When I Should Stop and Listen to Myself

So, my husband joked that for Mother's Day he got me a hernia surgery.  And we only laughed for a few seconds, because there was a shred of truth there. A hernia surgery allowed made me lay in bed for 3 straight days watching Chicago PD (I'm all caught up now) and reading two books and napping.  It wasn't all rainbows and unicorns (the pain is comparable to a c-section and did you know you use your core muscles for everything?? so stuff like vomiting, coughing, rolling over in bed...yeah.  Ouch.)

Anywho, I'm not sure what happened, but instead of invigorating me and feeling rested and a welcome break from the chaos my five children bring, I instead have been feeling a heavy pit of discouragement in the depths of my being.  These pits come around every so often.  They are marked by seasons where everything seems like a struggle - like normal, everyday things.  I wonder, I question, I beg, I plead...when will a sweet season come? When? It has felt like "survival" for so long, and I am ready to LIVE.

I cried out to the Lord, I cried out to my husband, and then the latter sent me to bed for the remainder of the night because I still felt like crap and that probably had the majority to do with my despair.  And I woke this morning to a text from one of my dearest friends who is just in the middle of dealing with some tough stuff.  And honestly, it's been tough for a while.  Really, tough doesn't even begin to describe it but it's not my story to tell. But she is in a place I know well, even if our paths to get us there are different, and she is just surviving.  Barely, it seems, some days.  But she longs to not just survive but to LIVE.

I am not one to retort cliches to my people when the tough crap comes. I have had that dealt my way many times and I know that even though others mean well, it falls in awkward ways on a weary and hurting soul.  So instead I blab on about tattoos and dried worms and then in the midst remind her she is awesome and brave and never ever alone.  She is allowed to feel all her feels and be afraid and not understand and tell God how freaking mad she is.  That is okay.  I have learned He can handle all that.  He can handle all our feels (have you read the Psalms?) and encourages us to feel all our feels right out at the foot of the very cross that defeated sin and death.  I tell her Jesus isn't going anywhere. He is making her brave by her choosing to breathe in and out.  Because there is always a choice.  It is brave to trust Christ when crap just doesn't make sense.  That is the very Spirit of God, being brave in us and for us. The easy thing would be to quit. To give up following Him.  To throw in the towel and rely on yourself and just make it through each day.  The brave thing is to allow God to live and move and have His being in you when the stuff hits the fan and you can not see the next step.

And then.  As I am speaking all that truth to her.  I hear it.  So very quiet and still in my own heart.

I should listen to myself.

Not 12 hours before, I poured my tears out over an issue I have cried over countless times.  Something I have zero control over, but I work and fight and agonize like it's all up to me.  But no matter how hard I try, I can not control the outcome.  And I just wish it were different. Plain and simple.  Sometimes I am mad at how it is turning out.  Sometimes I want to quit and walk away from parts of my life that requires me to be poured out so much.  It requires so much more of me than I actually have to give and since I can not see the next step, survival is all I can do at times.  But when the bible talks of peace, and abundant life, and joy everlasting I wonder, "What am I doing wrong?"  Then, today, in the midst of my precious friend's hurt, as I hurt right along with her, I believe with every ounce of my being that God has not left her.  He is not punishing her because that is not in line with His character.  He is a good God who loves completely. He is able to heal her sorrows and bring joy in the morning.  He is able.  I want her to know that she is never ever alone, because He isn't going anywhere.  And I want to encourage her to hold on to a living hope - one that is not dead - a Hope that is alive and kicking and fighting for her because she is precious and her story is beautiful.

And if I truly believe that for her, can't I also believe it for myself?

Mother's Day

Happy Mother's Day to all the warriors out there : moms working hard in the daily grind thinking no ones sees, moms fighting for their kids, moms aching for their babies waiting for them in heaven, moms longing for their babies across the ocean, and moms-to-be that aren't yet though wish they were.

Today I am extraordinarily thankful for my own mom and mother-in-law; surely I wouldn't have these blessings today if it weren't for those two women and the generations before them.

I am thankful for the man who has made me a mama and walks this crazy life with me day in and day out, who encourages me when I am sure I am doing it all wrong, who loves me in spite of my mistakes, and who will be by my side all our days together on this earth.

And for these five youngins, who say "Mommy," more times a day than I can count, who ask questions until I think my brain might explode, who make sure someone is having a crisis daily. To these five who remind me of God's never-ending and unexplainable grace, who forgive me when I mess up yet again, who keep me in the grips of my sovereign Father.


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RIP to Our Pet

Many moms are familiar with the sentence I heard from my five year old son the other day, "Mom, I found a pet." The surprise comes in what kind of pet.

During our Derby party, the kids are playing outside with some of our friends. Spencer comes in the house requesting a cup because he had found a new pet. He had picked up a roly poly outside and wanted a home for it.



Well, the next thing I know, my most tender-hearted child is running inside and his face is all red and splotchy from crying. "Spencer! What happened?!"

"My roly poly is dead!"

Oh.

You know how living things need food and water? Well, Spencer knows that fact too and added it a little bit of water to the cup. Enough that the roly poly drowned.

So here we are, wrapping up our Derby party with about 10–12 people and he is terribly upset because he unintentionally drowned the first living thing he tried to care for on his own.

And naturally, because this is how it goes, as he hands me the cup so I can inspect it, I drop it on the floor and this poor bug tumbles across the kitchen floor.

Quickly I push the bug back into the cup before my already upset son realizes what just happened. What's the next logical step when your itty bitty pet dies?

Of course. A memorial service.

I ask Spencer where he wants to lay his roly poly to rest. "I think Daddy's grill is just the place!" So cremation, huh?

"Spencer, I don't think the grill is a good place to put your beloved roly poly in a plastic cup. It will burn and melt."

"No! I will remember and we will move it before Daddy grills next time!"

In the end, Mom's authority won out and we decided the roly poly would be better suite to the grass. Next to the porch where the grill is. :) with two sticks in the shape of a cross and a little roly poly in the grass.

Two days later, Spencer comes running to me. "Mom!! My roly poly is not dead anymore! He isn't where we left him!"

So, a lesson: a quarter inch roly poly lying in the grass is hard to find a few days later and then your son believes Jesus is not the only one who resurrected and walked away.



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An Update on the School Form

The email I sent to the pre-K office:

Hi Ms. *****,

I registered my son this morning for pre-K at **** Elementary.  I have a question/concern about one of the forms I filled out for him.

One of the very first forms asked what adults and children lived in the household, and how the children were related to the adults in question.  The choices were Natural, Foster, Relative.  I raised a concern there because my son was internationally adopted at age 2 and therefore does not fit any of those descriptors.  I was advised by a staff member to put Foster for the sake of the form, since "natural" was to be used to describe biological children. As an adoptive parent,  I feel like I should let you know the term "natural" is outdated and offensive, because it implies my adoptive children are somehow "unnatural." I am positive that [your school district] and your office do not mean that in that way, so I would like to encourage you to change the term from "natural" to "biological." It would be more accurate.  I also believe it would be wise to add "adoptive" as an option. My son has never been part of the foster system. I do not want that on his record or any form whatsoever. I did write in "adoptive" and also selected "foster" due to the direction of the staff member.  But as his information gets put into digital format, there is no way I want him labeled in ANY way as foster.  He is my legal son and I am his legal mother, and my name is listed on his birth certificate.  I would not hesitate to say that he is more my "natural" son than my "foster" son.  But if the question is, did I birth him? Then I would say, no, he is not my biological son. 

Please make the appropriate changes to his file. Also, I would ask you to please consider changing the form to better give families the opportunity to describe themselves.  Adding the "adoptive" option would be appreciated, or leaving the question open-ended may serve the purpose as well.

Thanks so much for your time and consideration.

And the response that came within the hour:

Thank you for sharing your concerns. It is certainly not our intention to offend in any way and apologize for doing so. We appreciate the feedback and will consider your recommendations. One of our specialist will contact you to provide more details as to how this can be resolved.  
We appreciate your interest in Pre-K and look forward to a great start.  

I also had a voicemail from the same lady who registered our documents that morning within the hour of sending that email. When I called her back (on her cell phone number!) she diligently changed Josiah's status (and Ella's too) in the system to "natural." I explained to her that as I had more time to think about it since coming home, natural is more accurate because in the eyes of the law he is identical to any biological child I may have. She was happy to honor my request and said I was not the first person who has brought up an issue with the form. She would pass along the request for form changes to the next person up.

Now, will the form change? I don't know. I hope so. But perhaps even one person's heart and mind was opened a little wider that day. I was thankful she was so kind and willing to listen to my requests. I know better now that is okay to challenge the system when it is wrong, but I always want to make sure I am doing it in respectful way, as I am representing my Jesus and adoptive families. Don't want to give either a bad name.

A friend sent me this picture from a school district in her state.





I'm challenged to "fight the good fight," as she said!

I Can't Check Any of These

Today I went to register Josiah for 4 year old Pre-K next year.  Unfortunately we did not get into our first choice (remember my letter to March when I said we received a letter he didn't get in and then a call that said he did and I cried happy tears and then another call that said just kidding, that was a mistake? Yeah.) Since then we have been trying to decide what the best second option was and we finally made a decision. So he will be attending public school pre-k, which is five days a week.  Which means it will be me and a baby during the day come August.  In case you don't understand the significance of this...I've never had just one kid at home with me!

The process of getting him registered included me bringing in 5 or 6 important documents and then sitting at a table for LITERALLY AN HOUR and filling out paperwork.  Actually 24 documents.  I had to fill out t-w-e-n-t-y-f-o-u-r pieces of paper.  That is a lot of times writing my name and his name and our address and everything he eats and his developmental skills and my husband's work number, etc.

One of the first pieces was just a general info sheet.  Part of that was listing everyone that lived in our home. (FYI: when you have five children, there are never enough spots on the "children/siblings" portion.) I had to list how each of the children in our home were related to us.  There were three choices (and I quote): N=Natural, F=Foster, R=Relative.

This is all fine and good.  I understand why a school system would want to know how each of the children living in a home are related to the adults living there.  In a city as large as this and in 2014, families are created a million different ways.  Homes are blended and mixed and people come to live together for a variety of reasons.  The school should know these things.  But, my friends, we don't fit any of these boxes.

Let's address this two part problem.
1. "Natural" - I'm sorry, do you mean "biological?" Because that is the accurate term.  All my children are "natural," meaning they are HUMAN. Birthed from a HUMAN. Not created in any "unnatural" way.  But you want to know if they are birthed from me? Then yes, "biological" is what you are looking for.

2. Where is "Adoptive" as an option???? - This one I just don't understand. It's a glaring, big fat hole. When I called the lady over to ask this OBVIOUS question, she said, "Oh, Natural is birthed. So you would put Foster."

Whoa, nelly. Slow that train right down.

"No. He's not my foster son.  He is my legal son.  I am his legal mother. Here is MY NAME on his birth certificate. There should be an A=Adoptive option. Can I write that in?"

"No, for the sake of this form you would put Foster," said the representative. "I understand your offense to that term because I have a heart for adoption. But here, since you did not birth him, you would write Foster."

I asked if I could write in Adoptive.  She said not for this form.  But it's no big deal, she said.

BUT IT'S NOT TRUE. For the sake of accuracy, "natural" is a better fit and more true than "foster." He is not and has not ever been under the care of the state.  They do not have authority over him. His legal and true parents do. Which would be Stuart and myself.

So...because I am a rule follower and rarely challenge authority (yeah, yeah) I wrote F and then wrote ADOPTIVE in the box. But now, several hours later, I feel like I need to address this further.  I need to contact the office and let them know it's time for changes. The form needs to be updated. Most likely, many people don't have any issue with the form.  But as an adoptive mother, I seriously do.  I do not want his information recorded in a computer system with "Foster." He has never been part of the foster system. Ever. He has a legal and forever family. Document that.

I'll keep you posted on how it goes down as I address the largest school district in the state and try to get them to change their paperwork.......ack!

Need. Sleep.

Oh, my sweet, little, precious baby Ben.

I love you. You are strong and brave for going through your lip repair surgery.

But can you give your mama and daddy some rest? Please?

You are cute. But could you save your cuteness until morning? I will enjoy so much more during daylight hours.

Speaking of daylight, let's try napping longer than 45 minutes, okay? Just try it. I think you will find it quite enjoyable and it will make you feel so much better in general if you will do a little more of that sleeping thing.

AND not only will you feel better, but your parents will be better parents! Which means your brothers and sisters will reap the benefits as well!

See how much good you could do!

So little, yet you HOLD SO MUCH POWER.

On a more serious note, (Wait...I am so serious. I do wish Ben would sleep a little bit more day and night because I am dog tired) we are 8 days post op from lip repair. I remember recovery being hard with Spencer but I don't really remember specifically the worst part. Eating? Not knowing if he was in pain and how to treat? How messed up sleep was?

But yep. Recovery is still hard. He is weaning from his prescription pain meds but sleeping is going down the tube. Like every day it is getting a little worse where he only wants to sleep being held. I have heard this is common- clinginess post surgery even for the itty bitty ones.

Seriously, though, can you pray for some rest? I do not function well on night after night of little sleep. And there is no time for rest during the day...especially when he is only sleeping 45 minutes. And the crying...goodness. Something about him crying physically stresses me out. And then four other little voices are trying to ask me a question or get me to do something and my brain feels like it is leaking out of my ears.

I know this will only last a few weeks. But sometimes i am not sure I will make it a few weeks of little sleep and lots of crying. A little over dramatic? Yes. But I am tired. I am not responsible for the exaggerations I utter.

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Bittersweet

Five years ago, I was a brand new mama. My newborn twins were a dream come true, but my dream did not include special needs of any kind at all. So when my baby boy was born with a bilateral cleft lip and palate, that was uncharted territory. That was not part of the plan.

Well, you know how it goes. You figure it out. We figured it and did the best we could. That is what we are all doing. It was surprising to me when we met with the plastic surgeon when Spencer was only a few weeks old that he would have his first surgery at three months of age to repair his lip. But we pulled up our bootstraps and focused on getting some weight on him.

Surgery day came. The waiting room was full. All three sets of grandparents were there, passing babies around as they got agitated. We were anxious, excited. Ready, or so we thought. The emotion of the day got lost in keeping a hungry Spencer happy when surgery was pushed back two hours and he couldn't eat.

Handing my baby off to a stranger as they took him to the OR was hard, to say the least. We passed off a sleeping baby and watched him walk away in someone else's arms, not thinking about how that was the last time we would see the face we knew.

We headed back to the waiting room, a little relieved we didn't have to let a starving baby suck on our fingers anymore to hold him at bay. Our families were there waiting, so we had some good visiting time and sweet solo time with Kate, who was a rockstar baby all day. The OR would call with updates and we knew Spencer was doing well.

Finally, around 8 pm that night, we were able to go see our son in recovery. I was so excited. I couldn't wait to see how the surgeon crafted my baby's lip. We walked in, and my heart sank. That baby in that bed, who is that? That does not look like my son. He cried. I don't recognize that cry.

What? I didn't expect these emotions.

He opened his eyes. Oh yes, there he is. I know him.

I held this 11 pound baby in my arms, gently kissing his puffy cheeks. He was so handsome, so strong and brave, but he didn't look like Spencer. Oh, I was so sad. I missed the wide cleft smile that I knew. I never thought I would miss that smile; I only thought I would be relieved and happy for him to look more "normal." Oh, how I missed out on cherishing my cleft cutie's for what it was when it was. I wasn't prepared for missing the "before." That itty bitty baby is now 5 years old. Of course, I am smitten with my handsome and strong and brave boy and his smile. It was the initial heartache I wasn't anticipating. The sadness I would feel when I realized my boy's first smile was gone.

Fast forward a little bit of time, and we are again on the eve of another precious three month old having lip repair. I am fluctuating through much different emotions this time because I remember that sadness. I am appreciating Ben's first smile and I will cherish his second smile as well. I am allowing myself to be sad, to soak up that wide smile as much as I can.

Soak in with me, will you?

















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