Two Things I Learned on Tuesday

      Tuesday morning brought two interesting developments in our world.  First off, I DO NOT HAVE TB.  Apparently, I never had TB.  So this post and even mentioning it in this post is all drama.  For the last four years, I have lived with false knowledge about my life, which has mostly been a source of amusement and sort of a headache, since I have been to the TB clinic multiple times.  Glad I did the blood test and found out for sure that I do not have it.
      Secondly, on Tuesday, I went to the doctor to talk about potty training.  If you read this post, back in March, you know that we never really got anywhere.  Mostly this has not been a huge concern, and quite frankly, diapers are easier (though expensive).  However, I was beginning to realize that nothing at all was happening or helping or progressing in any way.  So, I made an appointment with our pediatrician.  I felt like we had completely stalled out, and I was at the end of ideas for what to try next. I also wanted to make sure that we were not dealing with a physical issue; I know that is a not likely, but I wanted to be certain.
      Our pediatrician (whom I adore) was so gracious and kind.  She told me that I had already tried anything she would tell a mother to try, which was encouraging news.  She ran me through the few options of what it could be physically, with the caveat that most of those were really unlikely and would usually reveal themselves in a different way.  We do have an ultrasound of her bladder and kidneys scheduled at ACH next week to be sure.
      She also confirmed what I have been thinking this whole time.  This is probably in Lily's head, and I need help learning how to motivate her.  She referred us to a child psychologist to help figure out what next steps we should take.  The doctor also said that she doesn't really start to worry about kids until after they are four and still not potty-trained, but she said since I had already done everything normally suggested with no success that it might be time for reinforcements.  So, there you have it.  We will be heading to therapy at the end of July for potty training (seems a bit ridiculous) unless something drastic happens between now and then.
      It does make me feel a bit crazy that this is the step we are on, and I am sure that this is probably some combination of my personality as well as Lily's.  It is good to know that there is someone that can help us, and hopefully, we can get started down that path.  Here goes nothing.




At this rate, it is possible that Bella will potty train around the same time as Lily.  Hopefully, she will be a bit easier - or at least, I will have a lot more tricks in my bag after having gone to therapy for it.



I love this girl so much, and if this is what it takes to get on the right track, then this is what we will do.  I have a feeling that someday we will laugh quite heartily at this.  (I hope so.)

Our Love Story: Part Two

     I know you all have been on the edge of your seats wondering what happens.  I'm here to tell the rest of the story, so you can go on with your lives.  You're welcome.

      I left off yesterday where my father had just passed away and I had graduated college all in the same week.  John was there.  More importantly, so was God.  As I look back, I can see God's merciful hand in so many ways during this time.  Amazingly, John and I had the ability to see that we needed a little down time to process things before we started a relationship.  We took the following three weeks to think and pray about what the next steps should be and also to get a little distance from the emotional whirlpool that we had been cooking in for months.  I was at home with my family during this time, and he was working a job in Chicago with his best friend.
      We were both slated to go to Northern Ireland (Me with our school's mission trip, John with our school's studies trip), so the plan was to meet up and talk there.  We are silly to plan sometimes.  We allowed ourselves to talk once a week on the phone.  During this time, I kept a journal of sorts to give to him with things I thought about him and letters to him.   I was cute like that.



      In one of our final conversations, John said he wanted, nay, needed to meet up with me before our trip, and Tulsa was the best option.  I drove the three hours, very hopeful that we would start dating at last.  Why else would he want to meet up?  We had dinner at Olive Garden in Utica Square and then walked by the river, holding hands.  It was wonderful to see one another once again, but as the evening wore on, I was starting to wonder what the urgency for meeting up was.  I started asking questions toward this end and wasn't able to get very far.  Turns out - John got really gun-shy about everything that night.  I gave him the journal and drove away, very confused and a tiny bit crushed.  (Now we look back and laugh at all of this, but at the time, it did not seem funny.)
      Thankfully God and our great friend and mentor Becci (who deserves a post all her own for what all she went through with us) were there to intervene.  When John told Becci how it all went down that night, she had some great questions for him and helped him to see past some of the enormity that he was placing on the situation.  He ended up going through the journal I made him and writing back - even collaging!  It must have been love.



And, to be fair, it was not to be taken lightly.  We knew that because of all we had been through together, starting to date meant heading down the road of marriage.  We were already serious, before we had really begun, which is a hard place to start out.  So, the next time we saw each other, in Northern Ireland, (after another enormous bout of drama that included me losing my passport, having to get a new one in 48 hours and flying two days behind the rest of the team) John was ready to ask me to officially date him.  And the heavens opened up with singing.
      After having had a crush on him for almost 1.5 years by this point, I said "yes."  We had some other hardships on that trip, so much so that that is where we coined the phrase "The John and Carol Show." It felt that we were continually adding to the drama.  However, things settled, and midway through the trip, when our teams were traveling together, we had our first kiss.  It was while we were sitting in a tree, over a waterfall, on a mountain in Northern Ireland.  Someone took this picture, and then everyone else moved on.  He leaned in, and it was perfect.  It is nice to have that dreamy moment to look back on in the midst of so many harder ones.



I think that is the day we started to fall in love with traveling together.  We got to see so many amazing places.  (how young do we look?  I guess that is what nine years will do.)



The rest of our dating relationship had its ups and downs, just as anyone else's.  However, at the beginning, we made a deal that we would not ever break up and get back together.  And, though there were a few times where breaking up would have been an easy out, I am so glad that we never did.  We stuck through it.  John proposed in October 2004, and we were married in April of 2005.  I never would have written a story like this for myself, but our gracious God knows what we need.  He knew that we needed to start out in a hard way, and honestly, it paved the way for an easy first few years of marriage.  There were no real surprises, because we had seen each other through some true difficulties.

So thankful.

Our Love Story: Nine Years Dating Today

      Nine years ago today, while in Northern Ireland, John and I started to officially date one another.  I've realized that this blog is a great way to chronicle stories from our life, and I thought this one was worth writing down.  I have great hopes that someday the kiddos will want to hear more about us and want to read this kind of stuff.  We shall see.
      We don't have a typical falling in love dreamy kind of story.  Sometimes I mourn that, but more often, I am grateful that God knows better than I do what kind of story he wants to write in our lives.

Here goes.

      We probably met sometime in the fall of 2000, though neither of us would be able to recall when.  As students at a small Christian college, our awareness of one another on campus was almost inevitable.  Most people knew most people, so we knew of one another.  John actively disliked me for a  while, and I don't actually blame him for this.  One of my friends and I wrote a column for a school publication called "The Toilet Paper" that was actually hung in every bathroom on campus.  Yes, we were that cool.  Our column was called "Rudimentary Romance," and we basically used it as a vehicle to espouse our views that the guys at our school should be more interested in dating and less interested in rock climbing, or something brilliant like that.  We also answered "readers" questions that we solicited from our friends.  I wish I had some copies of those writings because I am sure the entertainment factor would be extremely high with hindsight.
      Needless to say, John thought I was annoying.  Which was accurate.  Sometimes it is still accurate.  We also had the same major, so we had classes together occasionally.  Unfortunately, I was also annoying in class.  I was that girl that attended class 50% of the time if that was what was required to pass, and I managed to still earn high marks, much to the displeasure of someone like John who has always been hard-working and responsible.  Someone as flighty as me would not draw his attention in a positive way.
      We both dated other people in college, though nobody real seriously.  Between my sophomore and junior year, my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer.  9/11 came a few months later, and I was, quite frankly, a mess.  I was also very involved in student ministries at the time, and John was as well.  In fact, John was Mr. Super Involved.  He was "that guy" on campus.  The one that everyone knew and liked.  (come to think of it, he is still "that guy."  how did I get so lucky?)  He was in charge of a children's ministry in a very poor neighboring town.  Very swoon-worthy.  By the spring of my junior year, I had a huge crush on this guy that I was sort of friends with.  He had no inkling and certainly no thoughts of reciprocation.
      What I didn't know is that things were hard in John's world, too.  His parents were going through a separation (they have since reconciled, by God's grace, and are an amazing example of clinging to God and your marriage vows), and he was stressed by the amount of responsibility that he had taken on top of being a student.  We were both sort of a wreck.  Perfect time to become friends, which we did.  
      During my senior year (John's junior year, since he is a year behind me.  I am a cradle robber.), we had a ton of classes together, since we were both completing out our major work.  We started to become real friends.  We would stay up late doing homework together.  Annotated bibliographies are so romantic.  We would commiserate on the harsh realities of our current situations.  We would laugh and get ice cream from Wal-Mart at 2 a.m.  By that spring, most people at our school would regularly assume that we were dating.  Which was not true.
      We did do crazy things like go cliff-jumping in February.  It was really cold.

We did a double date with some of our best friends, hoping that they would start dating.  This was "Future Career Night."  Steph and Brian are married now, and she is actually a doctor per the plan.  Since my plan at that time was to be a Princess at Disney World (how super realistic of me), that is how John and I are dressed.  Some times life doesn't work out as we plan.

We basically hung out all the time together.  Which was super fun, though it did get rather annoying to continue to tell people that we were not dating.

Eventually we addressed the obvious; we were "in Like" with one another.  By April, there was a bit of passionate hand holding, but we knew it wasn't the time to try to figure things out between us.  You see, my dad was dying.  John came home with me on the last Easter weekend I spent with my father and got to meet him, which is something I will forever cherish.  When I got the call to come home for the last time, there was no real question.  John came with me and was there with our family on the morning that my dad went to heaven.
      It is a bit surreal to think about even now.  How my best friend/future husband got to be there at the worst time in my life.  He saw the ugly.  He walked with me through it, graciously.  I graduated from college later that week, and he was there for all of that, too.  Amazing.

Well, this story has gotten a bit long-winded, so I am going to break it up and tell the rest tomorrow!

(Click HERE to read the rest!)

Arkansas Safari

      Yesterday we headed to a Drive-Thru Safari in Gentry, AR to check out the animals.  We made it on our way home from Wichita, though it did mean an extra hour in the car with the ladies.  It was worth it.  This little crazy gem of a place was quite a treat for our family.  Once we realized that it wasn't going to rain all over our faces, we told the girls we were going.  Lily asked specifically to see "pigs," "bunnies," "cows," and "baby cows."  Low standards - she had no idea what was in store for her.
      We first spent time in the petting yards, where animals and children roam free together.  There are lots of signs posted about how they are not liable for accidents and how you should not give any animal an opportunity to bite, scratch or harm you.  Got that, young children?  John bought some food, which made us popular.




The bunnies were very popular with the girls.  The girls were not as popular with the bunnies.  Then, we got to meet a baby baboon.  You read that correctly - a baby baboon.  I was beside myself.  John likes to go to this stuff, because I spaz out almost as much, if not more than, our children.



The baby baboon did not want to be held by me.  When Lily was asked if she wanted to pet it, she said, "Bella should pet it."  Way to put your sister into perceived harm's way.  Then, the tiny little baboon jumped onto the stroller, which Bella did not take well, and that was the end of the fun with the baboon.



Next up - kangaroos and their babies that were laying in the field since it was apparently their nap time.




Luke, Ellen and True were along for this adventure as well, since it is near Siloam Springs, where they live.  We walked past more pens and saw emus, more monkeys, turtles and more.  The place really does have an amazing selection of animals, though True was not impressed.

Next up, the drive-thru portion of the safari.  You hope in your own vehicle and drive at your own pace through the Arkansas wilderness taking in big cats, bears, lots more monkey (they are all in cages), and lots of deer, buffalo, zebras and camels roaming wild throughout.  We kept our windows down (breaking the rules) until the emu came near.  They look as though they would peck your face off.









      I almost titled this post "Love in the Wild," since we saw our fair share of animals mating.  I guess it is that time of year, or they are bored, or, well, I don't really know.  The best was the ostrich doing a mating dance.  Sorry, no pictures of any of that.  We try to keep the blog PG rated.
      The girls enjoyed hanging with cousin True - they both did a good job holding him before it was time to say goodbye, though Bella does seem to be pondering what she should do with him.

If you are in the NW Arkansas area, I highly recommend the Gentry Wilderness Safari.  It was a great time!