PBnJ5 Adventures

We made it home! Well, we made it back to the place where our life is. Our home is parked outside of Houston at some wonderful friends property. We are so thankful it is being watched after by people we trust. The boys did a great job sleeping in a hotel and an awesome job flying. They are such little troopers through the airport. I am so thankful to be over the “screaming baby on a plane” phase. Now we are fully involved in the “don’t kick the seat in front of you” phase, also not a great one.

Three things I find humorous and a little unsettling is how many comments we get when people see all three of the boys together in settings like airports. The comments people make, “oh wow, you must be busy” or ” you sure have your hands full”, or my favorite “three boys, that’s trouble”. First of all, duh – you don’t think I know how tired I am trying to keep up with them!! Second – yes I am herding a small herd of dinosaurs, watch out. And finally – don’t give the boys any ideas telling me horror stories, they are listening! I am sure we are quality entertainment. I love to people watch, and if I saw us coming I would watch and snicker and smile too, don’t think I don’t see you people.

I have been mulling this post over in my mind trying to think of what I really wanted to say. Now that we are back and seeing family and friends I know that question of “How has it been?” is going to come. I have been struggling with how to answer that question honestly. Sure, the easy answer is “it has been good”. And to be fair that is what I will say to some people. But if I am brutally honest that is not a very true representation of our last month. It has hands down been one of the hardest things we have ever done. When I think about what other hard things we have gone through that I could compare it to I can only think of one. Three years ago when Dad was very sick, we were closing the family business of 30 years, saying goodbye to my dad, and trying to raise a 6 month old and a 2 year old, that was harder. But I didn’t choose to go through that season of life, it was a different kind of hard, so in my mind it gets a different classification.

I knew this journey would be hard, how could it not be. Selling a house and moving is hard enough. But when you move into an RV that is constantly having issues, dealing with small kids who are trying to navigate huge life change, and driving away from everything you have known for 30 plus years it adds up. Starting out in November when cold weather is moving across the country is a rough time to start. We have dealt with wind and cold every where we have been. In my mind before we left I was trying to process how to deal with three boys in a very small space. My go to response was just open the door and let them go play. That has not been our experience. I underestimated how much getting to know our surroundings and how each campsite would be so different would play a role as much as the weather. Some sites are great and there is good dirt to dig in right outside the door. Others are concrete and right next to roads within the complex that are busy. Sometimes the neighbors look a little shady and I feel uneasy having them outside by themselves, and then other times it is so unbelievably cold they won’t go outside. There are days the walls of the RV feel like they are closing in. Oh wait, that literally happened! There seems to be something new that pops up with the RV that needs to be fixed every single day. Whether it is drawers that won’t stay shut, or a pipe that backs up and then freezes and breaks, or needing a new shower head, or the door that doesn’t shut right, or the entire freaking slide-out and bunk that decide not to work for 6 days (and still have issues). The underlying stress of what is gonna happen next starts to build. I am not sure how you prep for that. Figuring out how much travel we can handle and how much we can see and do before everyone hits the exhaustion wall has been a sharp learning curve as well. We thought we could drive about 6 hours a day when we started – hahaha – we are down to 100 miles every other day. Between the packing up, travel, trying to see something and then setting up at a new RV site it’s exhausting and we are still figuring it out.

On top of those things, the hardest part has been figuring out life with the boys. I think we underestimated how much the change and the stress of moving and traveling would have on them. It has been the hardest month of parenting to date bar none. I have never felt like more of a failure as a mother than I have in this past month. When the intent of this trip was to spend more time with the boys and develop good deep relationships with them I feel like I have failed. It seems like I have done nothing but discipline them, deal with attitude, and tell them to stop hitting each other 1 million times a day. Lack of sleep doesn’t help, and the small space and no way to separate anyone is killer. Every night at bed time I pray that we will be better tomorrow than we were today in every way, and then the next night I would pray it again. Thinking back on the day and feeling like I was worse than the day before makes the failure creep in a little more.

I would be lying to you if I said Luke and I hadn’t looked at each other and said “What the crap are we doing here?” and considered driving home. We didn’t think it would be quite like this. We must be doing it wrong. Where is the slowing down, and the relaxing and enjoying the moments with the boys that we want so badly. We have books that haven’t been read, journals that haven’t been written in, devotional books that we wanted to read with the boys that have not been touched. When does that part happen? When does it start to get more fun and not just swimming in logistics? When do we laugh and enjoy each other again? This isn’t what I thought we signed up for. Surely we are missing something.

So it would seem we regret our decision and we made a huge mistake. Honestly, no. Could we have stayed in our comfy little house and kept our easy peaceful little life just the way that it was and have been happy? Sure. Do I miss my couch, my alone time, and my personal space? Every single day! But I also know that we don’t grow if we aren’t challenged, and we don’t change if we aren’t pushed, and we can’t reach our potential if we don’t do something different. Is this way more challenging and character building that we ever thought it was going to be? YES! A thousand times yes! But if I take a step back and force myself to find the good it is there.

The boys are learning to be better friends and their relationships as brothers are changing in good ways. They are learning new things and are getting so savvy about things that most kids 5 and under have no idea about when it comes to travel. Their world is being expanded and they are seeing and experiencing new things. They are learning how to sit still and eat in a restaurant, which is honestly the best thing ever. And they are learning what it means to be part of the family and act like a team, and that is a lesson that I want them to learn for the rest of their lives.

So what have I learned about myself? I better hurry and write it down so I can say I learned that and not have to do it again in life, right? 🙂 I would say I have learned I am tougher than I thought I was. I can handle more than I give myself credit for. And yet I know that I am weak and helpless without the strength of my Savior. He gets me through every single moment of every day and every moment of every night that I am awake (which is a lot). I am weak but in His strength I am made strong. I have learned that I have the best partner in the world and that together we can conquer almost anything. We haven’t turned on each other, for the most part, but have continued to work as a team. I am so thankful for the husband that God has given me. Even if he has crazy ideas that land us in the middle of Texas wondering what the heck we did to ourselves. I know that God has a lot in store for us as we continue on this journey. It may not be something big and flashy that everyone can see, but I know that the growth that will happen inside our family and in our hearts will be worth the pain and stress of the day to day survival.

So we will enjoy our time at home with family. Enjoy the space of being in a house. Cherish Grandma and family helping with the boys, and watch the wonder of Christmas through the eyes of my children. I will sit and rest knowing that we can be still. That we can cook in a full size kitchen, that I can sit in a comfortable chair after bedtime and have adult time, that we do not sway in the wind while we sleep and most importantly no “atorn” bombs dropping on our heads all night. There will be more time for that soon. For now I need to be still and rest in the joy and celebration of the birth of my Savior.

Live your Adventure,

Julie