August

5:54 in the morning and it is still dark. The way to know that summer is ending is to feel the dark fold up on each side of the day. And soon, we know it the way the birds know it, this season will turn right over to the next. Time has settled into a pattern movement of waking, feeding, playing, loving. I’ve been saying the not-new-revelation all summer. This summer- the one where we have spent over ten nights in tents and at least thirty hours in canoes- it is going fast. 

And everybody is old now. It is the summer of no-naps, buckle yourself, hatchets in the woods and please put away your bow and arrow. Get out of the water. No really, it is time to get out of the water. Please eat up this watermelon in one sitting. Don’t forget your sister at the mailbox.           

Their little heads at my kitchen counter all lined up like the peas in the pod we pick from our garden. 

If I could mark this summer with a sign in the grass it would be named The Summer of Much Conversation. Joey, now six and feeling even older, wants to know everything. Because it became clear early on that I did not know nearly as much as his expectations, he has settled to know, ‘a little bit of everything.’ We started with wishes. 

“Is a wish different than when you pray?” He would ask. Yes, it is. “What can you wish on?” Shooting stars, birthday candles, pennies in fountains, wishbones…definitely wishbones. Loads of hay (because of the poem) an eyelash… “Do wishes come true?” Maybe. You never know. If you say it out loud -your wish - definitely not. But if you don’t, then…maybe. 

 The wish conversation lasted weeks, a new question every few days. Joey, I told him in August, I am guessing on most of this you know. Wishes are tricky. No one knows for sure how they work.

  “I know.” He nodded, accepting the mystery. 

We’ve touched on heaven and death, animal souls, why people might kill each other, why we should try hard not to use the word stupid (unless something is really stupid and then it might be okay), water temperature, dew, what salamanders eat, how to get squirrels out of our attic. Guy mostly nods along, unless Joey disagrees with me and then he too is adamantly opposed, trying to impress his brother with his allegiance. Guy wonders about topics like, can we marry Mom? Does Tino (our dog) look happy or sad? How many carrots do I have to eat before I can see in the dark? Elena mostly wants to chat about feelings. Like how she feels when her brothers run ahead and leave her at the mailbox. 

Explaining the world to all three of them proves trickier than explaining wishes. The boys caught me getting all teary eyed over a pot of spaghetti at dinner and I explained carefully that I was feeling sad about Iraq, religious minorities, persecution, wars, the middle east. I worked really hard not to use the phrase ‘beheadings’ and ‘bombings’.  I felt like I had to throw up. We prayed for those that are the outcast and oppressed. Then we prayed for those that were killing. Then we talked about how Jesus loves the whole world. “Everybody?” They asked me. Was I sure? Yes. I told them. Even us.

Sometimes remembering is just as important as conversation. One day at lunch we paused to remember a friend that lost a baby to a miscarriage. It has been two years but this was the day that she remembers, so we remember too. We talked about how a life is a life no matter how short, or how small. The small children sitting here didn’t ask if I was sure. They knew this in their being to be true. 

This Summer Of Much Conversation has me sometimes silent. I tell my children this world is beautiful and then watch the news and it seems impossible. It feels like a lie.  One night I was up weighing the number of orphans in the world, disease, famine, abandonment and heartache against all the good. The scale tipped heavily and I couldn’t sleep.  All my talking at God seemed to just echo very loudly in the cave. Early in the next morning’s light, I took the list of all those that died in the Newtown School shooting.  Alone, very softly and very slowly I read each name aloud. And if there is any connection in this universe at all, may the mothers know that their children’s names are not forgotten. 

And although the light came later in time it still stayed to flood our day. And at breakfast I kissed each one of my living breathing children on their sweet pea-pod heads. We settled in to talk about whatever they might want to discuss this morning. Why does toast brown with heat? Why do bananas have a peel like a little house that we don’t eat? Their little hands and eyes and heart and minds just waiting to be imprinted.

They are beautiful and I love them so much, the scale tips back just a little. 

Questions with answers and questions with none. Always keep the conversation. Even the silent ones. 

 And in our conversations about the world I look at my children and know:  no Body makes it out of here alive. And no soul leaves without feeling the bruising of the brokenness. I don’t tell them this. They will find out soon enough. Maybe they already know. 

 What I do tell them about this life? About the life of the soul and the life on this earth and the life that they are honored to have? I point to the beauty and tell them the truth. My God, it is a miracle.

Last Day

Today is Joey’s last day of Kindergarten. Remember when I wrote that super weepy blog post at 1 a.m. the eve of his first day? I do. That was 9 months ago.

Nine months! That’s how long it takes to grow a baby from non-existent to 7lbs 8 oz. Apparently that’s also how long it takes to grow a little kindergartener into a first grader.  I feel like standing up and making an  speech to everything and everyone who helped pull us through. Thank you to the best teacher that we will remember forever!  Thank you to the kindest bus driver! Thank you to the wood playground and the cows that were always there in the field across the street. Thank you snow days and sun days and Fridays and Mondays. Thank you for this kindergarten year!

Joey can now read, he can make awesome fart- like noises pressing his mouth to his arm, (thank you school bus), he can tie shoes, he can survive in a forced social session and navigate a lunch line. He can name letters, and rhyme, tell time, and tell if someone’s lying. He has experienced kindness and friendship. Also pushing and being left out. And the feeling of bringing the best ball to school to play wall-ball with at recess. 

Spelling. Addition. Subtraction. Library skills and life skills. Music, phy-ed, art, writing center, reading center. At five years old we sent him off to learn and grow. To experience, to hold independence in his hands. A well- rounded approach. Well- rounded just makes one roll faster. And faster. And all months blur at the edges. 

And Joey as sure as you know your sight words – know this: when this beautiful world is spinning - you can lay down for a bit. Right in the grass in our front yard. Your home is always the center. Watch the clouds. (Clouds. C-L-O-U-D-S). There is always time for summer. 

News

Dear Friends and Family,

Nope! Our big news is not a baby announcement…

It’s “a-lot-of-babies announcement”.

There is so much to say which makes a starting place difficult so I will simply have to explain our news by pulling you on board while the train is still running.

Our family- Joe, I, and our kids are headed down to live in Honduras for three and a half months!

Our trip is a while out, we do not leave until after this fall, but it is official and we are going! We are into all the preliminary work now that’s involved. We will be volunteering with an organization in Honduras; Orphanage Emmanuel. Orphanage Emmanuel is an orphanage that has been established in Guiamaca for over twenty years and is now home to over 550 children. There are children there who are infants and all the way through teens. Orphanage Emmanuel is a place where children who do not have, or cannot live with their parents, are loved, encouraged and safe. They attend school, church, and are taught skills to be able to one day live independently as contributing members of Honduras. 

Our whole lives Joe and I have loved working with children. We believe all children are valuable and precious and deserve love, care and opportunity. For more than a year now, Joe and I have known that we needed to start investing in children outside our immediate family. We started down several avenues and to our amazement and joy this is the one that has continued to be clear. We contacted this orphanage after finding them online. We told them a little about our family and they graciously invited Joe and me to come down for a week and welcomed us into their home.

In March Joe and I traveled down to Guiamaca, Honduras. We were seeking a place that we could invest our time, energy and resources as a family to serve children. We met with the leadership; we worked in the orphanage and through much prayer realized that this would be a fit for our family. We are so excited and humbled that we would have the opportunity to go there again.

We desire to use all of our time and resources wisely, so this is a perfect complement to Joe’s job running the asphalt paving business. On the opposite side of the year, we will be able to live in Honduras, and then come home to America and our house for the paving season. We’ve talked to the schools and Joey will be able to attend the time that we are back in the states. We’ve made a three and a half month commitment with the orphanage.

In Honduras Joe will be teaching carpentry skills and additional trade skills in the older boy’s vocational program. I will most likely be working with the toddlers. We will live on campus and be assimilating our children into the mix as much as possible. They will walk along side us as we work, love, teach, play and invest in children. It will be an adventure for our family and we’re expecting both challenges and joy.

When we’re there we will have some internet access so will keep you updated. Hopefully a new and better blog page will be in the works too…. Until then we have a busy summer. Passports for three, home school curriculum, learning Spanish, working on getting our kiddos to like beans and rice, figuring out the best essential oil/shampoo combo to keep lice out of our hair, learning to limit what we need and what we use so we can live simply and give joyfully.

We’d like your luck, we’d love your prayers as we start on a journey that has captured our hearts….

: ) Kate, Joe, Joey, Guy, Elena

A Morning

Feb 20th. 

It was just before seven a.m. All five of us were up early eating breakfast. The kids were doing the normal deal- stabbing each other with spoons, stealing each other’s napkins, debating over who had more cheerios and taking the time to count them. I ran quickly into the basement to grab something and noticed the floor was slightly damp near the drain. My husband was on his way out to work and I grabbed his arm- “Joe- can you check the basement maybe if you have time? There’s a small leak or drip or something. Or I don’t know, no big deal….” Joe ran downstairs. Two minutes later there’s a noise like a fire hydrant has exploded in our basement.  Joe starts yelling my name, I run downstairs to see him completely soaked, his full body weight pressed through his hand that’s pressed against the value on some pipe- holding back pounds of water that is exploding into our laundry room.

He was trying to tell me about the some broken valve and some switch and something about our basement being ruined. It was important. I know it was important but he had to yell over the pressure of the water and the boys were yelling and Elena was yelling and so I started yelling. What do you need?! I can’t hear you! What do I do?! Where is a switch? Are you going to get electrocuted? And I see the basement floor being covered in water while Joe is trying to think through the situation and how our plumbing works, while holding back all this water while I stand on the stairs and yell insane things at the kids. I yell things like, GET A FLASHLIGHT!! (a flashlight?!) The boys come running to me with fisher price playskool lanterns. I go down in the well- lit basement to try and hand them to Joe. He looks at me like I am insane and yells for a flathead screwdriver.

I can do that. I run upstairs and look for a screwdriver. No Elena you cannot have more cheerios. (Do you understand we are under duress?!) NO more cheerios. No! NO! Where’s the screwdriver?! Fine. Have some cheerios.

I deliver the screw driver and after more water, more water, a slight shock, a white wire, and a switch later the flooding has stopped. The pump stops violently pumping water into our home.  I run upstairs for towels where Elena is sitting eating her fourth bowl of cheerios. She must have heard all the commotion downstairs and the boys running for flashlight upstairs and picked up on the sky high tension adrenaline level because now she sits very quietly and sings softly- “Mom, I am being soooooo good. I am sooooooo good.”

“Yes Elena,” I hand her napkins as I head downstairs. 

Having stopped the water Joe now needs to run to Home Depot to grab a new valve. Or plug. Or whatever it is to replace the metal thing that is broken in half on our basement floor.  Our hero heads out and it is 7:30am and I set to work to cleaning up our basement. I’m standing in the basement with wet towels and wet carpet pieces and wet laundry and can hear the t.v. upstairs. I had sent the boys to watch cartoons so I could clean up the wreck. All of a sudden I realize that one day their basements might flood. And Elmo, or Curious George won’t be able to help them. So I yell for my sons. I also think about yelling for my daughter (her basement could flood too one day) but she’s two. And she now has complete control of the cereal distribution, so I decide not to rock that boat. 

The boys come to the top of the stairs and look down at me while I explain that I need their help. I ask them to take off their pants and shoes and socks and come down in the basement and help me clean up this water.

They start to complain. Water is wet. And cold. And they don’ttttt waaaannnt tooooo. 

“BOYS!!” I say, my voice tense, rising, “MEN- Men DO NOT complain when there is a CRISIS.” I point to the water. “This is a crisis. MEN DO NOT COMPLAIN OR WHINE. They HELP and they WORK and they do what needs to be done.” I stare them down and address my five and four year old. “Men, take off your socks and get .in. this. basement.”

They look down at their mother. Soaking wet pajamas, messy bun on top of her head, standing in water and wet towels and deadly serious. They get down in that basement. 

Well. One did. The other was sent to his room to consider if he wanted to help like a man, or wanted to whine like a baby. Then he too, came down into the basement.

I handed my five year old the shop vac. This is how you shop vac water I told him. I showed him and he went to work. I handed my four year old a garbage bag. This is how you cut up wet carpet pieces to put into a garbage bag, I told him, showed him and he went to work. And we all worked in that basement. And they became so proud of their pruney feet, and that their shirts were getting wet and how strong they were as they lifted up clothes.  And I became so proud of them as I watched my little boys clean up our home.

 And that morning, it was good. I mean, besides the water, and the flooding and the hours of work ahead of me. Those boys in nothing but t.shirts and underwear standing in our basement, learning how a family works, learning how to clean up a mess they didn’t make, learning that helping isn’t always fun. That working is what gets the job done. And when a job needs to be done, they are completely capable to somehow help do it. 

And this is real life- I tell them as we move wet towels and vacuum the water and throw away trash. And sometimes when real life throws water into your basement and you don’t know what to do –you just figure it out. 

Maybe there will be yelling and running around, but you figure it out.

Just like how Daddy did and Mommy did and now you are too.