Sound Sleeper

Today is my son's 26th birthday. In honor of his special day, I'm sharing a favorite story from the Vik Family archives. 

When our son, Andrew, was little, he was such a sound sleeper that he barely moved. We'd often watch to see if his chest rose and fell to make sure he was still alive. 

The worst time was when he was 13 years old.

In 2000, Keith and I had gone on a date, while fifteen-year-old Christina, our oldest daughter, babysat our six youngest children. We enjoyed a peaceful, relaxing evening away from our busy family, only to return home to an astonishing turn of events.

10:15 p.m. We walked in the house to find Christina downstairs reading. We assumed the other kids were upstairs in bed. When asked how things had gone that night, Christina said, "Okay."

Eleven-year-old Kiah walked downstairs and said, "Has Andrew come back yet?"

"What do you mean?" Keith asked. "Isn't he here?"

Christina sighed and put down her book, "I'm not sure." Seems while the cat's away, the mice will...fight. Christina explained that she had  a big fight with Andrew and he had grabbed a sleeping bag and stomped out of the house, saying that "He was going where no one could find him."

We left Kiah inside with the sleeping younger children, and took Christina outside to help look for Andrew.

Our eight acres were surrounded by 160 acres of soybeans. There wasn't much moonlight and our big yard light only illuminated so far. We looked for thirty minutes then called a neighbor who came over with a searchlight. We yelled and shined our flashlights all over the place. No Andrew.

We hoped he hadn't gone into our three-acre grove. Navigating our thick, tangled, overgrown grove at night would be nearly impossible. After an hour of searching, thirty minutes by ourselves, and thirty minutes with the neighbor, we started to panic. Where was he?

11:30 - The police wouldn't help until we had called Andrew's closest friends to see if he'd gone to their houses. His friends lived five miles away. Surely he hadn't walked to town?

We felt foolish calling people that late at night, but his friends hadn't seen him.  We wondered what they thought of us? How do you lose a child from your house?

11:45 - Andrew had been missing for two hours. A police officer showed up with a bigger, more powerful searchlight. He grilled Christina who had been the last person to see him. We all yelled Andrew's name, shining lights everywhere.

12:15 - We were panicked. Was he hurt somewhere? Perhaps unconscious? Was he hiding and purposely not answering? Had he run away? The policeman offered to call in a bloodhound.

I rested my head on our van's steering wheel and prayed, "God, you know where he is. Please help us find him."

I shone headlights into the soybean field again. Between the van and soybeans stood an old white picnic table. I looked hard at the table and thought it looked thicker than normal.

I walked over to the table, overjoyed to see Andrew sleeping on it. I drove off to find Keith. We drove back and parked five feet from the table. Keith honked the horn a few times to alert the searchers that we had finally found Andrew. We kept the headlights shining on him, amazed that he was still sleeping.

How had we missed him before?  Andrew was small for his age and very skinny. Wearing a black stocking cap and snuggled down inside a black sleeping bag, his small size and black bag had made him almost invisible.

I called his name a couple times, thinking he should go inside and sleep in his bed. Since he was obviously in a deep sleep, totally oblivious to the activity going on around him, Keith said to let him sleep where he was.

What was more unbelievable? That we had looked for two and half hours for someone who was sleeping fifty feet from the house or that Andrew had slept through people yelling his name, cars driving on and off our property, lights shining everywhere, and the van's horn honking five feet from his head. 

We thanked our neighbor and the policeman and sent them home, everyone relieved that the lost had been found. A few hours with a missing child was awful. I can't imagine what parents who never find their children go through.

The next morning was sunny and peaceful. Keith watched out the kitchen window as Andrew woke up. His little head poked out of the sleeping bag and he looked around, disoriented to where he was and why. Andrew walked inside and Keith asked how he had slept.

Andrew yawned and said, "Fine." He had absolutely no recollection of all the chaos he had caused.

__________________________

I was reluctant to go on future dates. Keith thought it vital that we take time for us and sternly warned the kids that there would be no more monkey business while Mom and Dad were gone.

Unfortunately this episode didn't cure the kids of fighting. They had a few more "incidents" but I am happy to say that our kids have grown up to like each other and are good friends now.

I see Andrew watching his four-month-old daughter sleeping and when he leans closer to make sure she's still breathing. I smile and think, "What goes around, comes around."

Family Photo Reenactment

2004 - Family picture at Grandma Vik's 80th birthday

2013 Re-enactment 

Nine years later, everyone is bigger, three cousins are 

missing, and our niece's husband passed away last summer.

There's a big piece of furniture where the photographer 

needs to stand, so we couldn't get everyone is the same picture. 

Grandma can't go down stairs anymore so she's sitting up top. 

Family faces are magic mirrors. Looking at people 

who belong to us, we see the past, present, and the future. 

--Gail Buckley--

The Velveteen Piano

Love made our piano real.

 

Matt and Rose moved west and their piano moved to our house. Young, untethered, and ambivalent where to put down roots, they moved to Oregon with whatever fit in their truck.

Their old, upright piano didn’t fit.

My husband was flummoxed. “Where,” he wanted to know, “will we put it?” I assured him we’d make room. I wanted a piano so bad, I didn’t care if we put it in the kitchen and ate in the backyard.

Our upstairs neighbors grumbled and stared in dismay as Keith and three men carefully moved the heavy piano down the stairs to our small, two-bedroom basement apartment.

I promised we wouldn’t play in the early morning or late at night.  

We squeezed it into our small living room and our kids instantly fell in love. I’m not musical, but I wanted my kids to have music. We didn’t have much money, but we could afford a free piano. Yes, it was old. Yes, it had seen better days. Yes, we didn’t know how to play, but I was determined we’d learn.

We enrolled our seven children in the “can’t-afford-piano-lessons-for-a-big-family" music program. As toddlers, they stood on tiptoes, and stretched up to plunk keys, loving the cause and effect of push a key, make a sound.

They loved to take the front cover off and look inside when someone played. We’d leave the cover off for days, then replace it before company came.

Over the years, invisible hands picked white plastic off the piano key tops. Nobody confessed and we never caught the perpetrator, but one by one, plastic disappeared until all the keys were rough and naked. Our kids didn’t mind the strange feel, but guest pianists always cringed the first time they played our piano. Our children didn’t wash their hands before playing, so when the keys got extra dingy, we painted them.

Kiah, at age eight, had the bright idea to write note letters with permanent marker on the middle octaves keys. Parents with nice pianos have fits over stuff like that, but we just sighed and took it in stride.

Our children banged keys, left scratches and water rings, and permanently broke three keys. One child carved her name on an inside leg. We didn’t do the piano any favors besides use and love it.

We never forced anyone to practice. Playing wasn’t a chore, but something they enjoyed. Our children barely know how to read music, but they love to learn new songs. Most of them play by ear and YouTube. One sister finds a Youtube piano tutorial, learns a song, then teaches it to the others. Every day, at least one of the girls sits down to play.

They learned piano by playing with it. Even though they never learned scales or chords or performed in recitals, they picked up bits of music theory along the way. They often pick the brains of piano-playing house guests. One daughter makes up her own songs.

With each move, Keith asked, “We don’t need to take the piano, do we?”  The girls all stared in disbelief, “Yes, we do!”

Friends who helped us move would look at the piano with dread and say, “This too?”

I had nerve to expect them to move something so heavy, but I smiled, and firmly said, “Yes, please.”

Keith’s brother often played for the kids when he came to town. They loved that Uncle Neil could play almost anything. I’d watch Neil expertly coax music from our worn-out piano and feel guilty that our kids had never had formal piano instruction.

Because the piano came to us beat up and we further hastened its decline, I assumed it would be out of tune. I asked Neil if the piano needed tuned. He always said it was a little out of tune, but not bad. Five years passed, ten years passed, fifteen years passed and, oddly enough, the tune never got worse.

Three years ago, a retired friend offered us his piano. We were torn. The newer one was much nicer than our old, faithful piano.  It looked and sounded nice, with intact, shiny white keys. Plus, it had a matching bench.

It was a tough decision, but we chose the nicer piano. The girls were elated with the new addition but felt like we were putting down a beloved family pet.

We tried to give the old piano away but no one wanted it. Keith felt like he’d imposed on friends enough over the years to move our heaviest piece of furniture so he dismantled it and stored pieces in the basement.

He found the manufacturer’s name on an inside panel. A Google search revealed that our piano’s unique features helped it stay in tune better than most pianos. Which explained why it never seemed any worse out of tune than when we first got it.

We never saw Matt and Rose again, but we used their piano for seventeen years. We’re sad that its long life ended on our watch.  I wish they could know how much our kids loved it. They never saw old and ugly. They saw fun and useful. Many people would consider it a beat-up eyesore, but to our kids, it was a real piano.

Our kids will never love the newer piano as much as they loved the old one, because they learned more than just how to play. They learned that making music doesn’t require a nice piano. They learned how to live with imperfections and to make do with what they had. They learned to love something that was old and run-down. They learned to play by delight, not drudgery. They learned to play by doing it together. They fed off each other’s skills and their combined knowledge took them farther than they could have gone by themselves.

We’ll always be thankful that years ago, we made room for an old piano, not just in our home, but in our hearts.

Life is like a piano. What you get out of it depends on how you play it.
--Tom Lehrer--

A Bend in the Road

This week the sky changes as fast and often as a teenage girl’s moods. The weather vacillates between sunshine and rain several times a day, much like our first visit to Ashland four years ago.

Keith had prayed about finding a different church. I liked living in Northwest Iowa near Keith’s family. I enjoyed my church, friends, and job.  I hoped Keith was just going through a phase he'd soon grow out of.

God gave clues to our future but I missed them.

Clue #1 – A plaque on my friend’s wall said, “A bend in the road is not the end of the road...unless you fail to make the turn.”

Clue #2 – A spur-of-the-moment trip we took four years ago to Colorado. For years Keith had wanted to visit Glenwood Springs in winter. We took his Christmas bonus and left before his rational “we should fix the roof” side kicked in.

We spent New Year’s Eve (with single digit outside temps) in Glenwood’s ginormous warm pool with two hundred people. I sat in warm, soothing mineral-laced water and marveled that I was doing something I’d never thought to do, but was enjoying myself immensely.

Clue #3 came four months later when Keith and I visited my family in Oregon. One night we rented a delightful room in Manzanita, a small town on the Oregon coast.

For twenty-five years I had lived an hour from the ocean but had never spent the night there. It never occurred to me to want to. We lived so close that going to the ocean had always been a day trip. 

Manzanita was wonderful and I listened to rhythmic waves crash on shore and marveled that we were doing something we’d never thought to do, but were enjoying ourselves immensely.

I had never thought about visiting Wisconsin. I had never thought about seeing Lake Superior. There are many places I’d like to see someday but Wisconsin wasn’t on the list.

A Wisconsin church approached us. Keith prayed but didn’t feel led in that direction. We both agreed that we didn’t want to live in Wisconsin. He meant to take Wisconsin off his church-match profile, but forgot.

When our present church contacted us, something in the man’s voice caught Keith’s attention. He found this picture on the church’s website.

It looked so pretty, I wanted to sign up immediately. There are better reasons to choose a church than how it looks from the air so we prayed about it.

As Keith talked to their search committee, I wondered about the trees. Keith was born and raised in Iowa and loves the landscape. He likes Grant Wood pictures. He likes open prairies and seeing for miles and miles in any direction. He loves Iowa sunsets. He hated living in Oregon amongst so many trees.

I suggested a trip to Ashland to see if Keith thought he could live there. Four years ago on Memorial Day weekend, we drove eight hours north for a life-changing trip.

We stayed in a charming Bed and Breakfast. We’d never stayed in one before. It had never occurred to us to want to. I marveled that we had done something we’d never thought to do, but had enjoyed ourselves immensely.

I liked the church and people we met. Lake Superior was inviting. It rained off and on the whole time, which showed us what normal spring weather was like. A beautiful spring day would have been deceptive since Ashland’s springs are usually cold and wet.

I thought Keith wouldn’t like the trees. To my surprise, he said he could live there. Wisconsin has more deciduous trees than Oregon, more open spaces, and the huge lake gave Keith a horizon.

He took the job and we transplanted our family 450 miles north. If we were Lego people, God had just picked up our pieces and moved them to another board.

God answered many prayers. We love it here. We like the church, the area, our house, and the weather. Leaving Iowa was hard and I still miss some things, but I’m thankful we moved.

God knew that this small Wisconsin church on the south shore of Lake Superior would be a good fit for a quirky, bearded bi-vocational pastor/plumber from Iowa.

Five years ago I didn’t know this place existed and I often marvel to be doing something I’d never thought to want to do, and yet am enjoying myself immensely. 

Our Glenwood Springs excursion, the Manzanita getaway, and the move to Ashland had in common the element of surprise. Of God doing the unexpected. Of doing something way beyond the realm of our experience. Of being blessed when we least expected it.

A new church friend gave us an antique picture of a curved country road. I got chills when she said, “This picture is like your trip here. You can’t see where the bend leads, but you took the road anyway.”

This picture hangs in our entry way. It’s the first thing we see when we enter the house. I wish I had my Iowa friend’s “Bend in the Road” plaque to hang under this picture.  

I am reminded that God's time is the right time. God has a plan for my life and His plan is always better than mine. Hopefully I’ll remember all this the next time God wants us to go around another bend.


I'm linking up with my friend Jennifer at Getting Down With Jesus 

"The Coincidence"

I married my husband for his typewriter. 

I had an old clunky manual typewriter and his nifty Smith-Corona electric typewriter with correcting ribbon looked mighty fine. 

That and his Olympus SLR camera and his cute marine blue Volkswagen Superbeetle named "Feather". 

Oh, how he loved Volkswagens. He loved the look. He loved the smell. He loved the sound. Feather was his pride and joy. 

That pride and joy broke down on numerous occasions and he learned the hard way through the school of hard knocks and no budget for a mechanic the ins and outs of VW repair. 

Breakdown on the way home from our honeymoon

Shortly after Christina's first birthday he announced that we needed a bigger car. I wondered why since we only had one child.

My intuitive hubby overuled his practical wife's objection and traded his beloved VW bug for an equally cherished VW van. 

Oh, how he loved the sight, the sound, and the smell of his VW van. VW van owners do this quirky pinky-thumb wave when they pass each other on the road. 

Immensely proud of our creativity, we named our van "Vincent" after Vincent Van Gogh.

This "new" (to us) van also broke down at regular intervals and Keith further honed his mechanical skills. 

One summer we traveled in our cool, but unreliable van from Portland, Oregon where we lived to Rock Rapids, Iowa where his parents lived. 

While driving around his hometown one day, Keith spotted another VW van. In a state where nine out of ten cars are American, VW vans stick out like a big, fat thumb. 

When my VW-loving hubby discovered the other van's owner wanted to part out his broken down van, Keith jumped on it.

I gave Keith the look. You know, the look that says, "What were you thinking?" Our Daddy-working-himself-through-seminary budget was already stretched thin.

To top it off, we didn't have room in the van to bring the van parts back to Oregon with us. I wasn't happy that we had spent $150 only to leave the parts in Iowa. 

The next summer, we made the long trek from Portland to Iowa again. This time Keith made sure we had room to bring the van parts home with us. 

On the return trip, just west of Cheyenne, Wyoming the van lurched, made a few ominous sounds and quit moving forward. Keith knew right away that the transmission had died. Cheyenne is almost halfway between Oregon and Iowa so no help would come from family or friends. 

This was before cell phones and we couldn't afford a tow truck even if we could call one, so Keith stuck the van in first gear and we limped back to Cheyenne. 

We checked into a Motel 6 where Keith said that he just happened to have a spare transmission along. I went swimming with Christina (3) and Andrew (1) while he dropped the engine in the Motel 6 parking lot and installed his "spare" transmission. 

We got a good night's sleep and continued on our way the next day, thankful for God's provision of a spare transmission a year in advance. 

Some might hear this story and think "What a coincidence." But we know better. 

It was a God thing. And if you don't believe me, I have at least fifty more stories where that came from. 

I'm linking up with Jennifer at Getting Down With Jesus for her blog hop, God-Bumps and God-Incidents. 

If Only

If only.

If only someone else had gone first.

If only Keith had been by his mother’s side.

If only we’d paid more attention, our Thanksgiving gathering wouldn’t be permanently etched in our minds.

Excited to be celebrating Thanksgiving with Keith’s family for the first time in three years and anticipating the upcoming feast, we were careless.

And Grandma paid the price.

Shortly after arriving at our niece’s house Thanksgiving afternoon, Keith’s 86-year-old mother Marie misjudged the one step down into the living room and fell.

We all stared, horrified at the sight of our beloved sister/ mother/grandmother quietly sprawled on the floor with her eyes closed.

Greeks or Italians would have been in chaos with everyone talking loudly at once. Even-keeled Midwest Scandinavian Lutherans handle emergencies with an ominous quiet.

Responses varied. Marie’s two stoic Danish eighty something brothers didn’t move, didn’t flinch, just stared with grim resignation as they watched the scene unfold.

Someone yelled, “Grandma!”

An uncle told the kids to stay in the downstairs family room.

Keith growled “What happened?” in his “Heads are going to roll voice.” Although by that point it was pretty obvious. The thing we had all dreaded had finally happened.

I tentatively peeked around the kitchen corner and saw Marie’s leg splayed in a suspicious angle. I quickly retreated and told Keith’s niece, “I can’t look.”

Either I’m Danish and don’t know it, or I’ve picked up their traits by osmosis, or being squeamish trumps common sense, but I’m pretty sure an emotionally healthy, well-adjusted adult wouldn’t go back into the kitchen to finish making a salad while their mother-in-law lies in pain on the floor in the next room.

Marie’s health has significantly deteriorated over the last year. Mostly her memory, but high blood pressure, cataracts, arthritis, and a bad knee have taken a toll. Nobody likes to say the “D” word but dementia is slowly clouding her mind.

Last month Keith’s sister Karen moved Marie to assisted living. We wanted to put Marie in a safe place and lighten Karen’s load, but instead moving aggravated the situation. Routine and familiarity allowed Marie to function. Change did not.

Thankfully Keith’s sister-in-law Sacia isn’t Scandinavian and had recently completed Ski Patrol emergency medical training and isn’t squeamish or cowardly so took control of the situation. She methodically checked Marie’s limbs and to our subdued joyous surprise, nothing was broken.

Thankfully Kiah worked as a nursing home CNA for five years, is a first semester nursing student, and isn’t squeamish so also knew what to do.

So ironic how things come full circle. When Kiah at 18 months old, badly cut her lip on a bookshelf and had to be stitched up, her Grandma held and soothed her.

Twenty years later, when Kiah knelt beside her injured grandmother while Sacia announced that Marie had cut her head on the bookshelf and needed stitches, Kiah held her grandmother’s hand and said, “I love you Grandma.”

Keith, his brother, and niece took Marie to the Emergency Room where they put four staples into her head. And discovered an irregular heart beat, which may or may not have been caused by the accident.

The rest of us half-heartedly sat down to our Thanksgiving meal, muted, sober, preoccupied.

An ER doctor confirmed no broken bones, no concussion, nothing obviously wrong except the head wound. We’re thankful because it easily could have been so much worse.

Dementia isn’t all bad. As traumatic as yesterday was, she doesn’t remember it.

But we do. No doubt everyone’s claimed a portion of the blame and wondered what they could have done to prevent the accident.

 

If only.

The Best Dad in the World

Lesson learned. Next time we go on vacation I should mention beforehand that I will be out of the "office" for a week and won't be posting. Good intentions of posting while on vacation didn't happen, besides which  Keith's Mom doesn't have internet access. Had a good visit with Keith's family and now we're back home enduring enjoying a Northern Wisconsin cold spell summer.

This week's Monday Mug's theme is "Let's Hear it for the Boys."  As you know, boys are scarce in our family, but we do have the world's best father. Kim at Pair Slices is hosting Monday Mugs this week.

In honor of Father's Day I have a picture of each of our children with their Dad. The kids call him Dad, Pops, Poppy, and Pops-a-lot. I'm so thankful my kids are blessed to have a good Daddy.

 Christina

 (25th Birthday)

 Andrew
(His wedding)

 

 Kiah
(Her High School Graduation)

 Erica
(Her baptism)

 Anna
(2009 - Mother's Day hike)

 Amy
(Making Gingerbread Houses)

 Lani
(Denver Bronco Fans)

Some Favorite Pictures

1995

2005 - Pikes Peak, Colorado

2011

"Before I got married I had six theories about bringing up children; 

now I have six children and no theories."

--John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester--

When Meeting Someone on the Internet is a Good Thing

I recently had a fun blog experience.

Last month I reposted a story about my last name and my husband's grandfather's immigration to America from Norway. A girl whose last name used to be Vik commented. Turns out her grandfather was my husband's uncle. This makes her my children's third cousin (I think.) How cool is that?

I remember meeting this girl 22 years ago when she was 3 years old. Now she's all grown up, and married, and has a blog of her own. Click here to read Steph Anne's post about Grandpa Vik's trip to America. I love that the internet makes reconnections like this possible.

We've enjoyed getting to know her and are thankful that Google helped our paths intersect.

A Cautionary Tale

Since I'm celebrating my One-Year Blogoversary this week, just for fun I'm reposting my first post. Click here to enter my Blogoversary giveaway. I'll draw a name on Sunday, March 21.

*******

Falling in love is risky business, the least of which is hoping you’ll like your new last name, should you get married. Twenty-five years ago I traded the perfectly normal, easy-to-spell, easy-to-pronounce "Taylor" for the tricky name of "Vik."

What’s tricky about Vik, you ask? It’s frequently misspelled "Vic" or "Vick." Add an "s and it sounds like a cough drop. The phonetically challenged say "Vike." People often call me Vicky, and no, we’re not related to Michael Vick.

We couldn’t name our son Nicholas or Richard because Nick and Rick rhyme with Vik. So does hick. But it could have been worse. Vik was shortened from an even trickier name. And therein lies my tale.

On May 11, 1912 Grandpa Vik left Norway at the tender age of twenty and sailed from Liverpool, England on the H.M.S. Mauritania with twenty dollars in his pocket. Family legend says Grandpa Vik was scheduled to sail on the Titanic but sold his ticket and traveled one month later.

At Ellis Island, he changed his name from "Johannes Vorpvik" to "John Vik." And Viks ever since have been thankful.

With all due respect to Norwegians, "Vorpvik," was outside the realm of my experience. I grew up in Northern California with Italians, Japanese, and Mexicans and thought last names like "Franceschi," "Taniguchi," and "Hernandez" were normal.

Grandpa settled in Irene, South Dakota and persuaded a young widow to trade her perfectly normal, easy-to-spell, easy-to pronounce name of "Johnson" for "Vik." But Marie, aware of his history, knew she had dodged a bullet and welcomed the shortened version.

If Grandpa Vik hadn’t come to America, or had sailed on the Titanic, or hadn’t changed his name, there wouldn’t have been a Keith Vik for me to marry and I might have ended up with Gary Mukaida and had Japanese children.

So the moral of the story is to only date men whose last name you like, or have them immigrate somewhere and change it.

What's Good Enough for the Cat...

I wanted to share a story from the family archives.

Evangelism took on new meaning six years ago when Amy wanted to save her sister’s soul. Amy resembled Tigger from Winnie the Pooh—bubbly, bouncy, friendly, not to mention BOSSY and opinionated.

Amy had bossed her younger sister around for years. Lani good-naturedly complied until kindergarten when she finally learned to tell Amy, "No."

When Amy was seven she prayed with me to become a Christian.

Immediately Amy wanted Lani to follow suit. “Lani," Amy orderd. "You need to become a Christian so you’ll go to heaven when you die and not go to hell.” Now that isn’t exactly how I worded things, but that’s what she passed on.

Lani shot back, “I’m not going anywhere. I'm staying right here. I will not become a Christian!”

This bothered Amy, who for days tried unsuccessfully to persuade her little sister. Amy’s heart was in the right place but she needed to learn that you can’t nag somebody into the kingdom.


After church one Sunday Amy and Lani snuggled up in a big overstuffed chair with their very patient cat, Stripes. “What did you learn in cat church today, Stripes?” Amy asked.

Lani, pretending to be the cat, said, “I can’t tell.”

Amy told Stripes the importance of being good and telling the truth and being nice. She concluded by telling Stripes he should become a Christian so he could go to cat heaven because he sure didn’t want to go to cat hell.

I don’t know about Stripes, but Lani was finally convinced. Amy brought Lani to me so I could explain how to become a Christian. After Lani prayed, Amy beamed and said, “Now, we’re all Christians!”

…and following Him, Andrew found first his own brother, Simon, and said to him, “We have found the Messiah.” John 1:40a,41

Bad Example

I try from time to time to unpack the remaining mystery boxes in our basement. I came across our battered Sorry game and remembered an incident from 1997 when Christina was 12 and Andrew was 10.

During a game of Sorry the tension kept escalating. Christina snapped at Andrew, "Don't be so immature."

"Mom, what does immature mean?" Andrew asked.

"It's when someone doesn't act their age," I replied. "Why did Christina call you that?"

"Yep."

I'd warned her earlier that afternoon not to call her brother names. "Tina, go to your room."

Christina threw the board, threw the cards, then stomped up the stairs, and slammed her door, all the while complaining about my unfairness and Andrew's annoying qualities.

Keith looked up from his newspaper and said, "It's not often you get an example with the definition."

Erica's Turn

I think you need to know the real story of our family. Its easy to sugarcoat things to make them sound funnier or less cruel...but the truth was, with seven kids living in a 1,700 sq. ft house, things got pretty messy.

"Messy" as in Many Hands Make Many Messes, and "Messy" as in knock down, drag out fights and cruel tricks played on unsuspecting victims, such as when we told my oldest sister she was adopted and she fell for it.

We had a large acreage to wreak havoc on, although some days eight acres just wasn't enough. We had a grove of trees that one could (and almost always did) get lost in. We lived in the country a half mile from neighbors so our parents were spared angry phone calls about little kids streaking through their yards.

Looking back (all of my 17 years later) its easy to remember my childhood as ideal: lazy summer days at the pool, sleeping in, playing every sport imaginable (and quite a few made up ones) on our huge front lawn. Sadly we were not perfect little angels as shown in this classic example from Vik history. 

My older brother and sister built a tree fort, something I recommend kids do at LEAST once in their lifetime, just not how my siblings did. My brother Andrew did all of the manly work, you know, hammering nails, hauling boards, throwing a fit and kicking the tree when it just wouldn't grow the way he wanted it to, and my sister Kiah ran back and forth getting nails and giving moral support, like any sister would.

 
But then Andrew made a disastrous mistake, he decided Kiah wasn't necessary and declared the fort to be A BOYS ONLY fort. What does a poor little eight-year-old girl do when she's kicked out of the tree fort she helped build? Grab a hatchet and throw it as hard as she can at her brother, of course! 

Kiah has always been our little hothead but she pushed the envelope here. Its OK to throw large sticks and nails, but we draw the line at hatchets. Andrew climbed down to teach her a lesson but she was still chucking the hatchet around. Generally he won his confrontations with Kiah but this story ended with Andrew running to Mom as fast as he could, all the while dodging the hatchet.  

Moral of the story...never declare a fort Boys Only with Kiah around. I'll return with more hard hitting reports next week. Until then, go build a fort!

A Cautionary Tale

Falling in love is risky business, the least of which is hoping you’ll like your new last name, should you get married. Twenty-five years ago I traded the perfectly normal, easy-to-spell, easy-to-pronounce "Taylor" for the tricky name of "Vik."

What’s tricky about Vik? It’s frequently misspelled "Vic" or "Vick." Add an "s and it sounds like a cough drop. The phonetically challenged say "Vike." People often call me Vicky, and no, we’re not related to Michael Vick.

We couldn’t name our son Nicholas or Richard because Nick and Rick rhyme with Vik. So does hick. But it could have been worse. Vik was shortened from an even trickier name. And therein lies my tale.

On May 11, 1912 Grandpa Vik left Norway at the tender age of twenty and sailed from Liverpool, England on the H.M.S. Mauritania with twenty dollars in his pocket. Family legend says Grandpa Vik was scheduled to sail on the Titanic but sold his ticket and traveled one month later.

At Ellis Island, he changed his name from "Johannes Vorpvik" to "John Vik." And Viks ever since have been thankful.

With all due respect to Norwegians, "Vorpvik," was outside the realm of my experience. I grew up in Northern California with Italians, Japanese, and Mexicans and thought last names like "Franceschi," "Taniguchi," and "Hernandez" were normal.

Grandpa settled in Irene, South Dakota and persuaded a young widow to trade her perfectly normal, easy-to-spell, easy-to pronounce name of "Johnson" for "Vik." But Marie, aware of his history, knew she had dodged a bullet and welcomed the shortened version.

If Grandpa Vik hadn’t come to America, or had sailed on the Titanic, or hadn’t changed his name, there wouldn’t have been a Keith Vik for me to marry and I might have ended up with Gary Mukaida and had Japanese children.

So the moral of the story is to only date men whose last name you like, or have them immigrate somewhere and change it.