Reflections, The 30s Life, transition, Indiana, PhD Journey

I got to introduce myself to a new Purdue employee tonight and navigate what has been sort of challenging since the move last July. How do I introduce myself to someone who has no knowledge of the 'prior-me' before this moment? I don't have easy boxes to check anymore when I fill out forms to list my employer and field of work. I find myself stumbling over a combination of what I used to do and where I used to live combined with too much information about this old house and the project management I've undertaken in the last year, and that Heath finished up his kindergarten year and he had homework daily that I helped him focus on, and... I think this person was super polite and smiled and found a common ground to ask a follow up question focused on one of my life identities I spewed out. 

When we moved here 11 months ago I really struggled with this introducing myself thing. I don't ever recall including my profession in my first sentence of intro, but without the profession I felt like I stumbled over every word and was judging myself more than others probably even gave a second thought. So I guess I tried to have grace with myself and say it will get easier. But I'm not sure that it has. Perhaps there has been an improvement in my own personal comfort level with how I view my new role at home. Though I still struggle with that identity too, like I am ignoring this other big piece of me. 

I've always been more comfortable with plans vs. ambiguity. I think since becoming a parent and entering my 30s that pendulum has shifted to accept a reality that plans and structure are such an illusion. You can hang on to that organized plan, but I've found letting go and embracing what is makes me a lot happier. This relocation and pause from paid employment I've tried to embrace as an opportunity to reflect and be present, to consider what my values are and prioritize based on that as we establish life in a new place. It is freeing to start with a clean slate and no commitments in your schedule. Most days I really do cherish that gift of time. After 4 years of being the sugar mama, it feels nice to pass that responsibility on to J for a bit. But there are still a lot of days where I feel a bit lost in understanding what I am doing in this season of life. 

A week ago Tuesday Jonathan defended his dissertation, completing all the requirements necessary to earn his PhD. ((CELEBRATE!!!)) While this was of course a huge weight immediately lifted, it has been a slow realization of entering a new season for him, for me, for our family. We said the PhD was going to be the next baby in our family (then we decided to add Reese to our clan after the coursework was done 3 years in). But 5 years of daily work and sacrifice has been made to achieve the accomplishment and it feels weird to let go of the daily work and sacrifice. The last two weekends have felt incredibly long. We have so much family time to fill it is kind of unreal. And so maybe that shift in capacity combined with approaching our first year in Indiana has me doing all kinds of thinking. How DO I want to introduce myself? 

Indiana Life Update

Yesterday marked 2 months that we have lived in our Indiana home. It was also the first day that I got bored at home. Since we moved from Virginia in late July things have been rolling with the final month of summer and exploring the area pools and parks, craigslisting to find some key furniture for our new space, and then of course the actual move in and unpacking after we honeymooned on Purdue’s campus for 4 weeks until closing. In the midst of that our firstborn also started his formal education journey in kindergarten! (22 more ‘grades’ to go we tell him to match daddy or 18 to mama)

Heath

We had our first parent-teacher conference last night with Heath’s kindergarten teacher and heard great feedback that he is excelling in the measured categories of learning and has been great to have as part of the class. This came as a huge relief because we have been having behavioral challenges at home with him since the move… really once we said we were moving back in June. He started regressing with his bathroom usage and has been flat out ignoring us as we talk or disobeying basic family rules (we don’t jump on furniture, wash your hands after using the bathroom, etc). A lot of mornings have been a struggle to get Heath up, dressed, fed and out the door. Once we get out the door and in the fresh air his attitude is always a positive one, but man is that first hour of the day a doozie! His teacher said that Heath is such a happy kid and is always positive, you can tell he is loved at home, and has a great sense of humor. The few days he has been moved to ‘yellow’ (on the behavior chart) are because he hasn’t followed the rule of staying silent in the hallway. She asked if he likes to make sounds a lot at home with his mouth? Um yes, understatement. He is constantly humming a tune or playing mouth trumpet or scatting. She said Heath is on the younger end of the class spectrum having only turned 5 two months before the cutoff, so a lot of his behavior in class seems very normal to her and part of his age development. (Side note- totally blessed to have a kindergarten teacher who is raising three boys of her own) Of course he is smart and doing great in reading comprehension, writing and math, but I was most pleased to hear that he is respectful to his classmates and his joy is being noticed!

Heath and his good friend Mariel from kindergarten

A week ago it felt like a breaking point in Heath’s behavior and I reached out to a few of our friends to pray him through Monday morning and a new week at school and home. We also reached out to friends on Facebook to help support the 3-5pm witching hour at home post-school by sending some mail to fill his love bucket. I contacted the Employee Assistance Program (EAP) at Purdue (an insurance benefit I am a huge advocate of!) to set up a play therapy meeting for Heath with a counselor later this month. I felt overwhelmed with the parent role and was staring at Jonathan’s upcoming work travel where he would be gone 12 of the next 15 days. Of course I felt overwhelming support from all of you and relief that our tool belt would be expanding on how to help Heath during this season. What I was not expecting at the conference last night was his teacher to note that just in the last week there has felt like a maturity with Heath that he has had better control over his body (song bursts!) and asked if I had done anything different over the last week in particular. Praise God!

Leaf cleaning day

Reese

Reese has broken two more teeth in this month and has two bottom ones that are fighting to get through (ugh). Last I wrote she was doing the newborn waking thing all through the night and we were moving her into the guest room. She is gladly back in her bed and mostly making it through the night sleeping with the last couple days of exception due to I think teething pains. Reese’s vocabulary is really exploding lately and her ability to communicate with it! She enjoys watching a baby signing video and has started to do the sign before they show it. Yesterday when we were walking she told me to ‘stop’ and I didn’t right away until she followed up her stop with a second STOP and used the sign for it at the same time. She was pretty proud of herself. She loves to walk Heath to school in the mornings and give him a hug and a kiss goodbye. On the walk home she plays shy with the crossing guards but when we get to our neighbor’s porch she yells “MORNING!” or “HI!” as they sit and drink their coffee. Then she wants to stop at our other neighbor’s yard and “wing, wing” (swing). So we usually do that for a bit before eventually making it home. Reese is enjoying playing with some of the other neighborhood kiddos who are home during the day as the parents arrange for some regular together time for kid socialization and parent sanity. We visit the library reading time weekly where she is participating more and more in the songs and movements. We grocery shop Monday mornings at Aldi where she is becoming known due to their lack of a radio and Reese providing the music instead. (I’m seeing a theme in our kids)

Riding the City Bus one afternoon post-school per Heath's request

Free bus riding fun!

Us
During our walk to the school conference yesterday J and I got actual alone grown up time- thank you to our neighbors who kept the kids for a bit! He asked me where my thoughts were on exploring work. It is something I thought about a lot yesterday because I was bored for the first time. I have been getting notifications of job postings at Purdue and while some have even matched my skill set and would be a similar or stepping stone on the career path I’ve been taking, I have not felt compelled to apply. Mostly my thoughts on that have centered around our family quality of life right now and when I compare it to what I was balancing when working at VT, I don’t want to go back to that. For 4 years it is what we did and did not feel bad, it just was what it was- we both worked and J studied, we did the full time childcare thing and we felt supported. But it also felt crazy and rushed, especially M-F after work until bedtime. Life now does not feel even a drop of that. I told J I like this version of myself better. I am beginning to see where I have open time and capacity now that we are in a rhythm, and I definitely would love to make money again, but I’m not willing to sacrifice the quality of life our family has now. So I’m keeping an eye out for what something part time could be, but also realize that impacts Reese and needing to pay out for childcare, which may not be fiscally logical, but we shall see. I’m also embracing where God has me right now in this season and trying to not rush into something just to feel the old normal of working.

Siblings hanging out at a camp while dad worked

And the PhD journey is celebrating an important marker November 9th when J will have his prospectus. A term that means having his committee read his first 3 chapters of his dissertation and discuss with him any feedback. It is sort of like a mini-defense to check that he is on track with where the research is headed. Jonathan could probably write his own blog post for the challenges it has been just to get this thing scheduled (he has been ready since May), but I'll just sum it up to say my husband continues to amaze me with his patience and grace. He has leaned into his Harmony strength and continues to persevere on all matters PhD!

Life lately

So Jonathan is finishing his 4th week of the new job at Purdue, Heath is finishing his 3rd week of kindergarten, and Reese and I are making slow progress on unpacking boxes as this marks our first week of owning our new home in Indiana. We didn't have internet for awhile there in the transition and so how on earth would you know what was going on in our lives?!? (You could have called like uncle Adam did)

Here is the short and skinny:
J- Yes he likes his new job and working full time again. He is enjoying the colleagues in University Residences and loving the opportunity to connect more regularly with student staff in his neighborhood (three building areas he supervises). He has done his part to make updates on his dissertation and awaiting a response (over a month now) from his advisor on moving ahead with the next item of scheduling his prospectus (kind of like a defense of his first three chapters). He is enrolled as a student at VT this semester as he will work on the dissertation from a distance.

H- Yes he likes kindergarten. As he tells people about it he describes it as "hard work" and that he is learning new things, like the sounds that different letters make. He has nightly homework that I think is a bit much after a 8:15am-2:45pm day of working hard, but we are learning a rhythm to try and get that done before J comes home so we can have family time in the evening. His homework consists of tracing upper case and lower case letters, coloring patterns, writing his first name, reading a short story nightly and practicing sight word flash cards nightly. Hard work is a good description. His teacher speaks Spanish so of the four kindergarten classes, they assigned most all of the Spanish speaking kids to her room and Heath gets to learn a new language alongside all of the other lessons! We think this is awesome, and a big part of why we wanted to be in a mixed neighborhood and public school system.

R- She is needy in this transition. Just as we were getting into a rhythm of living on campus, our house was ready and we moved again, uprooting anything that had become normal. She is tired at night but wakes up consistently at 5 or 5:30am. She is learning all the stairs and doors of our home and gotten a few bumps and bruises in the process. She enjoys taking walks around the neighborhood and walking Heath to and from school and waving at all the friends.

L- I'm trying to take each day at a time, set mini goals so I feel that something is accomplished, but still needing to lower my expectations. The honeymoon of living on campus and not having to deal with unpacking and boxes is certainly over. Once we get settled into this new space I know the days will find a rhythm and not be so overwhelming, but this week they have been. In part because of the boxes that Reese's clinging won't let me get to, in part because of Heath's disregard for listening to me or rules like not jumping on the couch, and in part because J has had to cover for his team this week and work some extra evening hours. This too shall pass.... right? :/

Our first week

Since 2015 has been spent in the job search, we weren't able to plan a summer vacation. It's ok, you don't have to feel sad for us, life has been full and we have not minded the time at home purging and packing. Before Jonathan starts his new job August 3rd, we took this 2 week window to pack and move one week in Blacksburg and have the second week to explore our new town(s) of Lafayette and West Lafayette. So our staycation this past week has been mostly awesome (with some tantrums and child meltdowns sprinkled in).

Here are a few places we explored:
Downtown Lafayette Farmer's Market- we had breakfast burrito/sandwiches that were delicious and a blueberry scone that J called "the most amazing scone he has ever had in his entire life!" We later discovered that the bakery where said scone came from is located a few walking blocks away from our new home!!

Libraries- After the Saturday market, we went into the downtown library (this will be nearest our new home) and enjoyed family story time. It is huge!! Our entire Blacksburg library could fit in the children's wing of this place. Both kids approved of the books, toys and computers. Later in the week we visited the West Lafayette library location for family story time and also enjoyed the craft and people.

Columbian Park- This huge park we did over two separate days. One day was the playground equipment and free zoo, including a train ride around the park that Heath will be saving up his money to continue riding ($2). Another day we went to the water park on this same lot, Tropicanoe Cove for family night where we all got in for $8- pretty sweet deal considering they had a lazy river with inner tubes provided and some slides for adults as well as kid areas.

cheesey Reesey at Tropicanoe Cove

The most amazing custard I've ever had- right beside Columbian Park

Castaway Bay- This was the first public pool we explored in Lafayette and it was really perfect for our kids' sizes. They had a zero-level entry and some fountain areas.

Lake Michigan- So when we were moving to Indiana, I had no idea that Lake Michigan was going to be within reach (I'm more of a west-coast geography person). But Jonathan grew up vacationing on this Lake with his family and was excited to drive the 90 minutes to get there on the Indiana side. So one day we went to the beach, and sand got every.where. but I am surviving.

snack break at Lake Michigan

deep thoughts beachside

Lommel Park- There is another new family to the Purdue Housing life that just relocated a few weeks ago and they have two kids in between our kids' ages. So we explored this new park with them one morning (and the Library, Tropicanoe Cove and peach pickin') and the kids had a lot of fun together, especially Heath and their son who were talking about one another for the rest of the day.

Peach Pickin'- There is a farm about 20 minutes from where we are staying on campus that has peaches in season right now for u-pick. So we got a couple fresh pounds and enjoyed the beautiful drive out there.

Life Maintenance- In addition to the 'fun' stuff, we have also been exploring some basic needs in the area, like Heath got a haircut at the local Sports Clips. I grocery shopped at an Aldi for the first time. We have bought a few things from Craigslist and explored new neighborhoods that way too. This afternoon we will go to Heath's elementary school to register him for kindergarten that starts in a week and a half! And I got my nose pierced.

Transitions are hard. We find that jumping in with both feet and exploring where you are like an adventure helps to make it not feel so hard. Reese has had fits of sleepless/screaming nights in the new apartment. Heath has ridden some emotional roller coasters of bursting into tears that we left Virginia and missing his friends. Bathroom accidents have come a new norm and we are trying to navigate the challenge of consistent parenting amongst emotional change and the need for grace. Not easy.  But we are still standing a week down in our new hometown(s). Looking forward to family pizza night this evening with our Arkansas friends Matt and Bryttani who are here at Purdue and exploring the Children's Museum in Indianapolis this weekend (an hour away). A new normal will begin next week as J starts work Monday and the following week when Heath begins school.

Traveling North, part 2

So day 2 of the journey to Indiana we got a good start with breakfast at the hotel after a restful night. We were loaded by around 8am and headed north for what we expected to be the other 'half' of the journey to West Lafayette, totaling 4 more hours. Wrong assumption. We made it about an hour and just outside of Xenia, Ohio the brakes in our Altima went out.

We were traveling on a stretch of highway that had a few stoplights and after slowing down for one of these lights, Jonathan made a jerky move of the wheel to the left and hit the e-brake. I said 'what happened?!' He said, 'I just lost the brakes.' There were a few cars stopped in front of us and a few behind us. Thankfully Jonathan's reaction after he tap, tap, tapped the brakes and no response was to merge over into a center median to avoid hitting someone or getting hit. After the cars passed us at the green light, we made our way across two lanes and turned right at the light to pull over where we could see a little more shoulder on that side of the road.

Jonathan called his dad. I called our insurance for a tow. The kids sat in the backseat entertaining themselves. We had some locals stop and see if we needed any help. After we arranged for the tow, we noticed there was a parking lot across from us at the entrance of a park so we got the kids out and waited over there safely. Another local stopped to see if we needed any help. Jonathan called the repair show that insurance told us they would tow us to and they unfortunately said the could not work on it today if we came there, it would be at least until tomorrow, but they recommended another shop. J called there and they shared the same. Then we googled.

When the tow truck showed up, Heath was beyond excited for the experience of watching our car get lifted onto the bed. Our driver said the shop we googled would not be his first choice, but that he'd call shop #2. We said they were full. He said, I'll call. And he did, and they told him to come on over. During this time, another local stopped to see if we needed any help and offered a ride for us. Heath was determined to ride in the tow truck as already promised, but Reese and I opted for the back seat of these strangers, Jackie and Jack. They had just come back from breakfast at Cracker Barrell and were headed out for a drive, they *happened* to have a car seat in their back seat that is usually occupied by their 2 year old grandson. So Reese got to enjoy her first forward facing car seat experience on this 8 minute drive to the shop.

The repair shop was able to offer a quick assessment when they got the wheel off and see that our brake line had come loose from the front and then caught in the wheel, puncturing it and draining all of the brake fluid. They called around to find the tube part needing replacement from the left side and a shop within an hour *happened* to have one left side tube remaining (no right sides in). They said it'd be a couple hours. Jackie and Jack said they would take us to a shopping area north of town that had a water fountain the kids could play in and plenty of places to walk around and eat. They offered us their stroller from the trunk. They gave us their phone numbers to call them when we needed a ride back to the shop. They *happened* to have Thomas the Train books from the library in the back seat of their car so as the 4 of us crammed back there tried to entertain the kids we had material! It was closer to 20 minutes to the shopping place, but well worth it.

Heath loved exploring the fountain!

We grabbed lunch at Chipotle, Reese took a nap on me in the carrier, we looked at a bookstore and then the shop called that all was ready to go! So we called our new friends Jackie and Jack who promptly came to shuttle us around town again. They said they drove by us on the side of the road and noticed our out of state license plates and thought 'they probably don't have anyone local they can call' so they did a u-turn about a mile passed us to come back around and see if we needed anything. And they were persistent helpers! We got them a gift card to the fro-yo place at the shopping center where they said they loved to take their grandson. Small thank you for a BIG blessing.

Have mama, will nap.

So after 5 extra hours in Ohio, we set back on the road with a functioning car to take us the remaining 3 hours to Purdue's campus, getting in close to 5pm. We ordered pizza for dinner (it was Friday night after all- a weekly Manz fam tradition). And we all crashed shortly after that in our temporary apartment here until we close on our house next month (8/20). We are grateful for the prayers of safety covering us on our journey and the traveling mercies we experienced. For your brakes to go out on a highway, we know this was the best possible provision where our whole family was safe and the damage to the car and our pocketbook was minimal. It was all part of the adventure and only took a bit more time, something we had plenty of as we entered this week of stay-cation time in our new hometown!

As we crossed the border, Heath chants "Indiana, Indiana, Indiana.... COOOOOOORRRRRRNNNNNNNN!"

Traveling North! part 1

So we have made the move to Indiana! We are settled into our temporary apartment on Purdue's campus for the next 4 weeks until the purchase of our Lafayette home closes August 20th. These last few days are already a blur, but we know we need to document all the craziness of transition!

We got a family dinner at the duck pond in during our final week! As an added bonus, we bumped into VT President Tim and Dr. Laura Sands walking and had a nice chit chat about our move to Boiler country where they just came from last year. Lots of good things happening at Purdue and VT! It was fun to hear their interest in our family relocating and asking about neighborhoods and Heath starting kindergarten.

Loving the duck pond

Reese was fearless walking right into the ducks with her 'Superman' run

Friday, July 17th Jonathan and I both worked our last day at Virginia Tech and said our goodbyes to our work community. We grabbed some delicious food at Souvlaki's and sat on Henderson Lawn to enjoy our last free Friday night concert downtown.

Thanks Dave for being the last parent standing with energy Friday night!

Saturday and Sunday we enjoyed with our friends, hanging at the Children's museum and going to church. It was a beautiful break of not packing and soaking in the last of our weekend with community. We were incredibly blessed by our New Life friends who shared well wishes Sunday morning and the Chinn's hosted a farewell celebration in the afternoon, which we tallied a grand 6 hours of leisurely eating, socializing, s'more making and laughter. It was a great Sunday.

Post bath and pre-story night at the Chinns' Sunday

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday the kids went to daycare as usual while J and I worked all day long packing up the house. We were reminded how much we appreciate the staff at Rainbow Riders and how they give our kids love and consistency, even when home is crazy and boxes are everywhere. Tuesday was a rough packing day as I got discouraged trying to load the kitchen up- nothing fits in any box! And we discovered that our stash of boxes under the house we had planned to use were completely useless as they got wet and moldy- yuck! This included our tv box, which was kind of an important one to have proper packaging for in the move. So we made a plan to purchase more boxes and in the middle of all that got an email from our mortgage officer in Indiana that a signature was needed on a form. With no printer or scanner in sight, we headed over to the Chinn's to handle business. As we got there Wendy had just received an Amazon shipment for a new printer that came in a larger shipping box 2x as big as the printer box. Daisy was playing in it as we eyed it up for measurement. We took it home and the box could not have fit our TV any better! Praise God for that provision!

Thursday morning the movers arrived at 8am to load up the UPack (ABF) trailer that was dropped off the day before. Hiring these three movers to load in all our stuff after we had invested 3 days of packing it all was the wisest choice ever (behind keeping our kids in daycare 3 days that week). It was amazing to have them handle it all while I offered information and Gatorade. Jonathan took the kids out of the house for a morning of breakfast and play at Chik-fil-A and the library. We were all loaded by 11:30am and I had swept the house out as instructed in our seller's agreement. We took a family selfie in front of the loaded trailer and then hauled our tired bodies into the silver bullet, loaded down with a carrier on top stowing all of our 4 week needs. We waved goodbye to our first house, the street and then the town as we got on the highway and headed north!

Reese fell asleep in the car shortly after we left and Heath did his usual self-entertainment of song creating and talking. It was a smooth drive, despite some physical and emotional exhaustion settling in as the day went. We stopped in Chillicothe, Ohio for the night and had dinner at a local drive in that's been around a few decades, Sumburgers. The food was good, but the kids were tired and Heath had a complete refusal of obedience which led to a meltdown by Reese, me taking Heath out of the restaurant and then us quickly paying the bill to go to the hotel, thankfully only 5 blocks over. Despite the light outside, the kids went down near their usual 7pm bedtime after a quick bath and with the boys in one double bed and the girls in the other, we were all asleep quickly. I'm feeling tired again just thinking of that day, it was a rough one. . . . so part 2 of the journey we will share later!

Processing Change

Our life is full of change/anticipation of change right now. A lot of folks have asked how we are doing and feeling about all that is ahead with the move to Indiana, Jonathan starting in a new role, me not starting another job, etc. Last night I talked with Heath and explained it this way:

There are a lot of changes that are coming for our family and they are all pretty exciting, but with change comes this thing called stress. Some stress is good and some stress is bad. Even though we are excited for our move to Indiana and starting kindergarten there, it can still be sad to leave our friends here. Sometimes that stress of change makes our body react in ways that we aren't expecting, like having accidents or out of nowhere feeling sad or angry. And that is ok. This morning Mama felt easily frustrated when you weren't changing clothes to get out the door on time and I yelled, I'm sorry. I want you to know that I love you, even when I'm feeling stress because of change. And I know when you yelled at me today you still loved me. 

So, that is maybe a good summary of where I am at. Excited for change that is ahead. But trying to be self-aware in the stress that is lurking with so many details hanging in balance (the moving truck, the movers, the temporary apartment, the inspection report and closing on our house, ...). Heath is processing the move in his own 5 year old way and asking questions a little bit at a time to check in with what is important in the moment. Overall he is excited and senses our hopefulness about the move. He climbed into bed one morning this week with me and said "Mama, I'm really excited that daddy got a good job in Indiana. How many more days until we move?" And then the next day when his friend's birthday party invitation came for August and we told him we would be in Indiana already, an instant meltdown came with tears of sadness that he wanted to be here. Another random afternoon moment Heath said "but my Rainbow Rider friends are going to the Virginia Margaret Beeks (elementary school) and I'm not going to have any friends at the Indiana Margaret Beeks." I told Heath he was so good at making friends- better than I am, so he could help me when we meet new families at a park or something before school starts. He smiled big "Oh yeah- I could do that!" A couple days later when tucking him in to bed and talking (not about the move) he (randomly) said, "Mama, I'm really good at making friends, but it makes you nervous. That is ok, I will help you!"

One day at a time. We are figuring it out and trying to have extra grace for each other along the journey!