LOST A SOCK

Short story gone nowhere

 
Get a flower.

Shoot a flower.

 
Give a flower.

 
Give a flower.

 
Shoot a flower.

 
Kill a flower.

The end.

Better Days, The Second

Okay, for real this time, I am claiming a quiet upcoming week for myself and my family. 

In the last seven days...

...we have had both of our bathrooms torn apart and (eventually) put back together, simultaneously. 

...My laundry room was showered from ceiling to floor in toilet water. 

...Twice. 

...We applied for our passports, mailed off a second batch of paperwork to our adoption agency and scheduled our upcoming home study. 

...We shared our plans with family (and now you) that we plan to do back-to-back adoptions, this year and next.  Praying that everything falls into place.

...We said good-bye to my grandfather.  His eulogies were incredible. 

...Marin and Jack came down with RSV or something like it, and Kevin suffered something intestinal-related. 

 
...And my daughter has agreed to having her hair played with, periodically.  (EEE!)

If not for double indoor soccer games and a 4H meeting on my agenda for first thing tomorrow morning, I might actually spend the day in pajamas.  Maybe I still will.

**

Thank you all for the kind comments and supportive emails over the last few weeks.  It has been surreal, for sure.  I couldn't possibly express the immense gratitude I feel for being part of this incredible community, and having friends like you.

Irish eyes smiling, and that

(It was not apparently in the cards for me, to be an easy week.) 

My grandfather, known by all of us who love him as Papa Tipping, took a bad fall yesterday.  His leg needed to be amputated, with surgery scheduled for this morning.  He's gone into renal failure, and he had a stroke, paralyzing the left side of his body.  He cannot have the surgery because he likely wouldn't make it through, and the doctors are giving him a few days left to live. 

   

My Papa was a good man.  He worked at a Steel Company in Chicago for many years, and then moved on to be a janitor in one of the public schools.  He lost his brother, Uncle Bob, when he was only thrity-nine years old, and he talked about him always.  There were three brothers left after that, Howard, Ed and Bill, and he was very proud to be one of them.  When I was a kid he would bring us cartons of leftover chocolate milk and sing songs to us about our names.  I loved the wooden desk in his room, full of old pictures and papers and trinkets.  He spent a lot of time there, watching the original Whammy game show and cooking shows, and my gramma was forever ribbing him about knowing how to cook just about anything, but never actually making a thing.  He turned his Chicago back yard into a giant garden with grass only around the perimeter, and I remember pulling cherry tomatoes and green beans off of the plants and eating them, so fresh in summertime.  He enjoyed strange things like pickled herring, liver sausage sandwiches and cow tongue, but growing up in a house where sugary cereal was outlawed, I knew exactly where the box of Frosted Flakes was kept at Gramma & Papa's house, and they welcomed me to it.   

My Papa loved his black labs, and the country, and while he raised rabbits for a while, what he really wanted were chickens.  He was so mad when they finally moved to the country, right around the time of my wedding, and then found out that chickens weren't allowed in their subdivision.  My sister talked about painting them on his garage.  We lost my gramma in 2002, the month before KJ was born, and he's had a very hard time since then.  He loved his great-grandchildren, telling me always what he thought they would grow up to be, but I don't think he enjoyed anything as fully as he did when they still lived in Chicago, and before my gramma died.

I hope from here that his journey to God, and to my Gramma and to his brothers and his children, is easy on him.  I hope that he finds peace soon, and a whole flock of chickens in heaven.

***

Updated to add, he passed away just before ten o'clock tonight.

Better days

This post was almost titled The No Bullshit Adoption Disclaimer.  Two days ago I wanted to come here and scream from the tops of my angry lungs, that anyone who was here to mock my family, disapprove of my family or dislike my family for the recent decision we made to grow our family, with, yes oh yes, a baby from Africa, needed to just leave.  I told a girlfriend of mine, at one point, that I was going to have a bright white t-shirt made for wearing as I walked down every street and through every store aisle that simply read Fuck You in bold lettering.  I felt hot-cheeked, ear-smoking mad at the whole country for a little while (hello, misdirected anger) because I could neither believe nor accept that we are still judging people based on the color of their skin in such a free, opportunity-filled place as the United States in the year 2010.  I was hurting for my baby, and hoo boy, I was pissed. 

I took time to work through it, and I found solice in those closest to me.  And I let it go.  Being angry or holding on to sorrows will hurt only myself and my family in the long run, and I want most of all to put my energy into what is good in the world, and to focus on our baby, our orphanage, our life's newest purpose.  There are people around me, both physically and all over the World Wide Web who have extended their hands and hearts to us (you guys!) and that support is more valued than I can ever explain, most especially in the midst of life's thunderstorms. 

I posted news to my facebook account early today, that our adoption application was accepted and we are now on the fast track to our baby.  Then the kids and I headed out to spend an afternoon with some of our homeschool friends-- one family, ironically, who is also looking to adopt internationally.  Kids from Marin's tiny size all the way through age ten or twelve, black and white, spent the afternoon playing together, and I swore that all felt right with the world again.  I hope this incredible, yet simple afternoon is what I remember most after a difficult few days.

Then I returned home to an inbox full of supportive comments and excited emails.  It was like Christmas morning, friends. 

For as long as I live, I never want to be void of the fact that all over the world, there are children in serious need.  If I've ever felt a calling for myself, I am pretty sure that this is it.  When I pull Marin up onto my chest, and we snuggle into our cushy rocking chair beneath her warm pink blanket, the fact is never lost on me that there is an outrageous number of children who have no one to love them in the way that mothers love their babies.  I have heard stories lately, as Kevin and I immerse ourselves into the world of adoptive families, of adopted babies crawling around floors of their new, safe homes looking for crumbs to eat, unable to trust that a next meal will come, and in the same, panicking as they are placed in their cribs, not knowing when someone will come back to hold them again.  That somehow sounds so dramatic to type, but God help me, how awful that it is reality at this very moment.

On multiple occasions in recent weeks, both Kevin and I have been asked by several people why we chose to adopt from Africa, and not here in the States.  I think it is a fair question, and I am relieved to know that there are many people in our country, such as my Aunt Kathy, who (did) adopt within the United States, and people like my mom and dad who foster parented.  At the end of the day for Kevin and I, though, once we had decided that for sure we wanted more children, and that a fourth c-section would be too risky for me, both of our minds went immediately to Africa.  For the millions of kids living on the streets and in packed orphanages there, even the most basic necessities such as clean drinking water, medicines and meals are unavailable.  If these kids can make it to adulthood, there is nothing even close to the hope for a prosperous life there, like what is offered by our country.  Part of me wants to ask in return, Why not Africa? in the most respectful way.  Countries there are full of such culture and beauty- what an addition to our family!  I also think that being born a US citizen and growing up with all of the freedoms and conveniences that we have in our country, we easily forget how pampered we are.  By the time we reach adulthood we've usually become so obsessed with The Pursuit of Happiness, and the constant pull for Bigger and Better, that we forget to count our many, many blessings, and spend far too many of our days griping.  Guilty as charged, here.  In the last couple years I've chosen to focus on my life's positives as often as I can be conscious of them, and it has brought me to the strong conviction that my many blessings also charge me with the responsibility to help, and help good.

I know that this is serious stuff, and so heavy, but as often as I've thought about children in Africa, and about the people suffering in Haiti this week, I realize that I remain quite new to a whole world recently opened up to me, and I am extremely sensitive.  I can't see from here how I will ever become a bit more dulled, but I suppose just as with motherhood in its brand newness, I may someday feel every tiny emotion slightly less, but also become more able-handed with what I know from experience.  I thank you from the bottom of my heart for taking this journey with us, and I promise that Lighten Up will make it onto my to-do list, and soon.

Hard Days

 
:: Thinking constantly about the families in Haiti who have had the carpet ripped out from under them.  Feeling the pain of the adoptive families on message boards I visit, as they wait helplessly to go rescue their children, some of them desperate to know if those children are still alive.  Praying and wondering what will come of a place already so afflicted by poverty, now in physical ruins.

:: Worrying quietly for Marin as she soon faces another round of testing, another MAG-3, and what if another surgery on what was once thought to be her good kidney?  Wondering what it will mean for her future, knowing that somewhere there must be reason and goodness in this.  Searching to find it, and safety.

:: Realizing for sure that not all of our friends share our love and excitement for the future of our family, and learning how to let go for the right reasons. 

:: Sitting in the emergency room with Jack this evening, waiting for x-rays on his (not broken) arm, thinking again about the children in Haiti and the injuries they suffer from, only without the comfort of a quiet hospital room and proper medical attention, or even the consolation of parents and families who didn't make it.

I am so thankful for what I have- for the general health of my family, the feeling of security and the ability to dream, and the freedom to act on those dreams, that living in this country provides.  I am so grateful for the people in my life who hold my hand through these times, and for the healing that another day will bring.

Half-way Point

It is mid-January, which means by my late-night exhausted math, we are about half way through our first year of homeschool.  And how did THAT happen?

Looking back on our first half year, I can acknowledge both our bumps in the road, in settling into brand new roles and a new routine, and I can celebrate what wonderful memories we've made, and how much we have all learned so far.

 
When deciding if we should really take the plunge into homeschooling last year, there were some things I did not worry about.  (Amazing, right?)

I didn't worry about the potential cost of an All-Right-There Curriculum, because I knew I could compile one on my own relatively easily.  I did not worry about what it might cost to keep the kids home, paying for workbooks, trips and project materials, because the money I would save on nasty old school lunches alone, and on fund raisers, should make up some ground.  (Also, I am terribly cheap frugal, and can find twelve ways to do just about anything at a discount.)  Plus, I would be spared from hunting down a daytime babysitter, a near impossible feat, for my two smaller children while I chaperoned such trips, because I could take them on the trips...because they are the class!  Win-win!

 
I didn't worry about my sanity.  Okay, fine, I did a little bit.  I had just gotten the taste, that year of kindergarten, for what it would be like less one child during the day.  It was quiet.  But it was also more lonely for both Jack and I, and it kept us from spending days seeing the world because we were always tied down to working around school hours.  And that kinda sucked.  As did the homework. 

I am quickly coming to the conclusion that I am a good mom, a better mom, to wild screaming masses.  I enjoy a full plate (heh, in more ways than one) and I get a high from the every minute multi-tasking that is required in raising multiple children, and homeschooling.

 
What I did worry about was how our kids would socialize, living on a street with slim pickins' for playmates, without a church community, without school classmates.  I still spent the early portion of the the year concerning myself with that, all the while running to library classes and basketball and swimming, to local parks and to playdates.  Finally I joined a second homeschool group, realizing the first was just not a good fit for the ages of our kids, and a plethora of opportunities and a world of new friends from far and wide opened up to us. 

 
The boys jumped straight from basketball into indoor soccer season, and we joined a roller skating class, which offers us weekly exposure to fifty plus homeschool children, as well as their moms and dads. 

 
Toddler size four skates, please.

This class rocks my socks in ways I couldn't have imagined, as a throwback to my own childhood bliss of Pac-Man skates at the Friday night rink, as well as the time I get to spend talking to moms who do what I do every day.  In my experience so far, I have come across parents who are dedicated to their kids and to their spouses, and who really understand and excitedly share the common goal of raising well-rounded, simply good families.  I could eat them up.

 
We've now come across offers for music classes, art classes, science & environment classes, 4H, you name it.  There really is no way to fit all of the possibilities in, and so we pick and choose and thank our lucky stars that it is all out there for us. 

Studying the forms of matter?  Experiment with what you've got plenty of. 

I also worried, when weighing the good against the bad last year, how I would care for a baby and manage a preschooler while conducting many hours of school for a first grader each day.  And thankfully, it turned out to be simple, once we nailed a routine down: breakfast, play and Wii in the first two hours of the morning, and time for me to pull the house together as well as our homeschool list for that day, all before Marin goes down for her nap.  Between ten and eleven we begin our school day- KJ, Jack and myself, and because Jack knows no different he joins in for most everything we do, from science experiments to workbook pages chosen for his ability level. 

 
It takes us only three to four hours per day to accomplish what we need to because I am able to work with each of the boys at their own pace, so there is no waiting for the rest of the class to finish, or to over-explain anything that is clearly understood the first time.  Each of the boys are just about a year ahead of their respective grades.  Marin wakes from her nap somewhere in the range of almost finished to finished, and then we either head out to one activity or another, or I have time for laundry and dishes, checking email and the stock market, and spackling walls.  Our schedule is super flexible, which I love, and the only thing that remains mostly out of the equation at this point is time for me to sit down (which, heh, is how I end up with 2am time stamps on blog entries).  I think of it as practice.  These will likely be our calmer, quieter days, with only three to care for.

 
Part of me wants to say that yes, for sure I will take this on again next year and the one after that, but with the way life has presented us with one thrilling curve after the next lately, I will remain non-committal, promising only to take this year by year, for as long as it works, for as many children as we bring into our family.

Signed, Sealed, Delivered

Once upon a time I worked really hard to lose a lot of weight.  And this blog was a Weight Loss Blog.

Once I had a house I couldn't sell, and this blog functioned as a Shoulder to Cry On House Selling Blog.

Once I painted every room of my two houses fifteen hundred or so odd times and this blog could have functioned as the color swatch section for Lowes. 

I've dabbled in photography and homeschooled, carried a surprise baby, outed my sister and traveled the country.  And much of it has found its home here over four years. 

Now we have set the wheels in motion on our quest to adopt our baby number four from Africa.  So welcome to my Adoption Blog. 

Uh, just in case you've not friended me on Facebook.

That would be myself, one of my favorite t-shirts and an envelope containing tax forms, marriage license, application forms, long forms, short forms, form forms and a family photo where, A. Everyone is wearing pants, and B. We appear totally normal.  (Haw.)  The envelope is currently making its way to the agency we've chosen, and in the best case scenario they receive it and choose us as well.  My nervousness as I filled out the forms (using printing that only one OCD elementary teacher can) came as a surprise.  I worried that every line might bring something that would turn them off, except for where I boasted my degree in making children smart and mad baby rocking skillz.  I celebrated the mailing by spending my morning obsessively spackling all of the tiny bumps and dents in my living room walls, because, friends, home study.  (Why, of course we don't allow two year olds to drive plastic trucks around the house, slamming into walls while usually half naked and mumbling things about hookers.  No dents here!  Or hookers!  See?)

One approval-waiting day down, twenty-ish left to go. 

Snapshots in time

 
Seven years

You're growing up so quickly I can hardly keep up.  You've lost six teeth, stand as tall as my chest, read, write, add, subtract, carry and borrow.  You continue to love Legos with your whole heart, and Star Wars and college football and playing board games of all sorts.  You enjoy playing the guitar, and riding your Razor scooter and bike.  You've become quite the help to me in the last year, zipping your brother's jacket and carrying groceries from the car, and retrieving your sister from the stairs (again and again.)

 
You like to prepare your own meals, and have your mind one hundred percent made up as to what you will and will not eat.  I am proud to see you make friends of all ages wherever we go, and have delighted in being your teacher, and learning by your side this year.  You have a memory that is unmatched, even by myself and most grown-ups I know, and you never stop learning.  You are extremely close to your brother, and you delight in your sister.  You drive one heck of a bargain.  You are very loved.

 
Four years

In recent months you've really left your toddlerhood behind and we can now easily see the boy you're growing into.  You read and write your letters and numbers, and you love coloring, painting and expressing yourself artistically in so many ways.  You are funny as hell.  Really, really funny.  You play the drums and sing, and much like your brother you are more outgoing than I could ever hope to be, making new friends at every turn.  You have a seriously fiery temper, but are so tender, and loyal to those closest to you.  You enjoy superheroes of all sorts, rock and roll, and you beg to play outdoors whether it is ninety degrees, or nine.  And I usually oblige. 

 
You had a rough time with the start of preschool this year, being separated from me, and then once we took you from the program you continued to suffer severe anxiety about being apart from me.  Finally, in the last month or two you have come back around, and I am so proud to see you happily participate in your library and skating classes, and in soccer.  For being a little brother, you are most certainly a leader in many social situations.  You are so loved.

 
Sixteen months

At nearly a year and a half old (already!) you've gone through quite the change over the last handful of months.  You've perfected the art of sweet, cuddly girl-babyness, and in the same, holy hell, you've learned to scream.  I've yet to figure out if this is some extreme form of separation anxiety, wanting to be held at every minute of every day, or if this is just you gunning for what it is you want at a given moment, hard core.  I purchased a sling to wear you in last month, a slight deviation from our traditional Baby Bjorn, just so I could accomplish simple tasks such as cooking dinner and washing dishes.  So far so good.  Of course, the wonderful side of having a toddler who wants to be held constantly is that after a brief break from it, you've returned to being rocked to sleep, something your brothers never allowed us to do with them by this age.  We snuggle up in the rocker beneath your favorite blanket, your forehead nuzzled into my neck, and I rub your back and sing you songs as you drift off to sleep at night and nap.  These are some of my favorite times of day.

 
You love your kitty socks, your kitchen and your play food, and Goodnight Moon and Pat the Bunny.  Gramma taught you to navigate the stairs last weekend, encouraging you with each stair you made your way down.  And now every time you go down a step, you tell yourself aloud, "Good girl!"  At this age you have an awesome working vocabulary, and you are willing to repeat just about everything.  Some of your favorite foods include apples, grapes, bananas, cheese sandwiches, roasted cauliflower and cucumber.  To be honest, I have a hard time thinking of something you won't eat.  Thank you for being an easy baby in that way.  You strongly dislike any sort of barrette in your hair, but you love dresses, which is still funny to me after spending so many years with boys, who still have absolutely zero interest in clothing.  You are so sweet, and so uniquely you, and you are loved beyond measure.

 
First time

Back when I was very young I wanted to have a large family.  Later on I thought differently, for a while.  Full circle now, we are compiling all of the required information and filling out forms to mail off in our application packet.  I have spent hours upon hours online reviewing adoption agencies, and have found ours.  I do not know where you are right now, whether you have been born yet or if you remain with your mother.  I think about her all of the time, and about you, and about the decision that she must make to give you up.  No mother gives her child up easily.  God has called us here for you-- of that I am sure.  Even now, so early in this adoption process, I feel connected to you.  We talk about you here at home every day, and I am amazed at the way the idea of you has become so common to the five of us, and right.  I pray with my whole heart that the next year moves smoothly, and that everything falls into place.  We are coming for you.  We already love you.

Twenty Oh-Nine

First, our Christmas celebrations were good and I hope yours were, too.  We completed all but one item on my list of holiday fun (damn popcorn garland) plus took an unplanned trip to Florida this month.  The day after Christmas KJ came down with the stomach flu, and it then shot through every member of our house like a speeding rocket through some home-made pumpkin pie.  Or is that just what my laundry room looked like in its aftermath?  (Yes.)

I can hardly believe we're already a handful of days into the year 2010 (remember how crazy it was to reach Y2K with the projection of computers spontaneously combusting and scribbling out the 19 on every last page of your checkbook?  That was really ten years ago already?)  Last year, at the end of 2008, I wrote a review post, and going back to read it this morning I was surprised to remember what a difficult road we tread that year.  I had high hopes for 2009 at the time, and shared some of my goals here.  And now on the other side, I am so thankful to call 2009 one of the good ones.

With health a fair worry at the beginning of 2009, I am relieved to say that we made it through pretty smoothly.  Marin had surgery on one of her kidneys, and the other continues to be watched by our trusted specialist.  I was given the thumbs up by my own new doctor as well, to leave all return-tumor worries at her office door.  And while I didn't hit my final weight loss goal this year, I came forty-ish pounds closer, which is nothing to scoff at.  There's always the year ahead for celebrating the finish line, right? 

I gave running a try this year, and made frenemies with Jillian Michaels and her Eighteen Thirty Day Shred.  I also participated in two 5K walks for charity and pushed both a lawn mower and a double stroller a whole lot this year.  I loosened up my former strict relationship with the Weight Watchers points program for a balance with plain old healthy, natural eating, and wonder of wonders, found that consuming fruits and vegetables, and exercising, can help one shed pounds, also.  I accidentally dyed my hair black, and brown and had it short and long(ish.)  I lived in jeans and solid color t-shirts, and oversized hooded sweatshirts.   

This year we kept our noses clean financially, steering clear of credit card debt and paying off the lesser of our vehicles.  We were very honest with what we had to save, spend and give away each month, and though I know where I could have done better in certain situations, I am quite pleased in the end.  I learned a good deal about the stock market this year (as opposed to the Absolute Zero that I comprehended in years previous) and managed good returns as the market made its rebound.  I am forever thankful that we came away from the year with Kevin's job in-tact, unlike so many with different stories of 2009.

 
I fell head over heels in love with my simple laundry line this year, and spent more time than ever outdoors with the kids.  We visited our zoo through all seasons, discovered the walking trail near our home, and took full advantage of many free days for our local Chicago museums.  We also had a blast with Little League and basketball, took swim lessons and gave karate the old college try (read: fail!)  We practically lived at the library this year, heh, when we weren't at the zoo.  Many of those outings were done in the name of our new way of life as a homeschooling family, which I am both proud of myself for taking on this year, and proud of my children for embracing so readily.

 
This year was particularly difficult as we carried my Aunt Kathy to the end of her life, which is still hard to believe, and we participated in the Susan G. Komen walk in her name, to find a cure for a terrible disease.  I have remained overly-critical of myself through the year, still deeply longing to conquer my own fears and awkwardness to say the right thing a given moment instead of blurting out a jumbled mess of not quite what I meant to say as I back out of the room, sheepishly.  And still around and around with a sugar addiction, and eating in the name of comfort and celebration and worry, except for the moments when I managed to overcome it this year.  And there were a few. 

 
In response to 2008's Year of No Travel, we made our way from coast to coast in 09.  Kevin and I took a spring trip to California, just the two of us, and left a little piece of our heart at Big Sur.  We made a 3600 mile road trip as a family early this fall, visiting Mount Rushmore and the Colorado Rocky Mountains, the Texas panhandle and many of the plains states.  I will love and remember that trip forever.  Late in the year we took the kids on their first flight, down to Florida where we spent time with Kevin's Granny on the news of her late-stage cancer.  Marin paid her very first visit to Mickey Mouse, also.

 
KJ learned to ride a bike this year!  Kevin and my dad constructed our backyard swing set!  Sant and Leslie bought a house!  And got engaged!  My major purchase was my Canon Rebel and its lenses, which I love with my whole heart, and we landscaped the front of our house, and carpeted our family room.  We successfully rented out our old house for a second year, and our baby daughter learned to crawl, walk, talk and climb. 

 
This year a new baby began making his/her way into our family, growing in our hearts, rather than in my womb.

This year I learned that personal growth, and change, often do not happen overnight.  Or even in short months or years, sometimes.  I learned the value of solid friends willing to accept you for who you are, forgive you for who you were not but should have been, hold you up when you could barely stand and sincerely pat your back as you giddily make your way down the fast track to happiness.  I learned that making yourself vulnerable has its down-side, but is full of lessons when ridden out to a situation's end.  I saw that there is perfection in life's good and bad, and that opening oneself up to truest sincerity and God's abundance can bring nothing but joy, and even a few surprises. 

2009 was good.

Four!

 
Four?! 

Really? 

(Physically melts from chair to floor.)

 
I've yet to document our Christmas and New Years memories, heh, and the speeding locomotive that was the stomach flu barreling through our family in between the two holidays, but that can be next.

 
Before playing catch up, is most definitely Happy Fourth Birthday to my sweet New Year's Baby. 

I do love you so, Jackson Gregory.