Family Drawing

New family portrait:


Drawn by Dominic with help from mommy.

Uninterested in School

I came down hard on Dominic yesterday. He’s been so uninterested with doing homework and no matter what I said to motivate him, he wasn’t interested. As a parent you start back peddling on what you have done to possibly have contributed to his lack of interest. Do I not read enough to him? Do my daily activities send him a message that school isn’t important?

Whatever it is, I plan to fix it and hopefully have him at least understand that he doesn’t have to like everything he does in school, but he does need to understand that sometimes we need to do things we don’t like in order to get to things we do.

To Mommy

Evelyn,

To simply thank you for all you have done as a mother just seems like it’s not enough. You’ve managed to raise four kids through all we have gone through. All those times they were sick, crying, or simply driving you crazy. You are amazing Evelyn.

Our kids are too small to realize what an amazing mommy they have, but if there is any indication that they are grateful of mommy, just look at how much they mirror you. It is your inner workings that have them saying “thank you”, “bless you”, “excuse me” and many more……that is work you have done……Whatever I have done to support it, is just that “support”. You are laying the foundation for their moral character and manners. They love you and need you…...You are so selfless, caring, and loving with them and I see you do this time and time again. I love you sooooooooooo much for that. You are planting seeds in them and the results will show in time.

The bond and unwavering tie you have with our children has been an absolute beauty and privilege to see. Every time you kiss and hug them I melt with happiness.

Thank you so much for fulfilling your calling as a mother and as I said above, a letter or a thank you simply doesn’t do it justice but I pray we have the time to show you as a family, just how much we love you.

Sincerely,

~Baby Gia
~Sonia
~Jojo
~Dominic
~Daddy

Fatherless Kids

I’ve come to truly appreciate the value of fatherhood. It’s not something I read or was handed down, but it came to me in forms of slaps in face. Not one big one, but many medium size slaps and I’m still growing in this area. The more I understand, the more I realize the damage done one is without one.

Just yesterday I went out to play baseball with the boys and neighboring kids came out like flies. One by one they asked “can I play?”…”Sure”…I’d respond. In a matter of minutes we had six kids on each team with me as pitcher. At that instant, I asked myself, “where is there dad’s?”…The irony is that I’ve seen this for as long as I can remember. Never once did I find it odd that fathers were missing from the picture.

I just hope I can be a good enough father to my kids to give them the tools to be the men they should be.

Catholic Liberty

Before my scholastic lapse I was posting in catholic forums topics that were either in the realm of catholic liberty or were controversial in today’s social standards. Now, I know certain topics have a tendency of raising brows and emotions, but I always [naively] thought if anyone was able to withstand such topics, it would be Catholics; I was dead wrong.

I started a thread on contraceptive use with the conditions set out in Humanae Vitae 15:

15. On the other hand, the Church does not consider at all illicit the use of those therapeutic means necessary to cure bodily diseases, even if a foreseeable impediment to procreation should result there from—provided such impediment is not directly intended for any motive whatsoever.

The starting post went as follows:

Is contraceptives ever justified?

Humanae Vitae 15 makes an exception in cases of disease. It doesn't clarify whether the disease has to be fatal or not but just that "the Church does not consider at all illicit the use of those therapeutic means".

Granted, it does say only in cases where it "cures" and where there is no "motive whatsoever".

So this would seem to leave out AIDS on the grounds that it does not "cure" and not necessarily because it leaves out the possibility of procreation. As the same paragraph says "even if a foreseeable impediment to procreation should result there from".

So what if a form of contraceptive did cure AIDS? Would it then be allowed?

Essentially I was stuck on the fact that using condoms isn't always done with the intent to stop procreation or even because one lacks self control; maybe.....just maybe......they simply don't want to get AIDS and still fulfill the unitive aspect of catholic sexuality.

Unfortunately I wasn’t met with much charity. It’s like I wasn’t allowed to even dare ask such a question. It’s sad that some Catholics feel this way. The way I see it, it was dialogue and open inquiry that got the Church to clarify and grow in the first place. Hopefully that will change in the future.

Scholastic Life

I’ve been inept in all things scholastic as of late. Not really surfing the forums or reading articles, just busy with life as a husband, father, teacher, employee, and any other title I’ve missed. I don’t know how other fathers with a passion to lurk into history, science, theology, sports, etc. do it. Even when I do manage to slip in some time; it’s an hour at best.

But that’s what makes life interesting. I could be a hermit who reads all hours of the day and still end up thinking I don’t know enough. I’d probably slip into finding pottery or gardening interesting; who knows.

Tee Ball

Evelyn and I signed both the boys up for t-ball. Dominic’s desire to join was rather simple; Gabriel, a boy in his class was already part of the team and naturally Dominic wanted to join as well. Jojo’s desire was no different other then he wants to do whatever his older brother happens to get himself into. I was iffy about Jojo joining at first. He’s more animated, expressive, and emotional then Dominic and I wasn’t sure how that would translate into the field. That and he’s not used to be in a classroom type of environment where kids have rules to follow.

Fortunately, it seems to be turning out much better then I expected. The idea of being a part of something has really excited both of them to the point of them wanting to sleep with there baseball shoes and wear there game day outfits forever. Evelyn wasn’t too fond of them continuing to wear their outfits more then a day; I told her to let it go on this one. They are excited about being pirates and I didn’t think such a healthy feeling was something we wanted to interrupt. However, I could only hold back Evelyn for so many days. Besides, hygiene does eventually become a concern.

It’s been immensely fun and fulfilling to experience all this with my boys and family in general.

Old Friend

I was listening to sports radio today and the famous motivational speaker, Tony Robbins, came on to talk about his ability to impact top notch athletes come back to greatness. The immediate image that popped to mind was an old friend of mine that past away a couple years ago.

Marc Jones was his name. He was the one that made me aware of Tony Robbins by letting me borrow his tapes. I ended up purchasing a whole set of Tony Robbins tapes months after and I still have them to this day.

I miss my conversations with him. I miss him altogether.

You are missed Marc Jones…

Asthma Meds

Since starting the recreational basketball league at work, I’ve seen some improvements in my health. However, I still struggled to keep up with guys my size during games. I figured I was just out of shape; until I noticed no improvement in my stamina over the passing weeks.

I did have a violent cough along with thick green phlegm and figured I was getting over some virus. Turns out, I have “seasonal asthma”. It’s hard to be relieved about having asthma (seasonal or not), but I was. I was starting to get bummed out that I couldn’t keep up with a guy heavier and older then me. I guess my asthma had something to do with me trying to catch my breath.

So, once the doctor gave me meds, the cough and phlegm did stop, but the side effects are probably worse. I’m sensitive to light and noise. I feel cloudy and have difficulty focusing. My patience is shorter and apparently I’m just not as jolly. I’ve had like five different people ask me “are you ok?”. Of course, I say “yes I’m fine thank you”.

I just feel stoic and cloudy. Not really laughing or talking like usual. I can’t wait until I’m done with the medication.

Atoms and force-fields

Who ever thought that everytime you sit on a chair, you are actually sitting on millions of force fields. That's right, force-fields! Sounds sci-fish eh?

How is this possible? Well, atoms are actually 99.99% empty space. What surrounds the atom is this force field; the force-field is actually a shell of electrons. It is said that if these force-fields didn't exist we could literally walk through walls. Now that's cool!

The force-fields behave in a similar way that magnets do when you try to attach like poles. Just imagine everything as gazillions of mini-magnets assembled together.

Now, when I first learned this, I thought to myself "why doesn't everything just repel from each other? Obviously, something keeps them together." What happens is that although all atoms have a force-field made up of electrons; some atoms have an unstable or not enough amount of electrons. The way an atom becomes stable is by bonding to another unstable atom and therefore starting the chain of reactions to form an actual molecule like a protein and a protein into an actual organ.

That's a giant leap I made there and it's obviously more complicated then that but essentially it's a bonding of millions of atoms sharing forcefields that make everything.