Daily Read #13: Giving In and Giving Up: A story of Cats and Cadets.

The end is getting closer and we feel that we're getting even more support.
Thank You for voting (My Dad's Eyes: http://contest.hoopesvision.com/vote.html
Thank you for convincing friends/family/neighbors/co-workers/strangers to do the same thing.
----------------------------------------------------------
There have been many moments when I've thought 'you know Rachel and Ryan are really good parents.' [I have yet to have the same positive self-affirmation of my own fathering but maybe given a few more years...].

Good Parents don't parent from their list of personal preferences. They look through the lenses of what is best for their children not what is best for themselves. Consequently they often do things they would choose to do last and don't do things that they would choose to do first if their only litmus test was themselves.

Ryan and Rachel have shown that they know when to give in and when to give up and have done so under very personally challenging circumstances.

For Rachel, it was the day she let the girls get a cat. Now, you have to know a little bit about my family to know that this was quite a monumental occasion.

We once had two young men serving missions for our church eat dinner with us; one of the two was originally from Mongolia. Apparently Mongolians feel about the same way as I think everyone in our immediate family does about cats. The American shared a story with us about the Mongolian and the extent of his feline aversion.

The missionaries were visiting a woman who owns a store in town and who I guess let her cat come with her to work the store when she did. [Now the only thing more difficult to understand than owning a pet is never leaving the pet]. So the cat was in the store and once the cat's presence was known to the Mongolian missionary he insisted that they leave saying either the cat left or or he left but he wouldn't stay in the same room with it. His companion tried to help him understand that running away wasn't reasonable and the woman insisted that as missionaries they should love all of God's creatures. He locked eyes with the woman and in his best broken English said with no hesitation, 'The Cat is not God's creature, it is the Creature of the Devil.'

I think the American was sharing the story as kind of way to say, 'Ha ha Crazy Mongolian', and maybe make us all laugh. We might have guffawed to be polite but I think immediately after the story ended we all turned to the Mongolian missionary and very solemnly said, I totally understand where you're coming from.

Rachel because of some mild allergies has an even strong dislike of cats than most of us which is like saying that because it has a paper cut Slug A dislikes salt more than Slug B. We've long made jokes about one of us becoming a crazy cat person, but rarely does that joke include Rachel. But maybe it should.

Rachel's oldest developed felinephilia (a cat obsession) about 2 years ago. She was drawing cats, reading books about on cats, asking for cat toys, talking about cats, trying to find stray cats; It was cats, cats, cats all day every day* [Is there a minimum age for becoming a crazy cat lady?]. She had an impressive clowder* of cats but they were all 2 dimensional and hand colored or cut from magazines, coloring books or the internet. *[According to Oxford that is what you call a collection of cats]

When a practical need arose to get an outside cat in the form of family of mice moving into their shed, the heavens aligned in Emma's good favor; the resistance dropped and the Palmer's moved from a family of 5 to a family of 6 when Buddy joined the crew.

Apparently Buddy is everything a cat should be: smart*, cute*, helpful* and best of all outside ***[to the extent possible for a cat]. Buddy's three moms, every Palmer girl but Rachel, are everything they should be and at least as of the last 6 months have held up their end of the Buddy Deal. [Which I find impressive; within a week of our parents caving and letting us get a fish tank, we had lost all interest. The tank turned into a fish production of Lord of the Flies as they turned on each other and resorted to cannibalism to stay alive. The ones who did however were a very hearty bunch. We had to put up with an unkempt tank for years before the last two standing finally died.]

Rachel has been a true sport and Buddy and her have a relationship like that of many stepmoms/first wives: they both love the children but give each other their space where ever possible. I will admit Rachel's called me very late at night from the cat food aisle at the grocery store wondering when she became everything she didn't want to be--a cat lady. [Relax, Rach they call it a good mom, you don't earn the title of cat lady until all your kids are gone and then you still have a cat and not just one but scores.]

Next as mentioned above a good dad knows when he has to put his preferences and ambitions on the sacrificial alter of fatherhood. I can think of one time in particular where Ryan's action in this regard was very impressive.

Shortly after Ryan returned from Morocco, he/maybe Rachel stumbled across a position for an Athletic Trainer* for an all-boys military academy in Virginia. *[This is actually where Ryan's real passion/educational expertise would be best suited but in Utah we're lucky if we can afford to have teachers at our school let alone anything else]. With his military resume to go with his other job qualifications, the job really was a perfect fit.

Not surprisingly he quickly raced through the screening rounds and before he knew it he and Rachel were on a paid for flight to visit the school for an interview and get a better feel for all that the change would include. They loved everything about it* *[except for maybe the thought of being thousands of miles away from me:]. The interview went really well. The job specifications were even better sounding in context. The South was charming and exceeded its expectations for hospitality which were high.

And these were just a few reasons why it should be no surprise that Ryan was offered the job and why I thought for sure Ryan would take the job. You know how the story ends. Ryan wouldn't have ended up sweeping up sheet rock dust a year later if he had been taping rolled ankles and stretching hamstrings at a military academy. Ryan did what good dads do; he gave it a lot of thought, sought counsel from a much wiser Being than himself, and did what was best for the family. It was a perfect fit for Ryan Palmer it was not a perfect fit for the Palmer family.

It can't be easy to pass by something that looks so good, it can't be easy to bring something home that you already can't stand.

Being a good parent isn't easy.

But with Lasik it will be easier for Ryan to see his 3 reasons why it is worth it.

Thanks for voting: http://contest.hoopesvision.com/vote.html
Thanks for shamelessly promoting us!
Thanks for being a good person.