Parenting can be ROUGH.

There are times in parenting where everything is sunshine and lollipops but, to be honest, most days are filled with a lot of hair pulling and silent prayers offered up for my sanity. Case in point:

This month–amongst the lack of schedule and routine that is knowns as “summer”–we’ve been struggling with this little thing called “bedtime”. I don’t know if you’ve heard of it, because apparently my children have NOT. Bedtime is supposed to be this magical time of the night where children go into their rooms and nod off so their parents can get an hour or two ALONE so they can muster up the courage to face another day in the morning.

Someone forgot to tell my kids about the whole “stay in your bed and sleep” part of bedtime, though, and recently we’ve had a few eventful nights as a result.

A few weeks ago on my birthday, for instance, Jon and I were sitting on the couch in our living room watching a movie after “bedtime” when we heard a knock on our door. “Strange,” we thought, “Who would be coming to our house at 9:00 on a Wednesday night?” Turns out it was a Good Samaritan neighbor who had been walking his dog when saw two NAKED boys playing in our pitch-black front yard. The boys claimed that they came from a zoo, but Good Sam could see right through their ruse and thought it best to try and locate some parental figures. Turns out it was our children, who had sneaked out the back door, removed a loose board in our fence, walked through the neighbors yard to the sidewalk, and eventually found their way to our front yard. As for the nakednes of said children, I can’t even fathom.

After getting the fence repaired we had some peace of mind about the boys’ late-night wanderings–even though they still managed to break out of the back door several times before I caught on to the idea of setting booby traps (an ironing board leaned against the inside of the door that makes a disruptive crashing noise when the door is opened has proved quite effective.). Now that the boys are relatively contained to the interior of our house, however, we’re still facing the fact that they will. Not. SLEEP.

Last week the boys came out of their room at bedtime so many times that I was starting to feel like we were participating in marching band practice. Back and forth, back and forth, back and forth, backandforthbackandforthbackandforth…

Then there was the night that I went in to check on them before I went to bed and they were sleeping peacefully in their closet. On the upper shelves of their closet, that is (Don’t worry, they’d brought their pillows and blankets up there with them. They actually looked quite cozy.).

But the events of two nights ago took the cake. After however many nights of this not-a-bedtime charade I was exhausted and I just wanted to go to bed at a decent hour for once. At about 9:30 I did my final check and the boys were awake, but each was laying quietly in their own beds. I counted this as a victory and decided to hit the sack. After all, how much trouble could they get in? (Famous last words, right?)

Around midnight I was awoken by the shaking of my bed–at first I thought it was an earthquake so I sat bolt upright and, in a daze, took in my surroundings. Turns out it was even worse than an earthquake: the children were still awake (and bouncing on my bed, naked of course.). When I brought them back to their room I surveyed the damage: An entire box of Pull-Ups (that we’d bought at Costco that morning) was strewn about the room (we’re talking, Pull-Ups hanging from the fan and used as mattress stuffing); every article of clothing they own was piled into Mount Wardrobe in the center of the room; the drawer pulls had all been pulled off of their dresser drawers and thrown in miscellaneous places (including, but not limited to: the windowsill, under the dresser, inside socks, and inside the diaper pail); an entire box of TEN THOUSAND MILLION toothpicks were scattered about the floor; and several empty food boxes littered the landscape. It was Armageddon.

So I did what any self-respecting parent would do: After my head stopped spinning circles around my neck and my eyeballs popped back into their sockets, I backed out of the room and shut the door so I wouldn’t say or do anything that might end up in the local newspaper’s Police Beat. Then I promptly got on Amazon to check their selection of child tranquilizers and muzzles. (Just kidding. Sort of. You’d be amazed what deals you can get with Amazon Prime…)

The next morning we spent HOURS cleaning up The Mess…and then we moved on with our lives. Because, really, in the scheme of things bedtime disasters are just a drop in the bucket. By dinnertime both boys were begging me to go to bed–it turns out pulling all-nighters is not for the faint of heart. Or for toddlers.

So here’s the big takeaway: If you are a new parent with a baby who keeps you up all night, just know that it won’t get better for a long, looooooong time…If you are a veteran parent who struggles with your own children–be it bedtime or convincing them to wear clothing in public or whatever their particular “poison” is–know that you are NOT ever alone…and if you don’t have young children at home: help us! Every one of us parents-in-the-trenches needs you!

Power on, parents, power on. And get some sleep, now, will you?

In a few days Jon and I will be embarking on a monumental parenting adventure: our first vacation without our children. That’s right, folks. No. Kids. For 8 days. Pinch me now, because I still don’t believe it’s actually happening.

This is no small feat, and we wouldn’t even consider making this happen unless there was a darn good reason–and a good reason we have. In fact, we have 10 phenomenal reasons. You see, in a few short weeks Jon and I will be celebrating our tenth wedding anniversary. Ten YEARS. Holy moly, how did that happen?! That means that I’ve spent nearly a third of my life as Mrs. Peterson. Sometimes it’s hard to remember that there ever was a time before when I was known as someone else.

And yet there was a time before Mommy knew Daddy–and the story of how we met is actually kind of amazing in its own little way (at least, it is to me–and that’s the only person who really matters in this story). I don’t know if my boys will ever really care, but I’m going to tell you the story anyway. This is the story of…

How I Met Your Father

Dear boys,

You may not realize this, but there once was a time before Mommy and Daddy were “Mommy and Daddy”.  Not so long ago there was, in fact, a time when Mommy and Daddy didn’t even know each other. Before we ever met–from the beginning of time, in fact–God had a great plan for our family. A story of Us. He created Mommy and Daddy for each other, and He knew that some day we would meet and fall in love and start our family and live out the story He’d already planned. Here is the first chapter in that story.

The first time I met your daddy, I didn’t actually meet your daddy. Long before we officially knew each other, our paths had crossed.

When we were about 10 years old, both of our families went on a winter vacation to the same hotel in the small central Washington town of Leavenworth. My family went to Leavenworth every year with a group of friends during the same week of February. We would go to a festival in town, and while we were there we would stay at the hotel that our friends owned.

Naturally, us kids took this to mean that we owned the hotel for that one week every winter. We would take over the hot tub (the correct way to hot tub in the snow, by the way, is to lay in the snow then jump into the hot tub and immerse your body in sharp tingles. Once your body thaws, repeat.). We would set up movies in the hotel conference rooms. We would help ourselves to endless cups of hot cocoa in the hotel lobby. We would play hide-and-go-seek in the halls of the hotel. We would do all of this while squealing at the tops of our lungs (so our parents would always know where to find us, of course).

Unfortunately some of the hotel guests did not find our incessant noise to be such a pleasant sound, and occasionally a call would come through to the front desk asking us to please quiet down and go back to our rooms. I remember very clearly one night when this happened at the hotel in Leavenworth, because shortly after we were sent back to our rooms to quiet down for the night a fire alarm went off. Everyone had to evacuate the building–we were in our pajamas and it was dark and cold and snowy outside. A night like that stays with you.

About 10 years later, your daddy and I would return to that same hotel. This time we were meeting in the hotel restaurant for dinner with both sets of our parents (It was actually Grammy and Grandpa Pete, and Nana and Papa–but we just called them “Mom and Dad” then)–it was the first time we were introducing each other to the families that we hoped to join together some day.

While we were sitting together in that hotel restaurant, the story of the fire alarm came up and we all realized the same thing: we had all been together that night. The phone call to the front desk that had sent me and my friends back to our rooms had come from Daddy’s mom (Grammy)–Daddy had heard us playing in the hallways and asked if he could join in, but instead Grammy decided to call us in and report our naughty behavior (some things never change) 🙂  And then when the fire alarm went off in the middle of that cold winter night, we had all huddled together outside in the snow. I didn’t know it then, but that was the first time I met your father.

I wouldn’t meet your father again until I was finishing up my second year of college.  In college I had gotten involved with a university ministry group called The INN. I was in a girls’ Bible study with The INN, and in the spring of my sophomore year my leader asked if I’d consider leading a group of my own. They were looking for students to lead a co-ed group called a CASA, so I’d be paired with a guy co-leader. I was working, busy with school, and in the process of getting ready to leave for a summer study abroad in Costa Rica and I didn’t know if leading was something I could add to my already-full plate. So, I did the only thing you can do in that situation: I prayed. The answer came back that I was supposed to lead the group, so I told them to sign me up!

During one of the last INN meetings of the year, one of our leaders came up to me and told me that they’d set up the CASA groups for the Fall. He told me who my co-leader would be, but I didn’t recognize the name.

“Oh, Jon Peterson? He’s the loud guy who’s always in the front.”
And right away, I knew exactly who my co-leader was.

After the meeting I went up to the front of the room and introduced myself to The Loud Guy. This will sound strange, but I knew at that moment that I was going to marry your father. I didn’t even know him yet, but something in me just knew that he was going to be important. It wasn’t a lovey-dovey feeling–again, I didn’t even know him–but more of a realization that something significant was about to happen.

A week or two after we met after the INN, Jon and I met up at a nearby park to discuss our plans for the upcoming year. While we were sitting there at Boulevard Park talking, the sun began to set over Bellingham Bay and we paused to take a photo together. I’m not sure why we did this–again, we didn’t even know each other!–but I’m so glad we did. To this day, your daddy still carries in his wallet the photo we took that day (If you ask him really nice, I’m sure he’ll show you. You have to be careful if you touch it, though–that photo is OLD):

Shortly after the spring term ended, I left for Costa Rica. I added your daddy to my email update list so he’d know what I’d been up to all summer and we’d have something to talk about when we saw each other again in the fall–it didn’t really matter, though, because he had another friend doing a similar trip that summer, and he got us confused with each other the whole time 🙂

When we did finally meet up again in the fall, it was time to get to work. We started meeting several times every week to plan for our group, to pray together, and to have our CASA meetings at daddy’s apartment. It didn’t take very long, though, before I was wishing we had more meetings–I couldn’t get enough of him! It was about this time that I realized I might want him to be more than just a friend–he, however, was still completely clueless about my feelings.

A few months into the year I got up the nerve to tell your daddy how I felt about him. We’d spent some extra time together at a CASA retreat that winter–in Leavenworth, again–and I couldn’t hold back the floodgates any more. He admitted that he felt the same way about me. Ironically, we had signed a contract with the INN that we wouldn’t date anyone in our group (because, you know, it was a Bible study not a dating show) so now we didn’t even know what to do with all of these Big Feelings.

We decided to talk to our leader at the INN about our little predicament and see if he had any wisdom for us. He told us that he understood these things could happen (I can count at least a dozen weddings that came out of the INN the year we graduated), but could we maybe wait until the school year was over before making anything official? So, we resolved to carry on leading our group…and dating in secret (OK, that part wasn’t supposed to happen yet, but we were young and reckless and honestly just couldn’t help ourselves).

When the end of the school year came in June, your daddy and I made it official. We gathered together our CASA group and told them that we were dating. To which they all replied, “We already know. It’s about time you told us.”

That summer we spent a lot of time together–we both stayed up in Bellingham working and completing summer classes to prepare ourselves for our upcoming senior year. A few weeks before school was due to resume in September I went to Anacortes for a two-week Marine Biology course at the beach. While I was there, I talked to your daddy every day on the phone. I missed him a lot. Unfortunately, your daddy was going over to Leavenworth for the next few weeks to help his dad build a new house there, and he’d still be gone when I got back to Bellingham. As they say, absence makes the heart grow fonder–and I knew it would be an even happier reunion when I finally got to see him again.

When I got back to Bellingham I was greeted by my roommates, Kate and Diana.  It had been a few weeks since we’d all been together and they suggested that we go for a walk at Boulevard Park so we could all catch up. It was a drizzly day but, as hardened Northwesterners, we hardly even noticed.

As we were walking along the waterfront path we came to a bench. There was a canopy over the bench and some roses on the seat. Kate and Diana indicated that we should go sit on the bench. I refused. Someone had obviously gone to a lot of effort to cover this bench with a canopy and put flowers at it–I wasn’t about to go sit in there. Thankfully my friends are quick on their feet, and Kate noticed a remembrance plaque on the back of the bench. She said that maybe we should go sit on the bench and pray for the person that the bench was dedicated to. Since she was so adamant about sitting on the dang bench, I finally obliged.

We hadn’t been sitting down for a minute when we heard the gentle strums of a guitar approaching. “Oh no!” I thought, “They’re coming for us! The people who put up this canopy and laid out the roses are coming to sit on their bench AND WE’RE HERE SITTING ON IT.”

I looked up in a panic, but what I saw surprised me. There were familiar faces: our friend Brian was the one playing the guitar, and right in front of him, your daddy was walking toward us holding a single rose up to his mouth like a microphone. Your daddy started singing Grow Old With You from The Wedding Singer, and it hit me: This bench had been set up for me. And something significant was about to happen.

After your daddy finished singing the most beautiful song I’ve ever heard, he got down on one knee and proposed:

“Allison Marie Schroeder, Will you marry me?”

And that was the day our story really began. That was the day that I knew we would become a family and we would grow old together.

That, my boys, is how I met your father.

Love,

Mommy

P.S. If you are old enough to have a Facebook account, and you are Facebook friends with Daddy, you can watch a video of our proposal here. That dang video still makes me cry every time…