Expensive Things, Cheap Things, and How Chris Would Fix Public Education.

Warning!!! The first image that you are going to see may be too graphic for children, the elderly, and anyone who has a love for technology.

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Yup, what you are looking at is my iTouch. As I mentioned on Facebook, Owen hit it with a hammer and cracked the screen. I got quite a few people commenting on my post, mostly with the same question, "Why did the boy have a hammer?" My initial response was "Why wouldn't he have one?" I guess other people don't let their 3 year olds use tools, but I have prepared a little picture tour of Owen's life over the last 18 months or so to show you why it is not a surprise for him to have a hammer.

I figure if he is old enough to hold the hammer, he is old enough to be put to work!

As you can see, he is also versed in the art of the screwdriver.

He takes measurements as well.

I really wasn't joking about the making him work thing.

I would get the nails started, and he would come behind me and finish them. We did all of the cabinets in the kitchen this way.

He wanted to help me with the wiring in the kitchen, but Beki said no.

He LOVES to paint!!

So I guess that always by always being around tools, Owen just found them to be his toys

No job is too gross for the boy, if I'm not exempt, he's not exempt!

Sometimes it is useful to have someone who can squeeze into little places!

Good job son, and once you've finished the leaves, go fetch me a drink!

(Ok, I was kidding about that, he totally picked up the shovel and started to do the leaves himself. Incidentally, we have found that the snow shovel is the greatest tool for getting the leaves into the bag. Just thought I would share.)

Now the next question that people ask is, "Did he mean to do it? Are you sure it wasn't an accident?" Now I am no CSI, but judging by the 6 or 7 dents on the back of it, I am pretty sure that this was an intentional act. Premeditated? Probably not, so he isn't going to get the chair, but I am sure that it would definitely qualify as 1st degree Podslaughter.

The last question, of course, is Motive - "Why did he do it?" I believe this is best answered by Bill Cosby - "All Children have Brain Damage...my children are loaded with it!" I would love to delve into the mind of the boy and see what on earth made him think that hitting the back of the iTouch with a hammer was a good idea, but at least I do know that he feels bad about it. (And that he feels bad that he broke it, and not because he never gets to play with it again...which he doesn't.)

"But of course he can't play with it anymore," you say, "he broke it." Well this might be the reason why he is still alive: Even though the screen is cracked, it still works. It still plays my music, I can still access the internet while waiting for Beki on campus, and I can still play my games when the lesson in church is boring!" I must say that for someone with a famous "Renberg Temper" I did behave like the adult in the situation, and really didn't get that angry about it. Probably because I was so shocked that the boy would do something like that, but also, to Owen's credit, he didn't try to hide it. When he realized what he had done he brought it over to me and said, "Papa, I broke the batteries..." Oh well, Father's Day is coming soon right?

In happier news, we finally got the bike attachment for Owen's stroller. Now, if you do not know about Owen's stroller, it is the greatest stroller on earth. I mean we are talking the Rolls Royce of strollers. When we go downtown to see the sights, all of the other children look longingly at Owen's Stroller. How many other kids can ride down the street like this:

Now, my lovely wife has a crazy streak in her, and likes to brave the cars while ridding her bike to work. She must be an adreniline junkie, because she decided that since she already going that way, she might as well start taking Owen down to the babysitter on her bike. We had to wait for REI to get the attachment in, but Beki got it all set up, and took Owen for a test ride.

Owen was pumped about getting to ride behind the bike.

They made it to the babysitter's house safely, though Owen did complain that the ride was "Really bumpy, and mommy went really fast. I wanted her to slow down..."

But of course some of Owen's favorite things to play with are free...

He loves to wear our clothes. Usually he picks mommies stuff, but this particular day he decided that he wanted to wear the pants in the family.

One of the little girl in the neighborhood had these skates that go over your shoes. Owen was in love at first sight, and since she never played with them, her mom gave them to Owen.

Owen got to play with lots of friends this week. In addition to the normal neighborhood children that he plays with everyday, we also watched Lizzy and Emma on Friday, and we went to see his friend Maddy on Saturday.

I guess that popcorn isn't free, but it is cheap, easy and entertained 3 children for at least an hour and a half.

I was very proud of Owen and his friend Maddy. They both wanted to play on the tricycle, and since we have the policy that they work things out themselves, they came up with a solution.

They would ride around and around, switching off between who was pedaling and who was ridding.

These last two pictures are more about our sanity then about Owen. We have been struggling for some time to get Owen to use the potty. He has gotten better about holding it, and as long as we take him to the bathroom every couple hours he has been staying dry all day.

Going #1 gets a little sticker, here Owen is choosing a big sticker for going #2!

We sooooo want him to be potty trained!!!

!!! Warning: Angry Rant!!!

So my sister Karen wrote a post on her blog about how her 4 year old daughter - who attends pre-K in a private school - totally showed up a room full of kindergarten by being able to read, while none of them could. This got me thinking a lot about the problems in public education, and why a student in a private school could read better than public school students a grade higher.

The problem with public education started on October 17th, 1979. That is the day that the Department of Education was formed by President Carter. "What is wrong with having a Department of Education," you ask? Well, consider this: There have been 9 Secretaries of Education in the last 30 years. Of those 9, only Terrell Bell (Born and educated in Lava Hot Springs Idaho!!!) was ever a public school teacher. Two others were college professors, so they actually had some sort of experience in education, but the remaining 6 had no experience in public school teaching.

The current Secretary Arne Duncan graduated with a B.A. in Sociology from Harvard. After playing pro basketball in Australia, he moved back to Chicago and got working for a childhood friend running an education mentoring institute, which later became a charter school. He then moved to be CEO of Chicago Public Schools before being appointed to be Secretary of Education. Now I am not here to question his motives and his ability to run a school system. It just seems amazing to me that the person who is supposed to lead public education, NEVER SPENT A SINGLE DAY TEACHING PUBLIC SCHOOL!!

Consider these largest 7 school districts in the country:

New York School Chancellor Joel Klein - 0 days Public School Teaching Experience

Los Angeles School CEO Ramon Cortines - Taught all levels of Public School/Principal

Chicago School CEO Ron Huberman - 0 days Public School Teaching Experience

Miami-Dade School CEO - Taught High School Science/Principal

Clark County Superintendent Walt Ruffles - 0 days Public School Teaching Experience

Broward County Superintendent James Notter - 10 years Public School/ 28 Admin.

Houston School Superintendent Abelardo Saavedra - 0 days/was a Principal

I guess what I am trying to show is that half of the school systems are led by people who have never spent a day in the trenches teaching. But even more insulting is the "No Child Left Behind Act," which has turned school into a wasteland of test scores. But standardized tests are not what I find the most insulting, it is that congress and their bureaucrats - people who have 0 days of Public School Teaching - are dictating public school policy. Why don't we just let teachers teach, and principals principal?

Private Schools have a lot more autonomy when it comes to people who have no business telling them what to do. I have found that they also have a higher level of parental involvement - if you are shelling out $800 a month you are going to make sure that your child is doing their homework.

I will always defend Public School as being just as capable as Private School to provide your child with a quality education (I think I have to or the union will come and beat me up), but success rests not solely with the teacher, parents have a large role to play. /end rant

The Epic Father and Sons Campout Post...

So about two weeks ago they announced in church that the Father and Sons campout was this weekend. (Personally I think that telling people about it only 2 weeks in advance is kind of ridiculous, especially since we later found out that it had been on the calendar for over a year.) Anyway...Owen was very excited about the idea of camping - even though he really didn't have any idea what camping was. (I shouldn't say that he did't have any idea, one of his favorite cartoons - Kick Buttowski - had an episode where Kick went camping in the wild. Needless to say Owen was probably expecting to have bears, rockslides, and numerous other adventures that thankfully didn't happen.) What really had Owen excited was that we were going with his best friend Dean. (What had me excited is that we were going in Dean's family's van, which had a DvD player.)

We haven't even left out street and they are already mezmorised by the DvD.

The campsite is only 22 miles from our house, but thanks to the joys of living in a metropolitan area it still took us an hour and a half to get there. You just take a right off of the main road through town and you are in what looks like a normal campground, until you walk along one of the paths and end up in someones back yard! The weather forecast had already warned us that there was a good possibility for a little rain, (don't worry, there will be a full blown angry rant about this later) so as soon as we showed up the Dads set to work getting the tent and fire set up, while the boys set to work exploring.

I took this picture right as I got out of the car. Notice that Owen and Dean made it out before any of us - they saw land to be explored!

So now we reach the part where I get to brag about my awesomeness and tell you how I saved the camp. I guess I can admit that I didn't save the camp, I just facilitated the saving of the camp. For some reason Beki and I have accumulated a lot of camping supplies. We have a giant tent and numerous sleeping bags, which is strange when you consider that we have never actually gone camping as a family, so we just took everything with us in case people needed a tent or sleeping bag to sleep in. But my most brilliant idea was the firewood.

I came to this same campout last year without Owen, and there is no good wood to make your fire out of. They have a "camp host" who will sell you firewood, but it is expensive and lame. Now I had a tree chopped down last summer, and the missionaries have been splitting it for me, so we have a lot of good firewood at my house. Learning from my experience last year, we took a load of kindling and a few good logs up with us. By doing this we were breaking the law mind you - outside firewood is not allowed because it might bring in "disease." Sure...if your "State Park" wasn't in the middle of the greater Baltimore area, maybe I would believe you. I am not bringing anything in that your trees aren't already exposed to. Why don't you just be honest and say, "Outside firewood is not permitted because we are cheap and want to gouge you with our overpriced inferior quality wood.

Back on topic: We got the tent set up quickly because Jared, one of the Young Men's Presidency who loves camping but doesn't have kids came with us and took charge. While I helped with the tent, Dean's dad Ryan got the fire going, and the kids all decided that they needed to check out the tent.

We ended up with these 5 kids in the tent. The 2 in the back are refugees from Bhutan - they were happy to be out of their house.

Right as we were putting the rain-fly on the tent, the first sprinkles began to fall. Again, we knew that there was going to be rain at some point, and we had been hearing thunder for a while, but the rain was minimal, so we let the kids play in it while we finished setting up camp.

What is it about camping and sticks? Everyone had to have a stick, and usually they all wanted the same stick. Luckily in the woods there is no shortage of sticks.

The rain finally started to pick up a bit, like to the point that puddles were starting to form, (and if there is a puddle, my son WILL jump in it...ALWAYS) so we decided to move the kids inside the tent so that they would stay damp instead of soaked. This next picture will show you how Owen felt about it.

Owen just looked at this picture while I was writing and said, "Papa, that's me. I'm sad." I asked him, "Why were you sad?" He responded, "I wanted to go outside." Yup, I've traumatized him for life. (Next on Oprah, juvenile delinquents whose fathers didn't let them splash in puddles as children.)

Shortly after that picture was taken the world just about ended, or at least that is what it sounded like. We had a cloudburst break on top of us. The lightning was blinding, and the thunder wasn't just loud, it was concussive and just about knocked your breath out. And they came together, not one after the other, because it was right on top of us. The adults were a little panicked and we looked up to see our terrified children, only to find that they were not bothered in the slightest. I guess not knowing that lighting could cook your innards makes it easier to not be bothered by it, but we still decided that Ryan would take all of the children into the van and have snacks while the rest of us tried to devise some sort of shelter over the picnic table, in case we were going to have to cook and eat in the rain. (You will notice a lack of pictures during this part of the narative. That is because our campsite was slowly washing away, and we were trying to save our fire, build shelter, avoid lightning, and stay dry all at the same time.)

We got a tarp tied up to some of the trees - well mostly tied up, we were working on that while also trying to keep the fire going, (remember how someone thought to bring a lot of good dry wood that we kept in the back of the van in case it started to rain we could still have fire?) trying to dig drainage ditches to stop the water from pooling up around the fire and putting it out, and also trying to stay mostly dry. The rain was falling so hard that rather than walking the 5 feet from the tarp shelter to the van to check on the children, I just called Ryan on my cell phone. (That's right...camping with cell phone service, welcome to Maryland!) The children were fine and having a great time eating snacks in the van.

!!!Warning...Angry Rant!!!

Like normal, if you are not interested in the angry ramblings of a middle-aged man, just skip the red text and move on to the rest of the narrative below. Today we are going to talk about tradition.....TRADITION! The question that I hope you have been asking yourself while you have been reading this is WHY ARE THEY HAVING A FATHER AND SONS CAMPOUT IN MAY? This is exactly what I thought when we got the announcement 2 weeks ago. Seeing as May 14th is before June 21, this campout was being planned for the season known as Spring. Spring is known for it's rain showers and unstable weather. So let's plan a campout where we subject our children to unstable weather, instead of planning our campout for June or July when the weather is better.

The answer to this question is, of course, tradition.....TRADITION. The Stake has always had the Father and Sons campout correspond with the anniversary of the restoration of the priesthood. That is all nice and sentimental, but just because something has always been done a certain way, that doesn't make it right. The demographics of this area are such that people have either lived in their homes for decades and are now retired with their children out of the house, or they are young families renting apartments while trying to finish school. The end result was that most of the people stuck in the middle of a huge rainstorm in the middle of spring were under six years old. Tradition.....TRADITION! /end rant

The downpour only lasted about 25 minutes, and then the rain stopped completely. Our little drainage ditch system worked to drain the water away, and our fire burned strong through the whole ordeal, and so it wasn't long until most of the campers around us started to attract to our campsite like moths to the flame. We had all sorts of food cooking on our fire - Owen and I had foil dinners cooking in the coals, but then Owen saw the hot dog sticks. I traded Owen's foil dinner for a hot dog, and the boy got to use the stick.

Think about how old you were when you cooked your first meal for yourself.

Owen put the hot dog on the stick himself and held it over the fire without letting it touch it. (Now if I would have told him how to put the hot dog on the stick and to not let it touch the flames he never would have been able to do it, but because he had watched all the other kids cook theirs he was super-pro.)

He did need me to open the bun for him, but that was it. He fed himself.

As I mentioned, I had made the boy and myself foil dinners. When Owen opted for the hot dog it created a little bit of an incident because the adults all wanted his foil dinner. They were just about the greatest campfire food ever prepared. They had hamburger, bacon, garlic, potatoes, carrots, red peppers, onions, mushrooms, and green onions.

Following dinner - actually I had to take my dinner with me to this - we had to go on a "5 minute" hike to go to a Stake fireside. It was supposed to start at 8:30pm, but didn't start until 9pm. (Remember that most of the people here are under the age of 6) There was no fire at this fireside, so it was more like a Stake "corral your kids and hope they don't make to much noise why some guys goes on about something that nobody really cares about" side. After the boring guy finished talking tradition.....TRADITION dictated that there be skits. So they handed out trash bags full of props and each ward put on a skit. (Have I made it clear that most of the people were under 6 years old? I have? Ok then.) We did it, but neither Owen or I were happy about it.

"Ok Owen, pretend to be happy."

After the "fireside" we all came back to make smores. The stake was supposed to be providing the materials, but I learned last year to not count on it, so we had brought our own Graham Crackers, Marshmellows, Chocolate bars, and the Renberg secret ingredient, Peanut Butter Cups. If you have never made a smore using peanut butter cup, it is a life changing experiance. You should go to the store right now and buy the materials and make one. No really, I'll wait...

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Totally worth it huh? The funny thing about kids under the age of 6 is that they don't care much for smores. Owen just wanted to each a couple of marshmellows and he was good. This worked out in the end because no one knew where the state smore supplies were, so everyone just came and used our stuff. Finally about 10:30 the kids were pretty beat and ready to go to bed. We got them all changed and in their sleeping bags, and then realized that we had 5 kids who were all going to have to go to sleep at exactly the same time, or they would keep waking the others up. They were all soooooo tired, but still incredibly silly.

Owen and Dean in their sleeping bags ready to go to bed.

What happened next made me feel like the greatest parent ever. I laid down on my sleeping bag next to Owen, and he asked me why I wasn't inside my sleeping bag. I explained to him that I still had to go out and clean up the campsite, but that I was going to stay with him until he fell asleep. About 2 minutes later he rolled over and told me, "Papa, you can go clean up the camp, I'm going to sleep," and he rolled back over. I left the tent and helped Jared - who didn't have kids to put to sleep - clean up the camp, all the while listening to the other dads trying to get their kids to sleep. Finally around midnight they emerged, amazed that while they had barely managed to get their kids to sleep, Owen had been out for an hour and a half. When a Renberg is ready to sleep, we sleep!

The next morning the other kids started waking up at 5:30...then 6:00...then 6:30. By 7:00am there was only one child still sleeping. Owen was the first to go to sleep and the last to wake up!

Everyone else is awake but Owen!!

Breakfast was supposed to be provided the next morning, but Owen is a lot like me, in that we don't like breakfast. Before we left I had devised a way to get Owen to eat breakfast.

Yup, I'm cooking Bacon.

While I was cooking bacon the kids found a whiffle ball in the back of the van, and since there are sticks everywhere, a game of baseball ensued.

Owen with his stick waiting his turn to bat.

Once I had the giant plate of bacon finished, I still had to get Owen to sit down for breakfast. The conversation went something like this:

"Owen, it's time for Breakfast."

"That's ok Papa, I don't want breakfast."

"Ok Owen, I guess I will have to eat all this bacon by myself."

Owen throws his stick and is on the bench in about 3/10ths of a second

"Papa, let's eat breakfast!"

Never underestimate the power of Bacon!!!!!

This picture was to prove to Beki that we didn't just eat Bacon. We also had Strawberries, Orange Juice, and a Chocolate muffin.

After Breakfast we went for a little hike, complete with sticks of course!

As we were taking down camp, Jared had some rope, which led to the following conversation:

Jared: "Hey Dean, can I tie you up?"

Dean: "No way!"

Jared: "Hey Owen, can I tie You up?

Owen: "Ok!"

Owen wanted me to untie him, but I made him get out by himself.

The rest of the morning we spent at a little park where the kids got to play on a playground, and I got to play some soccer. After all that playing we were ready to have some lunch and to go home.

Owen and Dean being silly!

Owen owned this sandwich! Yum!

After a long 22 hours, we finally made it home and got showered and cleaned up. I was beat, but obviously Owen was still full of energy, because he took this:

Pretty good camera work if you ask me!

Officially Approved for Adoption!!!

We got an email from our case worker this morning letting us know that we are approved and that our profile is up online.

Go check it out!!!

https://itsaboutlove.org/ial/profiles/23421489/ourMessage.jsf

We would really appreciate it if you would tell your friends about our adoption desires.  LDS Family Services is different from other agencies, in that the birth mother selects the couple that she wants to adopt her baby, so we have to wait until someone chooses us.  The more people that know about our desires to adopt, the better.  Our case worker told us that often couples find a baby because of a friend of a friend of a friend.  Now we wait.

This Week in the Life

We are trying to make it a bi-monthly tradition to have Owen's best friend's family over for Sunday dinner. So last Sunday we had them over.  They have an almost 1-year-old and so we bring down the high chair for him.  After they had left, this is what we found in the living room - I guess he didn't get enough the first time.

On Monday, the missionaries came over to help Chris with some yard work.

The Missionaries hadn't had an opportunity to work out in a while, so Owen volunteered to be their weight set.

And one...and two...and one...and two!

OK next Elder!

On Tuesday we had our home visit for the adoption.  Our case worker came and saw the house, visited for a minute, asked a lot of questions and then left.  We are pretty sure that we passed and we should be officially approved in a week or two.  So our profile on itsaboutlove.org will soon be up for everyone to see.  Hopefully we will then we selected to adopt a child.  

We had tried to hang some things on the walls earlier in the week, but we finally got it done on Tuesday evening.  It only took us 17 MONTHS to hang things up.

Potty training is still a constant battle and every time we take a step forward, we take five backwards.  There is a Stake Father and Sons campout in a few weeks and we thought that we could use that as motivation for him to get a little closer to being potty trained.  So we put up a calendar/reward chart.  We put stickers on each day that he has good day using the potty.  Here is an example, complete with some antics.

  

The boy got a hold of the camera later in the week.  A few examples from our budding photographer.  

This was just a cute picture of a dinosaur reading a book about a super hungry dinosaur.

Over all it was a good week.  Beki is really busy in the lab as usual and Chris is busy getting ready for the end of the year concert this next week.  On Saturday we took a few hours to take Owen to see "How to Train Your Dragon".  It was a good one and the boys (yes plural) left the movie wanting a dragon or two.  It is one that we will definitely be buying when it comes out.  

For Mother's Day, Chris made breakfast and Owen made Beki this: 

He is really into rainbows right now and loves to draw them on everything and insists that Mom and Daddy need to make a rainbow for him every time they color.

Happy Mother's Day!