"You coming home, Papi?"

I love getting calls from my kids when I’m at work. The conversations usually include details about their day, what they’re eating for lunch, who did what to whom, etc. With Natalie though, there is usually one extra question, no matter what time of the day she calls:

“You coming home, Papi?”

The other day she called but this time, the question was a little different: “You coming home right now, Papi?”

Since it was only before lunchtime, I told her that I would be coming home, not right now but soon. Apparently, she didn’t quite understand this part. Sarah told me later that at lunchtime, Natalie prayed, “Dear Jesus, thank you that Papi coming home right now!”

Even though Natalie didn’t quite get the timing of my return, she nonetheless was excited about it and looking forward to my return. When Sarah told me about Natalie’s prayer, I was reminded of how we should be looking forward to Christ’s return. We don’t know when Christ is returning, but he has told us “Surely I am coming soon.”. With the apostle John, our prayer should be “Come Lord Jesus!” Rev.22:20

Pastors and "pastors"

Some time ago, Carlos wanted so much to wear a tie or what he called a “pastor.” Not quite sure why he called it that, but it’s probably because our Pastor wears one the majority of the time. He was so excited when we got him a little clip-on tie and couldn’t wait to wear it to church. Ever since then, he, Jeremiah and Natalie have called ties a “pastor.”

This past Sunday, we were getting the kids dressed. Sarah had picked out a little “pastor” for Ben to wear. Ben would have nothing to do with it, but Natalie thought it would look good on her. She donned the “pastor” and Jeremiah exclaimed, “Natalie, you can preach now ‘cuz you have a pastor!”

That evening after the service, Carlos, ever the social butterfly, stopped to see Pastor Tim who immediately interrupted his conversation to give Carlos a hug. Carlos commented on Tim’s tie, saying that he “had a pastor too.” Then Tim said, “You know what Carlos, may I pray for you? I’ll pray that God will help you be wise as you grow and perhaps some day make you a Pastor too.” And so right then, with Carlos grinning sheepishly, Tim prayed for him and gave him a hug once more.

Why do I share this? There are some who simply play the role of being a pastor, but often it doesn’t seem to go any deeper than the tie around their neck. They’ve got the right dressing, but that’s about it. But then there are those who “rightly divide the word of God;” they weep with those who weep; they correct those who need correcting; they encourage those who are fallen; and they take the time to be an Godly influence (however small or great) to an energetic, talkative and friendly 7-year old boy by simply praying for him (and his dad!).

That’s my Pastor.

Law & Order – Toddler Unit

Anybody who’s ever watched shows such as Law & Order or NCIS will inevitably come across the plot line where the main suspect gives himself away by revealing too much information. It usually goes something like this:

(“*doink*doink*”)

Detective: “Our forensic scientists can place you at the crime scene with 99.9% accuracy (plus or minus 3%, you know how statistics are). Do you really want to make us go through all that effort? We know you whacked Bobo the Clown.”

Suspect: “I didn’t do it! There was no way I could have wiped that smile off his face with a tennis racket”

Detective: “How did you know his smile was wiped off with a tennis racket? We never released that detail to the public! Gotcha!”

Suspect: “Oops.”

And chalk another one up for the good guys. (“*doink*doink*”)

So it also goes with getting a confession from my pint-sized offenders. Inevitably, the truth will come out and the suspect dealt with accordingly. Of course, the problem is that logic is often lost on the young and they continue to proclaim their innocence. To illustrate this, let’s go back to Saturday morning at the Escalera household.

We’ve just finished breakfast and the kiddos are playing hither, thither, and yon. As is her wont (can you tell I’m getting in my quota of old English verbiage today?), Natalie wanders into the kitchen area to see what I’m doing. I turn toward her just in time to see Jeremiah run full throttle into her, pushing her down. Not sure what the motive was, but he certainly had intent!

Immediately he knew he’d been caught red handed, but this didn’t stop him from denying all involvement.

Detective (me): “Jeremiah, go to the bathroom. You were unkind.

Suspect: “I didn’t push Natalie!! I didn’t push Natalie!!”

Detective: “Jeremiah, I didn’t say anything about pushing. How do you know that’s why you are in trouble?”

Suspect: “Oops.” (This is what I would have thought he’d say, at least. But as stated earlier, logic is lost on the young and he continued to proclaim his innocence.)

Sometimes, it’s really hard not to laugh at your children’s disobedience. Which is probably why they have those special mirrored windows in the interrogation rooms.

(“*doink*doink*”)

I Hate Sundays

I hate Sundays.

There. I've said it. Twice in fact. Not sure if this makes me a bad Christian or not, but it's the truth. I used to enjoy it and look forward to it. Going to church to sing and hear God's Word taught was one of the best things of the week.

Then I had kids.

Now I dread Sunday mornings. My wife and I get up, knowing that the next 5 or 6 hours are going to be grueling. We wake up the two oldest (7 and 3) who, for some reason, are hardly ever in a good mood on Sunday mornings. We fight with Jeremiah to get him to eat the breakfast that only yesterday he was begging for. Carlos complains his tummy hurts, but in the next breath is sure it will feel better once we get to church and he gets a snack in Sunday School. The youngest two (1 and 2 months) are fed, clothed, and re-clothed after one or both has an eruption out of one end or the other. Between all this, we're trying to shower and get ready, too. As we rush out the door (already late), Carlos is asking me to help him with his memory verse so that he can get a prize. Not sure why he couldn't remember during the week, but anyway.

We arrive at church, Carlos is off to his Sunday School class, and my wife takes the three youngest to the nursery where she stays during Sunday School. Off I go to teach my class.

Between S.S. and the church service, I have to discipline Jeremiah for throwing a huge fit because he couldn't have a snack and this is because he didn't eat his breakfast. I drop Natalie off kicking and screaming in her nursery, and we all make our way into the sanctuary. We sing a few songs - or at least, part of them as we keep reminding Carlos to turn around or to stand up or keep Jeremiah from falling off the seat he is trying to stand on. The rest of the service goes pretty much the same. Sarah has to go feed Ben and I eventually have to take Jeremiah out (again!) for more disciplining opportunities. By the time the service is done, I'm exhausted and I honestly couldn't tell you what the sermon was about. I pick Natalie up from the nursery while she lets me know in no uncertain terms she is highly upset at being left in the nursery.

So, yes, I hate Sundays. But this morning, I was greatly encouraged by a couple in our church who I greatly admire and respect, and whose own children are grown now. They had sat behind us in the service and as we were walking out to the van, they said to me, "Stephen, I just want you to know that it does get better. Just remember that right now you are in a training period. You probably can't stand Sundays and we didn't either (they DO know what it's like!!)! Don't expect to get anything from the sermon, but again, remember that you are training your children and teaching them to hear God's Word." I swear, I could have hugged them both! So while Sundays aren't exactly at the top of my list of most favorite days, it helps to know that, first, others have gone through this and survived (their kids too!). And second, I am fulfilling my role as a father, hard as it may be, to teach my children the importance of church and hearing God's word being taught.

And on the way home, Carlos asks if we are going to church this evening, too.

Another Day, another decade

Wow – I’m 30. It’s funny though. I don’t feel as old as I thought I would feel when I was 20. This has definitely been a very eventful decade. Let’s recap.

1997 saw me at Pensacola Christian College. I was engaged to a girl that I thought at the time was THE one for me. A series of events showed me that I was in no way mature enough for the responsibility of marriage. I still had a lot of growing up to do and God had finally gotten my attention. I also boughy my first car (a 1990 Ford Taurus - a good car that took me many miles!) In 1999, I met Sarah in two different classes at college and we became good friends. There was definitely something different about her that attracted me, but it took a long time to bring her around to my point of view. :) I graduated that same year and headed off for a short stint in Texas. A few months later, off I go to the lost colony of Roanoke, VA in search of building a friendship and hopefully more with Sarah. Two years later, we were married and thus began what I think has been the greatest marriage I could have ever asked for. Sarah is a wonderful, beautiful woman who is everything I could ask for in a wife and more.

During the next few years, we (in no particular order) purchased our first house, took a few trips (including one to Great Britain), started my MBA at Liberty University, and began our journey of adoption. In 2006, the Lord blessed us with two Guatemalan-born sons and life got a whole lot busier! Carlos and Jeremiah are so full of life and energy, especially Carlos!! I also finished my MBA that same year and had my appendix removed. Early in 2007, we purchased a house in Rocky Mount and never thought that we would need all that room so soon. Christmas 2006 we had decided that we wanted to begin another adoption journey, this time domestically and prayed for a little girl. We expected the wait time to be perhaps 12 months or more – but God had other plans. Natalie was born in April and came home at the end of May. I proudly say that she is my little princess and I’m sure some might say she has me wrapped around her little finger! THEN another surprise – Sarah got pregnant!! Baby Ben is expected to make his grand entrance towards the end of February.

Whew! What an eventful decade! I have been truly blessed with a wonderful family and way more than I deserve. Here’s to another 30 years!

Welcome to the 21st Century

Have a cookie.

I finally took the plunge and created a Facebook account. Not sure why I didn't do it sooner. I've already gotten in touch with some old college friends that I hadn't heard from in years. Pretty cool stuff. So anyway, if you're on Facebook, look me up.

On a different note, Natalie is not only crawling around everyone (and quite rapidly!) she has also managed to learn to pull herself up on to her feet. It's kind of funny because she can get up, but doesn't know what to do when she gets there and ends up stuck since she can't get back down. Almost every morning that I get her up, she's standing in her crib, gripping the rail with this terrified look that says "Help!" It's cute in a pathetic sort of way.

That's all for now!

Go West, Young Man!

Last week, I had the opportunity to fly to Denver, CO for a business-related training session, and we decided to make a family vacation out of it. So eeeeaaaarrrrly on Thursday morning (11/9), we packed the kiddos in the van and drove down to Greensboro. Even though it was so early, Carlos & Jeremiah were so excited and wound up to be going on a trip. They were really quite funny to listen to. We flew from Greensboro to Memphis and then on to Denver, picked up a rental van and then drove a couple hours down to Colorado Springs to stay with my sister Michelle, and her family for a few days. We also got to see Sarah’s brother, Lee and spend the day with him too.

We had a great time staying with Michelle and got to do a little sight seeing. We went to Santa’s Workshop at the North Pole (actually at the foot of Pike’s Peak), Focus on the Family headquarters, and the Garden of the Gods. I think Michelle was trying for the Mom-of-the-year award at Santa's workshop. Kaitlyn wanted so much to go on one of those rides that goes up and around rather fast. Michelle, being the sucker wonderful mom that she is, agreed. I don't think I've ever seen a greener Michelle! It was funny to watch Carlos and Kaitlyn because they are so much alike that I don't think they quite know what to do with each other. But they did get along quite well. At Focus on the Family, they had a kid's area with some puppets that you could play with. I love using puppets and so was right at home using them. For some reason, the kids decided to attack the puppet I was using, Jeremiah especially. I had managed to get most of the kids to stop beating on the poor old "man" but Jeremiah just wouldn't stop. So finally, I took the puppets arm and swung it so that it tapped Jeremiah on his chest. Oh, the look on Jeremiah's face was priceless - a look that said "hey! why did you do that?!" Needless to say, he stopped beating the puppet.

We had beautiful weather during the entire trip and really enjoyed the visit. If you ever go to Colorado Springs and only have time for one sight seeing trip, I would definitely recommend the Garden of the Gods. Talk about an excellent showcase of God’s creation!! We all did a little bit of “rock climbing” (used in the loosest sense of the word) and took lots of pictures, some of which can be found on Sarah's blog. Oh, and we even got to see a BNSF freight train as we drove down I-25. Sarah humored me and took a couple of pictures as we drove by it, but they didn't turn out so well.

Then it was back up to Denver on Sunday evening so I could attend the training on Monday and Tuesday. I was pretty excited about this, not only to get a better understanding of the software program I was being trained on, but also because I got to ride the train into Denver both mornings! Woo-hoo! If ever they decide to build a light-rail system between Rocky Mount and Roanoke, I’d definitely use the train to go to work. No driving or dealing with traffic or finding a parking space – just 30 minutes of relaxation, reading, and watching the scenery. I could definitely get used to this mode of transportation.

Both days, my training ended significantly earlier than I thought it would and so we were all able to go to the Denver Aquarium and the Denver Zoo. The Aquarium was ok, although definitely overpriced. But the Denver Zoo was very fun, with lots of different animals and even a 3-week old baby giraffe. I think Carlos had a hard time coming to grips with something that was a baby, yet was also bigger than he was.

Driving back to the airport, I was really stressing out because our rental van was almost out of gas. (The line was actually just below the “Empty” mark.) When I had rented the van, I opted to purchase a tank of gas from Alamo instead of having to fill it up before returning. In order to get the most out of the deal, we needed to bring it back with as little fuel as possible – and let me tell you, we did exactly that!! One word of advice here though – if you ever need to rent a car, don’t get the fuel option. It’s much cheaper to have to fill it up yourself than to pay what they tell you is a price lower than outside gas stations charge. Although the price was pretty comparable to what gas stations would charge, where they get you is charging for a higher fuel capacity than the vehicle actually contains. For example, we rented a minivan that had a 20 gallon tank, but they charged for a 25 gallon tank, saying this was the average for this type of vehicle. Now, most vans I’ve researched have only a 20 gallon tank, so I’d like to know what minivan has tank that is larger than 25 gallons (since their estimate is an average). Anyway, just a side note.

Overall it was an excellent trip. The kids did really well on all flights. Carlos & Jeremiah loved to look out the window and watch the goings on while we were on the ground (wasn’t too exciting once we were airborne). But like all vacations, the best part was coming home.

Labor Day Weekend

Happy day-after Labor Day! :) Hope you had a great weekend. We got to spend some time on Saturday with Michael and Leah, went out Sunday evening (more on that below), went to Mitch & Betty's house for the Labor Day family get together, and then took Carlos to his first ever soccer practice. Whew! But it was a fun weekend. I went swimming pretty much the whole time with Jeremiah and Carlos at Mitch & Betty's. Carlos was much braver than he had been previously and even allowed me to throw him in without so much as a hint of fussing (course, it might have had something to do with Rachel and Lauren being right there). Jeremiah was hilarious. He would just jump right in whether I was ready to catch him or not! After awhile, I put some water wings on him and he loved that and was even able to float around without my holding on to him. So I left him to float and went elsewhere.... JUST KIDDING! He did do quite well and even figured out that if he kicked his legs he would move forward. And of course, Natalie was one of the star attractions of the get together, and why not? She is after all the cutest baby girl in the world (bias? what bias? :) )

Carlos seemed to really like his first soccer practice, but at the end he said "Whew, soccer practice really wears you out!" It probably didn't help that he had been swimming for about 3 hours prior to that. He did really well and is excited to play his first game. He'll miss his first game or two, but I don't think he'll mind too much since it's for a good cause - beach vacation!!

This past weekend, I had the chance to go out and do a little bit of railfanning. It was a quiet evening with not a lot of train action going on the Roanoke to Winston-Salem line near downtown Rocky Mount, but you don't necessarily need a train to get some photos. Here's a couple of the ones I took. I think I'll visit this spot again more regularly since it provides a safe place to park and wait for trains plus has some at-grade crossings.

Afterwards, I met up with Sarah and the kids at a park nearby. We went for a walk, the boys got to ride their bikes (I'm sure Sarah will be posting pics soon), and then went up to the playground nearby.

Ok, here are the pics. Enjoy!

Diverging Lines

32 Miles to Roanoke

N&W Caboose #518631

There and back again

Sarah and I had a great trip to Memphis, TN to get our little Natalie. We got there Thursday morning and since we didn’t get to see Natalie until Friday evening, we decided to drive down to Little Rock to visit my sister, Sharon and her family. It was really good to see them and get to spend some time with them. Their little boy Josh has grown so much! I can’t believe how big he is now. On Friday morning we all went to the Memphis Zoo, which I highly recommend going to if ever you’re in the area. I think my favorite part were the three tigers. One in particular seemed especially ornery and was trying to play with the other two.

At 3:30, we went to meet with our adoption agent and go over some last minute details and then it was on to get Natalie!! Woo-hoo! Sharon and Cory were able to come also and did a great job taking pictures and videoing. We had a little “Giving and Receiving” ceremony which was very special. Then they brought Natalie down and we got to hold her for the first time! She is SO tiny and has SO much hair! After a little while, she was cooing and actually smiling at us – very cute. We said goodbye to the cradle care family who had done such an awesome job of caring for her, and headed back to the hotel.

Since we had some time to kill Saturday morning, we drove to the hospital where Natalie was born to take a picture. We also got a picture of the “Graceland” sign (“Thank you, thank you very much”) and then did a little shopping at a local mall. Everywhere we went, it seemed all the women just “oooed” and “awed” over Natalie (understandably, of course.) Even when we went to the airport, the ticket agents were just going on and on about Natalie. It was kinda funny because our suitcase was over by 5 lbs and after I took something out, it was still over, but the ticket agent said “You’re fine. Well, technically you’re not, but you’re fine.” Thank you, Natalie! :)

Natalie did so well on the flights home. She slept on my chest the entire first flight and some of the next. In fact, the hardest part came when we tried to get OFF the plane. We had brought Natalie’s car seat onto the plane since it wasn’t a full flight and had strapped it on to the seat. Well, when I went to take the seat off the base to undue the seatbelt, it was stuck and wouldn’t come off!! No matter how hard I or a couple of other passengers tried, it just wouldn’t come off. Finally, I had to actually unhook the seatbelt from the plane seat itself to get it off, then reattach the belt. Hopefully it’s not a federal offense to dismantle an airplane seatbelt like that! I’m not a terrorist, really!!

The drive home wasn’t so pleasant. For the first hour, Natalie cried and screamed. Ugh. When we stopped to get something to eat, Sarah changed her diaper, fed Natalie, put her back in the seat and just like that, she was sound asleep! Natalie does not like sitting in poop! (I can’t say I blame her.)

Carlos was still up when we got home and was so excited so see Natalie. He had this big grin on his face and even got to hold Natalie. Jeremiah was so excited to see us the next morning and was fascinated by this new baby. Both Carlos and Jeremiah have done so well adjusting to Natalie. There have been some issues and I think it’s a combination of having a new sister and having us gone for a couple of days. But we’re working through those.

So here we go, adjusting to another little baby in the family. I hope I won't get wrapped around her little finger too much. :) For more pictures of Natalie, Carlos, and Jeremiah, check out Sarah’s blog (link over there -->)

Three!! :)

I think I’m still in shock.

One week ago today, we received the wonderful news that we have a little girl!! Natalie Grace was born on April 17, 2007 and is cuter than any little girl I’ve ever seen. Sarah and I have been praying for a little girl since we first decided to start the adoption process back in December. We’ve gotten to talk with the cradle care family a couple of times and know that Natalie is being well-cared for and loved. It was so neat to hear her tiny little cry over the phone. Lord willing, we will be traveling to bring her home within the next couple of weeks (!). Carlos has been so excited and to see him grinning from ear to ear whenever he talks about Natalie is priceless. I know that he will be the best oldest brother he can possibly be.

As I contemplate being a father of 3 (!), the magnitude of my responsibilities hits me more and more. I appreciate more and more the wisdom of other dad’s and learning from their experiences. I guess you could say it’s a commonality that makes me feel a connection with some other guy that I may not even know, but from reading his thoughts and experiences helps. That’s why I’m trying more to post my thoughts and general “Dad stuff” on my blog, in the hopes that it might help someone out there. One resource that I’ve come across recently is FamilyMan Ministries (link at the side, over there --->), run by Todd Wilson, and includes the Familyman Weekly e-mail (which I highly recommend). This website, in my opinion, is a great resource for dad’s everywhere. But don’t take my word for it – check it out for yourself.