Upcoming anniversary trip (sans Mickey)

In keeping with tradition, Greg and I are taking a little trip to celebrate our anniversary.  And in keeping with tradition, we are taking our kids.  

At first we thought we would do what any other normal family would do and go to Disney World.  But then we looked at the website.  And realized we are not a normal family.

I think maybe it was the requisite vacation planning DVD that first turned me off.  Was this really going to be so complicated that I would need to view an instructional DVD in order to take my family to Disney World?  Yes.  We've planned family trips to Europe, to Egypt, to Samos, Cyprus, the middle of nowhere Turkey-- with nothing but a couple of guidebooks.  How hard could it be to plan a trip to Disney World?  Too hard for us, I guess.  Because the longer we investigated pricing guides, moderate versus deluxe resort hotels, dining plans (was this college?), theme park ticketing, interpark transportation, and military discounts (which are really good, by the way!), the less we wanted to go.  No wonder every parenting magazine I've ever picked up has articles about planning your Disney vacation.  Going to Disney World is even harder than getting your preschooler to eat broccoli.

Then--moments after I said, "Isn't it weird that we're going to stay in a pretend Great American Northwest National Park lodge, when we could just take a trip to the real Northwest instead?"--we realized we don't have to go to Disney World.  We can go . . . someplace . . . real.  Wow, what a relief!

So we looked at a map, picked Chicago, and bought the Lonely Planet guide.  That felt good.  And normal.  (And much less expensive!)

The beautiful thing is that our kids are still young enough.  Young enough to have nary a clue about what Disney World is.  Even if we left it up to David (and Mary, who likes whatever David likes), I think they would choose skyscrapers, dinosaurs, revolving hotel doors, subway rides, aquarium tanks, authentic deep-dish pizza, and Millennium Park over Toon Town and a shuttle bus.  At least this time.  I'm sure we have Disney in our future.  But this anniversary, here we come Chicago!

[Besides, I'm holding out for Disneyland.  In this case, original (and California) is better.  I'm a westerner at heart!]

Promised reflections and unfruitful speculations

I haven't forgotten that I was in the middle of thinking about how my future has changed.  For the long version: read here and here and here.

The short version:  My future was having a baby and moving to San Antonio this summer.  Now my future is not having a baby and spending a year with my parents in Dallas while my husband works in Honduras.

I don't think I'm being overly dramatic by thinking that it's a big change.

Now, I strongly believe that in situations like this you don't get very far by asking why.  Asking why seems to lead to more confusion, frustration, and even despair.  Or superficial warm fuzzies, which I don't find very comforting.

But I can't help it!  So I'm going to indulge in the practice of asking why for just a few moments, knowing it's not going to take me anywhere.  (The alternative right now is joining my son for his twelve-thousandth viewing of Cars and stuffing Mary with Easter candy.  I'll pass on that.)

Why did the future change?  What caused that shift in the fabric of my universe?  

Was it the miscarriage?  Did we miss some favorable window of opportunity to bring a baby into our family?  Did the window close, forcing us down an entirely new path?  (Or did we start down this path even before the miscarriage, making a lost pregnancy a blessing in disguise?)

Was it, as some in my family have speculated, that God noticed that my parents aren't ready to be empty-nesters after all?  Do they need a house full of energetic grandchildren?  And, in a blast from the past, a mopey, short-tempered daughter in residence?

Did I change?  Did I become even less capable of having another baby?  Less capable of taking care of a home and children on my own for six months at a time?  Am I regressing?  Am I falling apart?  (The other day I had a sudden, though momentary, urge to reread The Bell Jar.  That's never a good sign.)

What about Greg?  His interests and desires have changed.  Did they change the future?  (Or did they change to match the path appearing before us?)

Did a mid-level military official at the Pentagon  suggest a policy that several years from now will make Air Force life simply unbearable for us?  Has Secretary Gates's love of Air Force civil engineers grown too strong for my family's comfort?  Does he want to rely on them too much?  (Has my future been changed by Secretary Gates?! Whom I love and adore and whose picture I would put in my locker if I had one?)

Are we someone else's hidden blessing?  Are we saving someone from being "non-volunteered" to Honduras?  Someone whose wife is pregnant with their firstborn and is praying with her whole heart that military life won't prevent her husband from being there for the birth, for those first months of sleepless nights, for the first smiles and giggles and spoonfuls of strained peas?

Perhaps it's a combination of the above?  Or something I can't imagine?

Or has this--a pause in procreation and Greg's year in Honduras and his path to a PhD--always been my future?  The other was but an illusion?  Just a test?  (Abraham-n-Isaac style?)  Does God create elaborate, predetermined, unchanging mazes of tests and trials?  Does He regularly tell us to do things and then jump out and say, "Just kidding!"? (Oh, I hope not.  That doesn't seem like a very nice thing to do.)

I am finished asking why.  It was fun while it lasted.  As expected, it didn't take me anywhere--because it means looking backwards.  And what I need to do is trust the Lord and step forward on the path that lays before me.  I don't know exactly how I got here, two and a half months from saying good-bye for a year to the father of my sweet children.  

But I know I am in the right place.

[By the way, I still believe our futures are often more flexible than we can imagine.  I love what my sister-in-law pointed out about finding her house soul mate.]

Easter celebration pics

The Easter Bunny came today, during quiet time.  Like any mom, I capitalized on the Easter Bunny--threatening David and Mary that he would only come if they were really, really quiet and stayed in their rooms for a long, long time.  They were and they did (because they fell asleep).  By the way, David told us today that the Easter Bunny is little, and he lives in a house with a garage, and he drives a car.

Here they are with their loot.  (Check out David's awesome postnap bed head.)  I'm really bad at picking out lots of little trinkety things.  Fun for packages from family members.  Not fun for me to shop for--it drives me nuts.  This Easter Bunny opts for one good toy.  And like two pieces of candy.  

David and Mary both had a great time decorating eggs, from plopping the tablets into the vinegar to pulling the eggs out of the dye with their bare hands.

David counted thirteen eggs--only one off.  Not bad!
They were both proud of the finished products.
The Easter Bunny had also left a number of plastic eggs scattered about the backyard.  So today's mandatory backyard time consisted of an Easter egg hunt.

Ready, set, go!  They're out the door...
and off...



Checking out their found treasures...

(Note David's awesome Easter basket, thanks to Grammy, whose house we visited on Easter last year.  Does your Easter basket have legs?)

Inspired in part by my friend Gina's celebration of Easter last March, and further motivated by an idea my Aunt Janell shared, it wasn't all candy and plastic eggs this year.  Throughout the week we have been talking about the events of Christ's last week and looking at pictures.  How did we get our children to sit still for a few minutes each evening for this?  We bribed them with plastic eggs filled with candy, of course.  

Obligatory Easter pictures of my children in their Sunday best

I quite like the Easter tradition of new clothes.  It compliments nicely the ideas of rebirth, newness, and hope.  The tradition may have lost some of its significance in this hyper-materialistic age, but I'm still clinging to the idea.

Unfortunately, I'm never organized enough to ensure that my children have brand new springy outfits to wear on Easter Sunday.  Oh well.  

So today they were dressed in their newest Sunday clothes, and I insisted on taking their pictures before we went to church.  By golly, even if they weren't wearing special Easter outfits, I was going to act like they were and take a picture of them all dressed up on Easter morning like good little Christian children.  

These are the best pictures I got.  Really.

I think they thought I was crazy for trying take pictures before church.  I mean, we get up and go to church every Sunday, and every Sunday they wear their church clothes.  Why was Mom suddenly chasing them around with a camera this time?

Sure, I was shouting, "It's Easter!  It's Easter!"  But that didn't seem to help.

On the way to church we passed half a dozen other churches, their usually near-vacant parking lots overflowing this morning with cars and families and pastel dresses.  Maybe next year if we only go to church once, on Easter Sunday, it will feel more special, and my children will oblige the camera lens.  

Or I could get them to smile at my camera with a bribe.  Of robin egg M&Ms and Starburst jellybeans.  Yes, that's what I will try next year.

So you will see us in the pew next Sunday, and the Sunday after that, and the one after that, and so forth.  And, though their hair may not be combed, my children will be dressed in their best.  Some Sundays they will wear something new, but most Sundays they won't.  With luck and a little foresight on my part, they will wear new clothes next Easter Sunday.  But if not, that's okay.

The hope of the Savior's sacrifice is for every day.

Resistance is futile

How could I resist taking these pictures of Mary running down the driveway this evening?

And then when David shocked me by requesting to have his picture taken too, I couldn't pass up the opportunity--although he only gave me a two-second smile.  (I had to be fast.)

Then, how could I not post them tonight?

My kids are so delicious.  I could eat them right up.  But I decided instead to take their pictures and share them with you.  I had to do something.

Easter ice cream

Thanks to an Easter package from my Aunt Janell, which included money for David and Mary to take their parents out for ice cream, we enjoyed lunch and ice cream and petting baby goats at Young's Dairy.

For an Easter message that will fill your soul even more than a full fat Jersey milk ice cream sundae fills the tummy, listen to Elder Holland's address from the Sunday morning session (or read here).

Happy Easter!

Wake up call

We are no slackers.  Everyone in this family has responsibilities.  Greg's responsibility is to clip the fingernails of everyone except me.  (I think my children's fingernails are going to be ready for the Guinness Book of World Records after Daddy's year in Honduras.)  My responsibility is to resist stuffing people's mouths with chocolate when they whine.  (This includes my mouth, of course.)  And David's responsibility is to pee IN the toilet.  (Which, if you look at the bathroom floor and walls, is apparently too much to ask.)  Mary's responsibility is to wake up David from his nap.

In a weird twist of fate, right now David is my good napper and Mary is not.  So she is always up well before he is and anxious to fulfill her responsibility.

Yesterday I took some pictures of her in action.

Sometimes not much progress is made.  But that's okay.  Sometimes their fingernails get really long, and sometimes I break out the M&Ms.  Responsibility isn't easy.

[These pictures remind me of their desire to take a nap together.]

Magical Mary

Mary didn't want to take a nap this morning, and it didn't seem worth the effort to fight her.  (Besides, I've been waiting for her to drop this morning nap thing for months now.)

Maybe she really needed the nap after all, because this is how I found her minutes after lunch, dead asleep.

I can't believe she fell asleep like this. 

How wondrous and beautiful a thing:  A child who, when she's tired, falls asleep.  I never knew it to be possible!

(I wonder if she will be one of those toddlers who sleep on the pew during sacrament meeting, should we ever have to endure afternoon church again.  Now that would really be beautiful.)

I love mandatory backyard time

It usually starts with tears

and a bribe...

but soon thereafter David and Mary retreat to this hang out...which is conveniently located far away from me...

and then they manage to find things to do...


...until they're allowed back inside.

It's almost as good as nap time.

Scatterbrained

I am even more scatterbrained than usual lately.  I cannot remember to do those kinds of things that make me a responsible person.  I simply forget.  Or procrastinate until I forget.

Like checking my voice mail.  Or email.  Or returning phone calls.  Or answering emails.  

The thing that's tricky is that sometimes I think I already did it.  

I have in my mind elaborately composed emails which I assume I have written (because why else would I have it in my head?)...but, then, later, much later, I am shocked to see a particular email sitting read but unanswered in my inbox.  I scramble to check my sent messages, and, indeed, the composed email in my head never made it beyond my bathroom shower. 

(I have an email in my inbox from Deanna dated August 24, 2007.  The subject line is "30."  I still can't wrap my head around the fact we are 30.  Actually, 31 1/2 now.  I haven't even composed an answer in the shower to that email.  Maybe by the time I am 40.)

I can also remember phone conversations I did not actually have.  Weird.  

So I apologize.  

And if you do get an email from me, I promise that the one I wrote in the shower for you was much better.

Continued again...

Just "tuning in"?  Read here and then here.

To make a long story slightly shorter, Greg made a phone call or two, and we were faced with two options:

A.  Stick to the original plan.  Go to San Antonio.  (He got that job.)  Greg continues as an operational civil engineer.  (Endure deployment after deployment until we grow so weary of the military that Greg gets out half way to retirement?)

or

B.  Strike out in an entirely new direction.  Greg deploys for one year, most likely to Honduras.  Meanwhile, he applies for one of the Air Force's PhD slots, and, if he gets one, applies to PhD programs at schools.  Fingers crossed:  After said deployment, we go to a university for three years, then back here to AFIT where Greg would teach for three years.

Two entirely different paths lay before us.  We recognized the consequences of this decision would affect us for the rest of our lives.  Sometimes I make a really big deal out of really little things (my therapist has a fancy word for this that I can't remember right now).  But this was not one of those times.  This really was a big deal.

Not that there was anything especially unusual about the kind of decision we were making.  Life is about choices.  And sometimes they are really big.

What made this decision extra interesting is that we had just 18 hours in which to make it.  (Greg had made that phone call just in time.  We almost didn't have a chance to have a choice.)  And Greg was out of town at the time.  Not an ideal situation for making a really big decision together.

Good thing I'd known the answer before I even knew the question.

***

Reflections tomorrow on that shift in the universe, I hope.  Fingers crossed:  David goes to preschool and Mary takes a good morning nap.

I was there too...

This is outside the Natural History Museum in Cincinnati last Friday.  

No story to accompany the picture.  Right now I am off to speech therapy--where David plays with Miss Bev, Mary plays with the toys in the waiting room, and I will try to finish a book I am reading.  Not a bad way to spend 30 minutes.

Continued...

Perhaps one day I will learn to condense my thoughts into a single post of reasonable length.  (Or maybe even all the way down to 26 characters.)  But yesterday was not that day.

To pick up where I left off . . .

The future was black.

Something had shifted in the fundamental fabric of the Universe.  What was right had become wrong.  Nothing had changed, really, but it felt as if everything had changed.  Our family had been set adrift on an entirely new course. The future had changed, like in Back to the Future, except this time Marty, Doc, and the DeLorean would not be changing it back.  

I realized first (several weeks after I tried to write down those predictions) that our immediate future should not include a new baby.  It was God Himself who shared the news.  Since God was the One who told me to have the baby in the first place, I was like, "What?!"  And I was heartbroken.  (That could be an understatement.)  But I sure as heck wasn't taking on a third child if God wasn't behind me on it!

I also had a vague impression in my mind of what was in store for us in the future...but it didn't make sense and I wasn't ready to know...so I mentally tucked it away.

The road before us remained dark and foggy.  I knew there would be no new child, and I had a growing suspicion we would not be going to San Antonio.  What was in store for us?  I know that part of life is not knowing the future.  But this was different.  I felt totally unsettled.  Like my universe was at that moment reorganizing itself in some quiet, unseen way.  Like I was no longer attached to a future.  My linear timeline was broken, changing, readjusting.

Then, in mid-February, Greg and I had a series of detailed, weighty, revealing conversations about the future (one of which took place on this day).  We noted several things:

1. Having children has made me value stability and predictability, above nearly all else.  Stability and predictability have become a matter of survival.
2. Air Force civil engineer captains and majors are deploying at the following tempo: deploy 6-9 months, be home 11 months, deploy 6-9 months, be home 11 months, deploy 6-9 months, be home 11 months, and so on and forever.  Due to the nature of what Air Force civil engineers do (and the shortage of captains), this tempo is unlikely to slow down at all in the foreseeable future.
3. Long ago, when we conceived our plan to go to Turkey and then to graduate school (thereby avoiding deployments), we assumed that by the time Greg graduated from AFIT that the wars would be over and/or I would be a different person.  We were wrong.
4. It is probably not a good idea at this time in my life to be on my own with my kids for any significant amount of time.  (Case in point: Mornings.)
5. I often joke that had Greg been in the Army ROTC when I met him, I wouldn't have married him.  But it's not a joke.  
6. A part of Greg, a big part, wanted to get a PhD.  That's how much he enjoyed graduate school.
7. The Air Force is sending three civil engineers to get their PhD's, beginning in the fall of 2010.  One of the professors on Greg's thesis committee strongly encouraged Greg to apply for one of those slots.  This professor is also on the selection committee for those same civil engineer PhD slots.
8. The timing for a PhD was unfortunate:  If Greg received one of the staff jobs at a Major Command, he would not be in a position to leave the job after just one year to go off to school.  It would be difficult, if not bureaucratically impossible.  
9. The good thing about not getting a PhD is that Greg would stay operational and be right on track to accomplishing his career goals.
10. Also, I wasn't keen on the idea of moving to a new place, enduring a nine-month deployment at some unpredetermined time, and then picking everything up and moving again so Greg could go to school--all in one year.  I would call that...instability.

At some point during our discussions, I untucked that impression I'd had earlier.  What was it?  

A feeling that Greg and I were going to be separated for a year.  

(No wonder we weren't supposed to have a baby anymore...)

***

Grrr...I really, really wanted to finish tonight.  But no worries, you already know the end.  I need only to organize a few more thoughts for myself...tomorrow, I hope.

Good night.  

A shift in the fabric of the Universe?

I have some explaining to do.  For myself. And you're welcome to come along for the ride too.

I am not one to believe that God has a single, narrowly defined, predetermined plan for me.  An outline, yes: My life is purposeful, that purpose divinely given.  But a three-act script complete with stage directions and lighting cues?  No.  (Because...if there were but one possible path...then a solitary minor mistake, one fork in the road poorly chosen, would mean all is lost...right?) 

I prefer to think that there are infinite possibilities (good possibilities) for my life, an entire network of paths laid out before me.  This web of opportunities isn't static, the landscape ever changes--as I change, as I make choices, and as the effects of others' choices ripple through the Universe.  Doors (and windows) open and close.  Experiences come and go.  What matters is that my travels bring me closer to God.

Enough with the mixed metaphors, I know.  I mean only to give you (an oversimplified) (and vague, because it's vague to me) idea of how I tend to view life.

Despite my tendency to believe God is generally not a micro-manager (except in cases like stinky carpet), I do know that He does occasionally make His will known about very specific matters.  That's when He speaks.  

Like last summer.  When He told me to have a baby.  But you already know that, and if you didn't, you can read about it now.

What you probably didn't know is that He also told us we should try to move to San Antonio.  I resisted that one almost as much as I first resisted having a baby.  It's a pride thing.  Since I was but a wee toddler I have said, "I will never live in Texas."  How could I move there--on purpose?!  (By the way, it was my parents who trained me to never live in Texas--or California--and you can see where that got them.)  But you sure as heck don't win by fighting God's will, even when Texas is involved.  So I gave in...and Greg put the Major Command Center in San Antonio at the top of his application for staff jobs.  And I knew he would get that job.

Suddenly, the future wasn't a fuzzy web of multiple possibilities.  I could see it laid out clearly before my eyes.  Oh, how I love clarity.  (What comfort to my soul!)  A move to San Antonio in early summer.  A new house.  (We would buy a house!)  A nice, boring suburban neighborhood with good schools and lots of kids.  And a handful of dear friends who already live/would soon live in San Antonio too.  (A ready-made support network!)  Then a baby late summer.  (Born at Wilford Hall--what a relief to not have to try to find an OB during the last trimester.)  And lots of visits from grandparents--all four of them just 5 hours away.  Sure, Greg would deploy.  But I would have that neighborhood of little kids and the support of dear friends and a mere 5-hour drive to my parents' doorstep.  (I would be okay, right?  Isn't that why God wanted us to go to San Antonio?)  I could picture it all.  And I liked the picture I saw.

Then, about the time I miscarried (I can't say for certain that it happened simultaneously), the screen went blank.  

I like to write silly (and not-so-silly) predictions about the coming year to stuff in my stocking just before we put our Christmas decorations back in storage.  I remember, at the beginning of last January, staring at the paper.  I could not make any predictions.  Even though we still had the same plan (get pregnant--again--and move to San Antonio), it didn't feel right anymore.  It made me physically ill to write "San Antonio" or "baby."  How could what had felt so right just a month before now feel so wrong?

The future wasn't fuzzy: it was black.

With that, I will click on the orange "publish" button.  I leave you (and myself) with promises to write more this weekend.  

The bright side

Greg's next assignment is Honduras.  This is not officially official yet, but it's a sure enough thing that I feel inclined to tell you.

He's deploying to Soto Cano Air Base for a year.  Meanwhile, Mary, David, and I will be living with my parents in Dallas.  I have much more to say about all of this, so please stay tuned.  (A short version is:  The year of separation will be very difficult, but this is a good thing, and we are happy about it.)

For now, in an effort to prove to myself that I can indeed be an optimist, I would like to share four good things about living with my parents:

1. David will stop bothering me about getting a pet.  He can pretend that Roderick the Dog and Morris the Cat are his pets.  (Sorry, Morris.)
2. I won't have to fight over The New York Times with Mary anymore.  She can read my dad's Wall Street Journal, and I can have the Times all to myself.  (My dad should be pleased with this, as he has been concerned about how much time Mary spends on the opinion page of The New York Times.)
3. My mom's Costco card.
4. God tells us to be humble, so it's good to eat your words occasionally.  I suspect that "I will never live in Texas" will taste of chili, lime, and cilantro.