I Just Got a Raise

Lately I have been looking around to see if there were any jobs that caught my fancy.  Turns out my fancy is pretty slippery and hard to pin down.  Anyway, on Tuesday I had my first interview in about 7.5 years.  I was offered the job and declined.

That evening, after I returned home from the interview, Wink asked me to come downstairs into Baboo and Wiyah’s empty room where she and Pink have been playing lately.  She was all dressed up with make up on and had made a desk out of some odds and ends in our basement.  She invited me to sit down and proceeded to interview me for the job of Stay Home Mom.

She outlined my job duties as breakfast, lunch, dinner, and cleaning.  I had to sign off on each task that I agreed to.  I agreed to all of it.  Then there was another form that stated if there was an extra mess, the children had to help.  It wasn’t my sole responsibility.  I signed off on that, too.

She offered to pay me $30–the entire contents of her savings account if I would accept the job.  How could I say no to the best job ever?

So yesterday and today as I’m sitting down to eat dinner with the family, Wink has come to me with money.  Yesterday it was $1 bill and some change.  Today it was the $1 that the tooth fairy brought her last night.  It’s my daily paycheck.

What Happens Next

This is just a quick post to update people who want to know what passing the oral assessment means.

1.  First of all, it means the Hubba has a conditional job offer.  And that basically means, that if all the next steps go well, then the Hubba is on the ranked register.  When the foreign service is hiring, they will start at the top of the list and work their way down until all their openings are filled.
2. The Hubba just filled out and turned in all the paper work so that the gov’t could get started on his background check.
3. Everyone in our family has to have medical clearance.  Because if the Hubba is hired, he could be assigned anywhere in the world and some of those places don’t have access to medical care that we have here.  So they need to make sure we are healthy enough to go.  (If we aren’t that means we wouldn’t be able to accompany the Hubba on certain assignments.)  I haven’t actually taken a look at things yet, but I believe we will have to answer in depth medical histories for each member of our family and then have lots of physicals and tests done.
4. I’m not positive, but that may be all that’s required of us.  At that point, the Hubba is “on the register.”  But that’s really still just a form of limbo.  Because the State Department might not be hiring at all.  Or if they hiring, the Hubba might not be up high enough on the list to be selected for service.  That ranked list is constantly changing, too.  New people will be added to the list all the time and since you can only be on the list for 18 months, some will age out of the list.  Others might have already accepted employment elsewhere so that when they are called, they will decline.  And all that matters to us only if the people have a higher ranking than the Hubba does.
5. In order to increase his ranking, the Hubba can take a French proficiency exam.  Apparently it’s like an hour long phone call in French.  So if he passes that, he gets points added to his ranking score and moves up towards the top of the list.  He is planning on doing that, and has been actively practicing his French for several months now.  He still feels like he needs more work on speaking before taking the test.  So that will happen sometime in the future.

DC Thus Far

The hardest thing about preparing for a trip without the children is having to plan ahead so everything runs smoothly while we are gone.  I made 24 lunches, two breakfasts that I froze (they will do cereal the other days), and planned for 4 dinners but only made one.  Then I made a list of snack ideas they can have each day.  I had to plan out scheduling with Baboo and X.  And along those same lines, because of our vehicle situation, we actually had to rent a car for Baboo’s use, too–which was just galling.  I also wanted to make sure that the little kids (the ones without phones plus Mack since he’s having trouble receiving texts) had notes from me to read every day.  So I wrote out 12 notes and put them in 12 envelopes to open–one for each full day we’ll be gone.  Then I felt compelled to catch up on laundry, clean the little girls’ room, and help them pick out clothes for each day I would be gone so they would have everything they need all ready, down to socks and underwear.

When it came time to pack my own stuff, I was surprised by how simple and fast it was.  In fact it was so easy I was sure I was forgetting something truly obvious and important.  But, no.  So far so good.  Apparently packing for just yourself is easy.  Who knew?

This was us in the airport after Wiyah commanded us to have fun!  Doesn’t it look like we’re having fun?

I love sending the kids photo texts so they can be in on the running play by play.  I wish we could have brought them all with us.  That would have been awesome.  I felt it most poignantly on the plane.  This was only second plane ride since 9/11.  The first was my family history trip last fall and it was on a bare bones airline.  This time we were flying Delta.  And man, was there a difference!  Snacks and drinks on the plane!  And every seat had it’s own screen.  There were tons of free movies to choose from, there were games to play and even a map so you could track the flight.  Even the seats were so much more comfortable.  It was so cool.  I really wished the kids could see it.  But none of the kids from X on down has ever even been on a plane.  I wish we could rectify that.

When the Hubba and I were done watching our movie, we opened the window and surprise!  We were arriving.  I was hoping the colors would be more vivid.  But maybe we’re too late in the season for that.  It was still beautiful.  I wonder if I will ever get over my awe at an abundance of water

As we were landing, I had to get this shot of the airplane flaps up for the kids who would love that kind of thing.

Our plan upon landing was to take the metro to our apartment.  We are staying in a studio apt we found on airbnb which was about $300/night cheaper than the closest hotels.  Go ahead.  Think about that for a minute.

So anyway, we chose to arrive at Reagan airport because that was closest to where we were staying.  It was just a couple miles away but the plan was to take the metro which would take a few extra miles to get there in a roundabout way.  Have I mentioned that I am not ok with trains?  It’s not the riding them that makes me nervous.  It’s the catching them.  I just have anxiety about buying tickets and making sure I get on and off at the right time.  I can’t even ride the train in my own city without freaking out.  It’s dumb, but real.  So anyway, I started to get nervous once we got off the plane.  But then there was a transportation info desk.  So we stopped there and picked up a couple maps and a lady there helped us figure out what line we needed to get on and what stop we needed to take.  The Hubba didn’t need her help, but I appreciated the confirmation.  Buying the tickets for the metro was just as horrifying as I was anticipating.  You had to do it at a bank of kiosks.  There was a line.  And there was so much information on the face of those kiosks that it was overwhelming to me.  Luckily, the guy at the kiosk in front of us was just as overwhelmed.  He was taking so long that a worker there came over to help him.  And then he stayed to help us, too.

So this was us at the metro station.

And I actually took a picture on the train because…?  It’s a train in DC!  Never done that before.  Plus the kids would like it.  It was older, but clean and in good repair.  It was nice at first.  But the farther we went, the more people got on and that made me nervous again.  Like could we get from our seats to the doors when it was time to exit before the doors shut and the train left again?  I was a nervous Nelly and kept popping out of my seat just in case we needed to make a run for the doors.  Not even kidding.  I felt like such an idiot.

From the metro stop to our apartment was a brisk little walk.  I’m not sure how far or how long it was.  But the plane landed at 3:50 and including the train ride we were in the apartment at 4:35.  Maybe it was 1/2 mile or so.  This is the view from our apartment.

We really didn’t have a plan and didn’t know what to do with ourselves.  I was starving!  I had had two pieces of toast for breakfast and just peanuts and chips on the plane.  We decided to go exploring.  I felt like I had missed a whole day.  We had been in the airport since 7:30 am and now it was already sunset.  So despite the fact that it was very early (our time), the darkness always makes me sleepy!

We ended up walking to the White House.  1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.  And I totally know where that is now!  (Washington Monument is in the background.) Anyway, we did it.  It was dark.  And we were starving so we decided to try and find some food on our way back.  Only we couldn’t find anything that sounded great.  And we had been walking for a long time.  Our apartment is actually on George Washington University campus and apparently there was a game or something so we decided to pass up all the local restaurants and eatery and go purchase from the food trucks!  Anyway, it was a hard decision that came down to Indian food and Greek food.  Greek won.  Aside from gyros (which I love), I haven’t had much Greek food.  This food was divine.  I didn’t love the soggy grape leaves of the dolmades.  But I tried falafel for the first time and loved it.  Oh my heavenly goodness.  I could eat that all day.  And it was so much food for the price, too.  I was stuffed.

While we were waiting for our food, the Hubba pointed out this window across the street.  I had to take a picture.  I wanted to take so many more pictures but there are always so many people around that it makes me self-conscious.

Anyway, we came back to our apartment and ate.  Then, even though it was only like 6:30 pm it felt like midnight.  I was exhausted.  We started to watch a show.  I could barely keep my eyes open.  I planned on calling it a night around 7pm.  But once I got ready for bed I caught a second wind.  We ended up texting our kids and then video chatting with them before their bedtime.  But it was probably for the best that we ended up staying up until midnight before crashing….right?

The next day for breakfast we ate food that I packed.  That’s something I feel pretty awesome about.  I actually packed quite a bit of food so we don’t have to have the expense of eating every single meal out.  Then we went exploring again.  The Hubba had some things he really wanted to see so we headed back towards the White House.

They were getting the Christmas Tree ready.  But look at this photo!  Did you realize the White House Christmas Tree was so lame?  I thought it was bigger.  And I guess I naively thought that they actually decorated the tree.  But they just have this netting over the entire tree and decorate the netting.  Then we passed this building below, which I believe is the Canadian Embassy, and had to take a picture for my missionary girls!  We never did get confirmation by sign that it actually was the Canadian Embassy, but there were Canadian flags all over so…  It was much bigger than the Mexican Embassy (not pictured) .

The next stop was the Supreme Court Building.  I tell you what, I really wasn’t interested at all to see it.  But I’m so glad we went!  It was fascinating!  Did you know that that the Supreme Court met in the Capitol Building with Congress at first?  They just rented room there.  Congress wouldn’t approve spending for a building for the Supreme Court until they used it full time.  In the beginning, the Supreme Court was only in session like two days out of a year!  (Now they receive 150 cases a week!) But because there is supposed to be a separation of the three divisions of government, it was just a “temporary” situation.  That happened to last 125 years!!  Anyway, finally in 1935 the Supreme Court was busy enough for Congress to get them their own building.  And actually, did you know that President Taft was a Supreme Court Justice after his presidency??  I had no idea.  So while he was president, he felt like the Supreme Court should have its own building.  But then he really advocated for it hard core when he was on the Supreme Court.  It was kind of his baby.  Anyway, they commissioned an architect and the building design was awesome.  At some later point, they asked the architect to scale things back a bit in order to save money.  So the architect changed some things–some decorative things and especially the grandeur of some non-public rooms, and reduced the number of elevators.  With the savings, they were able to completely finish and furnish the interior and came in so much under budget that they were able to return $94,000 to the US treasury.  Amazing!  Another cool thing is that on the East side of the building, the artist made statues of great thinkers from the east.  So there is Confucious and a couple of other people I’m not too familiar with.  Unbelievably, the artist put himself on that wall as well as a shirtless President/Justice Taft depicting him studying at Yale as a young man.  Ha!

I loved getting this sneaky photo of the Hubba in the Supreme Court building.

The building was so gorgeous–outside and in.  I took these pictures to tease Baboo about how great it would be as a venue for her bridal photos!  Seriously, though.  So beautiful.  I really started to get a sense of the grandeur and stateliness of the U.S. government.  It was powerful.  We actually ate lunch in the Supreme Court cafeteria.

We went to the Capitol building as well and took a tour of the inside.  We had a wonderful tour guide lady who is in her 80s and has 9 children and only one lung.  I learned so much on the tour.  The Capitol is also so extravagant and beautiful and ornate.  In fact, walking around this part of DC made me think of Europe and castles.  I was surprised that we could even get this close to the buildings, let along walk inside them.  In fact, I may have been wondering how secure they were.  And then the Hubba pointed out a man with a huge gun on the steps to the capitol that I hadn’t seen before.  There are police and secret service everywhere around here.  Seriously.

There are different statues all throughout the Capitol.  Each state can give up to two statues.  Over the years, sometimes a state would take an old statue and replace it with a statue of someone else from their state.  There’s one of MLK and Rosa Parks.  The Reagan statue is sitting on a bed of pieces of the Berlin wall.  I saw where Paul Ryan’s office is.  Just off to the right of where I took the below photo. The art was beautiful.  Every design on the building is meaningful and symbolic.  Like some of the columns have ears of corn carved in at the top to indicate that our country was built by farmers.  The actual buildings–these governmental buildings that talk about equality for all and blind justice–those buildings, ironically, were built by slaves.  Still, the Capitol has the effect of making you ponder the grandeur and depth of our history.  We have an amazing history.  It’s not all rosy.  But what an amazing country we are a part of!  It’s truly amazing.

By the time we ended our tour of the Capitol, my knees and feet were done for!  We had been walking for hours.  So we headed back the couple miles or so back to our apartment.  I thought maybe I would take a nap because I was so sleepy again.  But after watching a little TV, we got up again to go the grocery store to get some milk (and chocolate).  The closest grocery store I had found online turned out to be something less even than a convenience store.  If we wanted alcohol, red bull, candy or chips we were good to go.  But they were out of milk.  A shipment is supposed to come in tomorrow.  So we made do with some juice, ginger ale and chocolate chip cookies.  After eating, I knew I could make it to bed time without a nap.  So while the Hubba has been studying, I have been blogging and watching movies.

Pretty soon, we’ll probably do another video call with the kids.  Tomorrow I really want to go see the new Museum of African-American History.  I can’t wait!!

Diplomacy, Part 1 (hopefully…?)

Whenever I have been pregnant, we have shared the news almost as soon as we have known.  Who wants to wait to share the giddy of excitement of knowing you are about the receive the best gift in the world?

With this news, I was still ready to share immediately (no surprise there!  haha).  But the Hubba wanted to wait.  Wait until things were more certain.  Wait until we knew for sure that everything was going to be.  Wait until their was real news to share.  I’ve been wondering if this is what other pregnant women felt like–why they waited until the end of the first trimester or later when ultrasounds said everything was fine–before they made a big announcement.  Because if anything went wrong, then they’d have to face all the people they told and publicly deal with it all.

I am not pregnant.  It’s just an analogy.

But that is the explanation for why I am writing this secret post on my blog that will get posted if things work out.  Or it might get lost in the oodles of other unfinished posts that I start and never finish or publish.  I’m not even sure if there will be a part 2.  Hence the question mark in the title.

So our story starts back in mid-April.  We were dealing with the stresses of the life of an attorney.  There are many things that the Hubba loves about the law.  But there are many things that he does not love.  One thing that he mentioned to me several years ago that he disliked was that almost every interaction he had in his career was contentious.  And it was exhausting.  In addition to that, we were fatiguing of owning our own business.  In addition to his full-time job of lawyering, he also had a part- to full-time job of managing, which he never did really love and especially didn’t now.  If one of the perks of what he was doing was that we were becoming millionaires, the trade-off would probably have been worth it.  But it wasn’t.  And so in February we were feeling dissatisfied.

I was feeling stuck, too. There are many really great things about living in the state we live in.  But there are also many things that are important to me, that you just can’t find here.  And I have been itching to seriously get out for almost a decade.  He was only licensed to practice law in our state so he can’t easily take jobs elsewhere.  Plus, he had spent years building his client base here.  He was too old and experienced to get an entry level job someplace but he couldn’t easily become a partner anyplace else because his client base wouldn’t move with him.  And knowing how he felt about the law, it would be really nice if he could change careers to something he enjoyed more.  But how do you do that at our age?  What could he do without going back to school?

So this was the place we were in life at that time.  Also at that time, Wiyah was still on her mission and I was working on college scholarship applications for her.  An old college friend who is a FABULOUS (like-blow-your-socks-off!) high school counselor who specializes in getting kids to college was, thankfully, helping and counselling me.  During some of our emailing back and forth, I mentioned the work situation.  She was currently living in the United Arab Emirates and was telling me that she and her husband had been working internationally for several years.  She talked about the amazing experiences and international perspectives they had been able to give their kids and all the travelling they had been able to do on teachers’ salaries.  She asked me if we had ever considered living abroad.

We had actually.  In fact, when the Hubba was applying to law school he applied to a program at a university that I thought would be perfect for us.  It involved 2 years at a US law school and then 2 years at a law school in France.  It was very disappointing to not be chosen for that program.  We had always been open to the idea of living out of the country and I thought it would be great to raise our kids to be truly bilingual.  We even spent that summer in Belgium where he had an internship.  I had hoped for a long time after law school that we still might get some kind of international job, but as time as moved on, we chose a different career track.

My friend mentioned that in her community in UAE she knew several ex-pats, travelers, international employees and a few foreign service people and told us we should try the Foreign Service.  I looked it up on-line.  It looked interesting.  There were several different types of jobs you could have  in diplomacy.  The obvious one to me that the Hubba would excel in was the political track.  So on April 13, I just quickly shot him an email with some info and asked if the foreign service was something he would be interested in.

Would you be interested in a career in the Civil Service or Foreign Service?  I’m looking at that today…

He replied yes and we started seriously researching it.  At first he was interested in the political and economic tracks.  But after extensive reading, he decided on political.

There were lots of things that we loved about the idea of the foreign service.  The work, the travel, the benefits.  The only meaningful downsides were 1) You have to be ready and able to serve anywhere in the world–you don’t get to choose, although you do list preferences that they try to keep in mind, but your preferences are definitely not guaranteed–and some of those world-wide places are a little frightening and unsafe.  The Hubba, knowing that there are some places in the world I have not even wanted to visit was also skeptical that I would be willing to go to places that weren’t even necessarily dangerous but just very different culturally.  He was right to be skeptical because that is totally me.  But I surprised myself and him by feeling up to the challenge.  I felt comfortable being part of a world-wide church and knowing that wherever we went, we would be part of a family and have people to help us and look out for us.  And there is a lot of security also being backed by the US government.  2)  The kids.  Who wants to uproot their kids from their lives and throw them in a stressful situation that could be difficult?  As we began talking to them about the possibility, it seemed like the older the kids were, the less they liked the idea.  And none of them really liked it.

So for days, we researched and read and discussed.  I loved finding blogs written by foreign service families to get a sense of what it was like from that perspective.  My counselor friend put me in touch with someone she knew who was currently in the foreign service where she lived in UAE.  And when we finally decided that we would give it a try, the first step in the process was not very far away.  Joining the foreign service is a long process.  The first step is that you have to take the Foreign Service Officer Test.  And it’s only offered three times a year.  You have to register for it weeks in advance and now that we had decided to move ahead, the next registration period was just a couple days away on April 26.  It was perfect timing.  So the Hubba signed up.  As part of the registration, you have to submit a resume.  The resume is really important and is used later on to determine if you progress, so the Hubba labored over this resume for a long time.  And it was stressful because 20,000 people sign up to take the FSOT every year.  There is limited testing space and so you want to hurry and get your registration in so you get a spot.  But you don’t want to hurry so much that you don’t spend sufficient enough time on your resume to make it really great (it’s not a document that you can work on earlier and upload).  The Hubba was a perfectionist but every day he took to work on his resume was a day we feared we wouldn’t get a spot in the FSOT.  So he hurried through it and on April 28, as the spots were filling up fast, he got it all submitted and registered to take the test on June 9.

I get the impression the FSOT is a lot like any other standardized test– the ACT or GRE or LSAT.  But the questions come from a wide variety of topics like US history to global implications of things, to pop culture, to math.  Some people take it multiple times without passing.  Other people don’t even study because it’s all just common knowledge stuff and they pass with flying colors.  I thought that the FSOT was the kind of test the Hubba was made to take!  He’s the kind of person who reads this kind of stuff in his free time.  For fun!  But he wasn’t on the same page as me and took the test seriously and prepared extensively.

He joined some online groups who discussed how to prepare and he ordered some recommended books and started watching recommended documentaries to help bolster his knowledge and understanding.  He made flashcards to help him memorize some things.  One of the online things he found was a huge foreign service google doc spanning several years of test, where people added in their information and how well they did on the FSOT and the other steps to becoming a foreign service officer.  He loved to analyze that data.  Anyway, after he registered we had about 6 weeks until the test.  He studied like a fiend.  The car was always full of flashcards and books and I remember quizzing him walking into the grocery store.

Finally the day arrived and…I don’t know.  This is the problem with only me blogging.  I don’t remember all the details he told me about the test.  But he felt pretty good about it as I recollect.  Then we just had to wait until July to get the results.  The results came while he was at scout camp.  He passed, of course!   He passed by more than 20 points. So it was a really good score.  We were so excited.  But finding out the results meant that that started the three week countdown until the next part was due–the personal narrative essays.

There were five or six biographical essays that he had to write about himself to demonstrate that he had the experience and qualities necessary to be a good foreign service officer.  The really difficult part for him was that a lot of the experiences he could use to answer the questions, he can’t share because of client confidentiality issues.  So it was tricky finding relevant stories from other parts of his life.  Another tricky thing was that for every essay that you wrote you had to give a name and contact information of someone who could verify the information.  And they couldn’t be a family member.  So for instance, for one essay, we thought it would be helpful to answer with a story from when we lived in Belgium when the Hubba had to negotiate in French with the Belgian Federal Police to let us and our children cross the border into France.  It was the perfect story to illustrate what they were looking for.  But who could verify it?  The anonymous Belgian police officers from 1998?  So we couldn’t use it.

Meanwhile the Hubba was gone at camp, we were in the midst of moving our office again and preparing for Wiyah to come home from her mission in just a few days.  It was crazy!  He had made a plan to work on one essay every few days and move on to the next.  But in the end, it was a crazy free-for-all in the last couple of days.  He had his essays on a google doc and his family and I edited and made suggestions.  And I have to say that it was a lot of work with a lot of opinions but I think the end product was some really tight essays that demonstrated exactly what they were looking for.  So we got those off.

And then the wait was on.  We expected to hear back on or around September 15.  But he got the email saying he had been selected for the next step on September 1.  That next step is the Oral Assessment (OA).  This is the best description I have read about what it’s like.  So starting next week, we sign up for a date for him to do that.  I think the possible dates start on October 30 and run through February.  So we need to pick a date and then work out travel plans to DC.  Or maybe we should go about it the other way and get travel plans first and then pick a date?  I don’t really know.

Anyway, this is essentially the last substantive step to becoming a foreign service officer.  At the end of the day, they let you know if you passed or not.  If you didn’t pass, you go home and figure out something else to do with your life.  If you do pass, they give you a conditional job offer.  It’s conditional upon you passing a background check and passing a seriously comprehensive medical exam and upon their being an opening in the foreign service that they need to hire for.  That is serious business because everyone who passed the oral assessment just gets put on a ranked register.  So let’s say that 300 people made it to that point.  They are ranked from 1-300.  And if they only have openings for 52 people that year and you are number 53 or lower, you don’t get offered a job.  You can stay on the register for 18 months.  And because people are being constantly added to the list (year round testing) and maybe some people are taking other jobs elsewhere in the interim, they would be leaving the list, the rankings are constantly changing.  And you don’t even get to find out your rank ever.

But I guess that’s getting ahead of myself.  For now, we just try and figure out when we an up-end our lives and take a trip to DC for several days for the OA.  Should be fun!

UPDATE:  Since the writing of this post, we scheduled his oral assessment for November 18.  We’ve booked flights and a place to stay.  The Hubba is currently trying to juggle his full time career with studying for the assessment and also trying to improve his French (If you speak a foreign language, you get bumped up the list!)  When I first started writing this, the idea was we would only post if he passed the OA.  But he’s had a change of heart and I’m thinking we can use all the prayers and positive thoughts and encouragement we can get.

 

Working for a Living

The Hubba has owned his own business for more than a decade now.

Baboo worked part time as a legal assistant for the Hubba and then part-time at a bagel shop before she left on her mission.

Before he left on his mission, JJ worked at Wendy’s part-time and then at Costa Vida full time.

Wiyah worked full-time for the Hubba for 6 or 7 months as a legal assistant before her mission.

Chi worked full-time at Wendy’s for a year when he was a junior and now is working full-time installing fences this summer.

Baboo just started her first legit, full-time job.  With benefits and paid vacation and everything!  She is an administrative assistant at a financial planning office.  I’m super impressed with her.

The cool thing that happened today was that Wiyah’s mission president owns a chain of businesses.  Before her mission, Wiyah had applied to a job there.  It was kind of a dream job for her at the time.  She did not get the job.  Her mission president asked her to say hi to the manager of this place so today she went by to say hi and give him the message and walked out with a part-time job!  At her dream place.  And he knows that she will be leaving for school in a month and that’s ok.  It’s perfect.

I’m just amazed by all these wonderful kids and their hard work and the way they can juggle their jobs with school and other responsibilities.  All four of my children have held full time jobs.  I never have.  Not once in my life have I held a full time job.  The closest I ever came was the summer before I got married when I had two part-time jobs and was working house-sitting and pet-sitting.  It was a crazy summer.

To be honest, I’m afraid of full-time employment.  It intimidates me.  I don’t know if I’m capable of it.  What I’m saying is that I don’t even know if I could get hired and KEEP a full-time job.  I also don’t want to do it.  I mean, there are some jobs that seem appealing to me.  And sometimes I flirt with it.  But mostly I’m content to stay home and do this work.  I don’t really know what I’m saying.  All I know is that I’m proud of my kids and feel like they are doing more with their lives than I did with mine.

I’ve finished everything I need to do to apply as a substitute teacher in my district.  But I’ve been procrastinating turning it all in and starting the chain reaction of things that will end in my employment this fall.  I’m going to try to make a point to get that all turned in tomorrow.  It’s scary.

On Becoming a Man

X finished day 3 of his long work days in the sun.  He is getting paid very well to install fences.  I have felt so bad for him.  I definitely want him to only work 4 days a week so at least he can go swimming once in a while or relax and just veg for a day over his summer break from school.  I wanted him to quit.  I was totally behind him quitting.

And.

I also want him to the kind of man who doesn’t flinch at hard manual labor.    I want him to be the kind of missionary who can spend a 12 hour day out in the weather, facing rejection, while fasting,  hoping to just be able to talk to people. I want him to be the kind of husband and father who does it whatever it takes for however long it takes to provide.  I want him to be the kind of employee who doesn’t give up until a job is done or the kind of business owner who sees a thing through to a successful ending, no matter what it takes.

So he needs this.  He needs this physically brutal, emotionally draining job.  What he doesn’t need is me feeling sorry for him during this growth period.  What he needs is my encouragement and confidence in him.

Which is why this morning when he was too tired to wake up and so sore, I sat down on his bed and rubbed his back and told him how proud I was of him and that this would get easier.  Then I gave him my hand and helped pull him up.

Also, he probably needs a paycheck.  Because that’s the reward for this hard work.  And he hasn’t seen that yet.

He is 17, healthy, and strong.  To become a man capable of carrying heavy burdens, he needs practice carrying heavy burdens.

In the meantime, he is getting a killer tan right now.  No one but me has ever been browner.  And he may be beating me out right now.