Toddlers on the Move

Today is my girls' last full day in California.  Ugh.  While on one hand they are excited to get to their "new home" and see what all this packing fuss has been about, they are also in a weird flux of sadness and discomfort.  It's hard enough for me to process all that is happening right now, so I can only imagine how this drama is interpreted through the lens of toddler-goggles.

I'm no expert in raising children.  I can't tell you what will work best for your child in these circumstances.  But, in talking with other moms and doing a bit of research and learning a LOT through prayer, trial, and error, I have come to find out a lot about living through this massive change with two toddlers.  I've decided to share this experience here as tips on how I've gone about this - in hopes that maybe it will help you come up with your own ideas for how to intentionally go about introducing big changes to your own child - whether that's trying a new vegetable or packing up all their toys and moving 2,000 miles.  For what it's worth, here's how I've handled the last several weeks with my girls.

1. Information.
My daughters are 3 and a half and 22 months, so most of these regard Matilda, my eldest daughter who is just old enough to take in what's happening.  However, both of my girls do best when they are prepped with more information rather than not enough.  In other words, while some parents can sneak out of the house on a date night and their youngster swimmingly adapts to the babysitter's authority...my girls would wage World War III.  They do much, much better if I spend the whole day prepping them with info on how the night will pan out.

That being said, when I first started telling friends about our big move to Nashville, I caught myself constantly talking past my children.  I would whisper in conversation with friends or avoid eye contact with Matilda as I told others of our plans.  I feared introducing the subject too soon might be too confusing or cause undue drama too far in advance.  But, soon I started to see that she was very contemplative and starting to shut down if I "talked around her" too much.  She was left out, and she knew it.  She didn't know what she was being left out of, she only knew that she didn't like the feeling, and I began to sense a wall being put up.  Nobody likes being talked around, even a toddler.  And maybe I wasn't giving her enough credit.  So, we decided to tell her early.

Here's my tip:  Talk early, talk often, talk calmly.  Just because there may be a lot of emotions tied to a change doesn't mean you have to deal with all those emotions at once.  Telling Matilda about the move weeks in advance gave us time to answer her questions (again and again and again) and talk about it positively and thoroughly long before boxes and duct tape scattered our living room.  Erring on the side of too much information also allowed me the time to process how she was understanding everything.  I would hear her relay the information to her sister and then began to see how she was taking it all in and interpreting it.

2.  Process
Figuring out how to get my toddler to process all this new information was another story.  I prayed and prayed to know how to explain to a three-year-old that she would say goodbye to the only home she's ever known, all her friends here, and yet her family would remain intact and there would be safe and familiar things to surround her on this new adventure.  How would she understand that some things stay and some things go?  How would she feel secure and adapt?  How could I make this inevitably difficult experience as manageable as possible?

Then, one night, I got the idea (thank you, Lord) to make a photo book in story form for her that would explain the entire journey.  The plan for our move is that I will fly out with the girls and take them to my parents house in Kansas.  Then, after a couple days of familiarizing them there, I will fly back to California alone, and help my husband pack up the moving truck and forge ahead via road trip!  We will meet up with the girls in Kansas, pick them up, and continue another day and a half on to Nashville.  Whew!  (You can see why I value your prayers so much!)

This is a LOT to understand for a little brain!  So, I wanted a consistent story.  Something that she could see visually and hear again and again until it stuck.  Luckily, God created toddlers with an incredible ability to soak up information in this way!  I gathered photos off Facebook and the internet, wrote a short story of our exact journey from here to Nashville, and even included photos of the outside of our new home.  Yes, it may seem a bit extreme.  Yes, it took a few hours to throw together.  But, after reading it again and again, I can tell you it has been totally worthwhile.  Now, Matilda reads it to Daphne and can tell you how the whole journey is laid out ahead of her.

We will find out for sure in the next few days just how well she has absorbed that information.  I know that there will still be questions about where her toys and friends are for weeks to come.  I know that she will have confusion no matter what.  I know that I can't buffer everything so that it makes perfect sense to her.  I know that she is a toddler.  :)  But, my goal isn't to downplay what is happening or avoid tears or questions.  My goal is to help her understand and help her feel understood.

3. Closure
Finally, tomorrow as we pack the remainder of their little belongings into a suitcase and blow kisses into the California sun, I hope to bring my girls a tiny sense of closure for the chapter in their lives they spent here.  I want them to not only say goodbye to their friends, but their rooms and their little yard too.  Sadness is okay.  Sadness is allowed.  Sadness is a perfectly normal response to change, and I want them to witness it in me and see that it is something honest and human and expressible.  You don't have to be sad or cry necessarily, but it's not an emotion that needs to be suppressed either, and I just want them (yes, even at this very young age) to feel the security of knowing sadness is okay.

One reason I think this is important is that it allows them the ability to recognize the best thing about sadness:  that it is temporary.  There is incredible security in learning that while sad things are inevitable in life, hope exists.  It is very sad to leave California, but with that change comes much excitement and anticipation of joy in things to come.  Closure is sort of an impossible thing to actually discuss with a toddler, but not impossible to demonstrate.  My girls watch and imitate me to a frightening degree, and so it's important for me to have them witness my own process in taking the time to say goodbye, be sad, and then be excited and hopeful and happy again.  I have complete confidence that God will use this experience in all our lives to remind us of how He protects and provides for our family.


I'm amazed at the resiliency of children.  I love their wild questions and hopeful courage.  I love that they hug without abandon and wholeheartedly just feel.  As usual, I often learn more from them than I think they gain from me, and that is always an awesome and unexpected blessing.

It's gonna be a tricky journey.  I don't know if there is any easy way to force adaptation on a person, no matter how welcome the change may be.  We're in transition, and all I can be is trusting in my faithful God who continues to lavish grace on my life.  Thank you, Jesus, for leading us in this crazy life!

Now, if only they made bubble-wrap for the heart.

Seven Years

On Saturday, some of our dearest friends are throwing us a "Bon Voyage" party at the park near our home.  EVERYONE is invited - so, if you know us well enough to hug us, I hope to see you there!  And, just to entice you to come and get that Pardy hug in before we make our grand departure (we're still here 2 more weeks in case you can't make it, btw) I've put together a little "Cali Short" to capture our time here. (Yes, go grab the tissues before you hit play.  You've been warned.)

I did this for just a few reasons:  first, because I was driving to Target one afternoon a few weeks ago and that catchy Lumineers song came on the radio and all of a sudden I caught a vision of everything that had happened to my life in the last seven years since living in California, and tears started streaming down my face in sheer thanksgiving for all I had experienced.

Also, because there was no way to name each and every person who has known us from the beginning or impacted our lives significantly, or blessed us beyond all measure - the list is just too long.  Because sometimes when you look back on the sum of your blessings it brings renewed hope for the unknown of what is to come.  Because too much has happened not to share.  Because I needed a creative outlet for coping with the emotions of this process.  And finally - because I can't completely capture the last seven years in any kind of tangible way to truly describe to people all it has meant to me - but, heck if I'm not gonna try.

Enjoy. xoxo

Boxes

It's early.  I should still be asleep, but something in me just decided to get up and start the day while it is still quiet.  I just stood in the doorway of our back patio and let the cool breeze of the morning seep through the screen door as I hit the button on our coffee maker and let the aroma clench my senses awake.

I feel like I'm in a Folgers commercial.  The house has yet to stir, but the mother wakes up and stretches, getting a moment of peace to herself.  That's totally me right now, except the lighting's not as good and my skin looks worse/normal than those chipper ladies on TV.  My hair's askew, my breath is terrible, and there are no sunbeams piercing through the window putting a perfect glimmer on my coffee mug.  But, there is peace.  There is quiet.  And that's just as miraculous as any of those other things around here.

And then I turn around.  Whoa.  This is definitely not a commercial set.

Boxes, packing tape, bubble wrap, and a zillion other items that separate normal every day life from the sudden "moving squalor" that has taken over my home.  "Where am I?" I wonder.

The beginning of the end is here.  The first of the last of things has begun.  And as we get minute-by-minute closer to our impending move across country to Nashville, Tennessee, everything about living here is getting more and more special and more and more unsettling.  It's all just so very weird.

The art, books, CDs, and DVDs are packed.  The tops of both our bedroom closets are packed.  Even the covers on our light switches and plug-ins are removed.  And suddenly I feel like I'm living in a Whoville home after the Grinch has come and stolen all but the last can of Who-Hash.  He's left hooks and wires dangling uselessly, making me scratch my head as to what had belonged there before and why it ever mattered.

It's amazing what you can live without for weeks.  As you can imagine, nothing makes you evaluate and re-evaluate your things more than having to remove them from their home and suddenly be stored away in a receptacle that will get them from point A to point B.  I don't know how many times over the last several days I've said "We own this?" or "Where did this come from?" and then gently toss it into the growing Goodwill pile.  It's relieving and bewildering and upsetting all at the same time.

Nothing about moving is pretty.  And we're at that grand point of packing where its all going to get worse before it gets better.  Everything is OUT, yet not quite sorted through or put away.  And, certainly, the mega-question of them all is How in the world will all this fit in a 16-foot truck?  That miracle has yet to be determined!

The final weeks are here.  The packing has begun.  And my heart is caught in the middle of the roller coaster that is dread and excitement, hope and fear, making this experience bittersweet at best.  As I sip my coffee and soak in a moment of this crisp morning silence, I'm simply reminded to stop and stare at the squalor.  I'm reminded to not back down now, not shy away from the messy confrontation of what is happening.

I don't want to miss anything - even the tearful good-bye hugs, or the embarrassing ugly-cry moments, or the chance to tell someone in person what they've meant to me.  Sure, it might look like a nice neat little package on the outside, just like these boxes, but inside is a miscellaneous mess of emotions that some days I can't quite handle.  That's okay too.

So, if you see me in the supermarket with mascara streaming down my face, or you catch me in the In-n-Out drive through stuffing my face with "just one more last In-n-Out burger!", or you get attack-hugged by me and don't know what to say...Just take it.  Just let me.  Just know you are witnessing the beautiful mess of a great big process in an honest life.  Just know that each one of you who reads this, who prays for us, who loves us from near or far - you are all part of this.  You matter to me, and I am packing you up in a neat little box in my heart and taking it with me wherever I go.  It's weird and unsettling, just like life...and just like my crazy home right now.

Now, that I would like to see in a Folgers commercial.  Someone hand me coffee and Kleenex!

Threes

You've probably heard the old adage about how "things come in threes".  I don't know how legitimate that statement is, but sometimes truth is stranger than fiction.  Today, in the midst of a very tiring, very icky, very staying-all-day-in-my-jammies kind of day, I had three surprising and delightful things come my way.  It wasn't much, but it was unexpected and beneficial.  I'm not purposefully trying to be vague, it's just that the specifics of what happened aren't what's important to this story.

To sum it up, it basically amounts to an encouraging email, a phone call of hope, and a potential opportunity.  Okay, I'll admit that's rather vague...but, trust me, I'm sparing you semantics.  The important thing here, is that I woke up to a groggy disaster, and God continually got in my face with a blessing until I was ready to rejoice in the day that He had made.

Two nights ago, I spent a very crowded and sleepless night in bed with both my girls.  Last night, as one of them was reeling from the stomach flu, I took the other to bed with me again, only to be jabbed in the ribs throughout the night (again).  This morning, my three-year-old still had a fever and so we all tried to make the best of it by hunkering down in front of a Disney movie marathon...which really got old by the second round of watching Toy Story.  The girls were cranky, antsy, and I was busy either washing dishes or pillow cases.  You get the picture...not exactly a dream day at home.

But, nearing the end of the day, while I was scrubbing the last sippy cup and putting away the bleach and folding up towels and cracking my knuckles for the millionth time...I got to thinking about those three very intentional moments of the day that God had put in my face to remind me of His presence.  I felt blessed!  I didn't feel the stress of what even a usual day brings me, let alone one where I'm shut up inside the house allllll day and unable to get a breath of fresh air...and yet, here I was, feeling rather refreshed!

It was just what my heart needed - that feeling of fullness that God is in control and I'm not.  That, He knows what I need before I even know I want it.  That, He is working behind the scenes and in my favor for efforts I'm not yet even aware of.  And, it occurred to me, plain as day, that there are three simple lessons for my life that brought me this awareness.  Three sort of "commandments" that, when I keep my sights set on how Jesus would connect with others and strive for what is Holy (and attain, in His case) that I can feel this inner sense of assurance to trust and obey more and more.

Those might sound like some major concepts, but it breaks down into these three, very simple understandings:

1. Build Bridges
2. Burn Idols
3. Don't get the first two mixed up.

Go ahead, read it again.  Let it resonate for a moment.  I've had to let it marinate in my soul all day and I'm still soaking this new revelation in.  

Make and keep connections that are valuable to your life - and don't burn bridges.  Keep Christ first, above all other measurements of love or successes - don't build up false goals to replace The Utmost.  

I needed this today.  In the middle of crazy, disgusting chaos at one end of the spectrum and then, grace, faith, hope, and love all being shoved into my face at the other end of the spectrum, I was forced to sit in the middle and be reminded to lift my head to Jesus, cast my burdens on Him, and stay focused on the truth that He is good.

Maybe it is true that good things come in threes.  But, I'm not going to limit God to any number.  I'm just going to keep trying to build bridges, burn idols, and count my blessings as I set my sights on His faithfulness.

Go!