes....I'm going to try to make up for it by filling you in on all the gold jewels of Hoff's life.

1. I have 4 kids. Main reason for deliquency, I can tell you that. One of them is still in his moving apartment called my wife's tummy which by the way is getting more and more un-comfortable by the second. She still is carries it very well. Nov 11 is the big day! We know it's a girl...or as my boys used to call it....a grill.

2. My boys recently got batman and superman halloween costumes and have been wearing them around the house. As a kid I used to hate the fact that the superhero costumes looked nothing like the real thing. I'm starting to think that maybe I like the kid version better. I got a jolt of joy yesterday when one son referred to the other as .."hey, Batman?"

3. To the disdain of some, my 2 boys are homeschooling right now. For right now, I happen to think it is pretty cool. One reason is that they are learining a TON! They both know all of their states of the US and are both reading and doing addition and subtration. Did I mention that they are in Kindergarten and 1st grade? They just learned their Canadian provinces yesterday for the first time. I could of said Quebec and maybe Northwest Territories...and of course Prince Edward Island because of Anne of Green Gables, my wife's favorite movies as a kid. All-to-say, my kids are doing well with the school thing. Mainly because of my wife who is the Juila Childs of homeschool teaching. I don't know if we will homeschool their whole Academic career, but it seems to work well for now.

3 1/2. The other day I had to actually teach because my wife was out. The page for my son Johnny had 6 squares with words at the bottom of each square. He had to figure out the word, and then draw a picture of what the word was. Example: car= draws a car.
Well, I was working with my other child while I heard him souding out the words in my left ear. I looked at his page and saw all these beautiful pictures drawn in all of these squares. Then I see a circle with a line down the middle over the word 'bus."

"Johnny, what is this?"

"butts"

"Johnny, the word is "bus."

"Oh." starts to erase

"NO! Leave it. I want mom to see it."

The joys of homeschooling


4. I hit a stop-sign the other day. I was eating and driving at the same time and side-swiped a stop sign..right on Main St. (small towns call their main street...um, Main St.) I felt like a complete doofus. I had to call the Village Hall and tell them that I hit one of their 7 stop signs and that I'd be willing to pay for the damages. They had me sit in that dark room with one light bulb over my head.

"What happened?"

"Well I was turning and I got too close to it."."

"Is that it?"

"Yeah, that's it."

"You're gonna get the whole deal unless you sing."

"Allright! I was eating a sandwich."

"We knew it! Book em, Dano."

"NOOOOOooooooooooo!"

I saw the other day that the sign looks fixed. I haven't seen a bill yet.

5. We were all in the van the other day and Johnny, my 5 year old, starts singing an original composition.

"Fatty Daddy Daddy Fatty Fatty Fatty Daddy Daddy"

My wife started to giggle. I know I've kind of let my weight go but I always consoled myself with the fact my wife and kids still like the way I look and that I would eventually get back to excercsing once the kids were in college.
Now I'm giving considerable thought to maybe looking at that tread-mill that sits in our basement. I might even get a sweat wiping the dust off it.
I have to admit, at least it wasn't a song about "poo-poo" which is the favorite ssubject of their song-writing. I wonder if Bob Dylan ever wrote a song about "poo-poo." He probably would of sold a million more albums because whatever the kid likes , the parent likes too.



5. Movies. Sometimes I do get an escape. This summer I saw 2 movies. Batman Begins and Revenge of the Sith. I did rent, not too long ago, a movie called "Sin City." I saw a preview and thought it looked really cool..like a comic book. I watched it and I couldn't believe the violence. Maybe I've just missed the majority of movies out there with violence such as this. Maybe, I'm just a wuss. But I have to admit, I was pretty disturbed. Maybe, it's because having kids, I've softened a bit to the content I allow myself to digest. With a steady diet of Veggie Tales, Thomas the Tank Engine and the occasional Pixar romp becoming the soundtrack of my life, I've somehow let go of that stuff that adults are supposedely be allowed to partake of in this culture. The movie did look cool from an artistic sense, but the rest I had a hard time stomaching. I did however watch "Robots" with my kids yesterday....I enjoyed it. It seems that whatever they like..I seem to like. Must be part of that whole "losing your life" thing.

6.Having kids basically leaves out many other subjects of interest that I could be blogging about, (except, of course, links that I get from reading other people's blogs..thanks, Jer.) There are sometimes a feeling of panic that hits that says, "DUDE! YOU'RE MISSING YOUR WHOLE LIFE BECAUSE YOUR STUCK WITH THESE ADORABLE LEECHES!" However, I then console myself with the fact that I am giving up something. All the greats had to sacrifice. The journey of "dying to self" is a good one from your transccening pousteau (compliments to Dr. Forbes) but when your in the middle of it, it's a battle. I find myself desperately grasping at some inklking of my life unitl I find out it's utterly useless.

"As soon as I think I'm out..they pull me back in." (Machael Coreleone, Godfather 3)

I sometimes eavesdrop on single people talking about how they went rock-climbing and how they were able to excercise and how they all got together for this and that..and I chuckle.

The sounds of those who still have life.

The old proverb, "He who holds onto his life will lose it but He who loses his life, for my sake, will find it", spoken by none other than Jesus Himself, supports my consoling.

Don't get me wrong, I love the little pink cheeked tenants that live in my house. They are the best thing that happened to me. I guess my heart is a complicated, deceitful little bugger. Go figure. The Bible appears to be right again.

I have to sign off now. But for those of you considering having kids, please don't be discouraged by my post. When I see a child laying in his bed with a wrinkled Batman costume on and a mask pulled up over his head, these are moments where you say to yourself, "life is hard sometimes, but it is good."

For those 2 that read, write me so it give me more incentive to write again. Thanks!

matt@matthoffland.com