Why We Go...

Every summer we find ourselves in Montana.

People always ask us why we come here. Why do we have this place up on a Mountain? What do we do there?

I think, in essence, they really want to know who we are.

Who are these people, this anomaly of a family who goes off every summer and lives on a mountain? Who are these people who own two homes, and why, and what does it mean to have a cabin…it sounds either so, Daniel Boone…or so, big luxurious home in the mountains.

Who are we?

Sometimes I wonder the same thing.

Mostly I start wondering a few months before we go….so much stuff to do…why in the heck do we need another place? I love our place! I love Kansas City. I love our home. I love our back yard. I love our neighborhood. Who are we that we need to travel across the country to go to…a cabin??? Sorting, packing, prepping….that, actually, is the easy part. It’s the explaining that is hard…having to frequently preface a conversations with,

“We spend summers in Montana.”

“We are the family that isn’t here in the summer because we spend summers in Montana.”

“I would prefer not to do the year contract because…well, we just aren’t here all year.” ARgggghhh.

I went to the woods because I wanted to live deliberately, I wanted to live deep and suck out all the marrow of life, to put to rout all that was not life and not when I had come to die discover that I had not lived. – Henry David Thoreau

When everything falls to the side, when the packing is done and the words have been said we take a journey, and we find this place. We find it each year.  In the 10 years that Scott and I have been married we have lived in different places but this place, this place remains the same. And so it shall be…as much as it depends on us, it will always be here.

 Every year, as the boys get older, as another day goes by, I realize what a gift this place is…this land…this part of us. I know I will not be with them forever…we will not be with them forever….but these memories, they are forever. I know that they will grow up here, I know that they will come here as boys time and time again…I know that one day they will come here as men. They will talk about these days, these fun days. These days without television…these days of our mountain. They will talk and remember and it will be theirs, it will all be theirs…land to walk on, land to think on, land to play on, explore on, take risks on…land that their parents have prayed on, loved each other on, invested their money and time and souls into. We will give them stories…they will remember.

 This is what we give them, each summer, each memory, each moment, each tree that we plant each picture that we take…is theirs to take and give.

Every time we do something I remember that it is a deposit into the cache of Montana memories. It is a rich gift. A place that is as forever, it will go from generation to generation…it is as much forever as we can touch or make in this life. It is for them and their children, and their children’s children…it is for the future, it is for the here and now, it is the quiet, it is the calm, it is the beauty…it is our place, it is our peace, God’s Peace.

And this, my friends, is why we go.

All I Know about Potty Training boys...from a Twin Mom

I haven’t blogged for a couple of years, so I’m trying to get unstuck…This is something easy for me to write about and get the creative juices flowing. So here ya go…All I know about potty training by me…A person getting unstuck. Oh, and a person who has finished potty training. 

• You CAN do it.   I can remember every hurdle like it was yesterday…how will we ever get them to sleep through the night, how will we ever get them to stop the bottle? Will they ever learn to this or that or crawl or walk or talk or say thank you? Potty Training seemed so overwhelming to me. I want a 1, 2, 3, but it just doesn’t work that way and in spite of my “follow the rules and get the result” thinking, we really did get it done and my instincts were better than I thought. Potty training was like a pop quiz for me…Do you really know your kids? And the answer was/is, “Yes, I do”.  
• They are ready when they’re ready…don’t sweat it  My pediatrician told us these words of wisdom: “Look, you can start when they are 2 and spend forever doing it…or you can just wait until they are 3 and do it quickly”  So, while all my friends with girls were done when they were 2, we just waited. I trained Jonathan just before he turned 3 and tried David a few months later, but it just wasn’t working with David. He was constantly having accidents even after I’d just taken him to the potty…so I just stopped and decided to try later. I tried again when David was just 3 ½ , 8 months after I trained Jonathan,  and it was a snap…I could not believe what a difference that extra time made!
•   Every one is different….don’t worry you’ll know what to do!  I guess having twins gave us an up close look at this. I had a hunch that one son would do well with a “Potty train in a day” method. So I gave it a shot and it worked.  We used the Dr. Phil one day method and it was perfect for him, he loved all the attention, loved that there was lots of fanfare for his “productions.” Bam, he had it. One day, Really. Sure we had some tweaking to do, and a few backslides but all in all… he had it in one day. David wanted nothing to do with our one day potty party and so 8 months later, on the second try, I just dove in with a low key, “Do you want big boy underwear?” and we were on our way, and he got it rather quickly.
•  Every one is different…match the reward to the boy! Jonathan was so happy with candy for a reward. Initially he got candy every time he went potty but later, when he had the concept down, he got candy when he initiated it, either by telling me or going on his own.  David liked the candy rewards but when it came to the very last hurdle it just didn’t seem to motivate him. He just couldn’t seem to get the idea that he had to poop in the potty. So I told him that if he could poop consistently in the potty that he could ride on a digger…um, yep, a giant piece of construction equipment. And heck ya, it worked. He put his mind to it and got it done for that reward…that spoke his language…it was what he wanted and it motivated him. We made a little chart for him and every time he pooped in the potty he got a digger sticker and he knew that once he got so many stickers it was his.  He just got enough and I pulled some strings to get that digger ride…he earned it.
• Don’t go back to the Pull Ups…no matter how tempting  I went out of town for a few days while we were in the process of potty training and when I got back I was surprised to see how far Jonathan had regressed. I finally realized it was because my husband had been putting him in pull ups for various outings because it was easier. Not a lot, just a couple of times but it was enough to confuse him about what the goal was.  I made a firm house rule that there would be no going back. (Unless as I mentioned earlier, we decided to try again later) No matter how inconvenient , we did outings with big boy underwear and made it work. It was a pain finding toilets all over the place, getting the boys used to different, and sometimes scary/loud toilets, dragging the little potty around in the back of the car etc. etc. But in the long run, it worked, and it didn’t last long. With each boy, once we switched for good, they got the message that this was the new normal. (The only exception to this was airplane travel, never did find a way around that one!)
•  Peeing standing up…a function of height…I was trying to get them to pee standing up because I thought it would be so much easier…it never seemed to work. I had lots of cool ideas from people on how to do this, and then one day…they grew. Its that simple, once they were tall enough they saw daddy stand and pee and they stood and peed. 'Nuff said.
•   Mistakes are usually my fault…not theirs  My sister told me early on that its not so much about training the child as training the parent. I can tell you this was so true for me! Almost every time the boys have an accident its because I forgot to remind them to go. Now I am “trained” and know to ask often and make them go often. (But not so often that they are annoyed about the whole thing…another good reason to wait until they are older) If they don’t want to go, I try not to force it too hard but divert their attention and move them into the potty. The older they’ve gotten, the less I’ve had to remind but I still have to be aware of it and remind!
• Enjoy the Journey Today I asked David to go potty and he started to go in the bathroom, I followed behind, as I usually do, to see if he needed help. He turned and looked and me and shut the door right as I got to it leaving me outside and him in the bathroom alone. From the other side I heard, “I can do it myself.”  And for a moment he was a teenager and I was the mom of a teenager and it was happy and sad at the same time…enjoy the journey, it goes by so fast. 

Twenty-Four

I love the song by Switchfoot, Twenty-four. I’ve always been a person who is fascinated by the passage of time. I can remember being a teenager and having moments of just thinking about yesterday and how different things were and how they would be altogether different tomorrow… So much can happen in a day…24 hours.

Yesterday started crazy, I guess it partially started crazy because I had been a week on my own, our nanny was with us for the summer but went back to Kansas city a week prior. Not a problem, we were leaving 2 weeks later and then we’d be back in our routine…the routine of having help. And 2 weeks isn’t too long, at least it isn’t too long until you have “the day.” I’ve actually loved having it be just me and the boys, somehow it just makes it a hurrah every day when we make it through that day and we enjoy and love each other…not that we normally don’t but you know what I mean, I guess if you’ve ever lived with a toddler or two you know what I mean….they are so loveable and wonderful but sometimes you just want a moment for you….the ability to just take a minute or two…is gone.

So, anyway, yesterday…if only I’d known, If only I’d had a preview….but you don’t get that do you? Life hits you as it comes…so it started with my decision that a day out would be less pressure than a day at home and off we went…the 3 of us going for a ride in the car….and then I remembered I forgot breakfast so we stopped at our little café just for me to get coffee and a bagel but the bagel took forever and I just looked over for a second to see what was taking so long…and then when I looked back Jonathan was trying to drink my coffee and crying because it wasn’t like trying to drink my water bottle and “Bad Mommy “ slinked out of the café, embarrassed but very thankful that Jonathan was ok and it was only a little dribble from a To-Go cup….…and off to the park and that was good and later than day, carrying David down the stairs and encouraging Jonathan to crawl down on his own and then I turn the corner and hear the thump-a-dee-thump and Jonathan has fallen and I am “Bad Mommy” again and I feel awful…again…and later we go outside to play and runnnnn down the driveway but Jonathan isn’t running, he is diving into the mud and eating it and his knees are scraped and oh, how could it be any worse, poor, poor little guy who must feel so overwhelmed by the big world….

Oh how good it feels, at the end of such a day, to thank God that there are no burns, or bruises, or breaks and to lay the little ones down and then walk upstairs and lay ME down to rest….and then there is a phone call and that question you ask , you know, you ask it too, “Who is calling me at this hour of night, I’d better check…make sure its not an emergency” and you go, and you check, and it never is an emergency and everything is always ok….But not today… Life is not what I though it was, 24 hours ago…and it is a voice and It is saying “Carolyn had a heart attack”….and I know it was only seconds but it seemed like hours before I heard the next thing…”She is ok.” Life is not what I thought it was 24 hours ago…and so the day ends and I lay me down to sleep. I can’t say the next day was any better but it certainly had a different perspective. I did not like that David poured coffee all over my laptop…but honestly, It seemed so insignificant and I did not care…Life was not what I thought it was 24 hours ago…she is ok. She is ok, but I am alone….because who can I call? She is the one I call. Who knows me and hears me like she does? And for all my inward focus in feeling alone I can see that what I realize in this moment is how much I love her and how much I do not want life to be void of her and how much I never ever dreamed she would leave me alone. I love my sister and today I realize that saying that has a different meaning….somewhere in my heart there is something more than I ever imagined for this person who has, as my friend, known me deeper and longer than anyone I’ve ever known…and today 24 hours later, a whisper of life without her has shown me just how deep that love goes.

Summer...

As was to be expected the winter in Kansas City was quite a different story than the Savannah winter that we had been used to. I actually liked it, I liked the snow, I loved staying in at night with a fire going…loved bundling up in winter clothes…I missed Winter. And for as much as I liked the real snowy Winter of KC I also loved the first signs of Spring…there is just nothing like seeing the trees all come to life after everything has looked so dead, dead, dead in the snow. And then, for us 4 season people comes the next big hurrah…Summer!

We packed up and drove to Montana on the first of June. We were on our usual trek to spend Summer at our little cabin in the mountains. The car ride would suffice to be a blog in and of itself…after the first day Scott went to Target and bought one of those car DVD players….something I said I would never do…if definitely helped us get through. We had one more day to go in our trip and we stopped at a cheap hotel for the last sleep before we’d get to the cabin. It had gone well and we were almost there…it was our 5 year anniversary and we talked and talked at dinner about how well the trip had gone…we were exhausted but we’d made it…David and Jonathan destroyed the restaurant, flinging cottage cheese everywhere and we didn’t even care…we were almost there! (a large tip was left for the waiter AND busboy I should add)

At least we thought we were almost there…We woke at 3am to Jonathan crying like crazy and we realized that he was crying because David was sick, throwing up all over the place. Poor David, Mr. Squiggly, just curled up in a ball on our bed and sobbed in between projectile vomiting…we decided the best thing to do was to just pack up and drive the last 6 hours…and so we made it, poor David felt better the next day and the summer in Montana had begun…

Summer has gone well, the boys continue to grow and change. David has become so enamored by guitars that he can’t be around one without touching it…Ok, that sounds too mild...David has become so wild about guitars that he will do anything in his power to get next to one, touch it, strum it AND pretty much anything he has in his hands BECOMES a guitar and is strummed by his fingers that can't wait to, one day, know and play a real guitar...yes, thats more like it. Jonathan has become so enamored by shoes that he can’t be around a pair without wearing them. Same as above with D but insert shoes and instead of strumming...walking. And so there we are...and we wonder when they will start to talk, and we look at 3 year olds and wonder what next summer will be like, and we think a lot about the future but mostly we laugh and we play and we enjoy the now of this one Summer of 2010.

Getting Unstuck...

One of my favorite things to do is to read new blog postings...it is exciting to me to click on a site and find that there is a new title, a new picture...something new to read. And, on the other side, I do not like it when the same old page is displayed day after day after day...my thought is, "Come on people...write something, it only takes a minute!"

Well, first off, I probably have no right to think such a thought, first, because it does take me much longer than a minute and second, because I have not posted anything new for the better part of a year now. So, blog-shame on me...I'll own up to it...I've been stuck.

I guess I can blame perfectionist girl in me again for this one. I always feel like I have to have this perfect thought or stream of thoughts written down in order to share something. And so for a while I didn't have any momentous bloggy type thoughts and then when I did start to get some ideas again I didn't want to start back up with THOSE thoughts. I mean I left you with an impending trip/move to Kansas City and so I must pick up there...what happened? How was the move? What was the adventurous new undertaking like?

And there were some ideas...but then who wants to post a picture of the new house in the winter with all the dead looking trees and the snow? And there was some major moving in busyness...and who wants to blog when there is no time to blog? So, I waited for things to calm down and I waited for the perfect stream of thoughts until I realized...I just need to get unstuck. And that isn't going to happen by me chronologically blogging through this past year. It is what it is, lets just pick up and move on...and get unstuck. So here goes...

The Next Step...

I remember January 1993, almost 17 years ago…was it really THAT long ago??? Being on a plane headed towards Amsterdam, I was in the last row of that plane…not such a big deal these days but 17 years ago an international flight still allocated the back of the plane for smokers…I was not a smoker, but I was one of the last people to buy a seat on that flight…hence my plight. That was the picture…me on the last row, asphyxiated, and wondering, “What in the heck have I gotten myself into? I have no idea where I am going, what it will be like, maybe I will hate it? What am I doing?...cough, cough. Did I really just rearrange my whole life because God said to? Oh Boy. :0”

Well, if you know me you know that this leap of faith turned into a long stint in Amsterdam. Those 10 years changed me, defined me, stretched me and made me, in big part, who I am today. So when I left Amsterdam and YWAM, 5 years ago, I settled down into a calmer life…ok, not so calm, I got married, we trusted God for a baby he said we’d have…got two….life was good. I’d left those crazy YWAM days behind and though I missed it at times, life was crazy in a different sort of way.

But sometimes I did yearn. I remember my second summer back, wanting so bad to live a more daring life…how could I do it? All my journal entries were about getting the adventure back…all my prayers…not wanting to settle for an ordinary life. And then I forgot about it. Went on with my routine…but God did not forget. At least, that’s the only thing I can figure out about why this happened…

It all started with a simple little thing. Our family doubled, we were cramped in our little house…Scott walked in one day, looked at all the baby junk in the living room and said…”This house is too small we need a new house.” Now I had thought this thought too…but that’s just the difference between my husband and I. I would just live in that world because its too difficult to think about getting out of it…the house is too small, make it work. Scott sees things as easily changeable…I guess that a visionary for you. So a small cramped space turned into a call to Scott’s mom, a realtor, and there it was, a sign in our front yard…our house was for sale. But it was just a little test…we didn't actually think it would sell in this market. We’d be gone for the summer, and we’d let her show our house while we were in Montana. Test the market…No harm, no foul. Easy peasy, right?

Well...that house sold in two weeks and suddenly we moved from rooted people to uprooted people with decisions to make….Here we are...Lets just make this easy decision…and ok, we’ll put a dash of adventure into it by considering some different options…but we both knew we’d probably land right back where we started in Savannah.

So we packed up the house, put our stuff in storage, packed up the U-Haul and started the 12 day drive to Montana stopping along the way to visit people and also, stopping to check out Ashland, North Carolina as a possible place to move to. Long story short. Ashland, this wonderful little town we both KNEW we’d love…ummm, well it just didn't click... and we both knew it. And somewhere between Ashland and Montna it hit me. This wasn’t really our decision…there was a place for us and God was going to show us where it was….even if our path led us right back to Savannah. And that was that. I carried on with trying to get two 6 month olds across country, sleepless nights, stress…We hopped across the country stopping to visit my sister in West Virginia and friends in Kansas City along the way. Plans of the future on the back burner… we were in survival mode.

So here’s the bottom line, what Ashland wasn’t ….Kansas City was. Visiting friends at the International House of Prayer something seemed to click…I didn’t say anything to Scott…Scott didn’t say anything to me…but we were both thinking the same thing. Then I overheard Scott and Tim talking about our moving to Kansas City and what life would be like for us being a part of that community…and I knew…this might be something. We didn't sell our house with an intention to go on an adventure...We didn’t go to Kansas City looking to find a place to live…it was just a house, Kansas City was just a pit stop. That’s all. And as we drove away we both knew we had a lot to pray about. And I knew...if God could get my warm- climate- loving husband to consider Kansas City..then...well, it was God.

A month of so later we’d made the decision that we were moving to Kansas City. And there you have it. Adventure is not dead…and of course I remembered what I knew already, it did not live with YWAM. It lives in the heart of God. And here I am again, the excitement of the decision behind me…and I’m sitting in the back of that plane, barely able to breathe… and wondering, “What in the heck have we gotten ourselves into? I have no idea where we are going, what it will be like, maybe we will hate it? What am I doing?...cough, cough. Did I really just rearrange my whole life because God said to? Oh Boy. :0” And once again, I’m just trusting …that He won’t steer us wrong. Its like Mr. Beaver said to Peter, Susan, Edmond and Lucy… "Who said anything about safe? Course he isn’t safe. But he’s good. Hes the King. I tell you.”

To be continued...

You're Gonna Miss This...

Most of this summer has evolved around two boys; David & Jonathan. They are almost 9 months old and lots of fun and excitement. I have a song that I sing to them that I made up…I can’t remember when I “wrote” it but as long as I can remember having them at home we have sung our song. It goes like this: Boys, Boys, Boys, Boys, boys in the house. Boys, Boys, Boys, Boys, Quiet as a mouse. Boys, Boys, Boys, Boys, Boys in the house, What am I gonna do with the boys in the house? David, Jonathan, Scott…and Harry too! Always running around and saying “Boo!” Boys, Boys, Boys, Boys, Boys in the house….what am I gonna do with the boys in the house? 

I am around a lot of boys.

As joyful as it is to be a mom and wife it is nice sometimes to have some girl time. So I am blessed to have Jessica, my little sister through the Big Brothers/Big Sisters program. We have known each other for two years, she is 13 and a breath of fresh air. Fresh girl air. ☺ We meet once a week and do silly girl stuff. Jessica likes country music and since we spend some time in the car together going here and there I get to hear quite a lot of country music. I can’t say that I am a big country music fan but I can say that I’m softening a bit to the idea that country music has its gems. I’m coming around to the idea that a warm and fuzzy song just may be alright in life….every now and then.

The last time we went out a song came on the radio and Jessica said, “Oh I like this one.” So I listened to “You’re Gonna Miss This.” By Trace Adkins. I downloaded this song and played it for Scott today and cried the whole way through. “Why?” Scott asked. “I don’t really know” I answered.

There is a good question that counselor’s use and I learned it when I took a coaching class two years ago. When someone answers a question with an “I don’t know” you say, “Well If you did know… what would the answer be?” It’s a good approach, because most people know deep down inside why they do what they do… and I know why I cried.

When we first brought the babies home from the hospital, I found myself in our bedroom, laying in bed, looking out at a tree most of the day. An old dead-looking tree. The excitement of pregnancy was gone, the support of hospital staff left behind… with two little ones who only knew sleeping & eating, pooping & peeing. I loved them so much but it was hard, there was no where to run to when I needed a break…no time even for a break, or sleep or showers…struggles to nurse, several rounds of painful infections from nursing, hormones going at a fast clip…it was hard. And I looked at that tree and thought…This season is the Winter of our Discontent. It was such a foreign thing to think and I was pretty sure it was a God thought and not a Nancy one. We loved those boys (still do) but in an instant life changed and seemed to be dragging us along. And while that thought made me sad…The Winter of our Discontent, (I didn’t want to be discontent) I finally figured out that Winter was just a season…it need not, and does not, last forever. My hope came from looking at that tree and remembering that it was not dead, only dormant and my day would come to see it green again.

I’m not sure when the Winter of our discontent ended. Somewhere between Savannah and Montana we left it behind and sailed into the Spring of our Joy...I’m so happy enjoying life with these little personalities, they eat a lot less now, they sleep through the night, they interact with us…they smile…they can do a whole bunch of things beside eat, sleep, poop and pee. But you know what…I miss those early days. As good as it is now, I do have moments of missing the first challenging months. I miss providing everything for them, miss waking up at 3am to feed them… miss how they used to fit perfectly in the crook of my arm.

I know why I cried…I cried for what I’ve lost and I cried for what I have and what I will have and every moment in between. I cried because we only get so much life…and all that it is…is precious. 

You’re gonna miss this
You’re gonna want this back
You’re gonna wish these days hadn’t gone by so fast
These are some good times
So take a good look around
You may not know it now
But you’re gonna miss this.