I do not often post on Facebook. Sure there are announcements for my brilliant blogs, but I assume most people are not interested in the random details of my life. Yet occasionally something is so significant I decide to post. Like the day Phoebe finally made it to the potty. After loads of failures (and laundry) our little girl had taken the most important step toward maturity (Think I exaggerate? Walking and talking can not compare. If the person sitting next to you could only do one what would you prefer???). But that moment proved to be a mirage and the laundry continued… and soon defeat set-in. Rhett could save his “Wooooooo Hooooooo” or maybe change the “w” to a “b”!

And now here we are again attempting to teach little Phoebe how to potty. Our plan was to have her trained before Darcy arrives (not just for the ease, but the financial savings of one less in diapers). We are stacked with glorious Halloween candy as incentive. Even more, this morning, while changing her pants I told her she could have anything if she would just potty in the potty. Which I should know from scripture is a silly thing for a dad to say to his daughter (consider Herod and his daughter – or poor John the Baptist, Mark 6:17-29), but potty training can make a drive to Disney World seem worthwhile!

Unfortunately, Phoebe is not at all interested in potty-training. I expect her to be troubled by wet pants. Instead, she would rather me not change her pants! She wants to keep reading her books! The thought of candy is exciting, but not enough to motivate. So here we are wondering if maybe we again just need to wait. At least I know this time to wait to post anything on Facebook.

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We are effected and changed by all kinds of things out of our control. I make plans for Phoebe, but in reality only she can choose to use the potty. And someday she will, but not on my timeline. This is also true of so many other events in life. Terrible things enter our lives. Rarely do we have any control. We certainly try to grab life’s reigns. Unfortunately life is not a trained horse, but wild. And no matter how we pull and jerk, the horse will take us where we do not want to go…

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For Halloween we always carve a pumpkin, then Meg bakes the seeds. Below is the picture of our jack-o-lantern. He watches as Phoebes eats the pumpkin seeds. Completely disconcerting – to him, but out of his control!

The picture is silly, but these moments – moments together – are one thing we can control. We can love and live with our family and friends. We can invite others inside. So while life continues to jerk us here and there – we will not go alone. Instead we have friends and pumpkins seeds for the ride… I just hope the person I am by is potty trained.