Me, My Kids, and Irene

Watching the rain from the doorway

"Everday Adventures."  I originally chose the subtitle to this blog for its obvious implication that every day is an adventure with the family of Js….which is true. I bring my camera with me everywhere I go for that very reason. I take it with me on vacations like everyone else but I also have it with me on walks around the block and trips to the grocery store. When you have kids, you never know when excitement may be just around the corner. But there’s something funny about that phrase, “everyday adventure.” I’ve come to learn that it works both ways. You see, every day is an adventure with kids but kids can also make adventures surprisingly everyday. [Since my grammar and spell check keeps attempting to edit me, I think I’d better clarify that I’m using the word ‘everyday’ as an adjective here.]

This weekend our family was caught in the path of Hurricane Irene. Most of the East Coast was consumed with anxiousness and anticipation, awaiting the arrival of this unstoppable force of nature. Some of the news anchors called it the storm of the century. Neither James nor I have ever been through a hurricane so we had no idea what to expect, but we heeded the warnings and took all the necessary precautions. We cleared everything out of our lawn to keep it from being swept away by the fierce winds and flood waters. We filled our pantry with canned goods and our drawers with flashlight batteries. We took all our ice chests and filled them water, just in case we’d have to spend days without power and/ or running water.

By Friday night, when the rain clouds were first starting to roll in, we were stocked up, hunkered down, and ready for what we thought was sure to be quite an adventure.

James had to report to his ship on Saturday so we were all up by 5 o’clock in the morning and loading into the car. Once we’d dropped him off at the base, the kids and I drove straight home in a hurry to beat the storm. It was just me, my kids, and Irene from that point on. I had high expectations for the day, sure that it would be full of excitement. And here’s what we did:

Went outside and splashed in the huge puddles that were forming in the back yard.

Came inside, stripped off muddy clothes, and made a batch of fresh homemade playdough.

Watched the storm from the window.

Played a couple rounds of tic-tac-toe.

Watched the storm from the front porch.

 Turned off all the lights and played super heroes, searched for bad guys using flashlights and rescued Johnny, who we trapped in the clothes hamper.

Throughout the day I also washed some dishes, changed some diapers, folded some laundry, served some meals, cleaned-up some spills, vacuumed some carpets, administrated some naps, issued some time-outs, and nursed some boo-boos. The usual. For the most part, we did everything we do every other day except we did it with pounding rain against the windows as a soundtrack and with an emergency flashlight on my belt loop as an accessory.

Our flooded street on Saturday afternoon

Then, when we woke up this morning it was almost like nothing had happened. The flood waters had almost completely receded. As soon as the sun started shining this morning the kids and I went outside and started picking up stray branches, the only evidence that Hurricane Irene had stopped by for a visit.

Now do you see what I was saying about the dual meaning of everyday adventures? Children have the amazing ability to make the most ordinary days extraordinary and to make extraordinary events completely ordinary. I see this as a God-given gift. My kids endow my life with a beautiful balance; a stability and steadiness that are deserving of praise. Thank you Lord for everyday adventures- both kinds.

Teenaged Five-Year-Old

Moody. Emotional. Bad mannered. Irrational. Sometimes I swear that my five-year-old is a teenager. One minute she’ll be sweet and innocent, talking about how much she loves kittens and fairies, and the next she will be whiny and uncooperative, bursting into tears over the ketchup on her hot dog. When I signed up for parenthood, I figured on having at least ten years….twelve or fourteen, if I did my job right…before having to deal with this sort of stuff. Well, I guess I figured wrong.

Yesterday we took the kids to a command family picnic, sponsored by James’ ship. It’s called a picnic but it was actually more like a carnival or fair. There were all sorts of games, bounce houses, rides, face painting, balloon animals, food and drinks and treats, and all for free! (James said the ship shelled out something like $50,000 for this event. Wow. No complaints here, but WOW!) We assumed that this would be a day full of great free family fun- it doesn’t get much better. But what we forgot to take into account was our little girl’s big attitude.

Everything started out fine. The kids saw the bright colors of the carnival from the parking lot and were in high spirits as we sprinted across the street and past the gates. The first thing that caught Josie’s eye was the face painting booth, so we hopped in line. Actually, to be completely honest, I tried to force Jamie to stand with me in the line for a balloon animal, because I always dreamed of having one as a kid and never got one, but he deserted me for the face painting.

I felt silly waiting by myself, without having my children with me to use as justification, so I stepped out of line. Back at the face painting table Josie asked for some pretty flowers around her eye and Jamie got a big spider centered in the middle of his nose.

A man came around passing out arms full of free cotton candy. Score! We were off to a brilliant start.

Next we made our way over to the games. Josie tried her best but just wasn’t able to hit that target. She was frustrated that she didn’t win a prize and that’s when the sour started to seep in. James and I tried reassure her and direct her attention to the bounce houses. Jamie climbed right up and had a grand time bouncing and sliding.

Johnny even got a couple of bounces in.

But Josie whined and pouted and insisted she couldn’t do it.

So we herded the kids over to the picnic area to get some lunch, thinking that full bellies would fix the problem. We filled our plates with potato salad and baked beans and fried chicken and hot dogs and cookies and our glasses with ice cold pink lemonade. More than a decent meal, especially considering it was free. But all through lunch we had to listen to Josie’s complaints: “I don’t like that.” “What should I eat?” “That doesn’t taste very good.”

And when her daddy asked her whether she wanted her hot dog with ketchup, mustard, or plain she cried, “I don’t know!” and burst into tears and buried her head in her arms. I made her take the one with ketchup but when she saw that the bun had a slight tear she refused to eat it. So much for the full belly plan.

  By this time we’d given up hope of trying to make Josie happy. Instead we made sure the boys enjoyed themselves and just drug her along. I insisted that James ride the mechanical bull.

Then we each got a snow cones. Well, I wish we’d each gotten one. I intended to share mine with Johnny but he ended up hogging it all and finishing most of the cup without me.

Before we left, we took a turn at the giant slip ‘n slide, launching the boys down the track.

We finally called it quits and when we got home Josie received a stern reprimand for her inappropriately bad attitude.

I’d like to explain away Josie’s bad mood with the facts that she was tired and hungry and maybe even weary from the day’s heat. Really though, I think it’s just kids. Teenagers get the worst wrap for the mood swings and back talk but youngsters are just as bad, in their own way. They can go from hugging your neck and telling you they love you to stomping their feet and screeching in defiance in the blink of an eye. But hey, maybe with enough luck Josie will get it all out of her system now and have completely grown out of it once she hits her teen years. And even if she doesn’t, at least I’ve got two fun loving, good natured boys to fall back on….Ha ha ha! Did you hear that Jamie and Johnny? Mommy is counting on you!

Under Construction

We picked up Josie from children’s church a couple of Sundays ago and she handed us a variety of papers she’d created with her class, all of which had her name scribbled primitively yet adorably across the corner with a big backwards ‘J.’ To get an idea of what she’d learned that morning, since her explanations are usually short and vague and followed by, “what are we having for lunch?”, I perused the pile. In the midst of my shuffle I came across a picture of an all-too-familiar scene. I looked down at a coastline. Around the bottom was a sandy beach, with crashing waves rushing up and foaming at the break, and up on the right was a rocky cliff, towering over the beach and overlooking the tide. On the rocks she’d placed a sticker of a house and on the sand she’d placed a sticker of another house, over it was a piece of paper that flipped up, covering the house, and showed a pile of ruins. It became obvious what lesson she’d learned that day.

Matthew 7:24-27  “Therefore whoever hears these sayings of mine, and does them, I will liken him to a wise man who built his house on the rock: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it did not fall, for it was founded on the rock.  But everyone who hears these sayings of mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.”

Jesus commanded us to build our houses on the rock by living according to his teachings. A strong Christian foundation provides the sturdy structure that our family needs, so that when the winds and the rain and the floods come crashing down upon us, which they are inevitably bound to do, our family will stand strong and be able to resist all the troubles that life can throw at us.

So we build. We build and we build and we build. Our family is under construction. To some extent, every family is. But at the moment ours is a little more so than most. Here we are in Virginia, attempting to build ourselves a new home, with our hard hats on and our tool belts fastened and the blueprints rolled out on the table before us. I’m not a construction worker or a carpenter so I can’t elaborate using any detailed technical jargon, but I know enough to know that there are a lot of components that go into any given project. The same holds true for building our proverbial house on the rock. Finding a church, focusing on family, establishing a learning environment- these have been our endeavors of the past three weeks.

Long before we even left New York we knew that one of the first things we'd do in Virginia is search for a new church. Our old church and its people were everything to us. So finding a replacement was not only of vital importance but also a daunting prospective. Weeks and weeks were filled with worry and restlessness as we researched countless churches online and visited nearly half a dozen. Actually, this is nothing compared to what the process could have been- some families search for years to find the perfect fit. Only a couple weeks after James' return we happened upon a place called Temple Baptist Church. It has been filling the bill nearly to the letter. Close to home, small, friendly, and intimate, alive in worship, spiritually challenging, and full of opportunities for the kids and us adults. We've already had a couple of get-togethers with fellow worshipers and had a good sit down talk with the pastor and a deacon. Two Sundays ago we were presented in front of the congregation and accepted as the newest members of Temple Baptist of Chesapeake. Last Sunday as we were sitting together, side-by-side in the pew, when James turned to me and asked, “So are you enjoying our date?” I giggled. With the kids off in the nursery, church is about as close to a date as we come. That’s okay with me. Faith is the cornerstone to a strong Christian marriage and a healthy marriage is the framework for a strong Christian family.  

Ever since James returned home from his deployment we have been making every effort to make family togetherness a priority. It's an easy thing to do at first, but as time goes on and everyone starts to succumb to the monotony of our everyday routine it becomes more and more of a struggle. Finding ways to enjoy shared activities takes creativity and determination. But we're managing to do it. I have been especially impressed with James, who on more than one occasion has forfeited the chance to come home from work after a long day to put his feet up and watch TV and has instead taken us all to the park or to explore somewhere new instead.

Johnny and Daddy at the local park

We've gone to a couple historical sites- Petersburg National Battlefield and Jamestown Settlement.

Jamie at Petersburg National Battlefield

Josie at Jamestown Settlement

And we’ve been to the beach so much that we're all sporting excellent tans.

In fact, I’ve been to the beach more in the past two months than in each of the five years I lived in San Diego combined. Next year I am definitely going to invest in a decent swimsuit. But the thing that I am most particularly excited about is our re-emergence into the world of Civil War reenacting. The back story could fill a whole other blog post (and might in the near future) but James and I have a long history with the reenacting hobby. Getting our family involved in the living history pastime has given us something to be really excited about together for the first time in a long time. We spent a full week digging through musty boxes to pull out our old reenacting gear and I sewed diligently for three days to make the boys' costumes.

Our first event is only a couple weeks away and I can't wait to share the stories!  These are the memories that will sustain us through James' long deployment next year, which already feels like it’s just around the corner. That will be a time when having our house built on a rock will be of the utmost importance.

 Searching for a church and focusing on family have been the two most important undertakings of our last three weeks. But in the in-between we have also been working to establish a healthy learning environment for the kids, like all good parents should. Josie will be starting kindergarten. There were miles of red tape to cut through in the process of getting her registered but she’s now set to start on September 6^th and will be attending a half-day program in the afternoon. All her school supplies are purchased and waiting patiently in the closet to be loaded into her new ladybug backpack. I even spent a week listing old baby clothes on eBay with the goal to buy her some new Back to School clothes. The Gymboree online order was placed on Saturday, shipped on Monday, and should be delivered any day! Gotta have my little....scratch that... BIG girl looking her best for the big day. The funny thing is that Josie seems completely indifferent to the fact that she’s starting school. When asked about it her reply is something to the affect of, “I’ll go to school when I grow up.” I hate to break it to you, sweetie, but you’ll be all grown up in about two weeks!

 And then there’s Jamie. I placed a call to the Early Intervention program the week we moved here to get him enrolled in the local speech program. We are still dealing with paperwork. Frustrating? Very. But even without his speech therapy, he’s making some growth. Having his dad around has definitely had an impact. He’s eager to communicate and has occasionally been saying a few three-word sentences, his favorite being, “Where Daddy go?” whenever James is out of sight. I can tell that there’s a lot going on in our little guy’s head these days and I’m dying to understand him better. My first question is going to an inquiry into why he finds it necessary to strip off all his clothes in order to play Iron Man. I hope that in the next couple weeks we will have a new speech therapist (We miss you, Kelly!) who will be helping all of Jamie’s intense thoughts work their way smoothly off his tongue.

Finally there’s Johnny. I can’t believe how much he’s developed in the short time span since his birthday. He can barely be considered a baby anymore. He’s begun to point with his little index fingers at things that he wants. He can feed himself using a fork and a spoon. He pretends to talk on the phone by putting it up to his ear. He learned to pour water from one cup to another and does nothing but that during bath time now. And just this morning he brought me his shoes when he saw the big kids getting ready to go outside. It’s truly amazing to watch him reach these developmental milestones. It makes me feel like we must be doing something right around here.

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Thus, the past three weeks have flown by in a busy blur of construction. New adventures galore for the family of Js! And it has been because of all these activities that I’ve been unable to find the time for blogging. Then, once I logged on to post an update, I discovered that I’d reached my maximum photo uploads allowed (I was able to delete a couple of random pictures to make room for this and my previous post.) There is a part of me that wonders whether I should continue blogging at all? For sure, I would miss having this venue through which to express my thoughts and share our stories, but then I can also think of a few other ways that my energies could be more productively invested. But once I was faced with the prospective of being unable to blog I realized how sad it would make me not to have the priviledge. So I'll be purchasing some additional file space from the host site in order to keep 'Family of Js' up and running. Hope you all enjoy!

What's In A Name?

I've wanted to climb Mount Trashmore since I first heard about it. James, on the other hand, had absolutely no interest. I think it was something about the name that turned him off. After all, it's not like "Mount Trashmore" conjures up images of fields full of sweet smelling flowers with fluttering butterflies and brightly colored rainbows, but rather the name implies a large mountain of stinky trash. Let me set the record straight before I continue- Mount Trashmore does not smell like garbage.

Actually, on the day we went it was gorgeously picturesque. The sun was shining through a beautiful blue sky peppered with fluffy white clouds and a cool breeze was sweeping off the hill and carrying the smell of freshly cut grass past our noses. This park was created by compacting layers of earth on top of layers of garbage, hence its name, Mount Trashmore. Ingenious really. And so much fun!

We started our trip with a visit to Kid's Cove, a deluxe playground. There were plenty of new and creative play equipment for the kids to try.

Josie found some kids close to her age to befriend. Jamie, my little expert climber, enjoyed scurrying up and down and up and down.

Mommy only had to come to the rescue once or twice when he'd gotten himself into a twisted predicament that he was unable to unwind.

Johnny loved the idea of running wild. This kept the kids happy for quite a while.

Once they'd explored everything there was to discover, we decided it was time to climb the mountain. We ditched the stroller and Johnny was strapped onto my back. Josie and Jamie had to rely on their own little legs to carry them up the steep incline.

But the exercise was good for all of us. What a thrill it was to make it to the top! We were proud of ourselves for making it to the top of Mount Trashmore so I can only imagine the emotions that fill a climber when he's standing atop Everest or Kilimanjaro. We stood there overlooking the city with a clear view for miles.

Josie pointed out all the cars and trees and the nearby lake while Jamie took off running, in a scene that I can only describe as one like the opening to The Sound Of Music when Julie Andrews is twirling to the orchestra music in a wide open meadow in the Alps. Dreamlike.

Soon it was time to come down, which meant...? You guessed it! Rolling down the hill.

All the playing and climbing and rolling wore them out. By the time I tried to sit them all down together for a picture I got nothing but sour faces.

But the frowns are not indicative of our time there because it was a fun adventure, one that I'm sure we're bound to repeat.  It all goes to show that you can't judge a mountain by its name. Our trip to the mountain of trash was lovely! Now how often have you ever seen that sentence used before?