Travelers Rest

It's August.

And that means something around here.

Summer camp season is almost complete.

As I have said before, if summers in Virginia always ended when the Wickstrum's suburban pulled out of the driveway, then summers here end when the summer staffers load up their belongings and leave the camp.

What a privilege it has been to be a part of all that is Look Up Lodge - two summers now.

We love this collection of people, travelers, if you will. All of us at different stages in our journeys, but headed for the same ultimate direction - to live forever.

How prophetic really. To live in Travelers Rest.

Travelers Rest.

And everything in our lives has been propelling us to this place. To this square spot on the earth.

To raise these six humans.

To throw open the doors and windows of our very lives and bravely bare our warts and our wounds, our mountain moments, our miseries and our mysteries. To be real and to welcome these summer sojourners into our story as a gift, to be opened and examined and studied and scrutinized.

Rest here, travelers. It isn't always safe. It isn't a luxurious life. But it's yours to share.

My life is my message. - Ghandi

Normal

Yesterday was just a normal day at the Keigley household.

If you consider this normal:

7 something a.m. - In the shower. Riley enters the bathroom. I don't recall any sound of someone knocking. She's on the phone with her tutor and wants to know if we can change that morning's tutoring session to an hour later. I think an hour later is a great idea.

7 something a.m. - I am exiting the shower. Towel wrapped around my body. London sheepishly enters the room holding a used diaper. I smell poop. Naturally, I am suspicious. Apparently London tried to "help" the family cause and attempted to change Finn's diaper by herself, unaware that the diaper held a toxic amount of excrement. And not all of said excrement made it to the diaper. Not exactly the type of situation to be put on hold, I help remedy the problem immediately. While still wearing only a towel.

7:40 a.m. - Mosely pulls on the towel. "Mom, I''m hung-ah-reeeee."

7:42 a.m. - Bergen pulls on my towel. "Mom, what's for breakfast?"

7:43 a.m. - London asks, "Mom, when can we eat?"

7:46 a.m. - Piper chimes in, "EAT!"

Has anyone told these kids that I'm still naked?

9:00 a.m. - Mosely dresses herself in a skirt that is so wrinkled that is appears to be six inches shorter than it should be, which makes it completely immodest, even for a five year old. Since I am a swell mom and since I know Mosely has been wanting to wear this skirt all summer, I decide to finally do what I have been promising her I would do for the skirt - iron it. It's full of pleats. I hate ironing. But I drag the ironing board out, heat up the iron and spend more than eight minutes on a silly wrinkled plaid skirt.

9:15 a.m. - In an effort to "make Mommy happy" the girls take out loads and loads of laundry and pile them on mine and Kevin's bed. Our unmade bed. It doesn't really make Mommy happy.

9:25 a.m. - Bergen wants to help put the sheet on Piper's toddler bed so I send both Bergen and Piper off to her room to see what they can do, with no silly expectations of success mind you.

10:30 a.m. - I begin to nurse Otto. While sitting down, you know.

10:31 a.m. - Riley begins to load the trash bags into the Suburban for our future stop at the dumpsters.

10:32 a.m. - Piper accidentally pulls the basket of magic markers down off the craft table, spilling markers all across the sunroom floor.

10:33 a.m. - Bergen screams from the bathroom that he needs someone to wipe his bum.

10:34 a.m. - Magnus comes flying in the door Riley has left open while carrying out trash bags.

10:35 a.m. - The telephone rings.

10:36 a.m. - A child screams as Magnus gets a tad too close for comfort.

10:37 a.m. - London shoves the phone in my ear.

10:38 a.m. - Magnus knocks Piper over and licks her face. Piper does not respond well to this affection.

10:39 a.m. - Mosely finds herself within my field of vision and I notice something brown on her freshly ironed skirt.

10:40 a.m. - London confirms that the brown spot is actually poop.

10:41 a.m. - Mosely cries as she has to go change out of the prized skirt.

Has anyone told these kids that I am nursing an infant here?

In the end, we end up being late for Riley's tutoring session, despite the fact that it was moved to a later hour.

When we finally return home I discovered that Piper's sheet never found its place on her bed and that the reason Mosely's skirt had poop on it was because Bergen never got a response to his screaming request of someone wiping his bum so he did a pretty poor job of it himself, leaving poop on the toilet seat, which Mosely managed to brush against, thereby smearing her tidy pleats.

And in the evening . . .

8:20 p.m. - Bergen exits his bed and approaches the living room in tears.

"Why are you crying son?" I asked, through clenched teeth.

"Because of what Mosely said," he answered.

"And what did Mosely say?"

"She said that butterflies don't eat nectar, but I know they do."

All in all, I guess it was just another day.

(You know, this post sat on my computer screen for two days before I could push "publish".)

Enough

Have I ever really believed that God is enough?

I mean, I've probably said He was. I might have even thought that I believed it.

But your beliefs are pretty much revealed through your actions.

So.

Have I acted like God is enough?

Or has my life thus far been mostly a study of how God is not enough?

Don't I really expect God plus?

You know,

God plus personal fulfillment.

God plus healthy children.

God plus financial security.

God plus physical safety.

God plus a happy marriage.

That's the lie I find myself believing, and living, so often.

The truth is

God is enough.

No plus.

Just God.

Enough.

And I guess I will know I am believing that truth, and therefore rejecting that lie, when my life reflects that God is enough.

When I stop demanding God to give me the things I think I deserve.

The things I think I have somehow earned with my good behavior toward the Almighty.

My self-righteous good deeds that I keep trying to stack up against my bad ones.

My mental list of all the commandments that I have so carefully kept.

O God, I am learning, as you are removing, that you are, indeed, enough.

The Wise Finnian

This little girl may be a genius.

Or not.

But I probably owe her a positive post since the last time that I wrote about her I think I may have mentioned the word "terrible" and dwelt heavily upon her tiny child misbehavior.

At any rate, I think we all know there are many sides to every person. So why would a two foot tall person be any different?

We think she is learning the ropes awfully fast.

Of all the Keigley children, perhaps even including Riley, Piper Finn is the only one not at all afraid of Magnus. (The dog that is beginning to make me question my judgement.) And, of all the Keigley children (the walking ones at least) it seems Piper has the most reasonable excuse to be afraid of the overly happy, lopey, larger than her puppy that today actually knocked her down and attempted to steal her beloved eagle. And do you know what that brave little tyke did? She fought to get her eagle back. That's the spirit Piper! (I did come to her rescue, in case you are wondering what type of parent I am to let a dog and toddler duel it out. And I would have arrived at the scene earlier if my hands had not been full of trash bags that the dog later knocked over, spreading dryer sheets about the driveway as I was trying to load up the rest of the gang to get Riley to her tutoring session for which we were already running late.)

Also, this sprite of a daughter likes to clear her place at the table. Without being asked. (It's adorable.) Walking very slowly, with a look of utter concentration across her brow, she carefully crosses the kitchen, reaches for the stool with one hand while precariously balancing her plate or cup with the other hand and places the stool before the sink, climbs up and delicately deposits her items.

And, drum roll please, the Little Willow has decided to take upon herself the task of potty training. Yes, that is right. (I feel it may be a fluke, but let's not ruin the moment - okay?) Four times so far, with zero prompting, Piper has asked to go the potty and when she sat down....lo and behold.... she actually used the bathroom!

Do you think this kiddo is brilliant?

Or do you think she has already learned this about the world at our busy house - sometimes you have to fend for yourself, clean up after yourself and take care of your own needs.

Whatever the reason, we think she's a pretty smart Munch. She has passed her test. We'll let her stay.

Lunch

I found myself staring at my plate during lunch today. The sight of my meal triggered some memory in me.

It wasn't an exciting meal, but it was a very familiar one. I had a scoop of this macaroni-tuna-egg-salad-type-thing and two slices of banana bread spread with cream cheese. Don't worry, it doesn't offend me if that sounds unappetizing to you. I know. It's kind of a weird meal.

I have no name for the type-thing I was eating. I just know it was this concoction that my mom brought out frequently during the summer growing up on our family's dairy farm. I think maybe she made it up. She probably kept making it for two reasons. One, everyone ate it. (Even my ridiculously picky older brother Dean, which is saying more than you know.) Two, it is served cold and therefore could be easily transported to the field in a Tupperware container to meet Dad or whomever on the tractor for a quick picnic lunch.

And the banana bread with cream cheese on top? Yep, another combination my mother always ate. You should try it - it's tasty.

It's funny how much I unconsciously find myself doing the very things my mother used to do. And how missing someone changes and morphs through time.

I still miss my mom. Maybe even more now than I have before. But it's different. It's not the hungry, devouring everything in its path sort of grief that the early days held. It's a more subtle sorrow.

I'm sad she doesn't know my children.

I miss her godly perspective and her gentle reminders of where I have been that always encouraged me to be patient when I wished my children were...somehow farther down the path. (Particularly one teenager I know. How I long for those gentle reminders that I too wore clothes of which my mother disapproved and listened to bands that were not her favorite. Loudly. And often.)

But there's so much joy in the remembering as well.

C.S. Lewis said, "Sorrow, however, turns out to be not a state but a process. It needs not a map but a history."

I love to tell my children stories of growing up in Virginia. On a stinky cow farm. And playing with my brothers. Sharing a bedroom with all SIX of us for four long years. (You think I'm kidding.) Hiding in the cornfield. Camping by the pond. Sleeping in the feed room. Playing with matchbox cars in the sand. And eating macaroni-tuna-egg-salad-type-things in the shade with my family.

Why Do I Write This Blog?

One word.

Perspective.

That's the one word reason. (And if I had self-control I would end this blog post right here.)

But I don't. Have self-control, that is.

I write this blog because I find that when I am keeping it up to date, I like my entire life better. I know that seems like a ridiculous amount of importance to place on a silly computer-generated journal-esque type thingy. But it's true.

When Piper pulls off her diaper and poops on the living room floor I get less angry and instead wonder how I can spin that occurrence to make you guys laugh. When spit up spews out of Fox's face and pools up inside my bra, my first thought may be "Oh, that's disgusting!" but my second thought is "What photo can I stick at the top of this entry?"

And sometimes my thoughts never make it to this blog, but just thinking about my day in a different light usually is enough to cure that moment's frustration.

So I write these ideas down as they come to me - I have two notebooks actually. One on my desk in our bedroom and one at the desk in the sunroom. (I don't always have time to travel far to record my fleeting ideas. And if I don't record them, you won't ever read about them. Because I will forget them by the time my head hits my pillow.)

So I guess this blog is like a sanity-saver. Cheap therapy.

And every day I can laugh at my life a little bit is a good day.

The Right Team

Bergen is a boy who approaches life wide open.

Most people only see Hawkeye revved up, nearly careening out of control at any given moment.

But the boy has more depth than that.

He loves his siblings. Loves them. He particularly loves his younger siblings. Adores would not be too strong of a word here.

Berg offers to hold Piper's hand when walking outside. He requests the pleasure of tucking her in for daily naps. He reads her books and plays Weebles endlessly with her.

Each morning he ambles into our bedroom, thumb in mouth, searching for Otto Fox so he can get in his daily dose of cuddling. He requests that we slide over so he can get in enough face time. He positions himself face to face with the tiny fellow and he just begins his routine of simply staring into Wilder's baby eyes.

This morning I asked him this question. "Berg, why do you love your baby brother so much?"

Through his thumb-filled mouth, Bergen answered, "Because he's on the boys team."

So This Is Half Way?

My birthday falls right on the heels of London's birthday. And when you reach a certain age, like my age, you start thinking about the numbers in a different light.

I don't feel old. Really. (Well, some days, but not every day.)

But the truth is, statistically speaking (why do we even say that?), I am middle aged. I could easily be at the half way point of my life. Okay, I guess theoretically at any given moment any of us could be at the half way point of our lives. But you know what I mean!

And when I survey my life in the most basic of manners, it looks like it's going alright. Married, kids, house. That should equal some level of maturity - right? Some level. I guess I am more mature than some junior high school girls.

I don't know. Some days I don't even feel grown up. I still want someone to remind me to service my car, to call home after a long trip or to tell me "job well done" when I accomplish some minor achievement.

A lot of days I feel like I am probably some sort of an impostor, an amateur masquerading around as an adult. I have the years behind me to claim the title of adult, but the rest of the job description just doesn't always seem to fit.

You know the job description I'm talking about. The one that proclaims things such as . . .

Adult equals advice-giver. And by advice, you are supposed to be offering good advice. But what do I have to offer anyone? A longer list of mistakes to match the years.

Adult equals confidence. Yeah, pretty sure we know where this is headed. Hence the impostor, amateur, beginner feelings. Confidence? There are still days when I question my parenting skills, my teaching abilities and my basic sense of human kindness. When does that confidence kick in? Post middle age, maybe? Whatever that is.

Adult equals responsible. Umm Hmm. Sure, I mostly get the bills paid on time. But let me ask you, do responsible people let their kids eat cereal for dinner? Do responsible people allow their children to wear swimsuits all day when visiting any large body of water is not in the least in the cards? Do responsible people stay up until 3 a.m. watching movies with their husbands when they know a baby wakes up at 5 a.m. to eat breakfast?

The list could really just go on and on. There are so many attributes we assume should accompany adulthood. I guess we are all still arriving.

Maybe adulthood is being okay with that process. Recognizing that it's ultimately a journey we are on and less a destination. Maybe having arrived only really means you realize that you are a work in progress. Slow progress.

Some lessons take a long time to learn. But I find that I sort of enjoy the education, despite its awkward and often painful progression. I'm thirty-six years old and I am just now beginning to learn to trust my instincts in so many areas. At this middle age, I have only recently discovered clothing that I like and I feel good wearing. What on earth took so long? I don't know.

But if this is half way, I know this. I better begin to enjoy the journey, because the first half went by in an awfully speedy fashion. I can only assume that will be true for the next part as well.

Six

Dear London,

You make me laugh. Your thinking face is adorable. Your trying-a-new-food face is so serious and thoughtful. Your accents are spot on. (You are your daddy's daughter, after all.)

You are such a good big sister. I love how you help your brother when he is hurt. And I like how you offer your favorite toys to Mosely when she cries. You entertain Piper and make her laugh. You love to pick out onesies for Otto and you always want to cuddle with "his face", as you say.

You are obsessed with food. Every night at bedtime the questions are always the same. "What are we eating for breakfast? What are we eating for lunch? What are we eating for dinner?" As soon as you are excused from the table you begin asking for more food.

You are an observer. You closely monitor what Daddy and I do and say and you imitate and question us by turns.

You are about to enter first grade. And yet I can clearly remember your birth, your ducky hair when you awoke from naps as an infant, your first steps, that sweet red dress you wore when you were learning to walk, your first word (dog), your favorite finger food (green beans - Grandma would buy you jars and jars of them), the sound of your new voice experimenting with language ("coooooot" instead of "cute"), your first big girl bed, your love of the Little People videos, your first running shoes, your ever-present buff, how you overcame any sense of shyness after moving to South Carolina. Sigh. I can remember so much. So much London-ness. And I love it all.

Oh Scout. I like watching you grow. I like to play Triominoes with you just like my mom played with me. I like framing your exceptional artwork drawings around our home. I like seeing how you have overcome your fear of Magnus and now you call him your little buddy instead of running from him while screaming. I like dreaming about your future and hanging out with you in your present. I like being your mom.

Happy Birthday Six Year Old.

Love,

Mommy

Not Yet Two

That second year of every child's life is supposed to be the killer one, right? I mean, the year has gotten so bad historically that someone gave the entire 365 days a special name - The Terrible Two's.

I don't have any two-year-olds living in my house right now. But I have this one kid, who is NOT two, mind you, who spent her day trying to live like a legendary Terrible Two.

After breakfast I stepped into the bathroom. (Uh-oh. I should know better than to do that, right?) When I emerged, mere mili-seconds later, I heard Piper making interesting sounds in the other part of our house. I walked down the hall and noticed that the door to the kids' bathroom was shut and the Piper Finn noises were coming from behind a closed door. Never good. Piper was sitting on the floor holding two saltine crackers, one graham cracker and two lollipops. What? I let her finish the graham cracker (it was already half-consumed anyway) and confiscated the saltines and the lollipops.

A short time later while I was nursing Otto a few summer staffers dropped in for a quick visit. I could see all of the children at the art table, playing with stamps and creating birthday cards with our guests. I must have blinked or something. When Piper stood up from the table her arms were brown. From marker. Lots of marker.

Otto spits up, I take him into his room to change his clothes and when I come out of the room Piper is standing at the kitchen counter, ferociously chewing several pieces of gum. Uh, I sound like a really distracted parent right now. But I'm telling you, Piper has never even touched the gum/candy bowl that has been sitting in the same place on our counter since she we moved here over a year ago.

After happily spitting her gum in the trash can she bounds off for another room and comes back wearing my Canon digital camera around her neck. Umm, bad idea.

(This is really just one morning with just one kid.)

Maybe some time passes, I don't even know any longer. Mosely comes running in to tell me that Piper has discovered the toilet bowl scrub brush and is scrubbing the toilet. I go investigate. Apparently, by "scrubbing the toilet" Mosely meant "splashing toilet water all over the bathroom floor". Nice.

Other bizarre events might or might not have occurred later in the day. It's all a blur to me right now.

Terrible Two's? I don't think I'm ready for this.

My Boy!

Guess who finally discovered his own thumb?

I guess he is a Keigley after all.

Framily

Framily.

It's not a misspelling.

It's a word I like to think Kevin and I coined.

Framily.

By this word we mean - the people who are not actually related to us by blood or marriage, but we wish they were anyway. The people who we choose to surround ourselves with, spend time with, celebrate and weep with. The people who we call when we need encouragement. The people who we trust our children with. The people who don't offend us when they tell us the truth because we know the love behind the words.

That's framily.

You probably have some of those people in your life too.

For our family, the people we cherish as framily are the Wickstrums.

If you know them and if you know us, you know what I mean.

This family has been there, just plain and simply been there, for our family. More times than I could ever begin to count.

I met them when I was in high school. When their youngest was just joining the clan himself. (And now that baby is a grown up.)

They trusted me to babysit their children. (Although I think I gave them many occasions to question my efficiency in this department - uh, video proof is not necessary, but it does exist.)

They wrote me letters in college and sent care packages to combat any homesickness I might have endured. (I still have a letter from Jesse, drawings from Austin and a personally designed homemade barbecue sauce label from Erik.)

The summer I was dumped by my college love Chuck, Emma and Sally and I crushed ground chuck beef with a vengeance in his dishonor.

They embraced Kevin as soon as they met him and they even let Kevin and I live in their house for a few months after we were married and in between houses. Later, we moved back to the farm and spent so many idyllic years raising goats and marking our summers as officially beginning when the suburban with Florida tags pulled in the dusty drive.

Each child who joined our home was loved and welcomed as another extended family member.

When my own sweet mother passed away, Sally listened and we cried and we mourned (and we still do) and she generously stepped up to a different role for me as a surrogate mother.

When good times rolled, the Wickstrums have rejoiced with us. When hard times hang on us, they have reached out to meet both physical and emotional needs.

This is such an incomplete list. I haven't talked about weddings. (Austin as a little ring bearer; Emma as a bridesmaid; Riley as a flower girl; London and Mosely as flower girls.) And I haven't mentioned how every additional family member, through birth or marriage, is an incredible and wonderful part of the whole mix now too. And I know I am doing an inadequate job at singing the praises of our framily.

I mean, Emma is with Riley in Africa right now, for goodness sake.

I think I am saying this . . . . I am glad/grateful/overjoyed/amazed/humbled at what framily means to us.

And I hope you have some framily too.