Day 7 - Rules to live by?

Syracuse, New York

We've spent the last couple of days weaving our way through the mountains of Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont. Everything is vibrant and green this time of year, and New Englanders definitely know how to do summer right - the Main Streets, flowers, and American flags in between postcard mountain views are pretty cool. If, that is, we had time to appreciate the fact that we were crawling along at 25 mph on the slowest going road trip days we've ever had.

Which is the nice way of saying that yesterday, after 360 miles and 6 hours, we were a nice mix of burnt out, frustrated, angry and other nice things like that. (I once read that couples that stay together are the one who camp together, because camping tends to involve learning to survive serious spurts of misery. If camping isn't your thing, might I suggest multi-day road trips with little kids?)

At the end of the day, there were two things that I want to remember.

1. Eat at McDonald's more often. We pulled into one for a quick dinner, and ended up eating in because White River Junction, Vermont apparently turns into a parking lot at 5 p.m. Turned out that there was a family with a 5 year old + 2-year-old triplet boys and another mom with a 2 year old plus 3 month-old-twins there also, all in our little corner. I've never felt so comfortable with my four rowdy kids, and so aware of how much ALL parents of little ones need to feel completely happy with feeding their kids easy, unhealthy food on a semi-regular basis.

2. Shamelessly sit in a desk chair on the front motel sidewalk with my husband more often. Carving out a little chill time apart from the kids is critical, and mid-trip it's either out front with the bikers or perched on the toilet and tub while the four of them slowly fall asleep. Neither one may be classy, but either one works to have hard conversations like - "when you said you were sick of this damn road trip and it was time to put me and the boys on a plane, did you mean it?" I hate how easy it is to get mad at each other, and it's always hard to talk through it. I don't know how people manage it for 50 years, but we did go to bed back on the same page and still friends. (Tonight, the hashing it out happened at the playground, and then we perched on the toilet/tub in peace later. There is no other way to do relationships that one hard day at a time, is there?!)

In between eating junk food with my kids and ranting lovingly with my husband, I will continue to survive on the kind or at least funny words of others too (and try to spread some of my own). The kind words of strangers do not cease to amaze and encourage me along the way - as simple as "you'll make it, and you have a beautiful family" or here, "you go ahead in line". Or my absolute favorite line ever in reaction to the twins from a girl at the playground - "Oh, they're twins? I have a twin in Antarctica." I was left speechless.

Day 4: On the road again...

Bar Harbor, Maine

I'm re-surfacing from the craziness of life to try and journal another summer road trip... Our lives are in the midst of another big transition - a new job for the beloved Professor to whom I am married is taking us from my newly beloved East coast and back to the very neighborhood in which I grew up on the West coast. Long stories, but after months and months of knowing and planning, we left Baltimore four days ago, and are trekking across the country slowly with bits of vacation, friends, and family scattered throughout.

It's a move that was initially kind of shocking, even though we knew it was a slim possibility even before we arrived in Maryland last summer. In fact, the thought of moving back "home" felt a bit like a mega-letdown after I fled CA so many years ago! However, the job was offered, the timing seems good (especially for a fledgling prof and his full nest of school-age children), we will have the help of family near by, and so here we go!

Amidst all of the planning and spending of the move, I'm coming to grips with the fact that stuff is, well, just stuff. Giving away stuff, finding a new place to live (always full of give-and-take), worrying about the accounting of it all. Stuff is just stuff, money is just money. It's all going to be gone someday anyway, so why waste TOO much time stressing about it, eh? My natural inclination to do just the opposite of that, but maybe I'm growing a bit older and wiser by year.

Oh, and then besides stuff there are the people. If there is one thing that is on my mind as we said goodbye to a few dear friends in Maryland and started a few weeks of living in a van plus 200 sq. ft of nightly living space (which I have an odd affection for most days), it's that the people are really the ones that get you through, and that you can't live without, and that you will be living with and needing forever! Again, a bit against my natural independent instincts, but maybe I'm learning...

Anyhow, now that I've explained how we aren't in Baltimore anymore, I can move on to journaling the adventures here and there along our trip and then "on living in the OC".

Intensely simple

It's easy for me to complain when life gets intense. "Intense" comes in many different ways: work commitments, lots of kids to care for, a serious illness, debts, moves, (name your own intense situation!). Now, we don't have all of those going on right now, but plenty to make life feel kind of intense sometimes.

In our current season of living intensely, I'm noticing this pleasant, lingering side effect - intensity makes my life simpler.

It's counter-intuitive, that life being "busy" and "hard" makes it simple, but it seems that it is true. Here's my anecdotal evidence...

When I make my to-do list each morning, it's an easy, thoughtless process. Cook dinner, take the trash out, shower, run, grade papers. And all time in between will be spent immersed in my family, students, or strangers along the way. Fairly simple.

When the boys are awake, I play with all the kids. As hard as possible. Much less meandering to the computer or a magazine or the kitchen. (Except for right now, as I'm blogging - ha!) Precious few minutes mean playing hard.

If I'm fortunate enough to be home at the same time as John, it's got to be mostly quality time - no time for distance or disagreements. And it's (usually) not too hard to avoid those, since I'm just so happy that we are together.

When I'm working on "school" work, there are few distractions allowed. Must. Get. Through. This. Stack. Before the boys wake up!

When I long for friends, it's quite simple - take whoever drops into your life. Family and friends who temporarily move in with you. The neighbor who comes up the hill. The friend who insists that you go to coffee together. Don't stress about seeking out more or doing more, there simply isn't time now.

When I feel like cooking something more than frozen soup or spaghetti, I don't. A little dish-washing plus a little play time are far more valuable to the family right now.

This intense simplicity blankets nearly every area of my life right now - not just marriage, kids, and work, but also church, spending, recreation, involvement at the kids' schools or at work, and on and on. Strangely, in spite of the occasional exhaustion, the intense simplicity is mostly refreshing!

So with just enough time and energy left to complain OR be thankful, I guess there is one more fairly simple choice...

Day 9 - "Recalculating"

Cambridge, Ohio.

So we're attempting to road trip the summer away (60 days?), with two main goals - find a house in Baltimore, and then visit my parents in California. And enjoy each other (all 6 of us!) along the way.

One word, supplied daily by our new GPS-voice-lady, sums up our trip thus far: "recalculating". Which, in case you've never used a GPS, like me before this week, is what she says when you take a wrong turn, hit construction, find a new on-ramp to the freeway, etc. She's been very helpful actually, except for the time I asked her to take me to Walmart and we ended up in a wooded subdivision.

We left a week or so ago with big plans. Our trip to Baltimore included encounters with Indy 500 traffic, Appalachians, sleepless babies, Memorial Day traffic back into Baltimore, thunder storms, etc. Within a day, we recalculated that we would no longer take our summer trip. A first for us, and that's with several 3000+ mile road trips under our belt with kids. Very disappointing.

A few days later, with the memory of our rotten drive fading, we began recalculating how to scale the trip back and yet still make it to CA. And we found a house in Baltimore! (Thank you God!)

On the way home from signing the lease, we got a call that our house was close to going under contract (all but sold). And that the new owner wanted to move in ASAP. Recalculate again once that happens, as we must now head back to Champaign and move our boxes out of the house and into storage. But for good reason at least!

Today was our first of two days heading back home, and the drive is going better. But our plans are still changing by the moment. I think we have working our way through plans A, B, ... Z and may be at plan AA now. We've wasted quite a bit of time making plans that circumstances have rendered impossible.

So what of all this recalculating? This week it has gotten me thinking. I grew up being taught that God always has a very distinct "will" for each moment of my day, and I'd better find that or feel guilty. But maybe it's more that he's got an end goal for us, and is willing to recalculate for us with every curve ball that life gives us or we make for ourselves. Fixing a "wrong" turn doesn't always involve a U-turn, incidentally. Often just a path through a different neighborhood. (For us, lots of ways that we can be together and make it to California. Or just get to that next rental we need to look at.)

A good friend of ours who we were set to visit this summer went into the hospital last weekend, just as our trip began. Unexpected medical problems that have temporarily kept her away from her young kids and have potential to be quite serious. I imagine that they are feeling the need every day for direction for what to do next. Besides ask for miracles.

Yes, we're looking ahead with a plan for our trip. But are giving up a bit on planning more than a day ahead, after all. Today, we tried some new things and they seemed to smooth things out. I sat in the back of the car for a couple of hours, touching all four kids at once but helping keep the peace and subdue the hunger. I thought and prayed for my friend, who I'm sure wishes she could be with her three little ones today. This is the thought that comes to mind. Worry/plan less, and leave the recalculating to the GPS lady, and more importantly, God.

Look at the birds of the air, that they do not sow, nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not worth much more than they? And who of you by being worried can add a single hour to his life? Do not worry then, saying, 'What will we eat?' or 'What will we drink?' or 'What will we wear for clothing?' your heavenly Father knows that you need all these things. But seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.Give your entire attention to what God is doing right now, and don't get worked up about what may or may not happen tomorrow. God will help you deal with whatever hard things come up when the time comes. Matthew 6: 26-34

Takin' things one twin at a time...

Danny and Jimmy, Thanksgiving Day

Lesson learned during week 1 of parenting twins:

Take care of the one who is crying loudest COMPLETELY before moving on to the next. Do not shortcut the feeding or swaddling, or you will soon have not one but two hungry and unwrapped babies howling.

And having two hands does not equal having the ability to care for two fussy babies at once!

As a chronic multi-tasker, my babies in general have always slowed me down and made me focus a bit more on the task at hand. That much more with these little guys.

And it's not just the babies that do best when they get their full 20 minutes of glorious individual attention, but also dad, big sisters, aunt, even me!

Take a few minutes for the task at hand, ignore the background fussing of all other demands, and I can do at least one thing well AND move on to the next. Multi-task, multiply the problems and the stress and leave possibly nothing done well...

It's a lesson I will be re-learning every day for a long time I think!