At Least I Don't Eat Slugs

Kids + Restaurants = Broken Conversations
Nicole and I had brunch with Jon and Gina this past Saturday, kind of for Jon's birthday. That was nice, although dealing with Justus and going to public places is getting more difficult. "So what was your favorite part of New Zealand - Justus don't put that in your mouth - hon can you get me the burp cloth he just threw up the banana - and he dropped his water - don't eat the table, Justus, you don't know where that's been - could you move the OJ out of his range of motion, hon?"

I felt as though going out with us is like dating an ADD couple with the attention span of a three-year old hopped up on Pixie Sticks. I don't have much experience with this but I don't remember it ever bothering us when we did that kind of stuff with our child-trailblazing friends the Zimans. I'm pretty sure Jon and GIna are the same way, but you still feel kind of guilty.

Speaking of Throwing Up
Okay, so this is gross. On Friday, I was at home frantically trying to finalize the sermon for next weekend. I was watching Justus, and had my laptop. He was playing on the floor - as he does - and I was periodically paying attention to him. He was happy just rolling around and banging on things. However, teh night before, we had noticed that out cat, Madison, hasn't been eating for a few days. So we thought it might be his food, since he doesn't seem to like it. Is it possible, we wondered to ourselves, that he's such a picky eater he's starving himself? Because he sure is thin now. So we cracked open a can of that gourmet cat food and put it in a little ramikin for him, and he ate it, which caused us great joy. However, the ramikin was in our bedroom, and I don't care for the smell of cat food, so Nicole moved it. Out into hallway right near the living room in a side corner where I didn't notice it.

You see where this is going.

So Justus is crawling around, and he goes over to my side, kind of in my peripheral vision and I'm typing and all of a sudden I think to myself, "Why is he stopping over in that corner?" So I put down my computer and look over and see Justus reaching into the cat food bowl. I suddenly turned into Flash. Humans have never moved so quickly. I intercepted his little clenched palm just as it got to his mouth. I then rushed him over to the sink, and washed off his hands. I stuck my finger down his throat and made him throw up just in case, but only squash and rice cereal from his previous feeding came up. Perhaps that last detail was too graphic.

Later, clearly shaken up, I was having Friday afternoon coffee with Ken Van Meter (who's turning even more into a spiritual mentor, of sorts). He told me a time when his oldest child, Ben, was outside and the sitter turned her head for like 2 minutes and she turned back around and saw slime all over Ben's little 3-year old face. He had eaten a slug.

"So Dave," Ken said, "He'll be fine."

So, Ben, if you ever read this, you're disgusting, you slug-eating fiend.

Premier Party
Tonight is the Premier Party for the short film I sort of helped on called Straight Jacket. You can read more about the film at my buddy Josh Shipp's website. I helped write the thing, which means I got a credit . Whoo-hoo! But really my contribution was pretty modest. Josh and the rest of the crew were the ones who put the long hours in. But I get a free copy of the thing, which is exciting. I'm planning on playing it to the Leadership Class this Thursday.

New Books
I bought Anne Rice's new book Christ the Lord while I was at Barnes and Noble. I thought to myself, "I wonder if any Christian books stores have this?" Then I figured, "No." That's too edgy for most Christian book stores. That's one of the things that drives me absolutely nuts about Christian book stores. You walk in, and their shelves are filled with books profiling George W. Bush and there are rows upon rows of books with titles like "Taking America Back: Why the Gay Agenda is Destroying Our Nation's Moral Fabric" or "Total Body by Christ: Dieting the Christian Way to the New You." Shelves and shelves of that crap, but you can't find anything by Chesterton or Bunyan or Murray.

I sure hope I'm wrong. I hope that underneath the mountain of Narnia stuff, Christian book stores carry Rice's book. But if they don't, I'm not surprised.

side note: By the way, go out and buy the book. Unless you are a seminary student in Chicago with two daughters, because I might have bought two copies and one might be coming in the mail along with some toys and candles and other stuff, but I'm not allowed to tell you that because then I'm be ruining a surprise.