Christmas Letter, Part 2

Family, Friends and Curious Onlookers,


Well, here we are again . . . left to look back and lament another year’s useless energies spent. Wow - that was a pretty dark opening line for a Christmas letter. Some days being the parents of nine children can be pretty dark. It’s like pushing a boulder up hill, only to have some matchbox car get under our feet right at the edge of the summit. “CHEESE AND CRACKERS! Would it be too much to ask for these kids to pick up after themselves? You’re all grounded! Yes, even the baby!”

Actually we’ve had a very blessed 365 days. This past year once again brought another mouth to feed. We now have a sweet little girl, Lucianna Louise, whom the kids call Lulu. Luci was a petite 10 pound 10oz, 20 ½ inch long baby girl. That was not a misprint - that was her actual birth weight. When we went in for our last sonogram, the tech said she had sono’d a huge baby earlier that week, all of 9 pounds. When she was measuring our little pumpkin, she kept saying “Oh my gosh! It’s so big the machine won’t measure it!” and she ran out of the room to get the doctor. I don’t think she appreciated it when we all laughed at her. Luci was also, for once, born on the day we wanted - Leap Day. She won’t be able to drive until she’s technically 64, and she can never date while I am alive. I am in Dad Heaven. She has fallen right into the role of princess and has all of her siblings bending to her will, even Greta. They may have a little trouble carrying her around, but they do try. For our older kids, having to babysit her is the best “Just say No” program I could devise. They found out the hard way that babies have a reverse switch on their intestinal tract when Katie was feeding Luci a bottle one afternoon and she literally blew up her gut on her big sister and the living room leather couch. Eli made a frantic call to Zeke at school to find out how to clean the leather while Katie had to step into the shower, baby and all. Now that she is crawling around the house, we just have to find a way to put dust pads on her knees so she can do a little to earn her keep.

I am still working at Qualcomm, covering the state of Texas and traveling at least a couple days a week. Lisa is an RN at Children’s Medical Center working as a Referral Nurse Coordinator. She is also one of the first nurses in the nation to earn her CPEN – Certified Pediatric Emergency Nurse.

It has been a busy fall for the grown ups at our house. We were able to take a vacation of sorts without any kids! The kids’ wonderful Aunt Laurie came to stay with them while we went to San Diego for a business trip. After sleeping the first day and a half, Lisa hit her stride and was seeing the sights and shopping while I was in meetings. We stayed through the weekend, spending an entire day at Disneyland (the kids haven’t forgiven us for leaving them behind on this one). We watched the sun go down right from our table, it was a beautiful scene. I took a picture of the sunset and palm trees with “Ta-Da!” and sent it to Zeke, who had come home as reinforcements for Aunt Laurie. Zeke turned around and sent me a picture of our living room and kitchen in complete disarray with “Ta-da” as the caption. Poor Aunt Laurie was on duty that week when the plague hit our band of children. This one burned fast and furious and pulled all the kids, including their cousin and aunt, into illness. Poor Aunt Laurie. . . I think she is still shell shocked and mumbling in backward Latin.

Greta is still skinny as a rail and full of energy. She started preschool this fall at Little Sinners and Scallywags and she is all sharp angles and no tush. This year at Halloween while all the other kids were going as Yoda, a stewardess or as Spartans, Greta went as a Darth Vader Ballerina. A Darth Vader helmet and a pink tutu made up this little outfit. It’s a good thing that she is a cutie, as she can truly be a little pistol when she is angry. It is funny to see her standing with a hand on her hip deftly running the boys ragged with her commands. They take pretty good care of her, and she calls Eli her “Santa.”

Vianne entered the world of public kindergarten this year and immediately had an admirer, who gave her a note that said, “You’re the reason the flowers bloom in the spring”. This is obviously someone that I, as a Dad, will need to watch if he is this smooth in kindergarten. She is enjoying reading and writing books, but she is also learning the hard way that permanent markers are truly permanent, and that Mom’s wrath can seem permanent as well. I can’t believe that we went for almost 20 years with this kitchen table and it is just now that someone put something on the table that will not come up.

Izabella is in third grade this year getting good grades and being a model citizen - don’t begrudge us at least ONE out of the nine behave like this. She plays soccer in the spring and fall and was a force of nature on defense. Often she would dart into a group of girls and opposing players would fly out in the other direction. She is on the rock climbing team and seemed to really enjoy her new Spiderman abilities. On a gentler note, Bella donated her long hair to Locks of Love this year. She now has a little bob cut that she says is “bouncy and delightful!” This new look, along with her funky new glasses, makes Bella look like an entirely different little girl.

Asa has been busy as well with all the things that a 10 year old boy can be. He and I went to Webeloes Woods Scout Camp and enjoyed four days with the heat and bugs. He played soccer in the spring and football in the fall – which Texans worship with a fanatical zeal. Again this year at practice, I told him, “Boy, your going to have to crack some heads to get on the field on Saturday.” Then I pointed to some likely targets and said, in my most gentle football- dad voice, “Smack those three down, son.” Asa also had braces put on this year that we had to crank wider every night to expand his palate – who came up with this medieval torture device? That makes three in braces right now. But the braces must not be breaking Asa’s style since he was the recipient of a kiss on the bus. What can we do - he’s got that animal magnetism from the Johnson’s side, and that quick temper – I mean charm - from the Thomas side. Asa and I went to Camp Grady Spruce for a week as part of the elementary school that Asa attends. Another dad and I chaperoned 8 kids in the cabin. While all the other parents were freaking out over having to keep track of that many kids, I was thinking “Just 8? Why don’t you give me something really challenging? I don’t have to change anyone’s diaper? Piece of cake compared to home. SHEWTT!”

Braden is now our lone middle school student in the 7th grade. He has managed to not be involved in any police chases or underwear up the flagpole (his or anyone else’s), for which we were very grateful. But we did have another instance of near incineration of our home by good ol’ B. It happened, as most things like this do, when Mom and Dad were gone. Braden decided to pop some popcorn and put it in for about 2 minutes too long. While it was burning and smoke was rolling out, Braden was oblivious, playing a video game on the computer. If Eli and Asa had not come down the stairs and turned the microwave off we might have moved in with you!

Braden also started a new practice in our house, Grammar Pushups. If anyone speaks in a manner that is not in accordance with the King’s English, they are forced to do pushups equal to the number of years they have been on this earth. They will either learn to speak like civilized folks, or they will be strong enough to dig a ditch. At the rate Braden is going, he will be pretty buff by high school.

Braden just finished up a science competition in which the project was to create a passable cream soda. Can you believe that?! Making soda pop for science! Color me frustrated, but I made Kool-Aid for years and was never given a grade! Braden was on the climbing team this fall, but I think mostly because he thought the coach was cute.

Braden and Eli shared a number of experiences this last year due to their membership in the same Boy Scout troop, like scout camp, and they drag me along. Why we went to summer camp in southwest Texas in the summer is still a mystery: One day it was 108 degrees! You just can’t do much but sweat when it’s that hot, and let me tell you - the horses are none to happy to have your sweaty little scout body climb on them when it is that sweltering. While Braden was in camp earning his snorkeling, horsemanship and leatherwork merit badges, Eli was up in the mountains on a High Adventure camp. In this camp, the scouts re-enacted the life of the 7th Calvary. You remember the 7th Calvary - led by General Custer? Not the sharpest arrows in the quiver. A couple of other dads and I decide that we should hike up to these boys for a visit. Fifteen miles and four thousand feet of elevation change later we limped into camp just in time for dinner. It didn’t look that bad on paper, but it really was THAT bad. And do you know what Eli said after all that effort? “What are you doing here Dad?” Earlier in the spring the boys were in a scout ceremony that involved Indian costumes. Eli commandeered the role of the “Brave with the Flaming Arrows.” He was supposed to shoot these flaming arrows into the creek bed, far away from the rest of the campers during a ceremony, where two other scouts would make sure they were extinguished. He got a little too into the role and how it showed off his new man-boy pecs, and started to accidently rain arrows down on the ceremony participants. Talk about lighting a fire under you. No injuries were incurred, but I think a few braves may have soiled their loincloths, if you know what I mean.

Both boys have been forbidden to have girlfriends. I told them the same thing that Grandpa Leroy told me, “Women are nothing but trouble, Boy”. Of course, they listen to me about as well as I listened to Grandpa.

Eli is in and out of trouble as usual this year. I am thinking about having the new braces in his head fitted with a shock mechanism and a GPS unit. If you remember from our earlier missives, Elias was a bit of a troubled student as he found the pull of girls and football to be too much to handle. He pulled it together in the spring, and was able to be on the track team as a pole vaulter, but the allure of football and cheerleaders was still there. This year, his freshman team has done well and he was awarded “Scholar Athlete” for the highest GPA on his football team. But, he is still having girl trouble and has caused Mom to spew fire out her ears over his antics. This caused a great deal of grief for our young Casanova and he is now finding out what a short leash feels like again – go ahead and ask him why Mom cut his hair he was growing long short again..

Katie is a junior at Sachse High School and is now 16 and is not driving, yet. I’m not quite ready for the extra gray hair. She is involved in Color Guard/Winter Guard, Literary Club and Beta Club and is taking a boatload of Advance Placement classes. She has struggled mightily with Algebra II, finding it quite a mystery. But one day, in a twist of fate, Katie discovered that there was one thing she got - imaginary numbers – of all things. To quote Katie, “I understand you Imaginary Numbers, you’re real to me.” She had a very busy year. She and I went on a band trip to California seeing the sights. Another wrinkle in her life is a boy, named Ethan. Ethan has been made to realize that Katie’s Daddy will kill him like a dog and hide the body in a swamp for the gators to eat if he makes his little girl sad, or even makes her sniffle. Katie also went through an audition process for acting. She cleared the Dallas area round and made it to the regionals in Austin. It was a great experience and the people at the audition really liked Katie’s enthusiasm and energy. I am still getting used to my daughter looking like a young woman. She went shopping for her formal this fall with her Mom and some friends. A couple of the dresses never made it off the hook to Katie: “Mom, you know Dad will not think that is modest enough.” That’s my girl.

Zeke is in his second year at OU, but is a junior based on his credit hours and is majoring in Indecision. Oops. . . I mean he is majoring in International Security Studies and/or Psychology, but now the minors are starting to add on. Russian is still on the list, but also are Linguistics, Sociology and Criminology. We are continuing to find out that a free ride isn’t really free. (They fail to mention fees and books and such.) He is sporting a room of his own on the 12th floor of one of the towers and actually has his own (borrowed) wheels. While Uncle Rafe is in Iraq, Zeke is driving his car. It’s a stick shift, which Zeke had never driven before, so his Grandpa Thomas taught him how on the military base in South Carolina. Now that he’s more mobile he comes back from college to see us a little more, which is nice.

On one of those trips home, he and Katie wanted to go see The Dark Knight, but this met with strong opposition from Mom:

Kids - “Mom, Why can’t we go see this movie? We are both old enough.”
Mom - “Because it has EVIL in it!”
Kids – “But Mom, even Bambi has EVIL in it!”
Mom – “It is not the same.”

This is now one of the kid’s favorite lines to use as a reason you can’t go out, see a TV program or listen to a song.

Well has you can see, things are still a chaotic mess here 6004 Crest Court. People often say, “I would like to be a fly on the wall at the Johnson house”, but I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s far too noisy - it would hurt your little fly ears. You would probably get smashed when one brother body-checked another brother into the wall, from which you wouldn’t be able to escape since your feet are stuck in some peanut butter and jelly conglomeration smeared there by sticky little hands. The laundry piles up and the folks at the grocery store sent us a Christmas card as a thank you. We still drive that 15 passenger van, spending all our money on diapers and therapy bills and shopping in our own storage room to see what hand-me-downs you get. I am just waiting for the day the boys get bigger than me so I can score some newer duds.

You are all in our prayers for a safe and happy holiday season. We pray that our faith be strong, that our hearts be humble, and that our hands don’t string up one of the children just to set an example for his or her sibling...

Merry Christmas to you all,

Steve, Lisa, Zeke, Katharina, Elias, Braden, Asa, Izabella, Vianne, Greta and Lucianna