by Jack Weyland
“Okay, let’s try it! Everyone inside. Hurry!”
I tried it but the wheels spun. I needed more traction. I looked down the road about two miles and saw the road grader had turned around and was barreling back toward us.
I needed traction. I started cutting off branches from our tree and the boys and I laid them just in front of the tires.
“Everyone, get in! We’ve got to go right now!”
I put the car in low gear and tried to slowly move it forward. I knew if I spun the tires it was a lost cause.
By then the snowplow was about 200 yards away from us. The driver was honking his horn like a madman, but he was not slowing down.
We pulled onto the road but then noticed the driver was not slowing down for us. So I sped up.
“Look, Daddy!” Benjamin yelled. “We’re showing him which way to go!”
“Yeah, we are! What fun!”
The guy in the snowplow honked at us for about five minutes. The boys loved it and waved back at him.
We came to a café and gas station. I pulled in and let the snowplow breeze past us.
I was exhausted. “Who wants something to eat?”
“I do!” Kevin shouted, followed like an echo by Benjamin and Jimmy.
I let each of my boys order whatever they wanted, so we ended up with pancakes, ice cream, hot chocolate, and pizza. They had an old-time pinball machine in the place. So we played that while we ate. I let them play as much as they wanted.
Just before we left, Kevin said, “Dad, this has been an awesome day!”
“Yeah, it has.”
“You never looked at my snow angel,” Jimmy complained.
“Could you make one for me when we get back home?” I asked.
“Okay, I will, but you gotta promise to look at it.”
“I promise.”
In town, as soon as we pulled into the driveway, the boys ran into the house.
By the time I came inside, they were giving Heather the complete story. “And then we got stuck, and then we cut down the tree. Mostly me though,” Kevin said.
“I helped,” Benjamin argued.
“Me too,” Jimmy piped in.
Kevin continued. “And then we pulled the tree down the hill and Dad shoved it in the car but most of it was still sticking out and then Dad tried it but we were stuck and then the snowplow man stopped and told us he was going to come back and bury us in snow unless we got the car out and then we tried to get the snow away from the car but we were still stuck so Dad cut off some of the branches from our tree and we put them under the wheels and then we tried it again and we got on the road but the snowplow was coming and looked like he was trying to kill us but we went faster but he was honking at us the whole time and then we came to a place to eat and Dad stopped and we ate breakfast and played a game with balls.”
“And we made snow angels!” Jimmy said excitedly. “And we slid down the hill too!”
“That sounds like so much fun!” Heather said.
“It was the most fun I’ve ever had!” Benjamin said.
“Well, let’s go see the tree!” Heather called out.
I pulled it out of the SUV and stood it up. It was the ugliest Christmas tree I’d ever seen. The bottom was okay, but two feet from the top all the branches were gone from where I’d cut them to get some traction.
Heather didn’t let it bother her. “Look at that! A real live Christmas tree that you boys cut down in the forest and brought home for our family!”
“Let’s put it in the house now!” Kevin called out.
The first problem was that the trunk of the tree was too big to fit in our Christmas tree holder, so I just set it in the corner and leaned it against the wall.
“Look at that!” Heather said. “Our very own real Christmas tree. How great is that?”
Two days later Heather called me at work. “I just got off the phone with your mom and dad. They’re coming to spend Christmas with us.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Just one problem,” she said. “They asked if, while they were with us, they could invite some senior couples they worked with on their mission.”
“What did you tell them?”
“Of course I said yes, but there’s just one thing.”
“What?”
“I can’t have that tree in our living room when they come.”
I sighed. “Okay. Well, we’ll just have to put it in the TV room. The boys will understand.”
“You’d better tell them,” she said.
“Okay, I will.”
When I got home from work, I told the boys what we had to do with their tree. They seemed disappointed but agreed to the arrangement.
We put up our plastic tree and decorated it and put all our presents under it.
Fast forward to Christmas morning. Kevin woke us up and excitedly told us that Santa had come.
A few minutes later Heather and I and my mom and dad, along with the boys, were all gathered in the living room.
I retrieved a present from under the tree and gave it to Jimmy. “This is from Santa. It’s for Jimmy. I wonder what it is.”
Jimmy set it beside him but didn’t open it.
“You can open it now,” Heather said.
Jimmy looked at Kevin for him to do the explanation.
“We talked about it last night,” Kevin said. “We decided we’d open all our presents downstairs. But you guys can go ahead.”
“Why do you want to wait?” my dad asked.
“Because downstairs is the tree that we got with Dad,” Benjamin said.
“We had so much fun!” Kevin said. “We nearly got run over by a snowplow!”
“And I made snow angels in the snow!” Jimmy announced.
“And we each got to help cut down the tree!” Benjamin chimed in.
“I’ve got an idea,” my mother said. “Let’s move all our presents downstairs and open them up next to the tree you boys and your dad got in the forest!”
And so we did. The boys were happy to be sitting next to their tree.
“I have another present,” I said to the boys. “It’s not one I can wrap, but it will last all year.”
“What is it?”
I gave them a stack of colored three-by-five cards. “You know what this is?”
“No.”
“There’s a card here for every week in the coming year. It means that every Saturday morning, I’m taking you boys out on another adventure. Just you boys and me.”
They shouted and ran and threw their arms around me and hugged me.
After breakfast, Heather gave me a hug and said, “I am so grateful to have a husband who is such a great dad to our kids.”
“Please make sure I do this every week.”
“I will. I promise.”
“I suppose some men know how to be a good husband and father, but for me it’s something I discover as time goes on.”
“But that’s the thing, you do learn. I’m so grateful for that. I feel very contented this Christmas,” she said.
“Me too. It’s been a good year.”
A few days after New Year’s Day, I helped Heather take down all the Christmas decorations. Except for the misshaped tree in the TV room. We left that up because the boys insisted it stay.
By March, though, the boys were willing to let it go because by then they and I had gathered enough other souvenirs from our Saturday excursions together they didn’t need the tree anymore.
Of course the idea for me spending more time with my boys came from Heather. It’s sort of a pattern in our marriage.
For which I’m profoundly grateful.
Chapter Six
Guess What? We’re Having a Ward Project.
Six months later.
“What would you think about us having another baby?” Heather asked me one morning at breakfast. The kids had finished their breakfast so we were momentarily alone.
It was bad enough she’d made me oatmeal. “Why would we want to d
o that?” I asked. “We just got our life back together again.”
“I just feel there are more children that should come to our family.”
I hate it when she plays that mystical, all-knowing card on me.
I glared at my oatmeal. It had raisins in it. I hate raisins. Our kids like oatmeal with raisins, so that’s what we had—day after day after day.
“This isn’t a good time for me, that’s all.” I said.
“In what way?”
“You know, like with things at work. We’re not pulling in the sales we had even a year ago. I mean, I could lose my job anytime, and then where would we be?”
“It doesn’t take money to have a baby. It takes faith.”
I started to pick out the raisins from my oatmeal. “Actually, it does take money and insurance, both of which I’d lose if I get laid off. But, you know what? I’m not against the concept, okay? Let’s talk about this again sometime. Like maybe in a year or two.” I looked at my watch. “I got to go now or I’ll be late.” I stood up to leave.
“What about your oatmeal?”
“I’ll take it with me.” I ladled it onto a piece of toast and folded it over into a sandwich.
She followed me out to the car, which made dumping my oatmeal lump in the garbage impossible. “Why are you so set against having another baby?” she asked.
“Look, let me be honest. It’s no fun for me when you’re pregnant and also just after when you’ve had a baby. Also, just for the record, I’ve got as much faith as the next guy, but I do happen to like being able to pay the bills.”
“I’m not going to have a baby tomorrow. We’ve got a lot of time. Besides, it took us over a year to get pregnant with Kevin. In that time, things might be better financially for us. All I’m saying is if we want to have another child within the next two years, maybe we should start now.”
“How about if you get a job at a day care center instead?”
She laughed. “We’ll talk more about this when you have more time. Oh, one other thing, I’m interested in knowing what you’re going to do with the oatmeal.”
I wanted to be grumpy but her silly smile won me over. I handed the oatmeal to her. “Take good care of this for me, okay? I’ll have it for dessert tonight.”
“Yes, you will, I’ll make sure of that!” she said with a huge grin.
As I got in the car, she called out, “From now on, I’ll make you something else for breakfast.”
“That would be great.”
“See, I do take care of you, right?”
“Yeah, you do. I’m a lucky guy.”
Talk about bad luck. When I got to work, my boss called us all together and announced we’d got a new contract that would keep us busy for at least a year. Not only that, a short time later, he called me into his office and told me I’d be getting a raise.
On my way home, I decided not to tell Heather about the new contract because I knew what she’d do with it. Don’t get me wrong. I like kids, especially ours, most of the time.
I’d read once that the most common complaint women have about their husbands is their lack of communication. I was hoping to take advantage of that. If none of my coworkers told their wives either about the new contract, then maybe Heather wouldn’t find out.
The next day, however, when I came home from work, Heather said she wanted to talk to me in the backyard. I figured it was about the broken gate I hadn’t fixed yet.
“I ran into Melissa today while I was grocery shopping. She asked if I was happy to hear about the new contract you guys got. I told her I hadn’t heard about it. She said you’ve got a year’s worth of work just from that one contract.”
“Oh, yeah, I was meaning to tell you. I was saving it for a surprise.”
“You must be very happy.”
“Yes, of course.”
“So maybe we can go ahead with having another baby then, right?”
What could I say? “I guess.”
After six months though, despite our best efforts, Heather didn’t get pregnant.
One day when I came home from work, the visiting teachers were there, which was unusual because normally I never saw them. And there was a tissue box in the living room next to Heather and she was holding a used tissue in her hand.
A day later when I came home from work, there was a plate of brownies on the kitchen counter. “Want a brownie?” Heather asked.
“Did you bake today?”
“No, my visiting teachers brought them over for us.”
I picked up one and took a bite. “They’re very chewy.”
“I know. It’s nutritional.”
Kevin came into the kitchen and went to grab a brownie.
“Stop! Those are Daddy’s brownies!” Heather called out.
“Why are they my brownies?” I asked.
“My visiting teachers brought them for you.”
“Why? What’s in ’em?”
“Nothing unusual.”
“They’re the heaviest brownies I’ve ever tasted.”
“They might have a tiny bit of wheat germ in them.”
“Why?”
“Wheat germ is very good for men.”
“I’m a man,” Kevin said, reaching for a brownie.
“Kevin, you leave those brownies alone!” Heather warned. “Those are just for your Dad!”
“Why does he get brownies and we don’t?”
“I’ll make you brownies.”
“When?”
“Right now.”
Later that night, as soon as we were alone, I asked Heather if she’d told our visiting teachers we were trying to get pregnant.
“I might have mentioned it. Sister Robertson said that when she and her husband were having difficulty having their first baby, someone recommended wheat germ. She said they both think it helped.”
“So how many people in our ward know about this?” I asked.
“Well, Sister Robertson and her companion, Sister Bates, and, well, also, Amanda.”
“If Amanda knows, she’ll tell Cody.”
“Not necessarily.”
Two days later Cody and I were playing golf. At the fifth hole we were waiting for someone when he turned to me and said, “Can I ask you a question? When you take a shower, how hot is the water and how long do you stay in there?”
“Why are you asking me that?” I asked.
“If your shower is too hot or if you’re in the shower too long, that could be your problem.”
“My problem with what?”
“Getting Heather pregnant.”
“I can’t believe we’re talking about this.”
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Try taking quick showers with the water only lukewarm. Who knows? It might make a big difference.”
“Does the whole world have to know that I haven’t been able to get my wife pregnant? And why does everyone assume it’s my problem! Why can’t it be Heather’s problem?”
Two of the men ahead of us looked at each other and came over to talk to me. “I have a suggestion that might help,” one of them said.
“Look, back off, okay? I’m here to play golf! I don’t want to hear any of your stupid suggestions!”
Cody shrugged. “He’s totally in denial,” he said to the two men.
They nodded and left.
“You got enough strength to keep playing?” Cody asked. “We don’t want to tire you out.”
I sneered at him.
“It’s nothing to be ashamed of.”
I shanked the shot.
Apparently Cody told Amanda, and Amanda told Heather about me blowing up on the golf course, because the next day when I came home from work, she asked if I could help her move some furniture.
“Amanda told me about what happened when you were golfing yesterday.”
I scowled. “So?”
“I can see now that I’ve put too much pressure on you. Let’s just back off on trying to get pregnant. If it happens, it happens. If not, that’s okay
too.”
“Thank you. I think that would be better for both of us.”
And so that’s what we did.
Two or three weeks later, Heather called me at work and told me our washer wasn’t working. She asked if I could come home and look at it.
During my lunch hour, I drove home.
As I got out of my car, I saw Cody trimming his bushes. He must have had the day off. He called over to me. “You came home for lunch?”
“That’s right. The washer quit working. I’m here to have a look at it.”
“Well, hey, good luck! Oh, if Heather needs someone to watch the kids while you . . . uh . . . fix the washer, Amanda and I would be glad to do that for you guys.”
“Okay, I’ll tell her.”
He had such a stupid grin on his face that I figured he was reading more into this.
“I came home because the washer isn’t working,” I repeated.
“That’s good! I’m going to use that sometime!”
“Right.”
When I walked in the house, I was chuckling to myself. Heather asked why so I told her. She laughed too.
It took only about two minutes to find the problem. The circuit breaker had shut the power off. I reset it. And it started. “I can stay here for a few minutes to make sure it doesn’t quit again,” I said.
“Okay.”
Earlier that morning Jimmy had tested Heather’s patience when she caught him drawing on the wall with her lipstick. “You know, maybe we should accept Cody and Amanda’s offer to watch Jimmy,” she said with a big grin.
“Good idea.”
And so that’s what we did. Although, to be truthful, I stayed well after the time when the washer finished. And then I went to work.
A few weeks later Heather announced she was pregnant.
When Cody found out our news, he suggested we name the kid Cody if it’s a boy or Cody-rella if it’s a girl.
We told him no.
The next Sunday Heather accused me of walking into church with a certain swagger in my step.
Actually, though, I’m thinking it might have been the wheat germ.
So next fast Sunday, do I get up and thank our visiting teachers for being such a help to our family?
I asked Heather and she burst out laughing. She did say that maybe a thank-you card might be appropriate.