Not to brag or anything, but I made it through last week. This is an achievement for me because right smack in the middle of the week I was sideswiped by piles of emotion. Not only was it surprising, it was also unexpected and sudden. And it was tough. By ‘tough’, I mean since I didn’t expect the level of emotional turmoil, I wasn’t prepared. And by ‘not prepared’ I mean I’m not a boy scout, so how could I be?

Remember when I mentioned that Isaac had three weeks left in his high school career and Jake was three weeks away from the midway point of his college years? Last week brought that countdown to zero. Remember which child is trying to bring us within dollars of the family cap on our insurance? Although last week’s appointments will undoubtedly add place values to our deductible, it was the diagnosis that felt ruinously exorbitant. 

Despite the prestigious name, at James Way Academy, most of your K-12 years go by with little fanfare. There is no Kindergarten graduation ceremony where you don an adult-sized shirt with the year of your twelfth grade grad date emblazoned on the front. There is no stepping up ceremony for a fifth grader entering middle school. There isn’t even a fun, first-day-of-school themed breakfast in August or a last day of school movie marathon with candy from your teacher and piles of returned school work to take back to your mother who actually just handed it to you, and that’s why the desk is covered in papers and the next transcript isn’t put together yet, but I have all summer for that and this part wasn’t really supposed to be about my shortcomings, so we’re going to have a graduation ceremony for Isaac later, okay??

All that to say I was shocked by sentiment regarding Isaac’s last days of high school. We all know that if you blink, you miss it. It is such a strangely oxymoronic thought: you were present for the whole thing, yet you turn into a puddle of mush at the idea of all that’s done and gone. While I often pine for the earlier years, it has been wonderful and hard and messy and awesome to see Isaac develop into the young man that he is today.  In not much more time, we will be launching our second arrow, but you’ll have to excuse me if I’m holding my eyes wide open.

Meanwhile, Jake is down there in Jacksonville, crushing year two.  By the time I’m finally done muddling my way through composing this post, he’ll have received all of his second semester grades and will likely be on the road homeward. I know he would agree that the realization of being halfway through hit like an October hurricane in Florida, fast and furious. As a homeschooling family, we don’t have anything special planned for this milestone either, but it is exciting and I did find myself overly emotional about it, like an October hurricane in Florida, mortifying and out of the blue.

Jumping from keeping my eyes dry and open (‘I’m not crying, you’re crying’) and getting blindsided by nostalgic emotion, I was also able to experience relief mingled with light devastation, thanks to the latest findings regarding Caleb’s health. Relief that the fourth doctor we saw finally diagnosed the issue; relief that we weren’t going crazy, and it was what we suspected all along; relief that he will get the right care moving forward. The light devastation comes from the fact that while there are treatments, there aren’t really any cures. It comes from the fact that he has to deal with this on a daily basis. 

The juxtaposition of relief and devastation wreaked havoc to my emotional state, much like the aftermath of a category two hurricane. Part of me wanted to drown my sorrows in a pint of ice cream and another part of me agreed.  But Caleb remains ever cheerful through it all, and I know I can learn a thing or two from his joyful disposition. I think that’s an emotion I could manage!

To recap, I have nothing to brag about, the least of which is my ability to handle feelings, but

I had Anna, she’s just so great, she helped me get through the tough times. I truly can’t express my forever gratitude for her, she’s so sweet and incredibly good-looking! I wish that there was two of her because that would mean 2x the greatness. Anna really couldn’t be better, unless of course, if she tried-because Anna can do anything. And that pretty much sums up everything you should know.

(That’s what I get for always asking anyone if they’d like to write a post and then walk away from the computer. But we all need a bit of levity in our lives, right? It’s cheaper than a pint of ice cream, anyway.)

As I sit here with my hands hovering over the keyboard, I cannot think of a single thing our family has done in the last two weeks. I mean, I know we didn’t just sit on the sofa all day, twiddling our thumbs, silently contemplating whether pink and red really do clash, but on this Sunday afternoon, I have zero recall on anything that has occurred in the last 14 days and certainly nothing jumps out as being especially interesting or exciting. Perhaps this is a sign that by Lord’s Day afternoon my brain is damaged goods and I should reschedule the day of the week I post. Because of this, please proceed with caution. Who knows what I’ll say next; it’ll be a surprise for us all.

I do know that Caleb found himself at the bottom of a pile of extremely eager seven and eight year olds as the pinata finally broke open, spilling its contents all over the ground around him, and the father of the birthday boy had to pull him out before he was trampled. Though safe from being crushed, Caleb decided to pit his socked feet against our carpeted stairs and lost the battle, sustaining a very badly hurt appendage. Might it be broken? Maybe? Do I want to bring him back to the Allan’s private and personally funded orthopedist? Not exactly…

I know James checked a book out of the library called Backyard Rockets. While I won’t say that James doesn’t use his brain, there are signs everywhere that his head is in the clouds. I can only assume the detritus of paper, tape, matchsticks, empty bottles, baking soda, and cork littering the house and surrounding grounds means he’s having a blast. Unbelievably, no one has been injured through James’s attempts to launch his creativity, but I don’t recommend you try them at home. 

I know Anna made me laugh every day and was recently mistaken as a 14 year old by someone and sadly, I can see why. Where did my little girl go? She has taken her love of gems and fancy rocks to new heights by joining a rock climbing club and counts down the days and hours until the next session. It’s hard to keep her grounded, but at least this is a solid experience.

I know Ellie. I also know she enjoys working at Chick-fil-A and takes after her Aunt Heather in bringing home as much food and candy as she can for her siblings. I also know I have to go to the restaurant during each of her shifts to keep all the boys at bay. Don’t worry, Ellie, I’ll wear sunglasses. I’m mostly kidding. Besides dodging boys, Ellie dodges mornings as much as possible, preferring the status of night owl over the early bird.  When she does rise and shine, she does it with all the grace and beauty of a capuchinbird.

I know Isaac has three weeks left of his senior year of high school and I cannot believe that is a fact. He’s just about made up his mind on whether or not to do his laundry today, so I think he’s ready for college. He was accepted to each institution to which he applied, and if he applies himself some more, he just may accept one of the institutions.

I know Jake also has three weeks left until he’s halfway through his university years, to which Anna says, rather indignantly, “there’s no way he’s halfway through; he’s already done,” because she misses him, I think.  I just told Anna I thought of a few more things I could have updated you all on, such as the sports awards event we attended at the local Christian school where the girls play volleyball and basketball. She said, “That’s something you could write about for Jake.”

“But he wasn’t even at this one!” 

“You’re right; he missed out,” replied my cheeky girl, “and that’s something you know about Jake.”

I know Danny is the best and thanks to a mid-April storm has a much better working knowledge of a generator’s carburetor and how easy it is to flood it and if that happens your house has no running water and then you find out how much your wife enjoys auditioning for the role of Caroline Ingalls.

I know I am not Caroline Ingalls.

Oh my, what a night. My laundry detergent jug fell off the washer, and because the cap broke off on impact, all the soap oozed across the floor. It wasn’t until very late at night that I realized why such a strong fragrance was gracing the air all over our home. Disheartened that I had to clean up the aromatic ocean and would have to replenish the soap well before the typical time, the irony of cleaning up a cleansing agent wasn’t lost on me. 

Isaac, who was the only one still awake, sweetly helped me. What a time to have run out of paper towels earlier in the day! On the bright side, there was a giant basketful of dirty bath towels in the room, stiffly standing at attention, ready to be useful once more before their spin cycle. Does one need to add more detergent to a load of towels that are soaked in it already? 🤔 (See answer below*)

Once the towels had absorbed all the liquidy goo, it dawned on me that I should have taken a ‘before’ photo, because, at the moment, I sure felt like taking an ‘after’ picture as proof of the hardship and our work in cleaning it up! Then I thought, “of course that’s the way: one never thinks to take a before picture until you get to the after.” Who wants to show off the ‘before’, the bad, ugly, sad, messy reality until it’s shiny, clean, new(er), pretty, frame-worthy?

Often it’s the ‘before’ that spurs us on to do the work for that ‘after’. I can’t walk into my closet and see the fabric fallout of the wardrobe tornado one more time! The toppling skyscrapers of lotion and shampoo bottles in this bathroom cabinet have got to be leveled! The tupperware drawer is a speed-dating event gone wrong! I think we can all imagine what those spaces would look like cleaned up and agree they would truly be lovely and even worth a photo or two. 

But as I neared the end of the cleaning, I wasn’t thinking of closets and cupboards, but of hearts and souls. Particularly my children’s hearts, though I’m willing to concede this applies to me as well. We desperately want to see eternal growth in our kids, though the process can be bad, ugly, sad, and messy, and it seems like we are in constant stages of ‘before’ in our Christian pathway.

Our prayer for our children, and ourselves, is that they will allow the Potter to mold them and shape them as He sees fit, through His saving grace. Even if it’s messy. Even if it hurts. That they will realize they are “kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation”. How wonderful it will be to “greatly rejoice” that “the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto the praise and honor and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ”.  Imagine being “ready to be revealed in the last time” — ready for an ‘after’ so picture-worthy, we will “rejoice with joy unspeakable” and praise our Savior eternally! 

*P.S. I lied. I did take an ‘after’ photo. 

One would think that after twenty-one years of being a domestic engineer, one would know better, but such is the life of someone whose pride goes before her fall. I guess it’s just further proof that “clean” messes are still messes, I am still being refined, and someone else should be in charge of the laundry.