The Quiddity of Continence

In the world of the Johannsens...

Atticus has finally gained mastery over peeing and pooping and is full-on potty-trained. This has been a struggle for Brad and I but, it has been Atticus who has battled this for 2 1/2 years now. I am so proud of his perseverance and this big victory. I am also thankful to not have this hanging like a weight around his neck (and thus, his parents' and our family too) as he prepares to enter kindergarten in the fall. I've been encouraged over and over by Rachel Jankovic's book Loving the Little Years -- and in one chapter she reminds me that we need to be careful to remember that all of us graduate from one set of tests, trials, struggles and on to the next. This is the way of life, in general. This is maturation. This is the way of the Christian sanctification too. It isn't just little kids fighting through one temptation and one developmental marker and one area of ignorance into light to the next. It is all of us. It is me. As a mother I have grown more spiritually, emotionally in these 5 years than I did the previous 32. The latter is also an encouragement because I so often feel like I need about 5 more years of sanctification/maturity than I currently have or I feel like I am dealing with the same sin I've been doing battle with for the last 37 years -- but now, I see the sin barf all over my four children and my husband -- the 5 people I love more than anything in the entire universe. I lay awake at night thinking about how my big ugly selfish sinfulness will affect the lives of my children now and on into the rest of their lives. Aargh!! Sanctify me, now, God! Change me, NOW!, Please, O King of my heart and mind and body and soul! I don't have time to pet this ugly thing anymore. I don't have any patience with it's wide-spreading infectious disease. Cut it out of me! Mortification of sin? Yes!!! But, then look, and see that though I may be just as tired as I was 5 years ago, as Rachel J. says, now I'm running 5 miles instead of just 1. This is true. Man, the kind of chaos and intrusion on my thinking and order and personal "space" I could have endured with grace and kindness 5 years ago is nothing, just nothing, compared with now. That said, I still want more Christ-likeness. I will fight and plead and minute by minute choose to be more patient, more kind, more cheerful, more sacrificial in the instance of each infraction on my peace and quiet and order. Because I am the mother. Because I will lay this down for my children, for this family. I will trust that fruit will come. That this is never, never, never in vain. This is worth it. These people are worth it. And I'd much rather be this frazzled and pressed and pulled and exhausted and emptied by making a home for these people, by training up and caring for these people than to be a 10th of what God wanted me to be by myself selling people books at Barnes & Noble with all the time in the world to read, write, think, walk, explore, and talk with people. Amen.

Now, not only has Atticus gotten hold of bathroom mastery, but Dietrich is having remarkable success at the beginning of this process, too! Okay, as of Sunday the 6th, Dietrich is on to day 5 with no accidents and he's pooped in the potty once. (I know, one time in five days -- that's not so good for the system, but we are trying to push fluids and get the pooping more regular, still, NO ACCIDENTS!) And this is with Gleason's Open Gym morning and a trip to Home Depot and church all Sunday morning. It's awesome. And, wonder of wonders, Lincoln has begun this whole thing too!! What?! -- No, really, he asked, I humored him, and he is doing it too. No poop success yet, but he's had some success (until he developed this nasty two-eared ear infection. As soon as he is a couple more days into his antibiotics and feeling better, we'll try again head-on.) I can scarcely believe this. And I also know enough now to not expect smooth sailing on into potty train-ed-ness for them both. Still. I will take encouragement and a few less diaper changes where I can, and be glad. Deke and Lincoln are so amazingly excited about their underwear-ed butts and all the attention they are getting. Atticus has been completely encouraging and excited for them. So happy for his brothers -- that kind of attitude and camaraderie just gladdens my heart even more. I am trying to make a big deal about Atticus' successes too and also be super positive whenever there is a slip up for any one of them. I won't make that mistake again -- our negative over-reactions set Atticus back so very much. Sigh. So with my trusty timer, a big roll of Chlorox wipes, and a friendly washing machine, we four go out into the continent foray! (-:

Another encouragement came to us last weekend when Brad's dad came to stay at our house while he had business downtown. In conversation one night, we all discovered we had a date wrong for his February business trip SO...[drum roll!] Brad and I get to attend the LAbri conference down in Rochester for Valentine's weekend!! We have gone to stay at the grand old Kahler hotel downtown there for the two-day theology/philosophy meeting every year but one. As we have had more kids, Brad folks have kindly taken the older non-nursing kids which has grown into a huge gift for us -- as there are less people able to tackle all three boys. Thank you, Nancy & Tom!!! So this Thursday, Brad, Thea Belle and I and a whole two nights and two days of thinking, listening, writing, conversing, meeting people, being with my best friend and littlest bird. Hooray! (And a movie and dinner on a Friday night too!)

And I must say that for all my hesitations and inward wrestling, our church Jubilee Community has been such an encouragement too. There is just this real and true fellowship there -- an "easy" kind of conversation that jumps right into the real things. I really like the mix of people there (though I wish we had way way way more old people -- "old" in our church is my parents' ages -- though I would love a few close everyday friends who are there too...). Such a wide range of kinds of people...and yet these last few months we have met such great people -- and even though we are in a difficult stage to extend hospitality -- there have been some people who are brave enough to come to our house -- and Brad and I LOVE getting to really know them and for our children to get to know them. I love that there are so many people so different from ourselves at our church and also people who we feel like are from the same "Gonzo-Planet" or at least in the same solar system (-: as us. Anyway...I am glad that God used Brad to "make" us be at Jubilee (even when I get the itchy-question-jumpy-I-don't-know-itis and want to go looking for the elusive community of "Church Eldorado"). 

This is becoming pretty long. I want to get down some of what I have been learning about attitude and different way to approach this new place I am in, but it is mostly about my attitude. I have started looking at each day as a pop quiz. I don't know what the questions are going to be, though I am pretty sure I've seen them a few hundred (thousand) times already. And there is no way to be thoroughly ready. BUT I can pay attention, gather my thoughts, pray hard and jump in joyfully ready for the challenge. Man, I loved school. I really did. I love learning and collecting and organizing. I loved having that neat, tidy syllabus -- here is what you need to do, here is what you need to know. Do it. Well, this life does not have a concise syllabus exactly, but God is not a capricious teacher either. I had a couple decades to study His Word. I had a couple decades to read mountains of books and ask the same questions over and over in concentric circles until I dug in and bore down and pinned down as much as God would reveal to me. It isn't over now. This is the part of the course where I have to apply all that theory. It is like in college when after 3 years of classes like chemistry, cell-biology, genetics, physics, and anatomy I got to take human physiology and have my own human body to dissect. Now all those classes all converged, all coalesced into this unified system all working together to give me a context to see the body work all together as a complete organism. Just beautiful. So that is kind of what my life is right now -- a living, hands-on practicum of Reality, Theology, and Philosophy. And it is the freakin' hardest class I've ever pulled a yoke under. I can fall down in a useless, tragic blob onto the floor twitching under the weight of it. Or I can call out to God -- Take this and old me up, pull me in and on and under and through it! and then I can bear down and pull with all that I am. Did I really ask for God to teach me "Life", to teach me "Reality", to teach me "To Love" and "Know" Humanity, People, even One Other Soul? Yes! Did I ask Him to MAKE ME LIVE FULL TILT and DEEP ON? Yes! And so now here I am. This is the choice I have -- am I going to take the weight of this life and let it dig into my shoulders and let that thing happen when you've been running hard for a few miles and it hurts and you want to just stop moving and you can't do it, and then miraculously, you can do it, and you keep moving and your legs stop hurting and your lungs stop stinging -- or maybe they don't but you are feeling something else higher and deeper and better. You haven't escaped, you've just gone deeper into the thing-ness of that thing. The Quiddity of it. That's where I am. That's what I am trying to fight for with each diaper change, each fight I mediate, each heart I try to understand and love and teach, each sinkful of dishes I wash, each load of laundry I fold and put away. And with that, a fitting way to end this word session -- one of the kids has woken from his nap crying -- need to go and be fully there with him.