Well…
I gave up.
I attempted to do potty training for 7 whole days to no avail. It came down to me yelling a lot and telling Audrey that I was “mad at her” and threatening to punish her if she didn’t “sit on that damn toilet right this minute!”

Can you tell I am hormonal and let’s just say, angsty? Not a good time to pursuit potty training with a two and a half year old who really has no desire to stop wearing diapers at this point in her life. Sigh.

I have had it in my *black and white* mind that I would accomplish my three goals prior to this second baby coming: lose the pacifier, get her out of her crib, and get those damn diapers off her so I don’t have to change another god-forsaken crappy diaper. 2/3 ain’t so bad, right?

I surrendered.
And I think I am more and more okay with it. At first, I thought I was a horrible mother. What is wrong with me that I can’t pull off this “potty training in one day”? I must be doing something wrong. It shouldn’t be this hard. Maybe I am not being consistent enough. And on and on and on…

I surrendered to even trying to figure it out.
I’m done with potty training (for now).
Much bigger things to think about and tackle right now.
Thanks for all your cheer leading along the way, though; I appreciated it.

So this is a little old and out of date, but it is something that I keep wanting to write about and meant to do way back when when the Olympic trials were going on last Spring (or whenever). Does this ever happen to you? You are watching a race or competition of sorts and as the race draws to an end, you find yourself cheering, maybe even clapping with tears streaming down your cheeks. “What is wrong with me?,” you might say to yourself. I don’t even know these people, for the love of God. I have never even heard of this athlete but I all of a sudden feel like their biggest fan and cheerleader.

I thoroughly enjoyed watching the summer Olympics this year, more so than usual. Every evening, LoAnn and I would land on the couch; I would knit; she would sit curled up on the other end of the couch. And as described earlier, the cheering would come out of us, clapping and, inevitably the crying (well, at least for me). I really did try to hate that Michael Phelps, but he simply is a god. My jaw would drop, I would cheer along with the crowd, “USA, USA, USA” and tears would well up watching him kick ass again and again and again.

So these are my thoughts: I cry watching the Olympics because it taps into a place of deep satisfaction I have had in my own life when I have worked my ass off and succeeded. Sheer satisfaction. I also played sports in high school and some in college and love that feeling of pressing your body to do something your mind didn’t think possible. I remember working really hard on a school project for Mr. A’s economics class in high school. He handed out very few A’s in this course. My dear chum, Hilary and I, worked our asses off and gave it all we had and guess who got some of the few A’s. Woot! I had never felt so proud of myself. Planning a wedding might even be in this category. But the experience that trumps them all is giving birth. Seriously. Especially when you have been pushing for five f*%@ing hours and that baby finally wiggles out like a slippery fish and they land her on your chest. I had such a surge of emotions burst up and out of me that I had never experienced before, even with these previous experiences of success. I did it! I pushed a baby out of my body. So just like Michael Phelps is a god, I deduce that I must be a goddess for working my ass off pushing that little Audrey Anne out. My goodness, I felt an overwhelming sense of satisfaction, power, and shall we say, relief. And I just cried, laughed and cheered.

We got home around 8:30pm and I went out to check the mail in the dusky neighborhood. Looked down and saw my very thirsty hydrangeas and looked further and saw my shriveling roses and looked even farther and saw the ground cracking under the blades of grass. It is dry. Turned the slow soaker hose on (so glad I put those in the front yard this year—thanks LoAnn for that suggestion years ago) and decided to meander through the cool grass and gaze at the dusky flowers. Picked a piece of lavender, a nice and full stalk of fuzzy purple blooms and here I hold it in my hand as a token of peace to my melancholy soul. The scent puts me at ease for some reason.

Today is my mother’s birthday—July 23rd! I am partial to the 23rd, for my birthday lands on it as well. It was my basketball jersey number in high school and well, it’s just a nice number. Upon leaving our meeting tonight, I used the restroom where they have very earthy scented soaps and lotions in there. In honor of my mom, I put on a generous amount of patchouli scented lotion as I left. Thinking about you, Ma, on a day I celebrate you being born.

Earlier this evening, we were driving down the Amstutz–a mini little expressway of sorts in Waukegan and North Chicago–and right before my eyes the SUV blazing ahead threw out of their window not just one piece of trash, but a whole handful of debris. What the hell is up with that? I wanted to get out of my car so badly at the next stop light, stomp up to their window and chew their ass out (I know…kind of bad ass living in the hood like of me), but who the hell taught them to do that? Who gave them the right to just throw their garbage out the window driving down the expressway? It is one thing to be walking down the street and see litter and choose to not pick it up. Or another thing to be getting out of your car and a gum wrapper sneaks out of your car as a gust of wind takes it away and you choose not to go chasing after it. But to purposefully say to yourself, “Um, I think I am done with this cheeseburger wrapper…um, I guess I will just pitch it out the window.” What the hell? Do I live among such hoodlums and riff raff that don’t give a rats ass about their neighborhood, their city, their world? Can you tell I have a little angst about this? The only reason I didn’t get out of my car at that stoplight is that it might be very likely they would have a gun in their car and would use it on me. Well, maybe not entirely likely, but possible. One of these days I will get out of my car…you just wait and see. Hurumph!

I spent another day trying to stay out of the politics of other peoples affairs at work. Does any one else find this hard to do? I am such a caretaker to a fault that I have this serious over-responsibility muscle (as my massage therapist likes to call it) and I feel a strong urge to take care of other people’s problems. I have to consciously keep my nose out and let them feel their own problems, stand up for themselves, hash out their own disputes, resolve their own conflicts. And some days I just feel dragged into it and have to consciously say, “NO! Mind your own business, Shanel. Look straight ahead, keep your mouth shut and do your work!” Kind of silly, but necessary. Even today, this one nurse tried dragging me into the affairs of another stressed out, can’t say no, in a tizzy sort of a nurse. She comes up to my desk where I am happily minding my own business and says, “Shanel, can I ask you a favor?” I look up at her, wary, “Sure.” She says in a whisper, “Could you offer to help Dory*? She seems overwhelmed.” I shake my head in unbelief. I won’t get into the rest of the story, but it proves to illustrate how easy my over-responsibility muscle gets flexed. [And a word to the wise, if you have one of these muscles, don't let the massage therapist apply any pressure to your armpits cuz that is where it is located.]

Audrey and I drove to school and to work this morning in the “new car”. It has a sunroof which was open considering it was an absolutely stunning morning. And AA was in awe every time she saw the moon. Well, she calls it “moona”–like she is some Italian or something. She pointed out moona at least 50 times driving to school. No exaggeration.

Lastly, I realized tonight some of why going to church is hard for me. I thought it had mostly to do with being reminded of all that I have lost in being a part of the Martens’ family. Seeing all the siblings and wives and little Elliott. Seeing dear LoAnn. Not seeing Roy. But I am recognizing that there are many more layers of the loss of family I am experiencing. Not just the Martens’; sure, that is the biggest sore spot right now. Being a part of the Martens’ used to be this thing people in our church held up as an honor, a coveted position, a family where people wanted to be included—and it was that. But that has changed and I feel pushed further to the edges of our church community because…well, I think a lot of it is people feel uncomfortable, like maybe they don’t know what to do with us or how to understand what has happened. This is not the point I am wanting to make; I feel myself digressing. The point I wanted to make is this: the other layers of losing family started before the uprooting of the great ol’ oak of the Martens’ tree. Before Audrey was born, I found myself pulling out and back, some out of necessity, some out of instinct (women do this right before they give birth) and then when she was finally born, out of self protection. And over time, with the birth of my daughter and the uprooting of this marvelous tree I have found myself on the outskirts of a family I so dearly treasured and loved belonging to, one where I felt myself gravitating to the center of. I have been propelling like a flywheel with all sorts of pain and grief to the outer corners of my church family. Tonight, I am simply feeling the multiple layers of loss of my church family. Just feeling it. Not trying to fix it, sort it, understand it. Just feeling it.

And lastly, the little things. Glad for sparkling water with a wedge of lime in a lovely glass.

Sweet dreams, little ones.

Tonight I stood among women, women who are gifted leaders in the Vineyard movement, and I felt honored.

How did I end up here? How did I land in this place? Looking back on the larger segments of my life, it is quite remarkable that I have come to find a home, a family within the Vineyard. And not just any Vineyard church (because I hate to break it to you; they are not all the same), but this Vineyard. This beloved home where I have such remarkable matriarchs that I look up to and receive blessing from. I grew up in the Foursquare movement, spent some time in a strange, not so theologically sound Pentecostal church in college, and then for whatever reason I picked Chicago to move to after college because Adey recommended Cheryll as one of the best therapists she knew. I was in search of a new church home where I could be cared for while I delved into old and locked places of myself that mostly related to my life growing up in my family. So I moved to Evanston, Illinois, not knowing a soul except that Cheryll was a good counselor and I stuck myself there. I originally thought I would be in Chicago for just a few years and then off I would go on my next big adventure, whatever that may be. But as most of you know, that was almost eight years ago and here I still stick.

So tonight, I was thoroughly delighted to hear women teach me some profound insights they have had over the past few years of searching out the topic of women in leadership. I have thought, processed, fought, read, studied this topic over the past 10 years and it is close to my heart. And I think I am even more passionate about than most because I have been “shhh’d” by one too many men thus locking up my voice, my potential and my power as women leader in the Kingdom. For awhile there, I would call myself (this is all in retrospect, of course) “an unhealed feminist”. Very edgy and angsty and it was a sheer justice issue for me.

Well, tonight. We talked of something different. A whole new paradigm for me to live under and out of and it so fits with the parts of my femininity I feel God has been healing and mending over the years. I also felt so darn blessed to be in on this watershed moment, as Cindy put it. I love being on the edge, the outskirts of God’s Kingdom advancing into new territory. I won’t get into the nitty-gritty of what was discussed and I am not sure if I have fully wrapped my mind around the core concept of what was being presented, but I do know this: I am on board.

When these women talk, I listen and vibrate. I sit there in my chair and say yes, yes, yes! It feels as if the things they speak have been woven into the core of me since I was in the womb. It is part of my make up as a human and a spiritual being. In the end, Cindy, in her tender maternal voice, shared with us what she was committing herself to and what the next steps would be and I could not contain myself—I just smiled and smiled and smiled and was on the verge of laughing aloud. My heart felt so full of joy and thanksgiving that Jesus would lead me here. To this place, to this church, to this group of people, to this room, to this conference. In awe of where I have come and thrilled about where I am going.

I love the Vineyard. I really do. I can never leave it because the longer I am in the more I am woven into it. And the best part of it that the longer I am in it and experiencing it changing and transforming as God moves his Kingdom forward, I myself am being transformed along with it. And like I said, I am on board. Fully on board.