Moving Forward

Our family calendar, the final weeks before our move

Lately I’ve been having trouble keeping track of time. I don’t mean that in the sense that I’ve been forgetting to look at my watch and then keep ending up arriving ten minutes late for church. I mean that I’ve been having trouble remembering if it’s Monday or Saturday or any other day in between. I’ve found myself in the middle of a conversation, recounting recent events and stopping to think, “Wow! Was it only yesterday that that happened?” The sheer volume of activity that my days have contained sometimes makes them feel like they must have taken weeks to conspire, when in actuality they merely took hours. Clearly, I have no control of time. That seconds hand keeps ticking steadily around while my life races wildly forward.

That fact makes this blog post difficult to write. It’s only been two weeks since my last post but it feels like it’s been a lifetime. There are too many stories to write, too many pictures to share, too many emotions to express. It would be impossible to do it all, so I’ll have to settle for a highlight reel…. Actually, it’s more like a high/lowlight reel. Our little family of Js has experienced a lot of ups and a lot of downs in the past fourteen days.

On the morning of July 15^th I loaded our car with three children, two dogs, two fish, half-a-dozen suitcases, a few tote bags, three Civil War reenacting rifles, and one box filled with miscellaneous whatnots and we all headed down the highway. Destination: Chesapeake, Virginia. After about an hour of driving I called a friend to inform her of our progress. We delved into an emotional conversation and before I knew what had happened I was crying behind the wheel. Once I started, I couldn’t stop. The tears came slowly at first but with every new thought that ran through my head a bigger tear would well up in the corner of my eye and then roll down my face and fall onto my lap. Soon I was sobbing hysterically, gasping for breath. There came a point, when I could barely see out of my fogged up sunglasses and had begun questioning my reason for living, that I decided I’d better pull the car over. This is as close to a mental breakdown as I’ve ever come. We rolled into the nearest rest stop and I picked-up my phone, intending to call someone for help. Before I could decide who would be the unlucky party to receive my frantic plea, my gaze settled upon an email I’d received from a friend the previous night in reply to a complaint-filled message I’d sent her after an awful day of moving. She wrote, “Jennifer, You have to move forward, even with a heavy heart.”

Keep Moving Forward. I read the line a couple times over. Her words resonated in my head and renewed my battered, broken spirit. I caught my breath, dried my eyes, took the kids and the dogs for a potty break (an extremely successful one, since everyone pooped in one fell swoop), and we got back on the road. The journey was a painful one but I pushed us onward, repeating my friend’s advice quietly to myself, “Jennifer, You have to move forward. Keep moving forward. Keep going.” Fourteen hours after we left New York we finally arrived in Virginia.

The days that followed flew by in a blur, as if I was strapped into the front seat of a rollercoaster car. Up and down and around, my emotions climbed and plummeted at a speeding pace. On Wednesday I signed the lease at our new rental home and picked up our keys and on Thursday some friends of mine (whom I first met when our husbands were all stationed together in New York but who moved to Virginia two years ago) threw me a “Welcome to Virginia” fondue party. Up.

Then I received word from James that he was given pull-in duty and he wouldn’t be getting off the ship on homecoming day. Down. I began decorating our new home by laying down a fresh layer of living room paint and assembling a new breakfast nook. Up.

I choked back tears during Sunday worship service at a new church, realizing that it would take a very long time for any other congregation to feel like a church family to me the same way the one I left behind did. Down. I received a phone call and an email and a facebook message from friends who let me know I hadn’t been forgotten. Up.  Our personal property shipment arrived at last and our house was filled from wall to wall with boxes beckoning to be unpacked. Down. My mom flew in from California to spend two weeks with me and the kids! Up.

I caught a terrible cold that knocked me off my feet. Down. I pushed through the sickness anyways and had most of the house unpacked in two days. Up. Both the fish, unable to withstand the constant stress of the move, died. Down. My sisters surprised us for a visit. Up. Johnny learned to walk! Up higher.

We tried yet another church that wasn’t right for us. Down. Our insurance company informed me of a price hike for our homeowner’s, car, and renter’s policies. Down lower. The list could continue, but I think you’re beginning to see the picture. One moment I would be lifted up with excitement and adventure and the next I would be plummeted into despair. Like a theme park thrill ride, my life for the past two weeks has been on a continuous track of unexpected drops, sudden sharp turns, loop-da-loops, and accelerations.

I’ve never liked rollercoasters. I’m not much of a thrill seeker. The few times when I’ve caved to peer pressure and agreed to accompany someone on one, I screamed like a bad actress in a B-rated horror movie. But once you’re on the ride, like it or not, there’s no getting off. That’s a scary thought. I hate the feeling of being completely out of control. I want to control my own speed; I wish I could control time itself. I am dreaming of the long-gone days when my life was simple and slow paced. But with James’ homecoming on the horizon, traveling steadily nearer and bringing with it many more complicated emotions and anticipated adventures, I think that this is just the beginning. There’s no going back. No getting off. No stopping. We have to keep moving forward. My friend is right about that. We do have to move forward, even with a heavy heart, because there’s just no knowing what tomorrow might bring. It quite possibly will be something unimaginably grand….

Good-Bye

 

Good-bye New York. Thank you for all the memories. I love you. I’ll miss you.

Good-bye house. Thank you for your windows, from which we watched the seasons change year-after-year. Thank you for your walls which kept us warm through so many cold winter nights and cool through so many hot & humid summer days. Thank you for your carpets that cushioned my babies’ knees when they learned to crawl and caught their bottoms when they fell after their first steps. Thank you for your bath tub where we went almost every night for a splash and a giggle. Thank you for standing over us while we dreamt. Thank you for your rooms that hosted priceless family moments. Thank you for being a place to hang my pictures. I love you. I’ll miss you.

Good-bye yard. Thank you for your green grass and all the dandelions and wildflowers, which never ceased to bring a smile to my little girl’s face. Thank you for your gentle slope, down which we snow sledded until our fingers were numb. Thank you for giving us a place to play. I love you. I’ll miss you.

Good-bye street. Thank you for all the stroller walks, bike races, and wagon rides. Thank you for leading us down the road to so many adventures. I love you. I’ll miss you.

Good-bye local farms. Thank you for your corn maze and petting zoo, where we could always count on going to savor the crisp autumn days. Thank you for your apple trees, that gifted us with their fruit to make the most delicious homemade pies. Thank you for bringing the beauty of nature to our doorstep. I love you. I’ll miss you.

Good-bye parks and playgrounds. Thank you for your slides, your swings, your monkey bars, your teeter-totters, your sandboxes, and more. Thank you for all the picnics that we ate in your fields, the cool breezes that rustled our hair while we enjoyed our peanut butter and jelly sandwiches. Thank you for welcoming us when we needed to escape. I love you. I’ll miss you.

Good-bye preschool. Thank you for teaching Josie how to recognize her shapes and colors. Thank you for teaching her to sing. Thank you for encouraging her love of crafts. Thank you for helping her blossom and preparing her for the school-age journey ahead. I love you. I’ll miss you.

Good-bye shopping mall. Thank you for the clothes we bought from your stores, the meals we ate in your food court, the movies we watched in your theatre, the fun we had in your play area. Thank you for Gymboree, the place that taught me the definition of “retail therapy,” the place that I could always count on to turn my bad day around. Thank you for your consistency; for being there in rain or shine. Thank you for being a meeting place for us and our friends. I love you. I’ll miss you.

Good-bye hospital. Thank you for your doctors and your nurses, who helped bring my three beautiful babies healthily into this world. Thank you for caring for us. Thank you for easing my emergence into motherhood. I love you. I’ll miss you.

Good-bye commissary and grocery stores. Thank you for occasionally offering car-shaped shopping carts so that the kids could pretend to steer while I regained some mid-aisle composure. Thank you for offering good deals, affordable prices, and for accepting coupons. Thank you for selling the food that filled my families’ bellies. Thank you for giving us the energy to enjoy life. I love you. I’ll miss you.

Good-bye church. Thank you for all the Sunday school lessons, Bible studies, and worship services that made possible my spiritual growth. Thank you for teaching me what it means to really pray. Thank you for introducing my children to Jesus. Thank you for all the congregational breakfasts and pot luck dinners that offered me a chance to fellowship. Thank you for asking me to help you and giving me a reason to use my God-given spiritual gifts. Thank you for making me into a mature, confident, Christ-centered woman of faith. I love you. I’ll miss you.

Good-bye friends. Thank you for all the early morning, midday, and late night adventures. Thank you for all the times we laughed so hard we cried. Thank you for all the times we cried, either out of sadness, frustration or endearment. Thank you for all your words of wisdom. Thank you for being there to help us in our most dire hours of need. Thank you for showing me what it means to be a friend. Thank you for all the homemade meals and decadent desserts and thank you for sharing your recipes. Thank you for welcoming me into your homes and into your hearts as if I was part of your family. Thank you for being my family. I love you. I’ll miss you more than words can say.

Good-bye New York. Thank you for everything. I love you. I’ll miss you.

Good-bye. I love you!

Tribute

I spend a lot of my time writing about my friends and telling them how much they mean to me, but I am rarely the one to be written about and told how much I mean to others. That's why I broke into tears yesterday when I logged on to my friend Colleen's renowned local blog, MaltaMama. Plastered across her homepage was my picture. As I scrolled down and read her heartwarming words, I was filled with that warm and fuzzy feeling.....true LOVE. Thank you so much for this tribute, Colleen. I love you too!

Big Girl Now

Josie is officially a big girl now. On Friday morning we attended her preschool graduation ceremony at Little Angels Nursery School.

She paraded on stage in her pint-sized cap & gown (i.e. one of Daddy's old undershirts), sang a stirring rendition of "I'm a graduate, Yes, I am!" and shook her teacher's hand to accept her diploma. Meanwhile, I blocked the aisle with my camcroder tripod and distracted the kids with my constantly abnoxious camera flash.

Josie's preschool graduation marks an exciting new chapter for the Family of Js. We are about to venture through the world of elementary school (and with it, homework...yikes!), music lessons, sports teams, girl scouts, etc. I can't wait to see what my little girl....oops, I mean BIG girl.... makes of it.

Congratulations, Josie! We are all so proud of you.

The Mighty Power of Distraction

Johnny has acquired a few new-found obsessions: 1.) throwing the dogs’ food across the kitchen floor and over-turning their water bowl, 2.) tugging the television power cord out of the wall socket, and 3.) pulling all the Blu-ray discs off their shelf one-by-one. For babies his age, there’s really only one good way to discourage unwanted behavior- distract them! I try to pull Johnny away from whatever detrimental activity he’s engaged in and find him a better, more positive focus of play. It’s not always an easy thing to do, especially with babies as stubborn as Johnny. When he sees something he wants, he is determined to get it! But with the right amount of creativity (and sometimes a cracker or two) I’m usually able to divert his attention elsewhere and engage him in an acceptable form of entertainment.

Amazingly enough, I’ve learned that a similar type of technique can be used on adults. In case you're ever trying to get someone to do something that they really don't want to do, I've got some advice- distract them!

Like a child, I have been dragging my heels this entire week because I’m so reluctant to move. I have never EVER been so disinclined to do something as I have been to prep and pack for Virginia. I have been in real anguish every step of the way. But thankfully some of my friends intervened and helped me hurdle my emotional obstacles. They offered me some positive distractions.

On Thursday the kids and I were invited to spend the morning with my friend Chrissy at her parents’ lake house on Lake George. I hesitated to accept the offer at first because I’d originally planned to spend the entire day cleaning, organizing, and packing, but the opportunity to shirk my dreaded responsibilities and enjoy time with friends instead was just too good to pass up. So I said, “Let’s do it!” and off we caravanned. At one point I feared that I’d made an immature decision and I worried that I’d regret it in the end when I was far behind on my ‘To Do’ list. But in reality, the opposite turned out to be true. I was so motivated to get away for a couple hours that I found myself being extra productive when I was home, to make-up for the time I’d be gone. The morning before we left for the lake I got up and immediately started working, then after we got home my other friends, Joy and Emmeline, came over to help me pack and we hit the ground running. I scratched chore after chore off my list that day, far more than I think I ever would have accomplished had I stayed home. Between all that productivity and the perfection of our lake trip, Thursday turned out to be one heck of an awesome day!

So now that I’ve realized the mighty power of distraction, I am using it to my advantage. I made a quick phone call and managed to pull together a last-minute plan to meet up with some friends tonight. Looking forward to that gave me the distraction I needed to accomplish more chores today. As I was scrubbing sandboxes on the lawn and hauling trash from the basement I was thinking to myself, “Keep going, Jennifer. You get to see Kelly tonight!” as opposed to what I would have been thinking, which would have been, “This sucks! I hate my life.” Yep, distraction is a very powerful, very positive thing.

And with that I would like to thank all my wonderful friends for being such motivational distractions. You are the only thing keeping me going!

Hazardous Occupation

It came to my attention today that motherhood is a highly hazardous occupation.

New mothers should know what they’re getting themselves into. To be perfectly fair, God gave us women a warning. He designed child birth to be THE MOST excruciatingly painful experience known to mankind as if to say, “hey ladies, this parenthood thing ain’t gonna be easy.” (Yeah, I know that Eve eating the fruit from the forbidden tree had a lot to do with that as well, but you get my point.) We should have known since the very beginning that children would be hazardous to our health.

Yesterday my friend Colleen showed me a giant bruise on the back of her calf. I gasped in horror at its size and color. What on earth could she have done to get a bruise that size? She was playing with her son and his parachute soldiers, flinging them up into the air so that he could watch them come parachuting down. Wanting to impress her wide-eyed toddler with her soldier launching skills, she wound and wound that paratrooper with all the force her arms could muster, but instead of releasing him into the sky for his show-stopping dive she accidentally accelerated him straight into her calf. She buckled to the ground in pain and her son asked, “Mommy, are you okay?” She shook off her war wound and reassured him that she was fine.

Bruises, bloody noses, scrapes, and scars are a common part of the job. Another friend of mine has a wild 3 year old son who enjoys sneaking up behind his mom, grabbing her by the legs, and tackling her to the ground on a regular basis. And a couple of years ago my friend Kristen was walking down the hallway in the middle of the night, tripped on one of her kids’ shoes, slammed into a wall and broke her finger. She had to wear a full forearm cast.

Yep, we moms have to always be on our guard. We just never know when pain is headed our way. This afternoon the kids and I took a swim to escape the heat. Everyone was having a wonderful time cooling down in the (somewhat green and murky, thanks to my lack of pool cleaning skills) water, including Beast who got his afternoon exercise doing the doggy paddle. At one point I was jumping up and down with Jamie, splashing and making waves, and when I came down my chin hit the top of his skull with a crack. My jaw is still aching. It hurts to chew, talk, and even smile. I’m also ending the day with an intense sun burn from all our outdoor playtime. Ouch. Who knew that mothering could be so dangerous?

Yep, motherhood is a hazardous occupation alright. But somebody's got to do it.

There's definitely no doubt that the perks far out-weigh the risks. And besides, that’s what full-coverage heath insurance is for.

What Happy Kids Are Made Of

What are little girls made of? Sugar and spice and everything nice. What are little boys made of? Slugs and snails and puppy dog tails. What are happy kids made of? Slides and swings and other park things.

A friend of mine recently asked me if I take my kids to the park seven days a week. I laughed. I don’t, but I can see how it might seem that way. Any half-way observant person will have noticed that a majority of my Facebook photo albums are filled with pictures of my kids on some type of play equipment. Yep, when it comes to the parks in the Saratoga area, my kids and I have just about done them all. If there was such a thing as a frequent playground club then Josie, Jamie, and Johnny would be card carrying members. 

This is not without reason. Kids are happier on days when they’ve played at the park.

First off, park visits give us something to look forward to. Every morning when she wakes up, before she’s even rubbed the sleep out of her eyes, Josie asks me, “What are we going to do today, Mom?” If the answer is “stay at home” then her response is a dejected and downtrodden, “Ohhh.” But if the answer is “go to the park” then she replies with an energetic and eager, “Okay!” From then on, the rest of our morning moves quickly and efficiently since we know we have somewhere fun to be.

Today a trip to the fountain park on Beekman Street in Saratoga Springs was on the agenda. We met our friends there, donning swimsuits and sandals. Josie loves running around in the fountains. Jamie was more interested in the swings and the turn table. As always, Johnny was happy to just go with the flow and spent some time trying everything.

Mommies like me LOVE parks like this. We hardly have to lift a finger, except for giving the occasion push on the swing set and distributing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches at lunchtime. For the most part I just sit back and enjoy the smiles on my happy kids’ faces. Park visits are about the closest I come to getting time off.

But the fun doesn’t stop there. On most park days the kids take better naps. Johnny slept for almost four hours after we got home this afternoon! And with a nice, restful nap comes a happy, pleasant evening. Josie and Jamie played a pleasant game of pretend in the living room together while Johnny helped me prepare dinner. Then everyone sat at the table and ate their food without complaints. Afterwards Mommy gave piggy-back rides to the kiddos (an activity for which she had the energy thanks to her restful break at the park earlier). When the time came for baths we all headed upstairs and washed up, then Josie, Jamie, and Johnny sat picturesquely in a circle on the bedroom floor, stark naked, playing with building blocks while I hung clean clothes in their closets. After dressing them in pajamas and reading them a short book I said “good-night” and closed the door, and I didn’t hear another peep before they were fast asleep. Surely, our day today was the type of day that young, naive, pregnant women dream about when they envision themselves as moms.

Days like today are great days and I have the park to thank for it. Parks make kids happy, which is the way that kids were made to be.

The Housework Paradox

I have a problem to which there is no solution, a question to which there is no answer. There are no flow charts, bar graphs, or scientific models that can make it clear. All of the most brilliant minds combined could not- though I doubt they’ve ever tried to- solve this equation. I call it “The Housework Paradox.” It goes as follows: My two primary duties as a housewife are to 1.) care for the children and 2.) maintain the cleanliness of the house, and yet I cannot do one without forfeiting the other. The two responsibilities are irrevocably incompatible.

Take vacuuming for example. When Josie was a toddler she was scared to death of the vacuum cleaner. The mere sight of it would cause her to burst into tears and when it was turned on the loud revving sound would start her quivering in terror. The only other logical option was to vacuum while she was sleeping, but the noise would wake her from whatever sleep cycle I had just recently fought hard to put her in. So I couldn’t vacuum when she was awake but I couldn’t vacuum when she was asleep and, therefore, I rarely vacuumed. Thankfully she has out grown her vacuum-phobia, but now I have the opposite problem. Jamie and Johnny love the vacuum cleaner! So much so that they can’t keep their hands off it from the moment it emerges from behind the closet doors. Jamie drops whatever he’s doing and heads straight for the hose and nozzle attachments, yanks them from their holsters, and starts to invent random contraptions out of them. Johnny instantly makes a B-line for what in his eyes must be the mystical machine. He wants to interact with it on any level possible- he’s tried chewing it, riding it, sitting in its path, pulling it down, and pushing it over. I could try vacuuming after all the kids are in bed for the night but, honestly, these boys run me so ragged that the last thing I want to do at the end of the day is clean. So again, I can’t vacuum when the kids are awake but I can’t vacuum when the kids are asleep. Basically, I can't vacuum at all.

 And since we’re on the subject, let’s talk about cleaning the kitchen floor. Seriously, with three kids and two dogs, what’s the point? Before I can even make it around my tiny nook of a kitchen with a mop, two or more filthy feet come fumbling along to investigate. Then within hours, if not minutes, or seconds even, we sit down at the table for a meal and a fork full of spaghetti is dropped or a cup full of juice is spilled or a bowl full of Jell-o is flung. Puddles, scraps, crumbs. You can eat off my floor, but cleanliness has nothing to do with it.

And don’t get me started on folding laundry. I’ve tried devising a system to make sense of the endless insanity. Trust me, it’s hopeless. When I sit on the couch to sort and fold then inquiring minds and curious hands can’t restrain themselves from toppling my carefully ordered piles or returning the items to the recepticles from whence they just came. So instead I bring the laundry baskets upstairs and attempt to sort the clothes, one item at a time, while hanging them in the closet or folding them in the drawers. Meanwhile, my little rascals are running amuck through the rest of the house tearing through toy bins (if I’m lucky! Otherwise they’re raiding the fridge or splashing in the toilet or causing other such mischief). So, just so we’re clear, in order to devote time to housework, I have to do more housework as payment. Great.

But of all the housework that never gets done, the thing that gets done the least is cleaning the bathrooms. Two words: toxic chemicals. What housewife in her right mind would open up an endless array of harmful, poisonous, potentially lethal substances in the presence of her young children? Not me, that’s for sure. I’m college educated! (I had to throw that in there because I’ve got $30,000 worth of student debt and its sole benefit to me is the bragging rights.) So the bottles of Lysol and cans of Comet stay locked up high in their child-proofed cupboard and the bathroom remains un-cleaned.

And there you have it. The Housework Paradox. I need to clean because I have kids but I can’t clean because I have kids. I’m the rope in a domestic tug-of-war, being pulled from both ends, by my children on one side and my housework on the other. Sooner or later one of them has to give and the other one ends up in the mud. And that is why my house is a muddy mess.

Regret

When I woke up this morning I deleted this entire post (well, not this one, obviously, but the first draft of it). It wasn’t because it was poorly written. On the contrary, it opened up with an entertaining account of the time I recently ate cat food during a grown-up game of Truth or Dare with my three sisters and it was so vivid that it would have left you with the urge to pick tuna and liver flavored granules from between your teeth and choke back that awful aftertaste. Then it went on to explain how sometimes I wish I didn’t have to be me. It was a story of choices and of regret. I had written about three-fourths of the post before I went to bed last night, but then I woke up this morning stricken with pangs of guilt and shame and I immediately rushed to the computer to erase all the evidence of my loathing self-doubt.

Ironically, that rejected post that was filled with so much emotional despair was actually spurred by an incredibly satisfying experience.

Yesterday afternoon the kids and I ventured to Kelly’s house for our much anticipated dinner date with her family. (You may remember that I declared this to be my little victory from a couple weeks ago.) Kelly, her husband Thomas, and their three kids Ava, Griffin, and Eamon are the friendliest people I have ever met. Spending time with them was so fun and so easy. Their back yard is literally a playland paradise- treehouse, swing set, slide, sandbox, play house, pool, sprinkler, ride-on toys of every shape and size and even an adorable pet bunny. Josie, Jamie, and Johnny thought they had died and gone to heaven.

Our kids played together for hours and Kelly and I had a chance to really converse for the first time in a fully social atmosphere. It was wonderful! Our friendship is so new that we got to start from the beginning by asking each other those big questions: Where did you go to college? How did you meet your husband? When were you married? How old were you when you had your first baby? And on and on and on…. I’m pretty sure that we covered everything, starting back from childhood and looking ahead to retirement.

Recapitulating my life for her in this way and in that setting really got me thinking. By the time we had said our good-byes and as I was driving home I found myself scrutinizing every major life decision I had ever made. And then I wondered, if I’d chosen differently, could I be living Kelly’s life?

I know, I know. “The grass is always greener on the other side.” But from my perspective it sure seems like Kelly is living the dream life. She has a well-kept house and a gorgeously groomed garden. Her husband is devoted to his home improvement project but he stops his work so that he can energetically play with all the kids, and then he only takes a break from playing in order to grill dinner for everyone. Kelly and her family can live together in that same house, near family and where they've made memories, for as long as they want. Kelly is a patient, loving mom and an intelligent, professional working woman all at once. Her kids are gracious, articulate, and adorable to boot!

And then in contrast, there’s me. My house is a wreck and my yard is overgrown. My husband is who-knows-where and hasn’t fixed a thing, played with our kids, or grilled dinner since I-can’t-remember-when. There is no permanence in our near future and I have no idea where we'll end up. I’m a frantic, impatient, emotional wreck on all fronts. Just about the only thing that Kelly and I have in common is that my kids are adorable too. But in general my current state of being leaves something to be desired. So when I got home last night I began to write about regretting the decisions that lead me to stray so far from that dream life.

However, before I could post it, I deleted it. I woke up feeling like an awful person for even considering such thoughts. “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s house.” Right? I’m a sinner. Yes, this is true. But as I thought some more about the subject I started reconciling with myself with the idea that people are designed to scrutinize their pasts. God endowed us with the beautiful gift of free will. The ability to choose comes with the obligation to analyze and evaluate. I would even go so far as to say that He calls us to regret. Without regret we would never see the error of our sinful ways and turn to His mercy for salvation.

So after I came to terms with the fact that it is okay to question myself and my decisions, I felt at liberty to follow that thought process to wherever it may lead. And this is where it brought me: Even now knowing that I would spend half of our relationship separated by endless spans of ocean, I would not choose to have never fallen in love with James. If I’d never fallen in love with James then we never would have been married and if we were never married then we wouldn’t have moved to New York and had children together. If we’d never moved to New York then we never would have bought a house that we wouldn’t be able to sell and if we’d never had a house we couldn’t sell then I wouldn’t have been left in New York without him for an extra year. And if we’d never had children then we never would have had a son with a speech delay. And if I’d never been left in New York for that extra year and we didn’t have a son with a speech delay then I never would have met Kelly. And if I’d never met Kelly then I never would have been sitting on her patio, summarizing my life, and admiring her dream-like world. And if I’d never done that then I never would have sat down to write this blog post and if I’d never written this post then I never would have come to this ultimate conclusion…. I have no regrets!

I don’t regret becoming me. I love my life; more specifically, I love the people in my life. I love my husband, I love my kids, and I love my friends. Sure, there are some aspects of my current circumstances that I wish I could change, but I do not regret making any of the decisions that made me me. Well, okay… there may be one exception. Eating that cat food was a very bad choice.

Good Old Fashioned Fun

Our red wooden wagon and I have a history. I begged and begged James to buy it for Josie around her second birthday, but I didn’t want just any wagon. I had to have a classic Radio Flyer with the wooden rails. I didn’t want one of those tacky plastic things you see so often nowadays, that fade to a dismal pink shade after their first summer of being left out in the sun, that have a dozen different upgrades like cup holders and seat buckles and canopies, the ones you can find at practically any garage sale. You’d be surprised how hard it is to find a new, traditional style wagon. Those you can find come with a hefty price tag on them. Yet somehow we gifted ourselves with this little luxury.

I toted little Josie around in this red wooden wagon day after day after day. We went around the block, down the hill, up the street, and back. This is the same wagon I used to put myself into labor when I was 38 weeks pregnant with Jamie. I pulled Josie on a never-ending wagon ride until my body had no other option but to begin contracting….and my son was born that same night. By the time Jamie was a few months old I had plopped his chunky butt in a Bumbo seat and started bringing him along for wagon rides as well. We’d even load up the dogs from time to time and it wasn’t uncommon for me to get a silly glance from an occasional passerby. But as children do, Josie and Jamie got older and as they got older they got bigger and as they got bigger they got heavier. My beloved red wooden wagon couldn’t take the strain. So it spent most of last summer in pieces and the kids would actually fall out the end if I came to too abrupt of a stop. James was never able to find the time to repair it (he insisted that it wasn’t worth the trouble and that we might as well just trash the old thing) so I eventually fastened my metaphorical tool belt, in true stubborn Navy wife fashion, and fixed it myself. Then the harsh winter hit us hard and my poor, old, beloved red wooden wagon spent six months under ice and snow. As much as I loved that wagon, it’s future was looking grim.

As a part of our moving preparations I drug out the wagon from under the patio deck earlier this week to decide whether we would take it with us or leave it behind. Jamie’s face lit up the instant he saw me pulling it into the sunlight. It was filled with dead leaves and a huge puddle of dirty rain water, and it was laced with spider webs and dead bugs, but the kids didn’t care. They dropped whatever shiny new plastic toys they were playing with and rushed to the wagon’s side like it was their long lost puppy dog brought home at last. I asked if they wanted to help me clean it out and their answer was a resounding “yes!” In fact, I don’t think I was able to turn on the hose and find the scrub brush fast enough. We took turns spraying and sudsing and scrubbing that wagon, then we patted it dry with some old bathroom towels.

The moment I said, “Okay. We’re done,” Jamie had already clambered inside and found himself a spot at the front of the wagon. Josie took the back seat and little Johnny was placed in the middle.

The same amount of enthusiasm that Josie and Jamie showed for taking a wagon ride, Johnny showed for NOT taking a wagon ride. He cried and screamed…and then just when I thought he was beginning to enjoy the ride, he screamed and cried some more.

But the older two sat more serenely than I can remember them ever doing before. They stared over the old wooden rails, off into the distance at the sky and the trees, as if they were contemplating some philosophical thoughts far beyond their maturity, like maybe the writings of Henry David Thoreau and the transcendental movement.

And I stared at them and enjoyed the simplicity and the peacefulness of it all.

Our house is filled with a lot of shiny new toys, with the flashing lights and blaring sounds. Fisher Price and Little Tikes have profited greatly from James’ paychecks. Josie’s My Little Ponies and Jamie’s Imaginext airplanes are some of their favorite toys. But no amount of brightly colored plastic can compare to the simple charm and good old fashioned fun that a rugged old wooden wagon has to offer.