Apparently pregnancy is miserable. I've never been pregnant, but I get all the sympathy symptoms, plus I put on weight. Believe it or not, pregnancy is even harder on my wife. At least that's what she says.

One area where our symptoms diverge is sleeplessness — she wakes up in the middle of the night, while I store up sleep like a bear in hibernation. I know what's coming, you see. A squawking little Woodlief larva, demanding attention every 2-3 hours. And you've got to stay awake when you're changing the little stinker and carrying him to his mother, or else he'll latch on to you and attempt to nurse. I say this from regrettable experience.

So last night the poor wife rolled out of bed at some unholy hour, only to return hours later, as I am rising at my own appointed unholy hour. "Honey," she says meekly.

"Yes?"

"I bought some books." She tells me this because the Amazon account is linked to my email address, and she knows that soon I'll see the wave of purchases. Many of the books she buys are second-hand, primarily because they are out of print (think original McGuffey Readers and, thanks to our friends Ann Stegall and Suzanne Castro-Miller, the entire collection of Elizabeth Goudge). This means that, on a night when she's unable to sleep, and has lots of time to ponder what we need for the boys' library, and what authors' oeuvres she hasn't completely worked her way through yet, a dozen or so confirmation emails from Amazon will make their way to my inbox. This is why she tells me that she bought some books.

"Honey," I whisper sweetly (she is pregnant, after all, and pregnant women are like hippos, in that they are deceptively quick and dangerous, despite their plump cuteness*), "do you think perhaps we could find a late-night hobby for you that costs less money?"

"It's for the children," she declares, borrowing a page from the crowd bent on spending the country into bankruptcy. And who can argue with her, especially in her cute-but-dangerous hippo-like state? So I kiss her and ask her if she is my baby, because last night Isaac disavowed any further babyhood ("You're my sweet baby," I had told him as I swept him up into my arms, to which he replied: "I not a baby." He recanted seconds later, professing that he was in fact my baby, but that's because he wanted a cookie.). She rightly says that she is, and I wish that I could lie beside her and listen to the rain. But instead I have to work, in order to pay for all those books.

In a while the boys will awake, and they will be beside themselves with joy because of the rain, because on rain days they get to watch a movie. After their schoolwork is done they will gather in front of the tube with a bowl of popcorn their mother has made for them, and they will watch "Mary Poppins" or "The Sound of Music," and she will curl up nearby and read one of her used Elizabeth Goudge books. I will be at work, but thinking of them, and of how nice it will be when the day is finished, that I can return to a place called Home, and how blessed I am that the word means so very much to me.

(*Disclaimer: the author would like to stress that the hippo metaphor is not intended to imply that said author's wife is anything but slender and smoking hot, albeit with a round bun in the oven. The author would like to note further that, due to the unfortunate onset of gestational diabetes, said author's wife has been on the equivalent of an Atkin's diet, and is even more smoking hot than normal, which is pretty darn good-looking, as any objective observer will easily admit. The author's wife would like it noted that the author is delusional, and probably sucking up because he's still angling to get himself an obscenely expensive .45-caliber sidearm. The author would like to note in rejoinder that said wife doesn't know from hotness, being a woman who has never truly appreciated her own beauty.)
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Though I expected Michael Lewis's Blind Side to do for football what his Moneyball did for baseball, I found my stomach churning as I read the story of Michael Oher, a black child neglected for years in the slums and streets of Memphis, until happenstance brought him to the doorstep of the exclusive, largely white, putatively Christian Briarcrest School in the suburbs. Michael is the focus of Lewis's book, which is ostensibly about the evolution of the left tackle as one of the most important positions in football, because he is a physical anomaly, built exactly the way pro teams want their left tackles to be built. While the story seems subsequently to have been spun (though Lewis himself is admirably objective) as one of kindly Christians taking in an underprivileged minority child (see, for example, David Forsmark's FrontPage article), I put down the book with the disgusted sense that Michael only got in the door because he promised to lead Briarcrest Christian School to victory.

There is, for example, the revelation that Briarcrest explicitly considered and rejected, after Michael proved capable of adapting to its environment, bringing in other desperately poor black children from Memphis's deplorable public schools, even when offered funding to do so. Not that the school is strapped for cash; Lewis reveals that Briarcrest's wealthy parents had recently built a one-million dollar football stadium for their children. But letting in what Christ called "the least of these"? Think of what it would do to the school's average SAT score!

It's unfortunate that Briarcrest features so prominently in Lewis's book, because it doesn't leave one with a favorable impression of Christian schools. Lewis recounts, for example, the "Jesus Bowl," a state-championship game between Briarcrest and another large Christian school. "It didn't take long," Lewis reveals, "to see that Jesus was keeping his distance." By half-time a player for one school had been flagged for suggesting the referee had an unnatural knowledge of his mother, and a Briarcrest player had been penalized for gallivanting about the field, shouting "We're gonna beat their f_____ ass!" — an affront not just to decency but to grammar. Capping the disgusting display, as Briarcrest began to pull ahead, players for the other Christian school took to firing themselves at Michael's knees in an attempt to injure him.

Jesus must be so very proud.

While the parents who took Michael in (and eventually adopted him) come off as genuinely concerned about his well-being, Lewis exposes a host of despicable adults circling him like sharks. There is the head coach of the Briarcrest football team, who angles to get a job with the University of Tennessee by suggesting he can influence Michael to enroll there. While the principal and trustees of this Christian school thought he was fit enough to coach their children, it was Michael who first saw through him, calling him the "Snake." Tellingly, the coach actually liked the nickname.

And though we've come to expect as much from universities, I was surprised to learn that Brigham Young University, of all places, is the "go to" spot for ill-educated high school sports prospects who want to artificially inflate their grades to meet NCAA entrance requirements. As Lewis explains, Michael replaced several high school "F's" with "A's" by enrolling in BYU Internet courses like "Character Education," which required only that a student "read a few brief passages from famous works — a speech by Lou Gherig here, a letter by Abraham Lincoln there — and then answer five questions about it." So much for my image of upright Mormons.

Of course they're only serving a market demand, which ultimately is you and me, and our love of entertaining college sports. Michael Oher eventually settled on the University of Mississippi, and was duly admitted, even though he is barely functionally literate at best. If he's fortunate, he'll play for several years in the NFL, before being hobbled by injuries and the sheer punishment to his heart from carrying too much weight. We'll cheer him on, and then we'll forget about him, no less quickly than Briarcrest Christian School has forgotten the hundreds of children in neighborhoods where Michael came from.

I have good friends who started a small private school devoted to classical Christian education. Strangely, they refused to put the word "Christian" in the title of the school. When I asked, they explained that either they will live up to that title, meaning that they needn't include it in the name, or else they won't, in which case they dare not dishonor it. I think I see the wisdom in that point of view. Would that Briarcrest Christian School were simply "Briarcrest School." Perhaps then the story of Michael Oher wouldn't be so discouraging.

Upon hearing the news that the U.S. may soon sit down with representatives from Syria and Iran to talk through our issues, it struck me that the phrase Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice used to describe this initiative, a "diplomatic offensive," may well be the stupidest oxymoron I've heard out of Washington since congressional deliberation. Rice didn't come up with it first, of course, it was recently used prominently by the Iraq Study Group in their love letter of realpolitik advice for President Bush.

Washington, of course, thrives on oxymorons, almost as if someone read 1984 ("War is peace;" "Freedom is slavery") and thought, That George Orwell, he really knows how to put a positive spin on things. And so we have the Internal Revenue Service (when's the last time you interacted with them and felt like you were getting a service?), and the Central Intelligence Agency (the people who didn't know squat about the Soviet Union, don't know squat about Iraq, and likely are even now burying themselves in ignorance about the next threat to world peace), and the U.S. Office of Government Ethics.

Oxymorons.info is a great place to find more of these little beasts. It never hurts, in wartime, to have mastered the delicate killing lingo, with phrases like friendly fire and partial cease-fire. Some would add Middle East peace process to that list.

Unfortunately, Washington is the opposite of Las Vegas, in that what happens there reverberates throughout the rest of the country. Thus doublespeak has penetrated the business world (home office, business casual, limited lifetime guarantee, and equal opportunity), as well as sports (amateur college athletics, spectator sport, and my favorite, The Fighting Quakers).

Even schools (required elective, study break) have succumbed. And let's not leave out religion, not with holy war, faith worker, and Christian Scientists.

Now that we have perfected the art of fine-tuned polling, so that experts are able to isolate specific words and phrases that seem to resonate with listeners, we can expect more oxymorons to infest the lexicon. The typical political speech these days seems little more than clusters of noble-sounding words strung together by courageous verbs. How long, really, before we hear a speech like this from a candidate:

"My fellow Americans, it is time to stand, as we run towards the goal of continued victory, with proud humility, and peacefully fight as individuals together, teaching by learning, in order to create a better tomorrow, today."

You know, I'd like to point out — proudly, yet in all humility — that I seem to have a knack for this. Perhaps I could work for the State Department.

"I always get a little queasy," I began my speech, "when a group of people gets together to spend other people's money." Last night was my first attendance at a homeowner's association meeting, and I was there to defend my wallet. At stake was one thousand dollars, more or less, from every family in the neighborhood, to pay for an entrance monument.

Before you choke over that price tag, let me assure you that the ladies of the Monument Committee have worked with an expensive design firm to cook up some monument possibilities that are, well, monumental. Copper-roofed cupolas. Eight-foot high chiseled stone walls. We're not talking shrubs and a picket fence like those pikers down the street.

And that thousand dollar per home figure is really just a wild guess, the Monument Committee ladies assured us. It's probably exaggerated. Quit thinking about the money, they implored us. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain.

So the meeting began with breathless talk of cupolas and stone walls, and several boards with architectural renderings were passed around. I had never been quite sure what a cupola was — it's one of those words I breeze past when reading, like clerestory, or embrasure — but I can tell you now that a nicely built cupola is stunning, especially when the imaginary sunlight hits its imaginary copper roof.

But a thousand bucks is a thousand bucks, and beyond the money, there was my contrarian streak kicking in. Something just didn't sit right about this, about the way they were steering us while pretending that we're just talking, about their assumption that a vocal minority somehow represents the folks who have too many life and business commitments to burn two hours on a Monday night gazing at cupola drawings. So I stood up and made my impromptu speech.

I told them that I was sure the monuments were lovely indeed. But, I said, we're talking the price of a Habitat for Humanity house. We're talking about fifty percent plus one of those present forcing our neighbors to pay for something that some of us believe will be pretty to look at. It's not as if we're looking to spend money on an important safety item, like scraping the ice from our roads (which we don't), or fixing that drainage ditch that breeds mosquitoes in the summer (haven't gotten around to that either). In those cases, I said, it makes sense to ask everyone to pay his share.

But a big monument to make some of us feel better about our neighborhood, I said, is not a necessity. And forcing people to pay for things which aren't necessary, but which some of us happen to want, is just wrong. It's the mentality that has gotten us in trouble as a country, and as a state, and I don't think we ought to be doing it in our own back yard.

I ended with an entreaty for voluntarism. If enough of us think this is worth having, I said, then let's raise money for it. But let's not force our neighbors to pay for something just because some of us happen to like it.

There was considerable applause. People smiled and clapped — except for one of the Monument Committee ladies, who saw in me a cupola-hating devil — and congratulated me on my pretty speechifying. Then most of them voted to take bids for building a monument.

But at least they were kind, all except for Monument Committee Lady, and an attorney with what appeared to be a permanent smirk smeared across his face. He was firmly in the monument coalition, which became clear when the monument ladies waged a sudden coup against the Treasurer (who apparently was not so fond of the monument idea), by nominating Smirking Attorney to challenge him for office. Suddenly, what was supposed to be a routine re-election of officers became a pitched battle between the surprised Treasurer and Smirking Attorney.

Like any good politician, the attorney and his comrades had done their ground work. It was reminiscent of Ralph Reed's boast, back before he became a hack lobbyist getting rich from both sides of the gambling lobby, that his Christian Coalition would put the political opposition in body bags before they even knew what hit them. A quick vote later, and Smirking Attorney was the new Treasurer. The outgoing Treasurer, a long-time resident of the neighborhood, tried to put on a good face about the whole thing. Apparently these positions mean a lot to some people, though.

And perhaps they should. As much as I gripe about my state and federal government, neither has ever hit me with a special tax equal to 250 percent of my regular tax. Maybe the real political power isn't in the halls of Congress, but in homeowner's associations. For all their bullying, the Feds usually don't meddle in your choice of window shutters, or send you a snippy letter if your grass gets too long. Sure, occasionally they may break down your door and kill you because they think you have some weed on the premises, but for the most part they leave you alone, except for that slow, steady suck on your wallet.

It seems to me that if we want to reform our political culture, and break the mentality that one's fellow citizens exist to serve one's needs, then perhaps we should start not in Washington, but in the basement of the Equity Bank in Andover, Kansas, where my local HOA illegally held its meeting outside our county of residence last night. Not that I'm suggesting that any of my non-smirking attorney neighbors use that transgression of bylaws as grounds for voiding the meeting's decision-making. Because that would just be underhanded.

No, the democratic thing is to go door to door, building my own coalition of anti-boondoggle neighbors, and load myself up with enough of their proxy votes to block any further waste of money. It would only take, say, 80 - 120 hours of effort from start to finish, along with about a hundred interactions with other people, which we introverts always find so energizing. Given that I struggle most weeks to get my own children bathed on a regular basis, I don't think my neighborhood anti-tax revolution is going to happen. I'm afraid the ladies on the Monument Committee have an inherent advantage over me.

And this, in the end, is the real problem with politics. The people who want our money for this trinket, or for that massively expensive permanent entitlement, have more time on their hands than the rest of us. This is why I believe a community filled with large families is a good thing. If your house is full of children and grandchildren — and you're doing your job as a parent or grandparent — then you just don't have time to spend your neighbor's money, unless it's for something really, really important.

In the end, however, I hold the ultimate trump card, because I don't have to live in this neighborhood. I can seek out my own tribe, someplace where monuments are less important than scraping ice off the streets. It's the beauty of our federal system of government. The citizens of Colorado get a limit on their state's spending, and the people of Massachusetts experiment with Socialism Lite. It's choice, baby.

As I watched my well-meaning and mostly kind-hearted neighbors gaze longingly at pictures of cupolas and engraved stone, and listened to them fall prey to at least three errors of logic, two errors of fact, and four procedural transgressions, it struck me how much we owe to our Founders. We're not one of the most prosperous and free nations on earth because we are inherently smarter or better than the unfortunate citizens of other countries. We have prosperity and liberty in spite of ourselves. We are blessed because a couple of centuries ago a bunch of cantankerous guys got together and bound up our government with all kinds of inherent divisions and checks.

People like to complain about government not getting anything done, but I think we ought to celebrate gridlock. I remember reading once that the Peruvian legislature had passed 40,000 new laws in its latest session. That's a lot of monuments. Instead of lambasting our legislators for not getting enough done, maybe we should ask them to take more time off. Perhaps that would work in my neighborhood as well. I wonder what it would cost to reward the Monument ladies for their hard work, perhaps with an extended trip to our nation's capital. There are great restaurants, wonderful museums, and loads of history. Plus I hear they have a lot of lovely monuments.

I'll begin by admitting that I was a slacker during most of my high school and undergraduate careers. I coasted on horsepower. Had I possessed a scrap of self-discipline and vision, I would be wiser now. This matters to me because as I wrestle with big ideas, I sorely feel my inadequate education. This probably sounds like backhanded boasting to some, but those of you who are truly, classically educated understand full well what I mean.

I know firsthand, in other words, the difference between going to school and getting an education. Charles Murray has written a fascinating series of op-eds in The Wall Street Journal this week, on the topic of intelligence and education. I suspect he may now need to enter a witness protection program. I once heard him remark in a speech that he had recently been booed, by a university audience, for saying that half of the population has below-average intelligence. We live in an age, in the West, where sentiment trumps reason.

One of Murray's arguments is that — insofar as we desire that colleges and universities provide a rigorous education — many students currently attending those institutions do not belong there. Society would be better served, he writes, by a system of vocational schools and skills certification. What happens instead is that university instruction is dumbed down in all but the most elite schools.

And yet, the dumbing process is apparently taking too long for some — witness the rise of websites, like Duenow.com, devoted to selling term papers and essays to students. In its typo-ridden FAQ page, Duenow boasts of "serving" five million students. As the Duenow sages tauntingly ask, "Do you have better things [to] do with your time than spend it writing a useless essay?" Absolutely, says Jeff, a student from Kansas, who writes in a testimonial on the website: "Kick ass site and papers dudes. You guys are the shizit!" There's also Missy, from New York, who promises to "definately [sic] tell my friends about you."

Please do, Missy. There are so many more important things to do, while spending your parent's money at college, than master basic writing and spelling.

Murray's thoughts on intelligence make me think that perhaps I shouldn't be so discouraged by the sight of people sitting in an airport lobby, staring at the television instead of reading. I shouldn't be depressed by the fact that many more people watch cable television regularly than read a quality newspaper or magazine. Half the people have below-average intelligence. They need something to do, and cable TV beats rioting and gladiator contests.

I am thankful that somehow I survived a peculiar trap that I think I see, which is children with above-average intelligence who become immersed in the dominant teenage and twenty-something culture of unintelligence. We probably all know at least one child like this, whose time is so absorbed in Myspace, Facebook, Xbox, and the regular diet of cable television, movies, and — this is my favorite — just "hanging" with friends, that he does not actually do very much of something that still appears indispensable if one is to rise above one's ignorance, which is to read. I am convinced that Russell Kirk had it right, when he famously seized a contraband television that one of his children had smuggled into their home, and threw it from the upstairs window.

This puts me in mind of a candidate for County Board of Supervisors where I live, who said in one of his campaign speeches, "While we all know it's the responsibility of the school district to educate our children, I believe the county government has a role to play as well..."

Yes, of course. It's someone else's job. The city, the county, the church, the college, the Congress, the president. Somehow we have delivered all responsibility from the shoulders of the three people who have the greatest control over a child's education, namely, the parents, and the child himself.

In this regard, I think Murray is missing something. The dilemma in American education is not only that we waste too many resources on students who are neither capable of nor interested in a true university education. The more frightening problem, to me, is that vast swaths of the students who are mentally capable simply have no interest, as evidenced by what they actually spend their time doing.

We are embarking, then, on a dangerous experiment. We are adding, to the bottom half of the intelligence ladder, intelligent people with inferior skills and a poor grounding in history, logic, theology, fine arts, and sciences. We are doing so in an age when news, entertainment, and politics are dominant and interchangeable, and when government is constrained less and less by constitutional parameters than by the whim of bureaucrats and judges.

Perhaps, were I better grounded in the history of civilizations, I might be able to conjure some hypotheses from all this. One thing seems clear, however. If the relatively short-lived American experiment in liberty and prosperity is ended in this century, thoughtful people picking through the rubble will know exactly whom to blame — every one of us.

I'm trying to work from home, after flying back early to beat the ice storm. The youngest boy is in the next room with his belly on a big recliner that can spin 360 degrees. He is racing around and around it to make himself dizzy. He doesn't have any pants on. One of his favorite things now is to close his eyes and walk. He likes to be surprised by whom or what he bumps into.

He dashes over to me, climbs onto my lap, and plops his frigid little white behind onto my hands. He gives me a fierce hug. He suspects that I am eating candy -- which, for the record, I am not -- and so he jams a grubby little hand into my mouth. He is a dentist now, telling me to go "ahhh." Another fierce hug. Some bouncing of the cold little hiney, followed by another hug. He takes my face in his warm hands and squeezes it. A wet kiss. And then he is off, fast-walking across the house with his eyes firmly shut. A thud. An "ouch." A giggle.

I take a draw from the plastic bottle of water I bought in the Atlanta airport, at a cost of approximately a hundred dollars. I could almost stomach the monopoly price if not for the surly service. People think New Yorkers are rude, but were I one of those people who revels in being mistreated, Atlanta would be my fantasy vacation spot. I've been to Atlanta at least 20 times in the last year, and I can count on one hand the number of interactions with service providers who were not indifferent, if not outright hostile. And come to think of it, the only exceptions all sounded as if they were born in other countries. Perhaps they haven't been assimilated into the rudeness yet.

But back to this water bottle, which bears an irritating trait increasingly common to airport water bottles, in that it has this strange twisty nipple attachment, as opposed to a screw top. The result is that all we thirsty travelers are forced into an infantile posture as we squeeze and suck at germ-laden plastic nipples in order to get a slug of water. And once you're in the air, in the pressurized cabin, opening the bottle causes the water to spurt a good three feet. Perhaps someone conducted a focus group, and found that the majority of air travelers like the new nipple thingy. Nobody asked me, though.

Delta broke my luggage. There must be some specialized machinery with sharply angled hammers to break our bags in the manner that airlines manage to break them. I wonder how much those special luggage-snapping machines cost. I wonder if, had Delta not invested in an abundance of them, it would have been able to cover the multi-billion dollar pension obligations its former -- now rich and retired -- CEO incurred, and which its current -- rich but not yet retired -- CEO recently foisted onto the taxpayers.

I didn't like Delta before they broke my luggage. I don't like organizations headed by executives who load themselves with perks and pay while using the government to insulate themselves from the consequences of their poor decisions. U.S. Airways wants to buy them, and Delta's executives are trying to get Congress to intervene, no doubt because they will be fired, which means they will have to search for some other organization willing to pay them large amounts of money without assessing their performance.

Delta sent me an email -- because I am a loyal customer, you see -- urging me to sign a petition to "Keep Delta my Delta." The email explains how important it is for me the consumer that Delta remain a separate company. Flexibility, more competitive rates, and so on. Yesterday I read that Delta's executives have been secretly discussing a merger with Northwest. I suspect that deal promises a heftier executive buyout.

My wife is on the phone with an agent from our insurer. She's trying to convince her to pay for something her company promised to cover when we gave them money. They're creatively defining our problem so that it falls into one of the non-covered categories. When they courted our business, we were customers. Now they seem to view us as the enemy.

Eli is sitting in a chair beside me now, just watching. He's holding a water bottle that he got from the cabinet and filled, after he saw that I was drinking from a water bottle. He's sitting in the chair, drinking from his water bottle, and he's just . . . watching.

These boys watch me a lot. I want to tell them to find someone better, but I'm the one they watch, and so every day I have to figure out how to be better than I am, because every day they are becoming something like me.

I think about the children of those airline executives and insurance officials. I wonder if their children sit and watch them, too, and if somehow their children are learning to be just as duplicitous and self-centered as they. It makes me think that maybe Isaac has it right, with his blind fumbling and bumbling, learning the world with his eyes tightly shut. Maybe our children would be better off if they didn't see how we behave. But they are always watching, and learning how to be in the world. I wonder if we would all behave better, if we kept that in our minds all of the time.

Maybe that's why we have them, because they make us better. They make us better because they make us forget about ourselves, or at least they make us put our own needs second. In a way, and only ever for brief intervals, they liberate us from slavery to the petty god of the self.

So I'm fine with the overpriced water bottle and the rotten airline and the unreliable insurer, because I'm home with these little ones, and it's cold outside, and for a while we will be alone in our own little world. And thankfully, in this world I am temporarily dethroned. It helps me understand the strange promise, that somehow, in losing one's life, one gains it.

I was up at 5 a.m. this morning, and heard on the BBC that Saddam Hussein had been hanged not long before. I found myself initially exultant, but then I began to think about whether it matters. This is because the thought entered my mind that people like Hussein are simply extensions of the ignorant, murderous tribal impulses that seem to have plagued man from the beginning.

I began to wonder whether we lie to ourselves when we make a big show of putting someone like Hussein on trial, as if he is an aberration. We want to believe that he is exceptionally cruel by dint of personal qualities, as opposed to exceptionally successful at exercising a widespread instinct for cruelty. How many men raised in the brutal tribal mentality that governs much of the world would not do the things Hussein did, given the opportunity?

The BBC reporter called him "President" Hussein. I love when people refer to some dictator as a president, or leader, as if there had been debates and discussion, followed by a free choice among competing candidates. It's even more precious when the same euphemism-spouters imply that George Bush, Jr., ought to have an asterisk by his title.

But then maybe an election isn't that important. I always felt a special connection to President Ford, because when I was eight years-old my grandmother took me to the little Winston-Salem airport, and we stood in a long line to greet him, and when he passed by she told me to stick out my hand so I did, and he wrapped his gigantic hand around mine and shook it. Here was someone who ascended to power without being elected president or vice-president, and yet he behaved with relative honor.

I like that he pardoned Nixon, even though I'm not a fan of much Nixon did beyond skewering Alger Hiss, which probably shouldn't count because he did it as a congressman. I like that Ford pardoned Nixon, because he did it knowing people would howl. He knew it would damage any hope he might have of being elected president, and yet he did it anyway, because he believed it was right. I don't think that exists much any more, the doing of something unpopular simply because it is right.

Doing the unpopular is certainly rare in public life -- can you imagine Joe Biden or John Kerry or Trent Lott so much as tossing out the opening pitch at a Little League game without first poll-testing to see which style of pitch is most popular with swing voters? But unpopular action is rare in private life as well, as evidenced by a Saturday afternoon trip to your local mall, where you will witness repeated variations on the theme of parents pleading with their children to behave, or simply ignoring bad behavior, because to confront it might plummet their standing in the kiddie polls. Most of us are guilty, it seems, of giving bread and circuses to our constituents at least once in a while.

This is why the two elected officials I admire most right now are Joe Lieberman and George Bush, even though I probably disagree with much if not most of the policies they seek to advance. I admire them because, at least some of the time, they try to do what they believe is right, regardless of what people think. Though he's no longer in office, I admire former congressman and 9/11 Commission member Tim Roemer for the same reasons. He has goodness in him. He has the courage to pursue what he believes is good.

One might argue that Hussein, too, pursued a worldview -- however twisted -- because he believed it was right. The difference turns on the fact that he was in fact evil, and his worldview was evil. Shove aside all the sophistry and nonsense that attaches itself to nihilistic post-modern political theorizing, and you cannot escape the fact (if you have a brain in your head) that the political goals of some people are profoundly, undeniably evil. The raw brutality with which Hussein pursued his political goals reminds us that the concept of evil can't be banned from the public arena without denuding our discourse. No matter how much the chattering classes mocked the notion of an Evil Empire, or an Axis of Evil, both observations were true, and there is something deeply admirable about people who are willing to say such true things.

Courage and goodness. When I think about the content of those terms, the future appears hopeless indeed, because courage and goodness in our public sphere seem to be rare and dissipating qualities. We have only ourselves to blame, of course, because we wallow in ignorance and we worship the ignorant, and because we are loathe to suffer discomfort, all of which means that we find ourselves repeatedly empowering and rewarding immoral, gutless panderers.

Later this morning on NPR I heard an interview with a man who studies rats. The journalist asked him what he's learned from his study of rats. He responded that rats, like people, are creatures of the earth. He said that rats mostly want the same things that people want. Rats don't like people any more than people like rats. And so on. It reminded me of James Clavell's King Rat, about inmates of a WWII prisoner of war camp.

I wasn't sure if the rat scientist's point was to elevate the rat or reduce humanity. Certainly rats don't worry over raising their children to be moral creatures, or leap onto grenades to save their fellows, but neither do they torture their enemies. Rats are capable neither of goodness nor evil. Man is capable of both, but he seems to revel in the latter. He redefines it, builds a religion or a moral code to support it, and then he revels in it. And he abhors, with especial hatred, the good or courageous person who says: "what you do is evil."

Yet there persist those few with courage and goodness. Sometimes I fear that there are fewer of them than we think, and more latent Husseins and Goebbels and Pol Pots than we care to believe. The heart of man is a terrible dark thing, a fact to which I can attest after careful study of my own. I draw hope from what Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl wrote in Man's Search for Meaning:

"Our generation is realistic, for we have come to know man as he really is. After all, man is that being who invented the gas chambers of Auschwitz; however, he is also that being who entered those gas chambers upright, with the Lord's Prayer or the Shema Yisrael on his lips."

They say Hussein muttered a prayer before his neck was snapped. I suspect he is surprised to find himself in Hell. I suppose most of its recent inhabitants are, because we have lost the courage, as Unabomber victim David Gelernter noted, "to call evil by its right name." And yet it endures, and we endure it, and occasionally we put someone on trial, as much to tell ourselves that evil is not in us as to exact justice. Yet as Solzhenitsyn observed, the line between good and evil "divides the heart of every man."

The encouraging thing about that idea is its suggestion that the kernels of goodness and courage reside within each of us. Though we have a nasty habit of choosing evil and cowardice, we don't have to. We don't have to do wickedness -- the grave or the petty -- any more than we have to do good. It doesn't have to be this way, in other words.

It doesn't have to be this way. We can't change the world, and for every Hussein we hang there will be another thug, and another after him. We can't fix the world by ourselves, but we can change the terrain of our hearts. So I'll make a deal with you. In 2007, and all the years I have left, I'll try to live with more goodness and courage, and you do the same. Because it doesn't have to be this way, you see. It can be better. We can be better.

I pray for you a peaceful end to this year, and a new year with a little more courage, and a little more goodness.

I'm sitting in an airport restaurant near three men, three boisterous men drinking at 10:30 a.m. on a Tuesday. The oldest, who appears to be about thirty-five and dressed like he's twenty, is instructing the others on the tragedy of fatherhood. "My advice," he says, "is not to have kids. Or if you have them, just have one. You can have one without changing your lifestyle much. But once you have more than one, everything changes. The people with kids tell you it's great, but I think they're just saying that so you'll fall for it and be miserable too. Even with one you've got to wait twenty years until the little bastard's out of the house."

Meanwhile, Crosby, Stills, and Nash's "Teach Your Children Well" is playing over the restaurant's tinny speakers. I find myself shaking with anger. I come close to getting up and hitting him. I haven't hit someone I didn't know since 7th grade, but now I am certain that I am going to beat this man senseless with his bar stool.

"So just look at them and sigh," whisper the restaurant speakers, ". . . and know they love you . . ."

Their conversation meanders on to golf and women and work. I eat my food, and I can't taste it. I think, though my own three boys are near to killing me, that I'll take all of them, all the children not wanted because they don't fit someone's lifestyle. You sit on a bar stool in an airport and laugh out your contempt and you think they don't know, but they know. They always know.

On my way out I stop to interrupt their laughter. "I overhead what you said about how it's terrible to be a father, and I want to encourage you, as a man who has three little boys and who's buried his little girl, to see them as a blessing."

He smiles, embarrassed, all the wind out of him now, out of his boisterous friends. He nods, and says: "Oh yeah, I do, every day." I pat him on the back, not believing him, and tell him to have a good day, not meaning it, and he smiles a thin smile and tells me to do the same.

I hope he remembers. I hope he puts to death in himself some of the selfishness that would lead him to declare, in an airport bar over a drink on a Tuesday morning, that he wishes his children didn't exist. I hope I remember, too, because at times I've been no less selfish, simply less honest. I wanted to punch him, because at times I have been him.

The day after I wrote about the miraculous recovery of Caleb's goldfish, the damn thing up and died. We had a funeral service in the back yard, beside a tiny redbud sapling. I decided to make it a dual funeral, and include Eli's goldfish, who died in the middle of the night some weeks before. It hadn't occurred to us to have a funeral for Eli's fish, because he wasn't that concerned when he found the thing floating at the top of the bowl. He's sparing with his affections, that boy. But since we were going to have the funeral for Caleb's fish, it seemed only right to include Eli's fish.

So there we stood around the little redbud, beside a small scooped-out bit of mud, at the bottom of which lay Caleb's fish. Eli's fish lay in a plastic baggie somewhere in the Sedgwick County landfill, but I told him I had buried the little fellow by this same tree after it died. One day, I suppose, he'll read that here. I hope you understand, Eli, and don't let the bitterness turn you into one of those twits who tells his children that Santa is just "the spirit of Christmas," explains in cold clinical detail, at the first sign of interest, how babies come to be, and makes them call their private parts by the actual medical names. Parenting is about pointing to truth, but sometimes the best way to reveal truth is with something made up.

In any event, we stood beside that little hole in the ground and I said a few words, which amounted to: "Lord, thank you for our time with Gold Star and . . . Eli, what's your fish's name?"

"John."

"Right. Lord, we thank you for our time with Gold Star and John. They were good little fish, and they never complained. We thank you that now they are swimming in golden ponds in Heaven. Amen."

"Amen."

I filled in the hole, and Caleb cried. Eli cried on the inside, I guess. Then we went to get a treat.

I suppose there's no shielding the little ones from heartache, so long as we raise them to love anything. I see it in myself, too, that I restrain my affection for fear of loss, or rejection. Everything is awkward with people, because just to be, just to see and be seen, is too fearful. It's why I keep people away.

Except for these babies. They have an unbreakable hold on my heart that I cannot understand. I remember after Caleb was born, and the pain of losing Caroline was still so sharp, that I avoided loving him. It wasn't on purpose, and I only realized later that I had done it, but there it was, a wall to protect against ever facing the terror again.

But that little boy's smiles are like an ocean, and each wave piled into the next until I found myself loving him as fiercely as I had ever loved my daughter. And then came Elijah, the solemn little prophet, and then Isaac, our laughter. I used to think I would never laugh again. I thought there could never be joy again. And yet my house is filled with it.

So we're back to the slow, quiet miracle. Sometimes when I am alone I whisper "thank you," over and over. I never knew it could be this way. And do you know the most exciting thing, the realization that makes me tremble as I consider it? It's the fact that there could be other miracles ahead, slowly building until you or I recognize them for what they are, and find ourselves stumbling about in a world that isn't as dark as we once thought it, whispering: "Thank you."

Thank you. Whisper it, right now. It's a nice feeling, isn't it, to know that there's joy, even in the midst of sadness? Tomorrow night will mark seven years since she breathed her last in our arms. I realized the other day that I've been deeply sad and soul-weary for weeks, and that it's always this way when the weather cools and the light changes and my body remembers. You think it will fade and then you smell her or hear a squeal that sounds like her and it hits you full in the chest, and you remember that she is etched into you so that it will never not hurt.

But there is this joy, in the midst of it. I think somehow they're intertwined, and I don't understand why. I only know that now, even in this immense sadness like a black lake, I can whisper thanks. Even here there is hope, for me, for you, for anyone with eyes to see it.

Thank you.

Last night we went to The Prairie Rose Chuckwagon supper, where they feed you brisket, beans, and biscuits until you pop, and then sing cowboy songs. Caleb and Eli went in their cowboy gear: big hats, shooting irons guns strapped to their waists, clippity-cloppity little cowboy boots on their feet. Isaac had no guns, just a big red cowboy hat that he mostly threw off his head when nobody was looking.

As supper finished a grandmotherly lady took the two older boys backstage to teach them the cowboy way -- how to be real cowboys, not beautiful little things pretending to be cowboys as they sashay through the hills.

Meanwhile the singing commenced, interspersed with jokes most writers aren't clever enough to produce any more ("Slim's wife cooks so bad that the flies got together and fixed the screen door"). Isaac alternated between dancing in the aisle and trying to climb up onto the tables in order to place his life in danger, which seems to be its own reward for this boy.

Then it was time for the children to perform. Normally the place is packed with kids, but on this particular evening it was filled almost entirely with wild-spirited geriatrics on a bus tour and a large group of men from Sweden. (By the way, are there just no white socks in Europe, or is cool there to sport the brown polyester socks with the white Adidas?)

So the kid show consisted entirely of Caleb and Eli. They walked up onto the stage to join the Wranglers, as the cowboy band is known, in a round of "Deep in the Heart of Texas" ("The stars at night, are big and bright, clap, clap, clap, clap deep in the heart of Texas..."). I'm never worried about Caleb in these situations -- the boy thinks it's natural that an entire roomful of people should be interested in him. It's Eli I fret over, the shy lamb who buries his face in my shirt when he gets embarrassed. But there he stood on a stage, under bright lights, in front of nearly a hundred people, the serious little cowboy, concentrating on the song so he could get the clapping right.

His clapping was perfect. They finished the song and the crowd went ape, or as near to ape as a bunch of astoundingly old people and dorky Swedes can get. Isaac probably clapped the loudest, having gotten over his fury at not being allowed to traipse up onto stage with his brothers. Caleb tipped his hat and bowed and scurried down the steps, but Eli stood there, not quite sure what to do, looking back and forth, beginning to realize that everybody was watching. Then the biggest cowboy, Cyclone Stu, leaned down and whispered in his ear. Eli responded by taking off his big black hat and bowing deep at his waist, the way only little ones can do. That just sent the audience over the edge with applause.

The boys made their way to the back and sat down on a bench on either side of me. Cool as two little cucumbers, each stuck a lollipop in his mouth like so much chewing tobacco and kicked back to enjoy the rest of the show. Because that's how cowboys roll.

After the show we lingered at the back of the crowd, which is only partly true because it's not like we had a choice, between trying to find a lost sippy cup and wiping beans off of hands and helping little cowboys understand that not all old people enjoy having sidearms pointed at them. At the doorway stood the Wranglers, who seemed ready to make my own little wranglers a permanent addition to their band. There was much big cowboy/little cowboy talk, and some agreement that Isaac was the next Garth Brooks based on body weight and cuteness alone, though of course nobody said anything about the cuteness because real cowboys don't talk that way.

As we left one of them said, in a deep, serious voice meant specifically for me: "You've got a real nice family there." Sometimes people say that, with an urgency in their voices, a need for me to understand it, almost as if they can see in my face every time I have forgotten it. And always I nod and smile and say thank you, though I know it has nothing to do with me, that it is a gift.

So we loaded up into our modern-day wagon and rolled across the plains back to civilization, three exhausted little cowpokes in the back already snoozing, their bellies full of beans, their guns safely holstered, their hands sticky from lollipops. And as they began to drift into prairie dreams their dad steered the team, wishing these days could stretch on forever, filled with happiness over his lot in life and a little sadness at what is lost and what will be lost.

And just like when one of those big cowboys slaps you on the back and calls you "pardner" and it makes you feel like just maybe a little part of you could be a cowboy too, I realized, being close to my three little cowboys with their wild dreams and innocent hearts, how often they make me better than I would otherwise be. They've ridden into town, each in his own little way, and cleaned it up. They've brought chaos and joy in equal measures, and now the house is a different place. I guess that's how cowboys roll.

I've been thinking about tribes, and how we all belong to them, and how sometimes the most important part of membership is that others not be members. Our neighborhood is like that, governed by a clique of sour old women and sprinkled with people who have country club written all over their well-tanned faces, and there sits our family feeling small and out of place. We've decided we don't like our neighborhood one bit, not its self-important association meetings nor its overindulged teenagers nor the instinct of its residents to be so, well, unneighborly.

Which is strange, because I've only recently decided to keep a ridiculous-looking flagpole in our front yard because a friend pointed out that I can fly a "Don't Tread On Me" flag. That's how tribal thinking works: I don't want to be in their mean-spirited little tribe, yet I resent not being welcomed.

I've resigned from some tribes in the past couple of years. First I left the Republicans, which, let's face it, was never going to work out anyway. I had only been a member of their tribe because the alternatives were so laughable, but I realized one evening, as I sat through an excruciatingly insipid speech by a senior member of the Bush Administration, that sometimes being in a tribe carries a moral connotation, in the sense that we lend our sanction to those with whom which we choose to associate. If this was the best my tribe had to offer, I decided, then I shall be finished with them.

Actually, it was more visceral than that -- I simply couldn't stomach the thought of anyone believing that I throw myself in with the likes of that woman whose mouth seemed to spew banalities and half-truths so effortlessly. The falling out had begun years before, and perhaps it's unfair to lay it entirely at her feet; I'd interacted with enough Republicans in Washington, D.C. to realize that they have no advantage over their opponents in character, principle, honor, or even economic common sense.

And now they race headlong into fall elections looking every bit as venal and arrogant as did the Democrats in the early 1990's, and all I can think is what I thought in 1994: good riddance.

Then there is the N.R.A., which I had joined in an ill-considered moment of enthusiasm following a handgun course at their national headquarters, an action I've never quite understood, because the course itself was largely useless and the majority of instructors profoundly taken with their own skill and cleverness. But I joined nonetheless, and thereby became entitled to a bumper sticker, a magazine, and approximately one million shrill mail solicitations.

They called me a couple of months ago, to ask how I would feel if the U.N. took away my guns. This is like asking someone in Michigan if he's worried about the Canadians invading.

I understand why they do this: the fundraising statistics suggest that, as a member, I am likely to get so riled by the thought of blue-helmeted, dark-skinned people parachuting, Red Dawn-like, onto the plains to seize my Smith & Wesson that I will write a check to help cover Wayne LaPierre's considerable salary. Sadly for the young lady on the other end of the line, however, statistics are not always reliable predictors of individual behavior, which in my case entailed laughing and saying, "No really, who is this? Aunt Debbie, is that you?"

Once we established that the poor child was in fact calling on behalf of the National Rifle Association, I explained to her that I've never been troubled by the whole black helicopters coming to take over America thing. She was prepared with a sophisticated rebuttal, but unfortunately we were cut off when I put the phone back in its cradle.

I'm still in the tribe of people who believe a well-armed populace is the only ultimately effective form of congressional term limit. But I am no longer in the N.R.A. tribe. I mean, really. The U.N.? Has anyone, anywhere, ever been disarmed by these people? The U.N. couldn't break up a slap fight at a Josh Groban concert, and yet the leaders of my former tribe decide to sic their summer interns on the rest of us with that canard. Again, to be a member of the tribe is to lend its leaders sanction, and up with this crap a thinking man cannot put.

There are other tribes I've drifted from, mostly cliques, tribes within tribes, circles of friends or acquaintances that I've let myself float away from, which is as easy as letting go. Some of these I regret, others not.

I wonder if something in me is broken, if there is a gene that predisposes us to tribal affiliations but which is bent over backward in my blood, so that I recoil from groups. I suppose there is no point in wondering. In the end there are only the two tribes that matter to me: the scattered tribe of simpatico people, those friends you can travel with in silence and know that it is okay, the ones who understand what funny is and is not, the ones you know in the first moments of meeting, but who are so rare and so rarely in the same place; and most important, my tribe of five, huddled together on our little patch of splendor in the Kansas plains. When I think about my family sprawled about me in our big bed on a Saturday morning, wallowing and giggling and thinking about pancakes for breakfast, I can't understand why anyone would give a fig for the rest of it.

Which is more proof, as if any of us needed it, that I'm not cut out to be a member in the other tribes. And that's okay by me.

I'm the designated bather in our house. Sure, sometimes the wife has to bring it, but on a daily basis, I'm the go-to guy.

Okay, I lied a little. We don't wash our kids every day. With the onslaught of summer this will have to change. These are some grubby, grimy little babies. I plopped Isaac in the tub last night and immediately had to call an emergency stop to the operation, because brown clouds were forming around his feet. Seems he had snuck outside after dinner without shoes. And then he peed, a fact that seemed to surprise him as he looked down at the gentle yellow fountain springing up from the water.

Empty the tub, scrub the feet, rinse the tub, start again.

The boy loves his baths. When I lead the children upstairs for their scrubbing I usually call it a "bathy-wathy," as in: "Come on buddies, time for a bathy-wathy."

Did I mention that I have guns and used to kickbox?

Never mind.

Bathy-wathy is what we call it. And yes, we have other cute names for things. The boys call their toes "tosers," and their male parts are "weenie-wangers," much to the chagrin of their mother. We're not all about conquering and fighting and peeing on things, you know.

Anyway, Isaac can't say "bathy-wathy." He says "habby-bappy." But he gets it all the same, because as soon as I say "bathy-wathy" he races to the bathroom, hooting and clapping, as if he is aware of just how bad he smells. In reality it's not that at all; he's just excited about the prospect of being buck-naked and slippery, and really, who among us isn't?

The boy still hasn't grasped the fact that he has to get all the way naked before he gets in the tub. I can't really blame him; we all have to keep an eye on Eli to make sure he doesn't get in with his socks on, whereas Caleb always forgets to pee first and remembers as soon as he sits down in the warm water.

So I have to strip the little monkey while he squirms to get into the tub. There's often food tucked somewhere in the folds of his clothes -- a bean, perhaps a grain of rice, one time a near-perfect potato chip (which was especially odd, because we didn't have any potato chips in the house that day). I have to keep him from eating what we find. He is under the impression that man has a moral obligation to eat all food in sight, and that furthermore if it came from inside his onesie then by God it belongs to him.

The bathing is like an assembly line; grab one squirmy little boy, put him in front of me, douse him into relative submission, scrub his mop of hair, use that as the soap reservoir from which to scoop handfuls of suds for the rest of the body. The littlest thinks I am trying to tickle him, which means his neck and underarms are always dubiously clean at best. Then more dousing amidst protests: The water is in my eyes! The water is in my ears! Dad, you are drowning me! Ahhhhh!

This is followed by pleas that I let them play in the tub for awhile, said play consisting of sticking their faces in the same water they were quite sure was going to kill them seconds before. So I usually let them play in the grey pool for a bit, not because I'm especially nice or lenient, but because after washing three boys I need a rest.

Then there is the drying, and the unabashed streaking, and finally, a story, read with one in my lap and one on either side, all smelling sweet and decidedly un-boy-like, three wild little hearts beating through their chests against my tired flesh, which suddenly doesn't seem so tired any more.

No matter how sad and small and stupid I feel from a day of doing nothing that seemed substantial, in that moment I think I've found something I was formed to be good at. All else falls away; there is only their breathing, and my words, and the knitting together of four hearts. I hope it will never be frayed to breaking by our mistakes and sins. I hope it will sustain us. I hope that one day each of them will finally realize, as they hold their own children and recall this moment, how much I have loved them.

I'm in an air museum with all three boys in tow. The two oldest are seated in the replica cockpit of a helicopter. The youngest and most troublesome is strapped to my back in a contraption designed for children less dense than iridium, which he is not.

I am trying to be a good father, though they tax my patience, especially the wee one with his ear-pulling and newfound spitting skills. To that end I am leaning into the cockpit to show my sons how the controls work.

"Sir?"

It is the voice of a librarian, a schoolteacher, a junior senator from New York, or some other such female-type killjoy. I am physiologically and ideologically predisposed to ignore such voices. I continue my instruction.

"Sir!"

I glance in her direction. It is a woman with her own children in tow. She looks concerned. She is a concerned mother.

"Yes?" I ask this in the terse-yet-polite voice I reserve for people I am not allowed to openly despise. What business could this woman possibly have with me?

"You're whacking your baby's head against the top of the helicopter."

Oh. Well then. I had heard the thumping, but as a parent you grow immune to the minor noises.

Little stinker should sing out if he's hurt, if you ask me. Still, a good reminder that even when we think we are something special, the odds are against it.

My wife is a miracle worker. I know this from the fact that every day I come home and the children are neither dead nor in the custody of the state. I like to think I have some organizational skill. Hard-won discipline. Decision-making ability. I get paid for all these things, for crying out loud. By people with little tolerance for failure.

So consider the scene. Trying to be a good husband, I offered to take the boys to the grocery store -- the Wal-Mart, no less -- while the wife did a little shopping and had some nice alone time in a coffee shop with her book.

Because I'm a saint that way, and because I am an idiot.

The boys and me wheeled into the slushy grocery store parking lot and made our way inside without, I would like it noted, any loss of mittens, caps, or other little person anti-cold paraphernalia. Inside, with the older two in tow, I secured a cart and then went through the combination of origami and kung-fu necessary to secure Isaac inside the cart. I took off his coat and gear, which seems way too complicated for such a tough and fat baby, and then turned to remove his brothers' coats.

But the boys were gone. Not in the cart section. Not in the entrance way. Not outside playing in traffic. After a frantic visual scan in the face of hectoring from an exuberant greeter, I saw them about thirty feet ahead, in produce.

Caleb was looking wildly about, beginning to get irritated. I could read his mind from where I stood: How did Dad get lost?

Eli, meanwhile, had attached himself to the front of someone's cart, oblivious to the fact that despite being dark-haired, this man looked nothing like his father. The man stood there with his wife, both unsure how exactly one safely and legally detaches a strange child from the front of one's grocery cart.

And that was just the first five minutes of our Wal-Mart shopping experience.

If I were a better husband I would get my wife something like a one-person vacation to Maui for Christmas. Instead I'm thinking of having her fitted for one of those ankle devices that allows people to track your whereabouts.

Isaac discovered there's candy in those shiny scraps of paper the boys are hoarding. I don't know if you've ever had a toddler new to walking try to run from you, but it is a tragicomic sight: little hips wiggling to get the wary legs to flop faster, arms out like a wader in a lake, and in Isaac's case, a chubby hand desperately clutching a Tootsie Roll with one end of the wrapper gnawed and partially embedded in the exposed brown sugary goodness.

And the wailing when he was caught and disarmed, oh, the sheer misery of it all. You'd think we'd told him the breastfeeding won't last forever.

He was bound to figure it out I suppose, what with all the excitement Halloween night, the boys dressed up more than usual (Caleb: a centurion -- though he insisted he was a gladiator; Eli: Buzz Lightyear -- though he has never seen the movie so far as I know -- complete with homemade rocket pack), the doorbell ringing, creaking open, gaggles of freaks on the stoop with bags and satchels and baskets and buckets and pillow cases, Mom and Dad and Caleb (until his generosity threatened to impoverish us) dropping handfuls of color into them. The boy is ours, after all, related to his brothers, who can smell on your breath if you've had a single 13 letter-13 letter (our code for M&M's, rapidly becoming useless as the oldest knows his letters and can count to fifty) three hours before.

So now the hiding of the candy has become not just a delightful and innately inspired ritual for the boys, an avatar of our pirate-and-plunder heritage as men red of tooth and dagger, but a necessity, and by golly you'd better hide it well, because the little imp is relentless.

An imp would have been the perfect costume for the boy, had we dressed him up, had we tolerated ghoulish and devilish outfits, which we don't, and shame on you if you let your twelve-year old go out looking like Linda Blair midway through make-up, and shame on her parents while we're at it, and on anyone associated with that film, which is based on an excellent story and certainly powerful on celluloid beyond the fact that it was tantamount to child abuse.

But I digress, which I do from time to time, as licensed by the address above and expected by the reader, if not always the writer.

The point is, we did not dress up the imp. Instead we put him in a red wagon and pulled him behind, stopping every five feet to sit him back down, because there is some sort of defect in the boy that produces an anti-gravitational instinct -- wherever he is, he wants to be higher. Last weekend I stood behind him as he climbed a step ladder to the top rung, and then tried to climb atop the curved bar at its pinnacle, and all the while I thought: he'll fall and I'll catch him but on the way down he'll learn a little something about not risking life and limb so readily.

But of course he didn't fall, instead he twisted around to see me standing there and hooted and wiggled in his triumph over Mt. Stepladder, until the hubris was too much and I had to extract him, to wails of protest, followed by the stubborn set of chin and deliberate stomping crawl back to the bottom rung. And I thought, this is what God has to put up with, every single day. This is the point of parenting, from his perspective, his way of saying See? Do you see what you people are like?"

I suppose it's good Isaac didn't learn so readily the lesson I intended him to learn. I want no harm to befall these children, but the world wants different, and the sad truth of it is they cannot conquer life and certainly not death without risking all that I would keep safe forever. This is the sadness of parenthood, knowing that suffering is coming, hurling at them like a bullet fired purposely, and though everything in us would dash in front of them to stop it, we must stand still, though close, as close as they'll have us, and let it strike their sweet innocent hearts, and watch some of the sweetness shrivel, and the innocence retreat, and see them become warier and wiser. This is, Buechner would say, the tragedy.

And the comedy is that they learn, if God is as present as we beg him to be, when we aren't ignoring him in hopes that he won't be present at all, at least not until we've finished worshipping our latest idol, that all wrongs are set to right, that they are loved beyond measure in spite of what the world does to them, regardless of the fatal weaknesses into which they were born. And the fairy tale, to complete my reference to the lovely collection of sermons disguised as speeches pretending to be somewhat distant from the sermon, so that people would hear it, is that one day the sweetness and innocence is returned, partially as they weather the storm of the world and find God at its eye, and totally in the great transfiguration, the final realization of the hope we nurture and don't always believe but are too desperate -- and thank God we are desperate -- to abandon to the soul-melting ravages of common sense and worldly wisdom.

Again with the digression, but as in any conversation if you listen closely, the digressions are often the point.

So the boy rolled along behind in a wagon, and the older two charged ahead, Caleb somewhat more suited to that role, sword leveled, face sometimes gleeful, sometime serious as the parts in him ready to kill dragons come to life more and more everyday, Eli running behind, his little legs churning and churning, and me praying and praying that he would not fall, because he runs so fast, and the ground waiting for us is so unforgiving. He did fall, and then I carried him, arms holding him tight, his cold soft cheek pressed against mine, and I set him in front of each house and let him charge across their yards to retrieve his prey, and then back to the arms of his father to be carried to the next conquest, and I could have carried him all night, forever, even, if he would just stop growing, but he won't.

"I wonder what this next house will have, Eli. Maybe bubble gum, or a candy bar, or some Hershey's kisses..."

"A kiss like this." (smooch)

A kiss far better than chocolate. If only I could wrap it in foil and save it for later, hoard it like they guard their candy, taking out one at a time when the dress-up time is past, when the boy is a man and it is me slowing us down, and I can no longer carry him though I would, though I would.

Maybe that's what all these words are, tin foil saving hints of what will not last, stowed away for the day when they are not so plentiful. But for now the kisses are fresh, like their hearts, and before I go to work I will tip-toe upstairs, to their room, and kiss them each, breathe in their little-boy smells, and wonder again at the marvelous unmerited grace that leads them to sleep safe, all of them under my roof.

There's little more humbling than squealing like a little girl in front of the youngsters you've been charged with raising into men. After the arduous task of dressing three little boys for church - a chore that, let me tell you, really does not put one in the frame of mind for contemplating Jesus, I set about getting dressed myself. I had an audience of three, each chattering as if the others were not talking, each intent on being heard.

Then I saw it - a creepy brown spider crawling up the inside of the very shirt I was about to put on. I couldn't tell if it was a brown recluse, given that these rotten little beasts are so, well, reclusive. But I wasn't taking any chances. "C'mon boys!" I boldly called to them, and we headed for the bathroom, where I shook the shirt over the toilet. The intruder was about to go to his grey-watery grave.

But after the shaking, I saw no spider in the toilet. Nor was he on it. Or on the floor beside it. "Back up boys," I said, decidedly less boldness in my voice. Somehow he had escaped. No matter, I thought - the wife will find him.

Back into the bedroom we went, talking about spiders - can they kill you, do they eat people, can they ride bicycles...

And then I looked down, and saw him crawling up my chest.

You know how in the movies, when somebody gets some kind of icky crawly creature on him, he slaps hysterically at it with both hands, making distinctly unmanly sounds?

This is exactly true to life. Hollywood, I salute you for getting this, at least, dead to rights.

The spider, rest his soul, was killed by my flurry of self-inflicted judo chops. He lay crumpled in a little heap on the carpet, to what would have been the endless fascination of the two older boys, had the youngest not tried to eat him.

Copious amounts of toilet paper for the pick-up and one flush later, I was ready to move on to other topics. Monsters, bicycles, wet dreams, the tribulation - anything but Dad's display of cowardice in the face of the enemy. The children, however, all seem to have a great talent for mimicry. Even the youngest began squawking in response to his brothers' re-enactments.

We revisited this inglorious moment throughout the day. Even later that evening, as we ate with friends, I looked over to see Caleb describing it to the little girl with whom he is quite infatuated. She, of course, thought this was hilarious. They had a wonderful laugh.

Such are the indignities of fatherhood. Sometimes we are warriors, sometimes we are teachers, and sometimes we are clowns.

And the next time this clown sees a spider in his closet, he's likely just to get the shotgun. Now that will give them a story to remember.

Despite what you might think, doing taxes together is not a good means of drawing close to your spouse.

I can see how one might expect otherwise, that it could foster a "You and me versus the World" mentality, or simply give occasion for one spouse, say the one who doesn't have to get up at five every morning and schlep ninety minutes to work, to recognize what a great provider the other spouse is, and perhaps give him a congratulatory back rub.

Not so much.

Tax time in our house is like one of those frantic side scenes in disaster movies like "Titanic" and "The Towering Inferno," only punctuated with titles of arcane government forms.

"It says we need the 8385-B, 'Reconciliation of overcontributions to retirement and pension funds.' Where are we supposed to get that?"

"What the hell is an overcontribution? That sounds like a made-up word, like 'pre-boarding,' or 'impacting.' It doesn't even make sense."

"It means we contributed too much. What does the I-943 form say, on line 238?"

"It says 43 cents."

"No, you're looking at SI-942. I'm talking about I-943."

"Well how the hell did our *%#$!*! S-forms get mixed in with our federal forms?"

"I don't see any need for you to take the Lord's name in vain like that."

"In vain? In vain? It's not in vain. I earnestly, truly want him to manifest himself right now, in all his righteous splendor, and smite Caesar and all his minions with their petty rules and hellish forms! Oh no, sister, it's not in vain at all!"

"I don't think raising your voice will help matters."

"Fine. While you're digging in that pile, can you find me the 6243-7211B subsection-S form again? I think I filled in a number from the wrong line. Sorry."

"Sweet holy mother of God!"

"Look, if I can't call on the Savior, then you're not allowed to call on his mother."

"Make me a pitcher of frozen margaritas right now, or I'm filing for divorce."

Somehow we survived, and even got our sorry, unreliable new Epson printer, which is rivaled in its undependability only by the thoroughly unsatisfactory customer service of it manufacturer, to print the forms in mostly readable fashion. (Note to Epson: I'll be glad to amend this comment, which Google should do a nice job of picking up, especially when I include phrases like "review of Epson" and "Epson customer service," once you people stop sending me sorry refurbs as replacements for the brand new printer that never worked in the first place, and actually provide a workable return label so we don't make fruitless trips to the FedEx office in an effort to return your third-rate merchandise).

I like to think my wife and I are stronger for the ordeal, but I'm glad the exercise only comes once a year. I feel the IRS pushing me to a point of bifurcation -- either I will simplify my life to the point that I have only one small form to fill out, or I will assemble enough wealth that I can afford a legion of accountants and lawyers to battle forms on my behalf. As in most things, the middle ground stinks.

On a lighter note, Eli is picking up a little French.

"Daddy, do you know what 'bon appetit' means?"

"No, Eli, what does it mean?"

"It means 'have a nice eating.'"

He's such a cute little tax deduction boy.

We're playing in the back yard, soaking up the last warmth before another cold front rolls in. I'm kicking a miniature soccer ball around and Caleb and Eli are squealing as they chase it, periodically whacking me in the shins with their little sneakers. Caleb has learned to throw his body into mine in order to make space to steal the ball. Eli hasn't learned this, nor has he learned that the only place where the ball absolutely will not be is where it lies when he begins one of his full-tilt charges. I feel a little guilty, like when you give your dog a peanut butter cracker and watch him lick at it incessantly after it gets stuck to the top of his mouth. But if you can't enjoy your children, why have them?

I pick up a little red ball and say, "Hey boys, watch this." I drop-kick it high into the air, inspiring them each to utter "ohhhhh" as it launches. It arcs as the earth pulls it back home, and then it lands with a thud on the other side of the short picket fence running along the edge of our back yard.

A relevant piece of information in this story is that our neighbors own two gigantic furry beasts that are "dogs" in the same sense that Hummers are "passenger vehicles." No kidding, when we first moved in and before I was sure they couldn't get over the fence, I kept my handgun close by when the kids were out back. But the dogs proved fairly passive and immobile, and today they weren't even outside.

Or so I thought, as I put my hands on top of the fence and propelled myself over it.

Now, if you're a giant, hulking, protective canine, and you want to catch someone invading your space, about the only place you can hide in that yard is behind a little scrap of tall fence that precedes the long run of short fence comprising most of our border. This is how I know he wanted me to jump the fence, because he was crouched behind the tall section. Had this been a court of law, I might have gone free with this proof of entrapment.

But this was not court, this was High Noon, and my gun was safely, uselessly tucked away in my bedroom. As an aside, I know they have statistics on how locking up your sidearm leads to fewer accidental shootings, but do they track the cost of fewer on purpose shootings? Just pointing out that gun safety isn't always.

Not that I could have blamelessly shot the creature; I was in his yard after all, and it's just not Christian to jump your neighbor's fence and shoot his dog. That may be something they would do, say, in New York City -- if they had guns and yards, that is -- but not down here. It's not that we're less violent, mind you, it has more to do with the fact that if you shoot a man's dog down south, he's liable to jump your fence and shoot you back.

I confess that this thinking has only occurred in retrospect. My immediate thought as I landed to the sound of a deep, fearsome growl was less edifying. Think Sergeant Hulka in "Stripes," as the errant mortar round whistles toward him, and you have the extent of my eloquence in a moment of duress.

Now here's an interesting geographical tidbit about Tony's back yard: it's sloped, such that the fence is considerably taller from the other side. I wouldn't have known that, had I not been standing seven feet from a furry monster with an alarming ability to accelerate. Were I not over there with him, the difficult return leap would have given me comfort as I contemplated his irritation.

But I believe in a God of miracles, and more importantly in this case, a God who equips our bodies with a natural wonder-drug called "adrenaline." Adrenaline, I can now attest, has the remarkable property of enabling one to leap with all the vigor and dignity of a cricket on crack.

As I scrambled back over the fence, I saw the distinctive personalities of my sons on display. Caleb stood a safe distance from the fence and pointed out that I was leaving his ball to the mercies of the dog. Eli, meanwhile, had laid hold of the fence with both hands and was halfway up it.

I landed and peeled the brave little idiot boy off the fence as the dog reached the opposite side. I swear I could smell human flesh on his breath. Or maybe it was just squirrel. It was definitely something that had been a reluctant meal. I shepherded the boys away from the fence, to the sounds of Caleb's protests.

"But Daddy, you forgot my ball!"

"Dude, did you see the big dog?"

"Yeah, and he's gonna eat my ball!"

"Would you rather him eat your ball, or your Daddy?"

Not yet instinctive in his telling of little white lies, Caleb weighed the options.

"Listen," I said as I maneuvered to obstruct his line of sight, not wanting him to suffer the trauma of seeing his ball devoured, "we have other balls." Having just come close to providing a new chew toy to a waist-high carnivore, I was exquisitely aware of this fact, let me assure you.

He contorted his body to look around mine, equally determined to see. "But not another red one."

The dog sniffed the ball, harrumphed, and squatted down beside it to taunt us. Not wanting my sons to see their old man bested, I came up with a brilliant solution. "Hey boys, let's throw the Frisbee!"

"Oh, okay," said Caleb.

"Frisbee!" shouted his brother, no doubt thinking this would present another opportunity to climb into the mouth of danger.

"You know, the wind isn't very strong back here. Let's take it to the front yard."

I think I saw the dog smirking as we left him in possession of the red ball. Yes, fine, you're the bigger dog. But my sons still think I'm tougher than I really am, and for all your ability to intimidate, you still have to scratch yourself with your teeth. So bite me.

Figuratively speaking, of course.

I've not yet had the need to plan my own funeral, but I suspect that when I do it will be much like preparing for a yard sale. There's the general sense of getting one's affairs in order, tidying things up a bit -- not because I really care whether some slob I don't know thinks that I am a untidy, but simply because that's what decent people do -- and putting everything in its rightful place.

There's also a Judgment Day air infusing it all, as my possessions -- extensions of me, or at least what gift-buying members of my family think of me -- are separated, some for service in their father's house, others to be cast into the 25-cent bargain box.

I only hope that when I get to the Pearly Gates, assuming some angelic security detail doesn't stop me on the outer grounds, there is someone like Caleb waiting to argue against my dismissal. He's been watching the growing pile of sale items with a wary eye, registering periodic protests and -- we suspect but cannot prove -- developing a plan to smuggle out whatever refugees he can lay hold of before the hour of peril arrives.

"Are you going to sell my [name of toy deleted because relatives may be reading this] in the yard sale?"

"Yes. You never play with it, and it's made of plastic."

"But I'm not done with it."

"You never play with it."

"But it's mine."

"You can use the money we get from it to buy something you like better."

"But I like it."

"You. Never. Play. With. It."

Little hands on hips. "But. I'm. Not. Done. With. It."

"Go play."

Exit one child with bottom lip firmly protruded.

There's the lingering guilt over selling my children's toys, and there's also the cold reality that some of those relatives with very poor ideas about gift-giving may actually visit one day, and have memories so sharp that they think to ask, "so where is the bright orange Ronco Combination Paintball Gun and Phonics Primer, the one that fires projectiles at 110 miles per hour and plays Snoop Dogg at 85 decibels when your child pronounces a syllable correctly?"

"Um, it broke. In several pieces. And caught on fire. There was only a puddle of plastic left."

"Really? It sure looked sturdy enough. Oh well, I was thinking of getting the boys that new George Foreman Veggie and Candy Bar Fryer -- the one they can operate themselves. It plays an educational jingle when the oil reaches its boiling point."

It's easier just to keep this stuff in a big box, with names of the givers attached, so that it can be dragged out when the relevant visitors make their appearance. Being economics-minded, however, we'd prefer to sell the $89.99 Barney and Friends Sing-Along Cattle Prod and use the 75 cents in proceeds to buy the boys something more edifying, like a few of the Lego blocks our neighbors up the street are selling so they can make room for their Squiggles Holographic Dress Up Like a Girl and Shake Your Booty Dance Machine.

And then there's just the deep shame of it all. How could we have acquired so much stuff?

If I were a leftist, I would falsely assume that we could lift entire nations out of poverty simply be sending them our excess belongings. This is a false notion, of course, because people are only lifted out of poverty when they are given the tools and opportunity to produce for themselves. If we send them shiploads of noisy plastic trinkets, we'll only depress their prices and drive nascent indigenous crap-makers out of business.

Being a conservative curmudgeon, however, I look at the rows and boxes of junk that have been extruded from my open garage like some slow-motion home colonic, and extrapolate to the millions of homes across the U.S., and I think: If we weren't so hell-bent on increasing our GDP by acquiring more and more colorful distractions, we might actually be a country that has the time to read.

Which we aren't, at least not in my house this week, because we're busy putting little price stickers on all our junk, and hoping that the old Middle Eastern man down the street doesn't show up with his fourteen family members to haggle over our ugly candlesticks.

I shouldn't complain. I'd much rather be reading right now, but I know that when tomorrow morning arrives and I'm standing, a pouch of change strapped to my waist, amidst my platoons of Care Bears and dragoons of plasticware, that I'll be in my element.

This is because I, like every good American, am an entrepreneur at heart. A French guy would look at my garage right now and think: Sacre coeur, might we be reed of zeez possessions if our country would but adopt a three-day work week? An American looks at it and thinks: Oh, the profits I will reap, thanks to the bad taste of my fellow countrymen.

God bless America. And please let it be sunny tomorrow, at least until we sell the Power Rangers.

I haven't written much about Caroline for the past year. I felt like I should just be done with this. So I put all my energy into other writing. But she is always there, lingering in the back of my mind. Sometimes she is an image, sometimes she is an invisible presence, but she is always there.

There's a book to be written about her, and us, and what I think we learned, though I'm still learning it. I know there's a book because I have the pieces scattered throughout notebooks and thoughts and memories, some sweet and some heartbreaking. I wrote another book instead, though now I'm not sure why.

Maybe I figured I was still learning, that the time had not yet come to lay it all out and make sense of it. But now I see that I'm getting to a place where I can no longer avoid the last things, which when distilled are my horror over what I saw in her final weeks, and my anger at an all-powerful God who sat in silence while it happened.

I suspect I will only get through those last things by writing about them. Counselors don't work, prayer doesn't work, and avoidance has only wrecked things. Of course the first two haven't really failed, because I haven't really tried them, not wholeheartedly, anyway. Instead I've focused most of my energy on the last strategy. And the wreckage is darn near total.

Many times since last March 7th I've thought one thing, which is that this was supposed to be the Indian Princess year. I remember learning about the Indian Princesses from a friend whose daughter was seven at the time. It's a club where dads and their little girls get together and sing and play games and do all the fun dress-up stuff that girls like, but with enough of a frontier flavor that dads don't feel like complete sissies.

I wanted Caroline to be an Indian Princess, but she was only three, and the minimum age was seven. I remember thinking that I didn't want to wait four more years. I didn't understand waiting the way I do now.

So last year was supposed to be the year I took my Indian Princess to play with her little friends, and the year I looked at her in amazement over the fact that she could sit for an hour and just read (homeschooled kids are smart that way, you know), and the year she helped me cook, and the year the beginnings of a mommy could be seen in her as s