In 1966 I was teaching at St. Mary's School, and finishing up my college degree. I also had two children, a
second grader and a two-year old. I didn't expect to have another child. But guess what, I did. Cheryl, our second child had weighed 7 pounds at birth, so I expected the next child to be about the same size.
But, unexpectedly, when Rodney arrived, he weighed in at 8 pounds and 13 ounces! He was a good-looking, healthy baby, but he was a whopper!
From that time on Rod has specialized in doing the unexpected.
All of us considered him to be the baby of the family, the smallest one, the youngest. We expected him to stay that way. He took that as a challenge. Before long, he was the tallest in the family.
In elementary school he was a good boy, a good student, even a little bit serious. He even thought sometimes that his parents didn't behave. We expected him to grow up and be serious.
Well, maybe not. Instead, he grew up to be pretty silly and a lot of fun!
When he was in elementary school he had a lot of interests in science. He wanted to save some baby birds when the eggs fell out of a nest. So we brought home an incubator. He even ground worms in my blender to make baby food for when they hatched. (He did this one evening while I was away.) Imagine my surprise finding that in the refrigerator. He wanted to grow plants, so we got him shelves and grow lights.
He was interested in electricity, so we got him a Radio Shack wiring kit. He wanted a camera. He set up a fish tank in his room. We expected these to be short-lived hobbies.
Imagine our surprise when he became our "Go-to-guy" whenever anyone needed something fixed.
Rod liked music. So we let him take piano lessons. When he entered middle school and they had an orchestra, he chose percussion instruments. We let him take marimba lessons and bought him a vibraphone.
We expected those interests to last through middle school.
But he did well with percussion. The interest would last for years. He took awards, and played in the Highland High School award winning band. He even continued his marimba into college.
When a senior in high school, Rod interned at the music store in Anderson. He used his money and store discount to buy his own keyboard and also bought his own computer. I remember the first day he had them home. He stayed up all night programming an entire music piece on the computer. We expected it to be
another passing fancy.
Nope, he and friends formed their own band. That band played at many places throughout their college years. They practiced at our house. And they even had a reunion a few years ago when they came back to Anderson and played for our 50th anniversary party.
Yes, we did send him to college. We expected him to get a degree and then a job. He got the job while still at college when he did music engineering for a company that produced radio and television jingles.
We did expect him to get a degree.......
But, no, he did the unexpected. He earned two degrees, and now teaches audio and video at Ball State University.
We expected that Rod might stay single. He never dated, having spent all his school years with his best buddy, Katherine.
But he did the unexpected. After he and Debra spent two months "not dating", they planned a wedding and were married in one week's time.
And they have been happily married for almost fifteen years now.
AND we expected grandkids.
But we have grandkittens!
And Rod became everyone's favorite uncle.
And he even became a Grandpa!
Now THAT was unexpected!
It seems like some children just never do what you expect them to do. Why we even expected him to
keep his long curly-permed hair.
Uh, nope.
So to sum up my feelings about this great third child of ours, the one who never does what is expected of him. Well, all I can say is that he is a wonderful son and a great person who always does MORE than is expected.
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