Traveling From Me to We

As a single man, I was extremely independent.  I've been washing my own laundry since I was 8 years old.  I learned to cook for a household of guys simply by opening up my mom's cookbook and having at it.  When I was 21 I drove myself to Estes Park, CO, to work at the YMCA of the Rockies for the summer.  I stopped three times only because I needed to fill up on fuel.  All that to say, I lived pretty simply and relied on few.

When I got married, things changed a little, but together we lived a very simple life and could drop everything on a whim and take a trip for a day, a weekend, or even longer if we so desired.  Nothing could tie us down too easily.

That all changed March 14th, 2014 when Reese and Sienna decided to abruptly change our wandering ways.  I learned very quickly that having a child means everything you plan to do takes much longer.  Add in the fact that we have twins, and a trip to the store for a few groceries has to be planned to perfection.

The past four months have been a great exercise in trial and error.  We have had some very unfortunate failures when leaving home with overly tired girls who then fussed through our entire Meijer run.  We've learned that it is absolutely essential that you time things perfectly so that both girls are not hungry nor overly tired.  In fact, it is best if you time it just right so that they are ready to take a nap, fall asleep in the car and then you carefully transfer them to the stroller and batten down the hatches so that no stray stream of light can slip through.

I'd like to think that we had a good rhythm going, so we decided why not up the ante.  It was time to take our first family vacation.

Up until this point, the farthest we had traveled was an hour and a half to my parents.  Sometimes the girls slept the entire way.  Other times we messed up and they were pretty fussy.  So needless to say, the 6.5 hour trip to northern Michigan was not going to be for the faint of heart.

The interesting thing about when you have twins (or any baby for that matter, I assume) is that your thoughts completely change from "What do I need?" to "What do the babies need?"  We planned for weeks all that we were going to need to raise our girls outside of the comforts of our home.  The day before we packed, repacked, made a list, checked it twice (anybody thinking about Christmas now?), and after everything for our girls was ready, we decided we better throw some clothes and toiletries together for ourselves.  We got everything in our car and left only a few small items to get ready the next morning so we could feed, diaper, clothe and head out the door all in stride.

Our girls were champs.  They had slept for a full night (from 8:00-5:00) and by the time we got a few miles down the road, they were sound asleep.

Things looked good. We were on schedule and everything was going according to plan.  Then it started raining.

You may ask, "So what, what's the big deal about a little bit of rain?"  Normally I would say the same thing.  I am a very comfortable driver in any weather/traffic condition.  However, we had been putting off buying new tires for months, and with the heavy rains that came, I could sense our car on the verge of hydroplaning.  Now as a single guy, I would have been up for the challenge of maneuvering a car pretending it was walking on water.  And as a newlywed, I was too cheap and strapped for cash to not push the last thousandth of a millimeter on our treads to the brink of extinction.  But as a dad of two very precious, vulnerable girls, I could put my family at risk no longer.

So an hour into our trip, not even 3/4 of the way through Chicago, I pulled off and bit the bullet (a surprisingly expensive bullet at $800) to replace our tires.

Sitting in a Discount Tires in Countryside, completely soaked from running our two girls into the store, I thought about how our plans had gotten derailed.  Why had I been so stubborn and put this off for so long?  I had checked the oil, the tire pressure, filled the wiper fluid reservoir, changed the wiper blades, and double checked the cargo box and bungees tying down our bikes several times.  Even as I sat frustrated for being so foolish, my girls couldn't help but brighten my day.  Sometimes we plan and plan and plan, but inevitably a wrench is thrown in.  Only God knows His plans for us.  But isn't that comforting?  How cool is it that the creator of the universe knows me so intimately as to the hairs on my head and the amount of breaths I will breath in this life!?!  As a flawed, poorly-prioritizing human, I would much rather have a holy and perfect God in control of my plans.

As we pulled back onto the highway, I hoped things were on the up and up.  We were still in the middle of the storm, but I hoped we would outrun it soon as we turned north heading into Michigan.  In fact we did get ahead of the storm.  Unfortunately that's exactly when our girls decided it was time to feed.

We pulled off at a rest stop as we crossed into Michigan.  As busy as the place was, we decided our best bet was to park far from everyone else and feed and change the girls in the car.  As Julianne started to feed the the first girl, the rains caught up to us.  When I say caught up, it actually seemed more like we were in our own private Ark (hey we even had the whole two-by-two thing going on).  Trying to avoid getting soaked a second time, I opted to grab the other baby in the car seat by reaching around my own.  I then managed to change each girl on a pillow in my lap.  Quarters were tight, but we were happy and dry (in more ways than one).

Traveling the rest of the way was rainy for the most part.  Because we had stopped for an extra hour to get new tires, our girls required one more feeding an hour from our cabin, which made our grand total of time to come to 8.5 hours of travel.  This was not the perfect start to our first attempt at vacationing with twins.

When we got to our cabin, my parents, sister, brother-in-law and niece were already there and unpacked.  They saved a room for us that happened to have a rocking chair in it, which was perfect for our feedings, but it also happened to be a very tight fit.  After setting up both of our girls' Pack 'N Plays, we had little room to maneuver about.  Nonetheless, we weren't planning on spending much time there, and we were just happy to be mere feet from the clearest body of freshwater I had ever seen.

Most of the week was spent sleeping in, grabbing a kayak or paddle-board and heading out on the lake.  We hiked the mile long trail to Lake Michigan with our girls through mosquito infested woods, went on many beautiful walks in Sleeping Bear Dunes National Lakeshore, and even hiked up the most incredible dunes I've ever seen (seriously, they were hundreds of feet high and over a mile and a half wide!).

Our girls did great.  During the day they enjoyed playing and kicking around in a $10 baby tent we found at a garage sale.  At night, they graciously gave us the longest stretches of sleep we've experienced yet with twins.  They even allowed us to go out for a night with our siblings as Nana and Papa watched all three of their grandchildren.  


Our trip home went perfectly as planned.  We left early in the morning after packing the night before.  Our girls slept the entire first stretch.  We stopped midway as they started stirring, refueled our cars and our babes, and headed out for the last leg home.  We made it back to West Dundee with two sleeping babes after a 6.5 hour drive.  It's nice when reality matches your plans perfectly (only because I like to say that I knew what was going to happen all along).

All in all, it was a much needed trip away, if only to show that we could do it.  Raising twins (as with any baby) can be difficult and change your life dramatically.  But blessed trips away with family are still completely possible and even bring a new found excitement to them.  I can't wait to explore all the corners of this country with my girls (and other future children, God willing).  I can't wait to show them how to read a map and follow along with where we are going.  I can't wait to see their faces light up when they first see the Rocky Mountains rising up over the Colorado plains, or witness their first dolphin jumping out of the Gulf waters in Florida.  I can't wait to teach them all the fun road games to play as we delve deeper into the American heartland, or listen to the newest bestselling book on CD as a family as we pass the time together.  Overall, I can't wait to share with my kids the many wonderful experiences I was given as a child to see this great world, all the while driving home the importance of family.  This trip to Northern Michigan was a great first step in that direction.

Much Needed Time Away

***(Before I start, you may think that as a dad of two babies that require a lot of attention and energy, time away is a necessity.  However, I am a homebody and struggle with being away from home and especially my wife and girls.  Despite that, this experience showed why time away can unexpectedly be a blessing in disguise.)***

As a football coach, there are many duties required of us that pull us away from our families.  Practices during the week run till about 5 or 6 o'clock.  Games on Friday nights mean we won't see our families most likely till Saturday mornings.  And those glorious Saturday mornings we all desire to sleep in are spent breaking down film and getting a team workout in.  Even summers are not completely free for the teacher/coach, as most of the non-education world believes.  We spend weeks preparing for the season ahead with lifting, camps, 7-on-7's and other team activities.  Needless to say, our families are extremely understanding of all that is required of us as coaches.  

So when I told my wife that we had an overnight team camp at beautiful Augustana College in the Quad Cities and that I was going to be away for a few days, my wife was not surprised.  Nonetheless, this was a big milestone for our family.  This would be the first time that I was away from my girls for more than 10 hours since they were born.  Many people asked me if my wife was going to be okay, if she had a bunch of help with the girls.  I just laughed because she is supermom and can handle just about anything with our bundles of joy.  Little did they know that the one who really needed the help was me.

I may not show it very often, but I am a big softy at heart.  My girls truly brighten my day.  Leaving them was very hard for me.  Even though it was only one night (I came back a day early, as Wednesday was our four year anniversary), this was a big step for us.

Still, I could use the sleep.  As a guy who normally slept 8-9 hours straight pre-babies, I had to admit that a night away with full sleep sounded a little enticing.  

So when I left for camp at 5:30 Monday morning, I kissed my girls (who happened to be up feeding) and wife and reminded her to send me lots of snapchats.  I also reminded her (who am I kidding, I was really reassuring myself) that it was only going to be one night away.

The drive was long and lonely.  Since I was coming back early, I drove the 2-1/2 hour trip alone.  At 7:30, I desperately wanted to talk to my wife to see how she and the girls were doing, but I restrained myself.  It had been a tough few days prior to leaving and I knew my wife needed the extra sleep.

So after an hour and a half I finally broke down and called her.  She was up and enjoying the morning to herself while the girls continued to sleep extremely well.  

When we got to camp, we were running a bit behind so we threw our gear in our dorm rooms and headed straight down to the stadium for our first practice.  The rest of that day and night as well as the following day were extremely jam packed.  I think I got a total of an hour to myself.  It was good to be with the guys working on something that I truly love.

But if I'm being completely honest, my heart wasn't completely in it.  Don't get me wrong, I joined this profession because I love teaching and coaching and working with young men.  I love the camaraderie of a tight-knit group of guys united under the common bond of football.  Nonetheless, I couldn't stop thinking about my family back home.  

Julianne sent me some awesome pictures of the girls, and they always brightened my day.  I found myself constantly looking to my phone to see if a new one had come in.  As guilty as I felt for not completely being "there" with the team, it was a real comfort to get updates from home.

When 6:00 on Tuesday evening rolled around, I was extremely ready to head home.  As I headed out of the Quad Cities, it took everything within me to not have a lead foot to get home (I foolishly got a speeding ticket a few weeks ago and was not up for paying another $150 for a ticket and traffic class; BTW: when did tickets get so expensive!?!).

As I did the math for figuring when I would be home, my heart sank a little.  I realized after stopping for dinner and getting out of a little bit of traffic, I wasn't going to be home till close to 10:00, which meant my girls were already going to be asleep.  I know in my last post I said that with twins you can break the "Never wake a sleeping baby" rule, but that's only if one is up and ready to feed.

When I pulled in, I felt peace.  I was home with the people I love, and just knowing that our proximity was condensed to a few feet gave me comfort.  I went inside, kissed my wife, and we got ready for bed.

After I was ready for bed, I felt antsy.  How could I go to bed knowing that the two little ones I hadn't seen or kissed in over 40 hours were in the room right next to me!?!

So even though it is not best practice in child-rearing, I decided to sneak in and give them the slightest of kisses.  Not even the lightest of sleepers would have been able to detect how gentle and quiet I was going to be (if you know me at all, you should be laughing right now because you know that I am neither gentle nor quiet when it is absolutely necessary).

As I went in to kiss my girls, Reese opened her eyes and looked straight at me.  I was caught.  I prayed, "Please God, don't let her cry and wake the other one or let Julianne know that I had woken her up."  The next thing that happened truly changed me forever.

Remember that scene in The Grinch Who Stole Christmas where the Grinch's heart grew three sizes that day?  

I think mine grew about 100.

The light kind of blinded her, but I promise
she was smiling!

Inside that crib there in the dimly lit room, my little Reese gave me the biggest smile possible.  My little girl saw me, recognized me, and was happy to have her daddy home.  At that moment, nothing else mattered.  To my little girl, her protector, her provider, the one that makes her smile was home, and she was happy.



Seeing your children recognize you and give you a huge smile might be the most rewarding part of parenting I found yet.  I'm sure further on down the road I will love seeing my girls' first hand-drawn pictures, their first books they read, their first plays.  I can't imagine how proud I'll be seeing them find success in their studies, in athletics, in music, or whatever they find an interest in.  The day they accept Christ as their savior, I think my heart might grow a million sizes.

But for this one small moment, for this one small milestone, I couldn't be happier.  Maybe the time away, as hard as it was,  ended up being exactly what I needed to see the major blessings I have in my life.