Driving Lessons in Snow

The snow started coming around 1:45 in the afternoon on President's Day, a few hours earlier than forecast, which augured for a heavy storm to begin. By evening, there was a good inch-and-a-half to two inches of very powdery snow outside, which (I thought) was the perfect chance to let David learn a little about driving in the snow.

We spent an hour in it, mostly between a church parking lot and the high school's parking lot. Some takeaways from our playtime:

• It's a lot harder today to make a car skid than it was when I was learning, when we didn't have ABS and TRAC systems and multiple redundancies and so forth. The Mom-Mobile will only let you turn off so much.
• Plus, fresh tires this fall, and dry, powdery snow (instead of slick wet stuff) doesn't help.
• Despite that, we did get to give him a few experiences. He fishtailed a bit in each parking lot, seeing how the van tried to slide away from him. He also got to feel the shuddering of the ABS system multiple times.
• We went through a fun little slalom at the high school parking lot, and he got to experience how much l-o-n-g-e-r it takes to stop when sliding on the snow.
• He's such a careful driver at this point, it makes me proud. He resolutely kept well below the speed limits on Silverbrook, in an abundance of caution in the new conditions. He didn't really go wild in the parking lots, either--no actual donuts--but still had the chance to see what the various conditions could be like.

Youth Missions 2014

Erin, the youth ministries director at our church, has created a blog to track the adventures of our two sets of youth missions this summer.  Be sure to follow Never Too Young, where she's going to chronicle the kids' adventures at Jeremiah Project near Winchester, VA (including Sarah's adventures there), and then at Strong Missions in Costa Rica (for which David leaves Sunday morning).  The kids are doing great things as Christ's hands and feet, it's heartwarming to see them in action!

Maturing Pride

Over the summer, when we replaced the carpet in the house, David laid claim to the computer desk that had been in the study; we moved it into his room in place of the one he'd had from Mary from when she was a girl.  As summer ended, we helped him clear it off and make a study spot for him in his room, so he had a place (other than in front of the Xbox) to do homework.

I am shocked to report that for the first two weeks, it has worked!

David's laptop and AP World History texts live up there, and each night we see signs that he's using them both--and taking notes, and writing, and reading.  He seems to have started the year by making a conscious, concerted effort to tend to his homework.

Moreover, he has volunteered (!) to give up several of his Saturdays for a project, organized through the school, called "Capturing the Voices of WWII."  He and some of his friends will be trained, then spend their days at the World War II memorial downtown conducting oral history interviews of surviving WWII veterans who come to the memorial.  He is really looking forward to an opportunity to capture the voices, and video, of the last survivors of the Greatest Generation--conducting interviews, learning their stories, and capturing them for the ages to come, so others can remember the sacrifices they made and what it was like to serve 70 years ago in the hell of WWII.

The boy is maturing.  He is more willing than ever before to set aside the immediate pleasures and to think of his responsibilities, and of something larger than himself. Oh, sure, we have our moments of teenage attitude, but on the whole, this has been a tremendous start to his sophomore year.  He is maturing, and he is taking pride in his work and in what he can bring to the world.

And as a father I find myself experiencing my own maturing pride in the young man he is becoming.  I can probably count on one hand the number of times my dad said he was proud of me.  In looking at these first couple of weeks of school, I can see multiple reasons for pride in my son, and it reminds me of the need to let him know how proud I am of the man he's emerging into.