When Do I Tell Them What To Be When They Grow Up

(Fast readers of my blog posts will notice this was totally re-written. Until now, all my posts have been first drafts. But this one just didn't feel quite right.)

I started out to be a sports writer. I covered high school sports for my hometown newspaper. It was awesome. I left that, worried I wouldn't make money at it. Ironically, I left to get a PhD in Political Science, which I subsequently left, worried I wouldn't make money at it.

Then I sold life insurance, and it sucked, and I couldn't figure out how I got there or how to get out of it (but if Northwestern Mutual calls, I still like their insurance!). Then I decided to just do something that paid the bills and was reasonably engaging, so I went to business school and got a good job.

Present satisfaction notwithstanding, my circuitous career path has given me much anxiety about steering my kids in the arena of making a living.

Meanwhile, if Madeline hears me explain one more time why I think she would make an excellent marketing manager for Disney, I think she's going to beat me to death with jewelry from Claire's.

Seriously, do I really have to let them discover this stuff on their own?

First Day at Cairo American College

Entering school grounds

Good view of the soccer pitch and elementary school

Desert Hiking South of Cairo

Caleb's Self Awareness

"Caleb, do you want to play soccer this year?"

"I don't think so."

"Why not? You don't like soccer?"

"That's just not where my talents lie."

Love that kid.

Jerusalem 17 Years Later

First, am I really old enough for it to have been 17 years since I attended a semester at the BYU Jerusalem Center?  Weird.

I visited again today for the first time since. It was an emotional day for me. I remembered a lot of people and events I am sad to admit I had forgotten.

As you will surely guess, I also remembered many spiritual experiences. Prominent among them is a gem of a spiritual lesson that could have been acquired anywhere, but was brought to me by the unique circumstances of living in the Middle East with a bunch of Utah girls mostly far from home for the first time.

They daily the check-the-mail routine was a source of some, I don't know, agitation for me. I bristled at the giddiness the girls displayed upon receipt of letters or packages. At lunch one day I complained of this to Wade Milne. At age 26, Wade was the oldest of the group.

(As I type this, I now remember how we all worried when he would just finally get married because he is WAY old. Strange culture.)

He apparently had acquired some wisdom with his antiquity. He responded with something like this (I forget the exact words): "Tim, maybe everyone else thinks it strange that you don't react enthusiastically when you get a letter."

The Garden Tomb was great. The Via Dolorosa is impressive. But Wade's Socratic method probably made the biggest difference in my life.

Thanks, Wade, wherever you are these days.

Purpose (Part 2)

The sense of purpose displayed by these folks in Hebron really got me thinking.  That plus the Olympics.

I saw the photo of Mr. Pistorius with the little amputee girl.  Then I thought of inspiration and my own children.  I hope they will find a source of inspiration.  Then I thought about the purpose of my parenting.

Do I parent for me or for my kids?  Harder question than I thought once I really thought about it.

Olympians don't inspire others because they want to inspire others.  Olympians inspire others because they want to be great and they make all the sacrifices necessary to do it.  Their ambition gives us permission to have a little ambition of our own without feeling selfish. Which is also called inspiration.

And then I think of parenting.  Will I inspire my kids by hovering around and harassing them all the time about how inspired they are?  Or will I inspire them by pursuing my passions?

If I am parenting for them, I probably need to worry way less about them, let them figure out more stuff on their own, learn independence, gain a sense of self.

What is the Purpose

As the recent meme goes:  I know we just met, and this is crazy, but what's the purpose of your life?

Or in this case, of my blog?  I removed my prior post after thinking on this topic a little.  I am at a cross roads with my blog of funny family stories.

Madeline is old enough now to deserve some ownership of the way her life is presented to the public.  Caleb isn't far behind.  So what is the purpose of my blog?

I just returned from a day in Hebron, about 10 miles south of Bethlehem.  I was there for my work.  My job will be to objectively convey through an audit report some of what is happening there with U.S. tax dollars.

It was a fascinating experience.  It was a serious experience.  It was not what I expected.  The rigors of my professional obligations suggest that I say little about it until after the report is published in a month or two.

I think I am safe to say this:  I wish everyone could hear for themselves the conversations I had today.

I talked to people who had purpose.

The Cluttered American

We have a lot of stuff.  We have been unpacking and unpacking and unpacking.  My new philosophy is fewer things, higher quality.  Less stuff, more meaning.  I wish I had that philosophy for the last eight years.

It's almost embarrassing.  I see how little the average Egyptian needs to live.  Then I see how much support apparatus I require to maintain myself, and I'm almost ashamed.  Some of the stuff has spiritual meaning:  A copper tea pot that I saw on my parents' bookshelf in my earliest memories; a religious artifact Katie inherited from her grandmother.

A lot of it is just stuff: a million instruction manuals for electronics I've never used and didn't know we had; six remote control cars that have cumulatively been played with for about two hours.

Fewer things.  More meaning.

And some meandering tidbits--

The kids are done with summer camp.  Caleb summarized thus:  "They had instructions for everything.  Don't they know kids just want to play?"

Now they have swimming lessons every afternoon.  It is fun to see them learning all the real strokes and showing some initiative to practice.

I had the day off today and watched Real Steel with the kids this morning.  Make fun of me if you must, but I love that movie.

We have blackouts once or twice a week lasting one or two hours.  Tonight was a black out.  So we gathered on the couch and read The Call of the Wild with a flashlight.  Great book!  After suffocating under Ms. Rowling's labored, clause-filled sentences, Mr. London's economy of language is a breeze.

A Very, Very, Very Fine House and Welcome to My World, Kids

Giddy for the arrival of our final wave of stuff tomorrow morning--comfortable mattresses, a TV large enough for me to watch without wearing my glasses, iMac, books, and toys.

While my excitement for the mattresses, TV, and iMac is beyond words, I find myself wondering what the rest of it could even be.  We've figured out how to live without it, so part of me is afraid it will just be clutter.

In other news, though it is sadly on a very small screen, I am presently watching The Fellowship of the Ring with Caleb and Maddie.  I wore Katie down with my constant pestering and gained permission--more like a resignation.  This is our fifth viewing in two weeks.  It has been the dawning of a glorious new day.

And I get to answer awesome questions like "How come Frodo always runs toward the battle but then never actually battles?"

Over the course of about a month I gave them an oral retelling of the entire trilogy as a prelude to the movie.  So I also get lots of these:  "Dad, you said Galadriel's hair caught on fire, but really it just turned blue."

4th of July, Cairo Style

Turns out they have the 4th of July in Cairo!  Caleb was a bit confused at this discovery, however, since the date is not accompanied by any corresponding celebration.  "It's America's birthday, right?"  Correct.  "And friends have birthday parties, so why doesn't Egypt have a birthday party for America?"

I had the day off from work but the kids did not have the day off from summer camp (I mean, we could have kept them home but that would be crazy).  Our first wave of stuff had arrived the day prior so we reveled in the luxury of shower curtains and spoons that don't bend when you eat ice cream.  I had no idea the kids could scream in glee over bath mats.

Today we went to the Independence Day party sponsored by the Marines, as shown below:

Photos (Including Homage to Hart Family Classic)

We enjoyed Disney World so much this time around that we bought property there.  Disney World is literally our home in the United States.

I sometimes wonder if it is weird for Ariel, et al, to be featured in the blogs,  photo albums,  memory walls, etc, of perfect strangers.

In which the Idaho Falls cousins create monsters (IWIFCCM)

IWIFCCM continued

Madeline's WOWP birthday cake

All Hart boys age 35 and up should recognize this homage to a circa 1982 achievement in Polaroid wizardry.