Your descendants shall gather your fruits. – Virgil

To use my dad’s words, my Grandpa Jones, my dad’s dad, is “passing away” and by the time you read this, his time with us in this life will most likely have come to an end.  He isn’t sick, he doesn’t have a disease, he isn’t suffering any more so than anyone else would who is spending their final days confined to a bed after spending 80+ years in full pursuit of a joyous life.  There is no specific cause that we are aware of, but his body is ever-so-slowly shutting itself off – he is too weak to eat, too weak to talk, can hardly open his eyes, his blood pressure is dropping, and his body is turning cold, starting at the feet and working its way up.  Having made the decision to refuse a feeding tube some time ago, the hospice nurses are simply doing what they can to make my grandpa comfortable and to help him be at ease as he seems to be resisting his mind’s instincts for self-preservation and by sheer will, I believe, is forcing his body to let go.  Grandpa is not battling to stay alive; he is tearing himself away from this life and delicately tipping his toes into the next, encouraged no doubt by the sound of his life’s love’s tender voice calling him home…

My grandpa’s biography is the type of biography we won’t be reading much more of in the obituaries of our times ahead.  His life, as I said, is passing away and along with it, so is his breed.  His life’s story represents a history of 20th century middle America, a history that was once the family portrait of a country on the rise, but that now, though it is still with us, hanging on to the fringes of a modern society, seems more like a relic of a time long forgotten.

Carve your name on hearts, not tombstones. A legacy is etched into the minds of others and the stories they share about you. – Shannon L. Alder

Born at the start of the Great Depression; raised in Centerville, Iowa, small town America that had its population peak in the early 1900′s. Son of a coal miner living in a coal mining town, a town which never regained its pulse once the country it helped support for so long found a new vein for its energy needs.  Raised by a man who believed that indoor plumbing was for women and children – men’s place was outdoors, no matter the temperature or the depth of the snow on the ground.

Got his first job working on the railroads when he was 18, married at the age of 19, went to work in the factories for Alcoa at age 20, and bought his first home at the age of 31.  The marriage lasted 44 years (cancer brought it to an early end), the job at Alcoa lasted 38, and that home was the only home he ever knew until fading health forced a move to an assisted care facility nearly 50 years later.

Maybe not. But maybe that’s how the world changes, Isaiah. One father, one child, at a time. – Barbara Samuel>The Sleeping Night

I was born in Iowa, but as the saying goes, I got to Texas as fast as I could.  I was 4 years old when we moved to Texas and so my memories of Grandpas and Grandmas and aunts, uncles, and cousins were shaped by holiday and summer trips back home, RV visits from both sets of grandparents, and occasional connections at points in between when campouts, fishing trips, and other adventures brought our now separate families together again and again.  My memories of Grandpa Jones were also crafted in the bleachers, on the sidelines, and under the Friday night lights of my youth – he and Grandma were there at soccer games, baseball tournaments, football games, and at whatever other activities my brother and I were engaged in.

But my best thoughts of Grandpa come from when we were up there – our summer trips to Iowa.  For a couple of rambunctious little boys who loved adventure, there was no greater joy for me and my brother than running around in “the back forty,” RV trips to granny’s farm to chase the cows (which got us in deep trouble with Grandpa!), fishing on the banks of the Mississippi River, and ending our days on the front porch swing, sucking down as many red, blue, and purple Flavor Ice Pops as my mom would allow.

My grandpa and I were separated by at least 900 miles for most of my life, but I never felt the distance between us.  I never felt it, that is, until much later in life when college took me further south and the start of a career in homebuilding and my own efforts at starting a family took the time that was at one time reserved for my Iowa family.

The songs of our ancestors are also the songs of our children 
- Philip Carr-Gomm

My grandpa loved Christ since before anyone can remember and he carried Christ’s joy with him wherever he went and in doing whatever it was he was doing.  He shared this joy with anyone who would listen and oftentimes when I wanted to do anything but listen…every Sunday morning, the silence was broken early in the day by Grandpa walking through the house, singing in his booming baritone, “Oooohhh, it’s nice to get up in the morning, but it’s nicer to stay in bed…!”  Didn’t matter that he was tone deaf (literally), the man loved to sing…just be careful not to sit next to him in church when the hymns are being sung!  He loved the old time gospels, he loved his church, he loved his family…he loved and he loved and he loved and when he was happiest, he was on that porch swing taking it all in before proclaiming with loving pride that, “This is nniiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiicccee!!!!”

The mass of men worry themselves into nameless graves while here and there a great unselfish soul forgets himself into immortality. 
- Ralph Waldo Emerson

Take a moment to consider this life I just described.  Do you see the same things I see?  Railroad and factory worker, son of a coal miner…hard work, grit, determination.  Kept a job for 38 years, a home for nearly 50, and a marriage for 44…loyal, principled.  Didn’t allow the miles between us to stand against him being involved in the lives of his kids and grandkids…caring, engaged, committed.  Christ follower…faithful, joyful, loving.

My dad likes to quote my grandpa as always saying, “Don’t tell me what you are going to do, show me.  Talk is cheap, actions speak louder.”  This is, I think, the enduring part of the legacy he leaves behind – Grandpa showed us a lot in his generation.  Work hard and love fully.  Keep your commitments.  Work through your problems, don’t run from them.  Commit to a cause and stand behind those commitments.  Be faithful in Christ, faithful in marriage, faithful in love of your kids and family, and faithful in the way you live every part of your life.  Live a life of significance, live a life that matters in the generation you have been given.

These aren’t just words, these aren’t empty platitudes he would use to lecture us with – my grandpa lived this life…he showed us.  He showed us how to live, he showed us how to love.  He showed us how to work and commit, to persevere and to stand strong.  He showed us what it meant to follow Christ, how to love your wife, how to care for your family.  He showed us what it means to live a life that matters, to live a life of significance.  The picture of the way he lived his life is not just a fading photograph of a time gone by; the principles upon which he chose to stand – those aren’t just relics of a lost way of living.  He showed us that generations, his and yours and mine………generations matter.

If I have seen further, it is by standing on the shoulders of giants. – Isaac Newton

And this is, I believe, what I am trying to say most of all about my grandpa; rather, this is, I believe, what his life is telling me – generations matter, principles matter, choices matter.  His generation and the way he chose to live it mattered to his kids, matters to me…it will matter to my kids and it will matter to theirs.  So it is also with you – your generation matters and what you choose to do today with your life matters to the generations that follow behind.

And the question for me is the same as it is for everyone, I think – what will I choose to do with the generation I have been given?  What will I stand for and what will my generation tell the next…about love and life and faith and family and hard work and loyalty and commitment and care and joy…?

My grandpa lived a life of significance, he lived a life that mattered.  My grandpa did well with the generation he was given.  My life’s prayer is that I can honor his generation with the one that I have been given………………

God bless,

Ethan

*When I began writing this post, my grandpa had not yet passed away; before I finished it, he completed his journey home.  Rest in peace, Carl Jones – you have fought the good fight, you have finished the course, you have kept the faith:  February 2, 1930-November 10, 2012.

As of this moment, not the one in which you are reading these words, but the one in which I am typing the words into my computer, it has been nearly 313 days since our family was last in front of the cameras filming a new episode of “Quints by Surprise.”  I know that it probably seems like it has been forever since we’ve been on your TV screen, but really, can you believe it has been nearly a year??  We miss filming the show – we miss the crew and we miss the energy that percolates through the atmosphere on filming days.  We miss having a soundtrack playing in the background of our lives and we miss being a front row spectator to the creative process that transforms our daily routines, challenges, victories, and frustrations into something that is at times fun, funny, and faith-filled, heartwarming, uplifting, and hopefully, always very, very real about the very real ups and downs of life with quints plus one…

When we last filmed, Eliot was keeping us all busy with another soccer season and getting settled in to her new school year (2nd grade) as her super-infatuation with all things Taylor Swift was beginning to overtake her life (that’s her in the picture below, head on my shoulder, Taylor’ed out – before the concert was over!).  This time last year, Eliot was ready to rock it in her vampire costume for Halloween, the seeds were being planted for a cheerleading future when she got to hang out on the field with the Baylor Bear Cheerleaders, and she was wearing the “missing my two front teeth” look with pride and warming up to sing about it at Christmas time!

The Fab Five, meanwhile, had Casey and me neck deep in potty training (and life training!) – the grip of the terrible two’s clinched oh so tightly around our lives!  When they weren’t scheming new ways to keep us on our toes, they were enthusiastically taking on every new experience we could think to throw their way - learning how to ride their bikes and how to dance ballet like Eliot, getting their first real taste of football season in Texas and what it means to be a Baylor Bear football fan, and preparing for the ultimate experience of their 2-1/2 year old lives – dressing up as the Wizard of Oz characters for Halloween!

It should now go without saying (though I’ll say it anyway) – the show has been a positive force in our lives and hopefully in yours, too.  It has helped us to create and of course document amazing memories for our family; it has opened our world up to interactions with people all over the world – some who check in just to say they love the show and appreciate our family, others who are looking for advice or encouragement, and still others who simply want to share their story, their struggle, and their joy, and  want to thank us for inspiring them in some small way to keep smiling and to keep the faith.  Judging by these messages and the many others we have received through Facebook and Twitter, the show has had a positive impact on the lives of many others outside of our little clan…truly an answer to our prayers!

Also judging by the many, many messages we get on the subject, I can tell you that there are many out there wondering the same thing you may be – will the show ever be back??!  Well, the honest answer is that we don’t know for sure, that we hope that it does, and that with each day that passes without a call from TLC, the prospects of the show returning grow weaker and weaker.  There are times when it absolutely kills us to not have the cameras around, to know that what we are experiencing at that moment with the kids is not being captured for the show.  The quints’ 3rd birthday party, our attempts at teaching them how to swim, our first family trip to the beach, funny little games the kids make up, Eliot’s development as the best big sister on the planet – Facebook and Twitter are great, but we would really love to share these experiences with you in living color!!

But the choice is not ours to make…it’s not in our hands.  And those whose job it is to make decisions such as these aren’t committing and they aren’t saying exactly why.  Nonetheless, no matter what happens with the show, we are incredibly grateful to have had this experience and we are incredibly grateful to all of you who have watched and followed along with our little adventures…

So since you won’t be seeing us on your TV screens anytime soon, I thought I would fill you in on what defines “these days” for the Jones family…

These days, those “cheer” seeds that were planted at the Baylor football game a year ago have produced a Four Points Pop Warner Mighty Mite Viper Cheerleader!  Eliot’s soccer days are behind her and it’s nothing but pom-poms and high kicks for now…she loves the cheering, hates the Texas heat she has to endure while she’s cheering on her team!  Eliot has also just started her new school year (she’s a 3rd grader!) and in spite of some struggles getting to know all of the new faces in her class, she is completely in love with her new teacher and is off to another great start!  And how about this – only in our family does a cheerleader have her very own cheer section…

These days, we are still struggling to get all five 100% potty trained…grrr!!!  We made a huge push a year ago to get this done and we had pretty good and pretty immediate success, getting all five completely trained has proven to be really, really difficult…and frustrating!  We’re trying to be very, very patient and not push them too hard, but oh my gosh we are tired of cleaning up pee off the floor!!!!

These days, The Wizard of Oz is still one of the faves in our home, but it has serious competition from Peppa Pig, Max & Ruby, and The Fresh Beat Band.

These days, Eliot is still a superstar big sister – both in our eyes as parents and in the quints’ eyes as adoring little super fans!  Eliot loves to take the kids into her room, one at a time, to have special little play dates with each of them which they all absolutely love.  She has also started to join me at bedtime so that she can read to them, help tuck them in, and give them a giggle before she bolts downstairs.  And her maternal instincts have kicked in – she’ll often jump in to help settle disputes, soothe hurt feelings, and correct the kids when they are going astray…Eliot, the caretaker – who would have ever guessed?!

These just-ending summer days, the kids got more than their fill of sun, sand, swimming pools, ice cream treats, trips to the zoo, sprinkler fun in the backyard, kite flying, and all of the other summertime fun you can think of!  The 5 got their first trip to the beach when we made the trek with both sets of grandparents to the Texas coast…they loved it, they wore us out, and now they wear us out everyday asking when we can go back!!

These days we have finally managed to get the whole family to church and Sunday school on a regular basis…hallelujah!!  The quints love going to church and get excited every week to get to see Miss Kelly and Miss Allie who shower them with good love every week!  Eliot thinks the youth pastor, Todd, is as cool as they come and Casey and I are just plain happy to be back to the church we love so much.  We really can’t say enough good things about the warm, loving, and Christ-focused environment that greets us every time we get the opportunity to be on the Riverbend campus…God has been so good to us through our church home!

These days, there is nothing better for me than to watch Eliot and Jack play together…it is endlessly fun to watch these two go at it!  Jack will come out of nowhere to tackle his big sister, catching her completely off guard!  But you know our little spark plug isn’t going to let him get away with it so the chase is on!  They laugh and giggle and tackle and  chase and poke and punch and then do it all again…it’s awesome and it is totally unique to these two!  None of the girls gets after Eliot the way Jack does and though I know Eliot loves it, I really think part of her doesn’t know exactly how to handle this rambunctious little brat that won’t give up, won’t stop messing with her, and won’t stop giggling is curly little head off when he does is coming after her…so so so cute!

These very recent days, The Fab Five have started attending a “Mom’s Day Out” program two days a week…YAY FOR CASEY!!!!!  The program is held at a local gym, 3F Fitness, and the kids learn tumbling and stretching as well as their abc’s and 1-2-3′s…and I’m sure you guessed this part – they LOVE it!!  Thank you so much to the owners, William and Haley, for putting this program together and inviting our family to join!

These days, sleep is much less difficult to come by though we had to go through fire to reclaim the blissful treasure that comes with a full night’s sleep!  Earlier in the year, the quints put us through every trial you could imagine – Britton waking up at all hours of the night in a screaming fit, Lila waking up at 5:00 or 6:00 am day after day after day, Jack waking up everyone in the room at 3:00 am to tell them all that he has to go potty, Ryan waking up at 5 am so she could wake Lila up who would then make sure Britton, Brooklyn, and Jack got the memo that it was 5:00 am and time to torment mommy and daddy….it was BRUTAL!!!

And because sleep is more consistently available now, these days, life has become almost routine in our usual chaotic sort of way.  Casey’s and my morning workouts have become pretty regular and the kids usually don’t get up until about 6:30 which is a godsend to us…though we long for the days that it will be 7:00 or 7:30.  And since we got rid of nap time, bedtime has become much more consistent (and much less intensely chaotic and stressful!) – the kids are in bed, lights out by 7:30 every night and they’re usually all fast asleep by 8:00.

These days, we still have a handful of committed, loving, and totally awesome volunteers who have been with us from the beginning and who continue to provide loving care to our little ones, giving Casey and I much needed breaks from the perpetual craziness that defines our life.  To our volunteers, past and present:  thank you, thank you, thank you….THANK YOU!!!!

To answer the question we get quite often – no, these days are not any easier than the days that have gone before…though we’re hoping that the 5′s 5th year of life will bring some relief to our weary souls!  I’ll repeat:  no, it hasn’t gotten any easier; rather, the challenges have changed.  Gone are the sleepless nights, hello mega-attitude and meltdowns from 5 hyper-sensitive little beings trying to find their place in the world.  Gone is the endless parade of dirty diapers, hello pee accidents by the handful and the joys of taking 5 tots to the bathroom 5 times when we dare venture out of the house.  Gone are the days of bottle feeding and burping, hello knocked over milk cups, protests over what has been provided for a meal, food thrown across the table, and ginormous messes left at the dinner table…and the dinner floor…and the dinner clothes…and the dinner hands and faces…and so on and so forth.  No, things are definitely not easier by any barometer we can measure by…just different.

But as I write these words, I am reminded that in many ways life these days is no different than those that are past.  We are blessed, abundantly so, and that is no different than before; we are challenged, abundantly so, and that is no different than before.  It has been said that to whom much is given, much is expected.  Well, to put it simply:  we have been given much!  This is something that has not changed and will not change – life with quints plus one is a rare and awesome blessing in every sense of the word.  And no doubt, we will continue to be given much as we face the challenges of raising these 6 to be 6 happy, healthy, respectful, caring, well-adjusted, and God-loving tweens, teens, and beyond.  Let the blessings flow down!!

God bless,

Ethan

Among her afore-blogged-about sisters and brother, Ryan Elizabeth – or as she’ll likely be known someday:  Ryan Elizabeth, Superstar _________ (fill in the blank) – is without a doubt the overachiever of the bunch!  She was the first to crawl (a wounded soldier crawl, but effective mobility nonetheless), the first to walk, the first to run, the first to talk, and the first to hit just about every major baby milestone you can think of.  But that’s just the stuff of “achiever” status – she was the first to do lots of stuff, so what?  It’s not like she was trying to be the first; she just happened to be the first.  Rrrriiiiiggghhhtt?!  Uh, well, Ryan didn’t sit back and watch the parade go by once she marked each milestone off of the list. No, no, no…that is simply not Ryan’s style.

Here’s how a typical scene plays out around our house these days…

Casey:  ”Ok, guys, who wants to color a picture for Grandma’s birthday?”  All 5:  ”Me!  Me!  I do, I do, I do!!!!”  Casey passes out coloring sheets and five different-colored crayons to each.  Five minutes later, 2 of the 5 are done.  10 minutes in, everyone is done, all proudly displaying what appears to be basically the same picture:  several scribble marks randomly placed across the page, 2-3 colors have been used. Except for Ryan’s.  Not only has she used all of the colors she was given, she is asking for more.  And not only are the colors not randomly scattered, they are placed exactly within the lines or within the bounds of where Ryan’s imagination has placed them.  And not only is she not finished, she is just getting started and will likely not be finished for another couple of hours…little girl is focused!

Here’s another from The Fab Five’s earlier days…

Me:  ”Hey Jack, can you show me your new walking skills?  Walk over here buddy…you can do it!”  Ryan:  sitting across the room, drops the Rubik’s Cube, hops to her feet, and sprints – Usain Bolt-style – across the room, and jumps 5 feet in the air, completes a double somersault with a twist, and lands in my arms saying, “Look at how I can walk, Daddy!”  In the meantime, Jack is slowly plodding his way across the couple of feet between us,  first falling backwards because Ryan elbowed him in the chest as she flew past him, then falls forward onto his face as the tailwind from Ryan’s sprint hits him in the back, propelling him into the carpet before him.  Ryan basks in the glow of her decisive victory; Jack muddles on the carpet for awhile, spits up a little, and asks for milk…

Ok, maybe I am exaggerating a little…maybe.  And please don’t take this to mean that we feel that the other four are somehow inferior to Ryan in any way.  Read the blog posts I have done on each of the kids and I believe you’ll see that we celebrate our kids’ individuality and unique mix of God-given talents.  In Ryan’s case, the girl was definitely born with a keen intellect, a good dose of physical dexterity, and a strong competitive spirit, its force of will matched only by her desire to please!

There was a time, actually, that I thought I had Ryan pegged as our most challenging one.  Remember when we used to call her Ryan the Lion?  She came by that name honestly with her frequent and ferocious roars of discontent!  It sometimes seemed that nothing could please her and that she was more than ready to let you know about it!!  I distinctly remember a time when, in a fit of frustration, I prayed – please, God, don’t let her be as challenging as Eliot was when she was Ryan’s age – we can’t handle it with everything else going on!  (If you haven’t heard me mention this before, Eliot was more than a handful in her toddler years – screaming fits, willful challenges to our guidance, and loads of sassy attitude were an everyday occurrence in our home!)

But in spite of the all-too-frequent tantrums and tirades that came to define her, Ryan was always quick with a smile and long on laughter. And while the roar turned into a world class whine accompanied by frequent demands to serve her royal highness – our dining table was where the battle lines were oftentimes drawn up:  ”Mama, give me milk!”  ”I want yogurt, Mama!”  ”More grapes! More grapes! More grapes!” –   these days, Ryan has mellowed out a bit (and so has Eliot, thank God!).  As quickly as the little diva within her emerged (and thankfully before the little diva drove Mama to drinking), Ryan’s better angels won out and her eagerness to please has come to dominate her personality.  We haven’t called her The Lion in I don’t remember how long, though she can still light it up from time to time when she has been wronged!

These days, she is more often referred to as Ry-ry and these days, this is the Ry-ry that we know – a giggly goofball who loves to run and dance and play; a blond beauty with an iridescent smile and a sparkle in her eyes that seems to sparkle more than most; a budding brainiac who knows her abc’s, can spell her name, and memorizes books so that she can “read” them back to us; and a storyteller who will do just about anything to get a laugh out of her sisters and brother when we tell bedtime stories.  The Lion lies in slumber; R-ry is wide awake and ready to take on the world!!

I am about to wrap this up, but before I do I have to say a bit more about that sparkle in Ryan’s eyes.  There is something about the eyes of a child – don’t you love how they sparkle and shine?  All kids have it and it is as infectious as laughter!

Consider this…

It has often been said that the eyes are “a window to a person’s soul” and I know that there is truth to this.  But I would like to take it a step further.  Do you think it is possible that when you look into the eyes of a child who has been loved and who knows love, that you just might be looking into the eyes of Heaven?

Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the kingdom of God belongs to such as these.”  Then followed that with this, “Most certainly I tell you, unless you turn, and become as little children, you will in no way enter into the Kingdom of Heaven.”  Wow!  Clearly he had not spent time with Ryan during her Lion days or with Britton on any of her every-days when he made these statements!!  Kidding, kidding…of course, I’m kidding.  My kids are pure as the driven snow…………

Look, we all know kids are fun and goofy and innocent and super-cute and all that.  But we also all know that they can be the complete opposite of all of that!  So what did he see?  What was it about the children around him that caused Christ to utter such things?

Maybe I’m alone in this, but am I going too far to think that the reason Christ said this, the reason that he was so emphatic and enthusiastic about the purity and faith of a child is that when he looked into their eyes, into that child’s soul, he saw himself staring back at him?  Is it too much to think that in the eyes of a child, he saw the very essence of love, joy, and peace…of hope and of faith?  I don’t think so.  Because that is exactly what I see when I look into the eyes of my kids.

Look into your child’s eyes today and tell me you do not see the same thing.  Not when they are throwing fits and being crazy, of course – that’s when I’m pretty sure there is nothing but the Devil in those eyes!!  But when they are looking to you to play with them, to love on them, to show them something new, to teach them, or just to be with them, can you see anything less than God’s goodness shining through?

God’s goodness in the eyes of a child…and therein lies the sparkle…

God bless,

Ethan

Unexpectedly to me as I sit here, intent on writing a blog update about Lila, the words are just not coming.  With her curly blond hair, crystal blue eyes, and powerhouse of a personality, you would think that any description of Lila Addison would practically write itself.  But as I sit here and stare at my blank computer screen, all I can think is, “how do I begin to adequately describe who this little girl is and what she means to this family?”  There are so many different words and descriptions that pop into my head – curious and adventurous (otherwise knows as mischievous); ornery, stubborn, and willful (or you could say sure of herself and of her convictions); sweet as cotton candy (and at times sour as spoiled lemons); loving, caring, and kind (but sometimes really mean) – but each of them seem to only just peer past the opening pages of the novel that is Lila Addison.

It wouldn’t be exactly true if I said that we always knew Lila’s spirit was doused with an extra dose of indomitability, but it didn’t take long to figure it out…or rather, it didn’t take long for her to let us know.  As  soon as Lila learned to crawl, we knew we were in for a ride!  As parents all know, you constantly look to put your eyes on your kids whenever you are out in public.  Parents of multiples (or multiple kids), you know that you are constantly doing the count, making sure you have all of your kids accounted for.  When you have five and they’re all newly mobile, you do the count no matter where you are – home, back yard, bedtime, bath time, breakfast, lunch, dinner, and even for snacks!  I can’t tell you how many times the count went like this, “1…2…3…4…………..where’s Lila?”  Which was almost followed up a few moments later by this, “Lllliiiiiiiillllaaaaaaa!!!  What did you do??!”

With her adventurous spirit, among the five Lila has been the first to do lots of things, but Lila’s firsts have generally not been of the baby-book-documentation variety!  She was the first to figure out how to take off her DOC Band and then she taught Jack how to do it.  She was the first to figure out how to take off her diaper at night and then refused our constant appeals to her to keep it on…and then she taught Ryan and Jack how to do it.  Once we figured out how to make it impossible for her to take her diaper off, she was the first to figure out how to reach into her diaper, pull out the contents, and throw them on the floor…and then she taught Britton that trick (and then Ryan mastered it!).

She was the first to pull her sister’s hair, the first to push and hit her brother, and the first to take a bite out of Britton.   She was also the first to figure out how to blame much of her destructive behavior on her sisters and brother…

No doubt, Lila is as sweet as sweet can be, but it is also quite clear that mischief is her middle name!  I wrote this about her back in November of 2010 when the babies were still babies, just 21 months along (and too young to be pulling such shenanigans!):

Just the other day I watched her steal a snack from Britton when Britton wasn’t looking.  When Little B discovered the missing treat and voiced her protest, I told Lila to give it back (she had not eaten it yet).  She immediately shoved the whole thing in her mouth and looked at me with puffed out cheeks and her bright, blue, innocent eyes which were clearly saying to me, “too late, sucker!!”

But life with Lila is not all mischief and mayhem.  She is, as stated before, as sweet as sweet gets!  She has a thing for grandpas and will immediately gravitate to one (not necessarily her own) whenever a grandpa is in close proximity (we were at a party once and Lila spent the entire time cuddled up on our friend’s grandpa’s lap…she had never met him before that day!).  Her real grandpa, Grandpa Bill, calls her his little buddy because of her constant companionship with him whenever he is around.

She also has a thing for ballerinas – she LOVES them!  Every day when she wakes up, the first thing on Lila’s mind is ballet – she goes straight to the costume bin to pull out the purple ballerina outfit she got for Christmas and put it on…every single day!!  And speaking of Christmas, she is also incredibly fixated on holidays, all of them!  Christmas, Easter, birthdays, Fourth of July, Father’s Day, Flag Day, Arbor Day, Columbus Day…doesn’t matter, Lila loves it, and when it comes to holidays, little girl loves to decorate!  She’ll first ask, “What holiday is coming up?” and then follow that up with, “When are we going to decorate?”

And then there is Lila’s curiosity which of course goes right along with the aforementioned mischief and mayhem.  Here’s an example of how Lila’s got-to-know mind works – we are planning a vacation to the Texas coast for later this summer and every day Lila has something new to ask about it.  “Will we play in the sand when we go to the beach?”  “Will we go underwater when we go to the beach?”  “Will we fly kites when we go to the beach?”  “Daddy, are you and Jack going to wear shorts when we go to the beach?”  “And the girls are going to wear our swimsuits?”  “Will we see fish when we go to the beach, Mommy?”  “Is the water going to be blue at the beach?”  “Will we build sand castles when we go to the beach?”  “Are there birds at the beach?” “And do the birds eat the fish?”  “Do we eat the fish, too, Daddy?”  New questions have been asked (and the questions asked on previous days get asked again) every day since we announced our beach-going plans!!

Let’s  just say that if curiosity really did kill the cat, I hope that its lethal capabilities are only effectual with felines!  Lila, Lila, Lila…

It is one of the great joys of life to me to witness how God can pack so much personality into such a tiny package as he has done with all of our kids.  Eliot is our happy-go-lucky, wild child; Brooklyn is our pink bunny loving, delicate flower of a princess; Britton is the fireball, as fascinating to us when she expresses her joy as she is when she is filled with anger; Jack is Mr. Happy, a giggle-box who just likes to have fun; Ryan, well…we’ll get to her with the next blog post…

But unlike the others who seem to overflow with their preassigned parcel of personality traits and who are relatively easy to define, Lila is different, a bit more complex, and more difficult to characterize.  She is a veritable variety show of moods and attitudes; a super-sized sampling of sugar and spice and of some things not really so nice.  She is a plethora of  pigtails and tutus, a bounty of ballerina twirls, daring adventure, and sometimes epic fails.  She is our Lila Bear and to know her is to know love…(and also to know some things quite other…) :)

God bless,

Ethan

When it came time to pick names for the Fab Five we found it to be much easier than we had expected.  We simply wrote down all of the names that we even remotely liked then went through making various combinations with the names on the list until we settled on those we liked best.  After a few name-choosing sessions, we had it all figured out and had settled on the names we loved.  In hindsight we reasoned that it was probably so easy because we needed so many names and we got to choose all of our favorites.  Piece of cake!

Except for when it came to name the boy.

There was a lot of pressure in this call – knowing that we only had one boy in the mix and knowing that there was almost ZERO chance of bringing another baby boy into the world in our future, we knew we had one chance to get it right.  And so it was a really, really tough decision…at least we made it that way.  He was our only boy and we wanted him to have a strong boy name.  But not overly strong.  But it couldn’t be feminine at all, no way, not our style.  But it had to have a nice ring to it.  And it had to work with “William” because that is a family name and it was a must that the full name included it.  And it also had to sound good with Jones and it had to work when you said the first, middle, and last together at the same time.  But it couldn’t be too trendy or…….did I mention it had to be a strong name?

Set that aside for a moment and rewind with me back to March 2004.  Casey and I are in our doctor’s office for a regularly scheduled sonogram, but this time it was the big one – we were going to find out the sex of our first baby.  And as you of course know the results, it was a girl.  In a few short months she was introduced to the world, our little world at the time, as Eliot McKenna (we had a hard time deciding on her name as well) and I experienced firsthand the very real feelings of love at first sight! Casey of course already had a nearly-nine month relationship with Little Miss E by the time we first met her and so the maternal love was already deeply connected by that time.  But for me, a head over heels heart explosion detonated the instant I looked into her eyes!!

I don’t have a sister, just one older brother, and was generally pretty shy around girls growing up until I got to know them.  I didn’t really know a whole lot about the mysterious ways of the opposite sex by the time Eliot was born.  I think Casey would even admit to you that in spite of her steady influence over the prior 10+ years, I was pretty clueless in all things girl/woman/X-chromosomed.  But when Eliot was born, something inside me clicked and I can honestly tell you I never once feared her “girl-ness”.  I feel like I always knew just how to love her, how to interact with her, and how to teach, discipline, and nurture this crazy little force of estrogen that had invaded our world and I still feel like I have a pretty good handle on things with her today.  (I know, I know…check back with me when she hits the teen years, has a real crush on a young punk, I mean boy, wants to study abroad, blah, blah, blah…I’ll probably be a complete wreck in those situations, but we’re dealing with the present here people!!)

Alright, fast forward back to Jack…that’s who this blog post is supposed to be about, right?  Well it is and there is a point of telling you all of this about Eliot and the names.  The point is to illustrate for you a contrast:  whereas raising Eliot and the rest of the girls has come as natural to me as breathing, raising Jack has been as challenging as it was picking out his name.  At times, it has been as confounding as you would think it would have been for me to raise 5 girls.  And as natural as it has felt for me to raise Eliot and her four followers, raising Jack has been every bit as UN-natural.

“Life is tough, but it’s tougher when you’re stupid.” John Wayne

I don’t know what I expected out of my boy when he was born…well that’s not true – I know exactly what I expected.  He was supposed to be tough…and strong…and adventurous…and a little crazy like his oldest sister.  He was supposed to be born with John Wayne’s swagger, Michael Jordan’s killer instinct, and Clint Eastwood’s ability to roll his own cigarettes while handling a six-shooter.  A bit much?

Ok, ok…given the fact that I am 36 years old and I still don’t possess the characteristics of the aforementioned American heroes, maybe my expectations were a little high.  So how about this – he was supposed to be born with a hint of their character traits and a strong desire to gain what he was lacking.  Still no good?

I must admit, Jack has fallen far short of these otherworldly expectations, and that is of course a good thing and obviously in line with reality, thank the Lord.  He has been laid back (some of the time), happy (much of the time), and sensitive (way more of the time than I would like).  He’s been funny, whiny, goofy, rough and tumble, shy, gregarious, and loving.  We have called him Big Bad Jack, Happy Jack, and Mr. Giggles, but most often we call him Jack-Jack or Jack Jones…there’s something about Jack-Jack that works for him.  Though lately we have been calling him Jack the Playa now that he has taken to calling his sisters “his girls”.  We have been delighting in (and slightly troubled with) his now frequent, smooth-talking seductions such as,  “Where my girls at??” and “It’s bedtime…just me, my stuffed hippo, and my girls. Out!”  Not sure if he’s been watching hip-hop videos or what, but I don’t think we should let this new language of his go on much longer…

The thing is, it is not easy to define Jack.  He is a mixed bag – emotionally arrested one moment, boyish charm oozing out of him the next; cluelessly rough and tumble with the girls today, helplessly prickly and sensitive tomorrow; happy-go-lucky this morning, as smooth as day old, cheap coffee this afternoon.

What gives??  Boys are supposed to be the easy ones to raise!  Everyone always shakes their heads when they hear about all those girls in my life, but no one…NO ONE…ever…EVER…warned me about any difficulties in raising a boy!  Quite the contrary as a matter of fact.  Aside from the “warnings” that come with toothy-grinned laughter about the usual “boys will be boys” behavior, everyone either directly states or implicitly remarks that boys are not just easier, but EASY to raise.   No one……again: NO ONE…warned me that there would be days when you swear your son is going through menopause or that there would be times when you would rather deal with a rabid jackal than deal with your son’s intractable disposition!

With six kids under the age of eight running around our home we know very well that every child’s temperament is uniquely their own, but surely we are not the first and only family to experience first hand the trauma of a male child’s first few years of life.  Surely someone else out there and more likely many more people out there have experienced similar difficulties with their bouncing baby boys.  Tell me we are not alone in this!!!

Hold on a minute…I think I need to dial it back just a little.  It seems I have maybe laid it on a little thick.  No, Jack hasn’t been that tough to manage.  He has his moments and he has his moods and he is way more touchy about things than we would like, but then again he is only three years old.  For the most part, he is a happy-go-lucky, silly, funny, little boy with a charming smile, a classic little boy giggle, and a loving and happy constitution.  He is an awesome little man who in no way compares in temperament to a rabid jackel…most of the time.  He is my son and I love everything about him!

Can you see how conflicted I am here?!!?

So why the angst and the anxiety about his behavior?  Why do I get so twisted up when Jack rips off an ear-piercing scream at the prospect of putting down his pink (yes, pink!) stuffed puppy so he can come eat lunch with the family?  Why the frustration in watching him fall to a heap in a fit of tears when one of the girls bumps into him??  Surely this is normal behavior for a boy of his age and surely this is a thing that will pass soon enough.

So again, what gives?

Ok, I’ll admit it.  I’ve given this a lot of thought and I am fairly certain I know the answer.  I have come to the conclusion that the biggest challenge I have faced in raising Jack, the one thing that I can undeniably blame for my frustration and relative agony is this:  me.

Yeah, I think that’s it.  No, I don’t just think it, I KNOW that’s it.  In fact, I alluded to it about half way up this page – you know, the whole thing about John Wayne and Clint Eastwood and handling a gun and all that.  That was kind of a giveaway, don’t you think?  I admit it, I am the problem here.  Jack is awesome; I am so not awesome that I hereby renounce any and all claims I have once made, continue to make, or may make in the future about my level of awesomeness being above the level of awesomeness assigned to dead fish.  Not cool, Ethan Jones, not cool at all…

“Experience is a brutal teacher, but you learn. My God, do you learn.” C.S. Lewis

Alright, dramatics aside, I will cautiously and hesitantly maintain that there is at least a tiny bit of justification I can muster for my total not awesomeness.  Like I said, I’ve given this a lot of thought so there is a possibility, however remote, that my justification may actually hold water so stop rolling your eyes, bare with me a minute, and keep reading.

So here is how I see it.  I have heard that life is tough, unfair, and sometimes unbearable for girls and women; I’ve read it, discussed it, witnessed it, fought it, and taken various stands against it.  I believe it to be true just as I believe the earth revolves around the sun.  And just as I cannot feel the earth move on its orbital path, I cannot feel it when little girls are mistreated and women are disrespected in the workplace or classroom.  I cannot feel the undoubtedly gut-wrenching frustration girls and women feel when trying to live up to impossible ideals put forth by magazine covers that depict impossibly thin models,  or by “child advocates” who criticize working moms for not staying home to raise their kids, and by political elites who claim that career stay-at-home moms have “never worked a day in their lives”.  But the fact that I don’t feel these injustices doesn’t mean they aren’t real and for girls and women in today’s world, I believe them when they say that this life is hard, sometimes impossibly so.

But when it comes to men and boys and the life that they face, I know it’s real – life is hard for boys and men, sometimes impossibly so.  I know this because I’ve lived it; I’ve faced the challenges and the struggles and the unfairness, and the impossibly high standards that boys and men face in today’s world.  I have faced them and succeeded at times, but much more often I have faced them and failed.  Too many times than I care to count I have failed to live up to the standards of boys and men as set forth by:  1) society at large 2) Hollywood 3) preachers 4) magazine covers/articles 5) the ‘ol boys club 6) women 7) other boys and men 8) teachers 9) coaches 10) bosses…….I could keep going if you like………..

So there it is, my excuse.  My excuse for being frustrated with the capricious nature of my son’s interactions with life is simply that I know intimately well how tough life is going to be for him and I want him to be ready.  Don’t get me wrong, I know that life is at least equally if not more challenging for girls and women and I want no less for my girls what I want for Jack – success, happiness, balance, fulfillment, joy…and I’ll work no less for their success as I do for Jack’s.  But when it comes to Jack and boys and men, I know the unrelenting pressures of life; I feel them everyday, I’ve lived them for 36 years, and those experiences make me acutely aware of all that life is going to exact from him.

And so I micro-analyze everything about him and about his readiness.  I want him to overcome.  I want him to be prepared; I want him to be well equipped; I want him to be able to handle life at its toughest;  I want him to live up to the impossibly high standards set for him by others in spite of my understanding that those standards will be impossible for him to achieve…

And that right there is exactly where I have gone wrong…

Jack is not John Wayne.  He is not Michael Jordan or Clint Eastwood and he never will be.  He’s just Jack and he is just a boy.  And although he was fearfully and wonderfully made, knitted together in Casey’s womb by his perfect and loving father, he is not perfect.  And just like his dad, he never will be perfect and he never will live up to the standards set for him by others.  In fact, if Jack tries to live up to any standards other than those set for him by the same perfect and loving creator who made him, he will fail.  This isn’t something I’ve been told or read about and it isn’t something I believe; it is something that I know because I have lived it.  I’ve faced the challenges and the struggles and the unfairness, and the impossibly high standards that boys and men face in today’s world…and I failed to meet them.  And it wasn’t until I stopped trying to live up to those impossibly high standards and began to live for the standards set forth for me by Christ that I experienced real success, real triumph, real joy, and real fulfillment.

So Jack, consider this my letter of apology to you.  I’ve fallen for the world’s traps so many times before so I should have seen this coming, but I didn’t and for that I am sorry. God has a design for you, a plan, and a mission for your life and it is my job to help you find your way, to guide you, if needed, over and through the obstacles that will cross your path, to help you become the man that He designed you to be, and to get out of your way when the time is right.  This is the one and only standard that I hope you live up to – the standard set forth specifically, intentionally, and willfully by God the Father.  Follow the path that He has laid out for you and your success, happiness, fulfillment, balance, joy, and peace are guaranteed………I know this, I’ve lived it.

God bless,

Ethan

Easter is almost here so I had to break from the blog posts I have been doing on each of the kids to properly recognize one of my favorite holidays!!  We are celebrating this time around as we have for the last 5 or 6 years – in Austin with a house full of family – nothing better!  All of the kids are super-excited for the festivities and the wall-to-wall fun…and hopefully someday they’ll be as excited as Casey and I are for the amazing opportunities for worship and praise that await us at Riverbend church!

I don’t know exactly what it is, but the Easter holiday seems to take on more and more significance in my heart with each passing year.  Casey and I first visited Riverbend Church on an Easter Sunday several years ago and we were instantly hooked on the atmosphere, the warmth, and the mission of the church – to serve the bruised, the battered, the broken and the bored of our community and world; reclaiming, restoring and reproducing for the cause of Jesus Christ and the Kingdom of God.  But it wasn’t until Eliot came along and then when the Quint Invasion took over our world that we realized fully the impact of what Christ did for us on the cross so long ago and continues to do for us today by his LIFE, LOVE, and GRACE.  There is not a doubt in our minds, He is risen!!

So I have a couple of quick stories that will put a smile on your face.  First, if you follow us on Facebook, you probably saw this little story about the absurd conversations our little ones somehow get us into.  It was too funny not to share here for those who didn’t catch it the first time around so here it goes again…

If you haven’t heard, we have been potty training since shortly after the Fab Five’s 3rd birthday in January.  It has been a tough few months, but we are about 95% potty trained!!!  And of course, you know we have had plenty of funny/frustrating/ridiculous times along the way to teaching 5 tots how to use the potty properly!!  So underwear and panties are now a big deal in our home, more importantly the cartoon character or Disney Princess that is on the underwear is what has become the topic of much discussion.  And this is how one of those discussions played out the other day…

Britton: “Ryan, do you like my Belle panties?”
Lila: “I want to see your Belle panties!”
Britton: “No, YOU can’t see my Belle panties ‘cuz YOU’RE not my best buddy!”
Me: “Oh no you didn’t, Britton – you are not going to be a brat like that! You show Lila your panties!”
Britton: “I caaaaann’t doooo it!”
Me: “Britton, you pull down your pants and show Lila your panties right now!”
Britton: “I caaaaaaannn’t!”
Me: “Britton, you pull down your pants and show Lila your panties or you’re going to timeout!”
(Britton pulls down sweatpants to show her panties)
Me: “See, Lila? See Britton’s panties…aren’t they pretty?”
Lila: (couldn’t care less about the panties)
Me: “Britton, pull your pants up…”

I’m pretty sure that one belongs in the Parent-to-Child-Conversation Wing of the Parenting Hall of Fame!  That exists, right?  The Hall of Fame of Parenting………??

And for story #2, we pick up the scene as the Jones family has embarked on another of Casey’s picture taking adventures, arriving to meet Casey’s crack dealer, Elle Mendenhall of Ella Bella Photography fame, in a field of Texas wildflowers.  This field, by the way, is incredible!  I have been sworn to secrecy as to its location, but let me just tell you, there is no better field of wildflowers, tall grasses, live oak trees, and all things that scream springtime in Texas…it is a slice of Heaven on Earth!

So we’re taking pictures and having a pretty good time with it because the kids are loving all of the flowers, Brooklyn most of all.  Our little princess, Brooklyn Faith is absolutely giddy in love and can’t take her eyes off of the Bluebonnets and Indian Paintbrushes as Elle snaps away.  Recognizing that Casey is about to faint from her feelings of elation from knowing she just might get the cutest photos ever taken of any child ever in the history of child photo taking, Elle goes in for the kill and pulls out……………..A BABY BUNNY!!!!!

OH…MY…………..GOOOOOOOOOSSSSSSSSSHHHHHHH!!!!!!  Are you kidding me?????  At this point, I seriously begin to worry that both my wife and Brooklyn might die from an overdose on cuddly cuteness!!  Acute Cuddly Cuteness Trauma – trust me, it’s a medical condition – rarely seen, often fatal.  Against better judgment, we put the baby bunny in Brooklyn’s lap and she literally cannot stop giggling and glowing from her whole being as she looks down upon this helpless little creature before her.

You may not understand how much Brooklyn loves bunnies so let me make this abundantly clear:  the little girl’s world revolves around three things:  princesses, flowers, and bunnies!!  Every night at bedtime I go around to each of the kids to tuck them into bed and I ask them to tell me something good about their day.  You can imagine the responses I get – they are as varied and hilarious as the day is long.  But there is one constant to this routine – every time I get to Brooklyn and ask her the question, I get the same response:  “I love my bunny.”  Sometimes I get, “I love bunnies” and at other times I also get, “I love bunnies hopping in fields of flowers.”  Every! Single!! Night!!!  She never mentions princesses, doesn’t say anything about the color pink…it’s ALWAYS bunnies!!!

I’M NOT MAKING THIS UP!!!

Ok, Back to the story…

So this bunny, the physical manifestation of all that Brooklyn has dreamed of since before her first breath, is sitting in her very lap in a field of flowers no less!!  If it is possible to die, at the age of 3 no less, having achieved and experienced everything you have ever dreamed of in life, it would happen in this moment with Brooklyn, the bluebonnets, and the bunny!!  And for some reason, I seem to be the only adult who seems to be concerned about the possibility of Brooklyn’s spontaneous combustion before our very eyes!!!

And then it happens.

The bunny is still in Brooklyn’s lap and Brooklyn is still super-duper-crazy giddy with excitement when something else somehow catches her eye – the flowers!!!!  And suddenly it’s as if the baby bunny IN HER LAP does not exist as she giggles helplessly at the flowers surrounding her.

And then it happens again – something other than the flowers catches her eye – the bunny in her lap!!! And suddenly it is as if the flowers SURROUNDING HER do not exist as she giggles helplessly at the baby bunny.

And then, the flowers around her once again catch Brooklyn’s eyes and it’s as if the baby bunny IN HER LAP does not exist as she giggles helplessly once again at the flowers surrounding her.

And then, the bunny in her lap catches her eye and………….this carousel of bunnies and Bluebonnets goes around and around and around and around and could still be ongoing today if we had not pulled the bunny for fear that we would all die from Acute Cuddly Cuteness Trauma!!!!!

CLASSIC Brooklyn Faith, our sweet little princess…need I say more??

Yes, I will say one more thing:  HAPPY EASTER FROM THE JONES FAMILY!!!!!!!

God bless,

Ethan

P.S.  Elle is super slammed this time of year, but found time to get me the pics for this post! Thank you, Elle!!