Dunham Family and My Stroke Story!

Little Ethan Dunham has entered his second week of parochial school filled with the inspirational sweet spirit of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost.  He is excited about the structure. He loves wearing uniforms. He relishes the opportunity to wear socks everyday. He looks forward to tucking in his shirt. And Mass! Wow! It is uplifting and engaging. He rushes home every day to assure his pagan parents that we are well on our way to damnation as he sets the table in anticipation of leading us in the blessing.  He is overjoyed each morning to awaken – early -- with the knowledge that he has a full day of learning ahead of him. And the fact that he doesn’t know any of the other children in the class (all of whom but one went to Sacred Heart last year for Kindergarten so have their established groups) is not a downer for him at all as he looks forward to the challenge of making new friends at the same time he is adjusting to a different school, a new routine, learning C...

We all go through life interacting with people. We have family, we have acquaintances, we have professional relationships, and we have friends. I've been blessed in my life to have a lot of friends and even more acquaintances. I suspect that many of the people I consider to be acquaintances consider me to be a friend. I don't mean to sound ungrateful or snobbish, but the term "friend" is pretty sacred to me. I've had things happen to me throughout my life that lead me to value a "friend" at an exclusive level. Richard Bach in his book "Illusions" noted that ""Your friends will know you better in the first minute you meet than your acquaintances will know you in a thousand years." I can count my true friends on my two hands yet I bet I have a thousand acquaintances. My wife and I have a standing bet that I owe her $15.00 every time I know someone when we are out of town. I should clarify: "Out of State." She s...

My family moved to Twin Falls, Idaho in August, 1964, and we moved into a house on Falls Avenue East. We were one of six brick houses, and, in those days, we were pretty isolated...surrounded by farmers, fields, and nothing between our back yard and the Snake River Canyon. We left that house in the Winter of 1969 when my parents divorced, so I lived there from three years old until I was eight years old. I have some great memories of the place but also some unpleasant ones as the deterioriation of my parents' marriage is inextricably entwined with that home. The other day, about 41 years after I last set foot in the place, my mother arranged for me to visit the house. I did so out of curiosity, and it was surreal. Of course, it was MUCH smaller than I remembered. Even now looking at old faded photos taken in the house, it seems bigger than it did when I walked in last weekend. The other thing that struck me is how much had NOT changed. When I buy a house, I have alway...

At 7:55 a.m., on January 27, 2005, our son Ethan Stanford Dunham was born. He was born yelling, crying, and peeing! We didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl, but his mother not-so-secretly just assumed "critter" (as we called the unborn hiccuper ) would be a girl. After all , Heather is "#5" in a group of 7 sisters. When Ethan first emerged, the doctor said, "It's a boy!" Heather retorted in a rather plaintive voice, "A boy? Are you sure? It was supposed to be a girl." I was more worried about 10 fingers and 10 toes to worry about that other appendage! Ethan would have weighed 9 pounds had he not decided to pee upon his birth. When we woke him this morning by signing "Happy Birthday, he jumped up yelling "Red Alert! Red Alert!" which is his usual urgent announcement that he has to go to the bathroom. There was no such warning 6 years ago this morning. After he was born, I cut the cord, and marvelled at th...

I've spent too much time away from my blog, and I feared that would happen with the advent of Facebook. Our son turns 6 this week, and we've been busy with him during this first year of school. Kindergarten has been OK, but he misses preschool! "I got to do a lot more fun stuff there. Now they just make us work." Since my last posting in September, here are some random "Ethanisims" from recent Facebook postings as well as references to the burglary at our house in early December: January 23, 2011: Our son Ethan's 6th Birthday Party is today. He just told me that he's on his way to 7. January 17, 2011: A particularly sappy Celine Dion song blasted from the car radio yesterday when I turned on the ignition causing our soon to be 6 year old son to yell "Oh COME on Dad. Turn that off and put on some real music!" I am so proud. December 31, 2010: Ethan wanted a Mohawk for New Years Eve. Stylin' December 25, 2010: ‎2:4...

Ethan will complete his 2 nd week of Kindergarten this week, and I realized that he is now at an age that I also remember. I went to Kindergarten at Mrs. Wilkes which was a classroom in the back of her dentist husband's office in Twin Falls. I was in the "morning" class like Ethan is, and I met kids in Kindergarten who I knew all through school and even college. I doubt Ethan will have such lifelong acquaintances because today's world is so transitory. Age-old traditions of school boundaries seem blurred in the era of "school of choice, charter schools, magnet schools, on-line schools, etc." But I digress. The biggest lesson I've learned -- this is my blog after all -- is that we evidently do need " stinkin ' rules." I have read the Monroe Elementary School Handbook cover to cover several times. I know that at 10:15 every day, my son has recess. I know that he has PE one day, music one day, and art another day. W...

Ethan started Kindergarten today, and he has been excited for weeks. On Friday, August 13, 2010, we picked Ethan up from the BSU Children’s Center for the last time. We cleaned out his “ cubbie ,” and he made sure we took his laminated name card tied to a basket with now frayed and faded yarn. He wanted to go out into the play ground where he frolicked for almost three years. He looked around and took a final spin on a beat up old tricycle (“ Motorcycle Daddy!”) that he rode with speed and abandon. He wanted me to take a picture of him on it, and I did. We walked past the reception area where he thanked Hob, the Center Director, and then we left through the “Magic Door” which is nothing more than a door for the disabled with a button to open it. Three years ago, that door was magic to a two year old. Now, it’s just a pleasant memory for him. We took a photo on the front step remembering how anxious all of us were when we first took him there in September of 2007 after a misstep at an...