It's an old Amy Grant song.
(bunny trail: I know a lot of people have been pretty hard on Amy Grant over the last several years, and I've made my share of snide remarks, but here is my stance, since I'm sure you are wondering: I think there is a lot we don't know that she could have told us in her defense that she chose not to say, and I think by saying less she has honored the Lord and Gary in a way many of us might not have.)
The song is, I think, the first one I ever played and sang at the same time. Here are the words:
No longer what we were before, but not all that we will be
Tomorrow when we lock the door on all our compromising.
When He appears He'll draw us near
And we'll be changed by His glory
Wrapped up in His glory.
We will be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is.
But I'm caught in between the now and the not yet.
Sometimes it seems like forever and ever
That I've been reaching to be all that I am
But I'm only a few steps nearer
Yet I'm nearer
I am aware, more recently than ever, that I am not the woman of God I long to be, especially as I walk before my children. My older children are old enough to see the chasm of hypocrisy between my walk and my talk. My eldest has so much more integrity than I do. And I groan beneath the weight of desire to show them an example they can look up to.
But as I was driving the other day, and praying, I was aware of a legacy I can leave them. I can give them the legacy of longing. I am longing for more of Jesus here in my every day. I am longing for more healing and deliverance and salvation in my world. I am longing to be disciplined and healthy and full of the fruit of the Holy Spirit. But in the face of the chasm between the now and the not yet, I long most of all to see Him face to face. I long to hear His voice, to see His face, and to be completely new, having left all my old debts behind.
I know that the undulation (thank you C.S. Lewis) of this life is part of the journey, and that I will draw nearer only to find how much more desperately I need to draw near. But there is a day coming when I will no longer lack any thing because I will be truly and completely in Him. I long for that day.
And in that longing, my children, you may imitate me. Don't imitate my weaknesses, my shortcomings and failures. Don't imitate my gluttony, my temper, my laziness, my insecurity. But this desire, this longing, be like me in this - in the knowledge that that place is better than the best moment of the best day we've ever known. Enjoy what is good in this place, but in good and bad times, remember, this isn't home. And home is a very, very good place.
Monday, August 16, 2010
Things I forgot about camping
We went camping recently. All 12 of us, sleeping in a tent. Here is what I had forgotten about camping but have since remembered:
There is no 3 second rule with camping. You cannot quickly pick up a dropped s'more and eat it because it is covered with dirt and pine needles.
The migration patterns of small children sleeping on a flat surface (i.e. the ground in a tent) means that even if there is room for everyone when you go to sleep, someone will wake up with a foot or elbow in the gut, or mouth, or um, wherever, before the night is out.
Camping when pregnant works better when you are in a camper with a toilet. Taking a 10 minute round trip walk several times in the middle of the night does not make for a well rested mommy, even if the view of the stars through a pine tree canopy is great compensation.
The toilets at the john at the campground we go to flush automatically whenever you move enough to scratch a mosquito bite.
Cooking by committee for 27 or so campers while keeping food on three different locations and without running water except for what you have to walk to get is, well, a challenge.
Rain is like steroids for laundry - it radically speeds up the process so you can go through three days of laundry in a matter of hours.
The dirt. The baby looks so dirty, she might be mistaken for a chimney sweep (good luck will rub off . . . ).
Toddlers want to play in the street. Maybe it's the big kids zipping by on their bicycles, maybe it's the water spigot within visibility with the delightful puddle around it, maybe it's that pine needles don't feel as good to bare feet as pavement - they are drawn to the road like mosquitoes are drawn to my ankles and babies' foreheads (one child looked like his head was square from 20 bites, the other resembled a Clingon, with a row of bites right down the middle of her forehead).
The 3 year old doesn't actually need to pedal, he can go almost as fast as big kids with training wheels, per the Fred Flintstone method.
Things we forgot: all our lists, forks, and to put a pullup on the 3 year old before driving through the night.
Things we remembered: the joy children experience digging a hole in the ground, how good everything tastes when you're really hungry, how tired everyone gets playing at the beach, how sand gets EVERYWHERE, how much fun it is to play in the same waves on the same beach with your children that delighted you when you were their age.
There is no 3 second rule with camping. You cannot quickly pick up a dropped s'more and eat it because it is covered with dirt and pine needles.
The migration patterns of small children sleeping on a flat surface (i.e. the ground in a tent) means that even if there is room for everyone when you go to sleep, someone will wake up with a foot or elbow in the gut, or mouth, or um, wherever, before the night is out.
Camping when pregnant works better when you are in a camper with a toilet. Taking a 10 minute round trip walk several times in the middle of the night does not make for a well rested mommy, even if the view of the stars through a pine tree canopy is great compensation.
The toilets at the john at the campground we go to flush automatically whenever you move enough to scratch a mosquito bite.
Cooking by committee for 27 or so campers while keeping food on three different locations and without running water except for what you have to walk to get is, well, a challenge.
Rain is like steroids for laundry - it radically speeds up the process so you can go through three days of laundry in a matter of hours.
The dirt. The baby looks so dirty, she might be mistaken for a chimney sweep (good luck will rub off . . . ).
Toddlers want to play in the street. Maybe it's the big kids zipping by on their bicycles, maybe it's the water spigot within visibility with the delightful puddle around it, maybe it's that pine needles don't feel as good to bare feet as pavement - they are drawn to the road like mosquitoes are drawn to my ankles and babies' foreheads (one child looked like his head was square from 20 bites, the other resembled a Clingon, with a row of bites right down the middle of her forehead).
The 3 year old doesn't actually need to pedal, he can go almost as fast as big kids with training wheels, per the Fred Flintstone method.
Things we forgot: all our lists, forks, and to put a pullup on the 3 year old before driving through the night.
Things we remembered: the joy children experience digging a hole in the ground, how good everything tastes when you're really hungry, how tired everyone gets playing at the beach, how sand gets EVERYWHERE, how much fun it is to play in the same waves on the same beach with your children that delighted you when you were their age.
Tuesday, July 27, 2010
Submission
This is what submission looks like.
Right now there is a young woman somewhere who has a baby in her tummy she did not want. She drank, she smokes, she is planning on placing him for adoption. Birth dad doesn't care.
On the one hand, this is exactly what we signed up for. God made a baby where nobody wanted a baby. But we do. We want a baby. We want to say yes to what God made. We want to say yes to life.
This is a baby who has been abused before he was even born. And we have no idea what condition he will be in. The list of things that could be wrong with this little one is long and intimidating. Congenital heart defects, low birth weight, facial defects, ADHD, premature lungs, stillbirth. I don't know if my home school classroom can survive even the least tragic options on the list.
So here I am, my heart praying for birth mom, dad, and this little one. I'm in. But the questions are large: What if we get matched and she doesn't show? What if we say yes and he is still born or lands in the NICU in a state far from home? What if I am given the opportunity to parent a child that can't hold still long enough to hear 2 adjacent sentences?
But can we say no to a baby God made? So that's me.
But I can trust God to speak, to move, to give and take away, to do whatever is best for all involved. And one grand (or sometimes not so grand) way God takes care of me when I don't know what to do is to speak to/through my husband. His jury is still out.
We've had some conversations, he and I, some warm on the edge of heated, but they end like this: I say, "I trust you, I trust God to speak to you and through you, I will support whatever you decide".
I am praying for my husband, for birth mom, for birth dad, for baby. Lord, please help my husband know what to do. Help this birth mom know Your love, Your forgiveness, Your peace, and know what to do with this little one. Help the dad to know how much his heavenly Father loves him. And God, please heal and protect this little boy, and guide him into Your perfect plan. Amen.
Right now there is a young woman somewhere who has a baby in her tummy she did not want. She drank, she smokes, she is planning on placing him for adoption. Birth dad doesn't care.
On the one hand, this is exactly what we signed up for. God made a baby where nobody wanted a baby. But we do. We want a baby. We want to say yes to what God made. We want to say yes to life.
This is a baby who has been abused before he was even born. And we have no idea what condition he will be in. The list of things that could be wrong with this little one is long and intimidating. Congenital heart defects, low birth weight, facial defects, ADHD, premature lungs, stillbirth. I don't know if my home school classroom can survive even the least tragic options on the list.
So here I am, my heart praying for birth mom, dad, and this little one. I'm in. But the questions are large: What if we get matched and she doesn't show? What if we say yes and he is still born or lands in the NICU in a state far from home? What if I am given the opportunity to parent a child that can't hold still long enough to hear 2 adjacent sentences?
But can we say no to a baby God made? So that's me.
But I can trust God to speak, to move, to give and take away, to do whatever is best for all involved. And one grand (or sometimes not so grand) way God takes care of me when I don't know what to do is to speak to/through my husband. His jury is still out.
We've had some conversations, he and I, some warm on the edge of heated, but they end like this: I say, "I trust you, I trust God to speak to you and through you, I will support whatever you decide".
I am praying for my husband, for birth mom, for birth dad, for baby. Lord, please help my husband know what to do. Help this birth mom know Your love, Your forgiveness, Your peace, and know what to do with this little one. Help the dad to know how much his heavenly Father loves him. And God, please heal and protect this little boy, and guide him into Your perfect plan. Amen.
Friday, July 16, 2010
Adoption Preferences
I have filled out what feels like a hundred pages of paperwork about adoption: why I want to adopt, what I have done to get ready to adopt, first name, middle name, maiden name, social security number, annual income, favorite color, favorite food, band instrument I wish I played in 6th grade and name of my least favorite substitute teacher (yellow, fresh peaches, saxophone, Mrs. Westfield - the worst subs were the ones who wanted to be teachers).
But the sheet we keep filling out for every single agency we apply to is the one about "preferences". And there is this whole list, 3 pages sometimes, of horrible questions that you would never have to answer for a child you were giving birth to (okay, I take that back, people do sometimes know if their child has an issue and are given a 'chance' to decide whether or not to 'parent' that child - my sister had that 'opportunity' with my niece's cleft lip and palette; my friend had that 'choice' for her daughter with spina bifida), but many of the questions are not normally encountered for biological children. It feels like you're trying to mail-order God.
There are all different types of questions. Diabetes? HIV? One of the birth parents had leukemia? One of the extended family had leukemia? Bipolar? Mental retardation, mild alcohol consumption, moderate alcohol consumption, severe alcohol consumption? Alcoholic? All manor of drug use questions, all different drugs, how much, in what month. 3 pages.
And every time we fill out the applications, which all word things differently, we re-evaluate, re-assess, re-answer the questions. It is an agonizing and unnatural process.
Idealistically, we just want to say yes. Yes, God. Yes, whatever You want to give us is fine. If we were to give birth to, say, a child with hydrocephaly, we wouldn't decline our parental rights, so why would we say no to adopting a child with the same need? If we gave birth to a baby at 33 weeks gestation, we would do whatever that baby needed us to do, period. So why wouldn't we adopt a baby that has to be in the NICU for 4 weeks?
And yet, we are saying no to some situations. We are saying no to diseases our other children could get. We are saying no to situations we don't think we could parent adequately without severely shortchanging either our adopted child or our other children.
Recently we got a phone call, our first and only, to date, about a baby needing a family. It was a boy, due in 6 weeks or so, pretty significant drug exposure, and they were having trouble finding adoptive families to present to the mom. Were we open, they wanted to know.
We were open. We were open to a baby who might be drug affected. We were open to a baby with legal risk. We were open even though the baby would probably have to be in foster care for a few days before we could get him. Our 'preferences' included all of the things he was, except one.
He was white. And in the racial portion of the preferences questionnaire, we had not stated we are open to white babies. We did not enter the adoption process with any thought of adopting a white baby. It never even entered our minds.
Now, there are several reasons for this.
Demand. White newborns are in higher demand for a few reasons that are not as unkind as you might assume. Most people adopting in America want a white baby because most people adopting in America are white because most people in America (at the current time) are white. (Why are there more black babies? Could it be that young pregnant black women, in spite of being racially targeted by organizations like Planned Parenthood for the destruction of their race, choose to give life while young white women choose abortion more often? I don't know, but I'm so glad the ones who choose life do so, aren't you?!) People generally prefer to adopt a baby that looks like them. Why?
Conspicuousness. A transracial adoption is very noticeable. The family enters a room, a store, a reunion and the very first thing complete strangers know about them is that they are an adoptive family. This can be difficult for the child or the parent or both. The parents have to talk about adoption with their child according to other people's reactions, not on the child's own developmental time table and according to his needs and understanding.
Identification. To adopt a child of a different race is to identify with that race, whether you choose to pursue and embrace that culture, or pretend the difference doesn't exist, it is there. To adopt a child that looks different than you means acknowledging and dealing with all the prejudice and stereotypes that child will face, and to realize the privilege that comes with being white that you were heretofore unaware of. It means helping a child find ways of learning his/her culture [not learning about, actually learning it], so that he/she feels comfortable with people of similar background as him/herself.
Adoption is hard all by itself, and adopting transracially is an entirely different (and potentially much harder) thing. So in the world of adoption preferences, you get to write down if you are open to Caucasian, Asian, Latino, Indian, native American, African-American, and different mixes. Here are my preferences: I want a baby of African-American heritage.
I can come most close to identifying with an African American baby. I live in a neighborhood with black people. I have a niece and nephew from Africa. I have close friends who are black. I do not currently have any relationships with Asian or Latino or Indian people. This is not deliberate, and has not always been the case. But I currently have meaningful relationships with black people. We deliberately chose, long before the subject of adoption was on the table, to live in a neighborhood where we would interact with and connect with and identify with African-American people all the time.
Does having a black niece and nephew and living in a neighborhood with black people and having friends who are black qualify me to raise a black child? No. But it does mean I'm better equipped than I am to raise, say, a Korean child.
I don't mind being conspicuous. We're incredibly conspicuous. I think leaving the house with a child who is obviously adopted will make us look LESS conspicuous. People will look and go, "oh, they're an adoptive family" and then they'll try to figure out which other kids are adopted instead of trying to imagine how one woman could possibly give birth to 10 children in 13 years.
And as far as demand/availability, we're a long shot. Maybe no birth mother will pick us at all. We just want to say 'yes' to young women who are choosing life instead of abortion - and it happens that many of those are African American.
We said yes to that drug affected white baby, but didn't get him. And for the 3 or 4 days we were waiting to be presented, I thought about adoption and about transracial adoption. I thought it might be easier, less complicated, and that maybe God didn't think I had what it took to be the mom of a child with brown skin. And I walked around my world with my eyes wide open, wondering if my community would accept us with an adopted black baby.
At my grocery store (as often happens, I was the only white person there), there was a young woman with a teeny tiny baby with brown skin and dark eyes and black curly hair, and I was smitten and adoring and I wondered if she'd be as happy for me if I walked in holding a baby like that - or if she'd resent it. It is possible that some people in my community, especially those who don't really know us, will feel we've stolen from them, or that it is yet another form of white arrogance.
I'm aware of the many opportunities I have for screwing up - it would reflect poorly if I allow my adopted black child to run outside in just a diaper or underwear - in my neighborhood people don't do that. It might be easier in suburbia than in the city. I'm nervous, afraid. Can I raise a child to be culturally comfortable with other black people, but raise him/her first in the Kingdom of God, and therefore in the world but not of it, and therefore somewhat uncomfortable with anyone who doesn't know Jesus?
Part of me thinks this won't really happen. We went up on the mountain, we tied up "Issac" and got ready to light the fire, and that's all that will really come of it. It was just a test. We passed. $4,000 in the offering plate. I'm not afraid to offer that to God, I trust Him. And I'm not afraid of looking like a fool for Him - I do that all the time.
I'm probably more afraid that it will happen. I don't know what it will look like, or be like. I do not enjoy experiencing rejection, nor do I appreciate when my children encounter it. I am uncertain that I have what it takes. But I am completely certain God does have what it takes. I have seen that His timing is always perfect. His ways are always perfect. I know that whatever He does with us in this area in this season will be exactly right and He will give us whatever we need to be the parents of all the children He gives us - emotionally, financially, in every way.
And I guess that's where my preferences really come down. I don't want a child of African American descent for reasons of availability or conspicuousness or racial identification. I don't want to be the mom of a black boy or girl because I live in a neighborhood with wonderful black people and have wonderful black friends and have a marvelous black nephew and a gorgeous black niece. It isn't my preference because I think I could do better at raising a black child than I could if I was mom to a child of another culture or ethnicity.
I want a son or daughter with lovely brown skin and beautiful dark eyes and curly black hair because that is what God put in my heart when He planted the seeds for adoption. That's what I want because that's what I think God wants to give me. I will follow Him anywhere and do whatever He tells me to do, and if it doesn't look like I thought it would, I will still say 'yes' to Him. It wouldn't be the first time He took me to St. Louis by way of St. Petersberg or to Muncie, Indiana by way of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
But the sheet we keep filling out for every single agency we apply to is the one about "preferences". And there is this whole list, 3 pages sometimes, of horrible questions that you would never have to answer for a child you were giving birth to (okay, I take that back, people do sometimes know if their child has an issue and are given a 'chance' to decide whether or not to 'parent' that child - my sister had that 'opportunity' with my niece's cleft lip and palette; my friend had that 'choice' for her daughter with spina bifida), but many of the questions are not normally encountered for biological children. It feels like you're trying to mail-order God.
There are all different types of questions. Diabetes? HIV? One of the birth parents had leukemia? One of the extended family had leukemia? Bipolar? Mental retardation, mild alcohol consumption, moderate alcohol consumption, severe alcohol consumption? Alcoholic? All manor of drug use questions, all different drugs, how much, in what month. 3 pages.
And every time we fill out the applications, which all word things differently, we re-evaluate, re-assess, re-answer the questions. It is an agonizing and unnatural process.
Idealistically, we just want to say yes. Yes, God. Yes, whatever You want to give us is fine. If we were to give birth to, say, a child with hydrocephaly, we wouldn't decline our parental rights, so why would we say no to adopting a child with the same need? If we gave birth to a baby at 33 weeks gestation, we would do whatever that baby needed us to do, period. So why wouldn't we adopt a baby that has to be in the NICU for 4 weeks?
And yet, we are saying no to some situations. We are saying no to diseases our other children could get. We are saying no to situations we don't think we could parent adequately without severely shortchanging either our adopted child or our other children.
Recently we got a phone call, our first and only, to date, about a baby needing a family. It was a boy, due in 6 weeks or so, pretty significant drug exposure, and they were having trouble finding adoptive families to present to the mom. Were we open, they wanted to know.
We were open. We were open to a baby who might be drug affected. We were open to a baby with legal risk. We were open even though the baby would probably have to be in foster care for a few days before we could get him. Our 'preferences' included all of the things he was, except one.
He was white. And in the racial portion of the preferences questionnaire, we had not stated we are open to white babies. We did not enter the adoption process with any thought of adopting a white baby. It never even entered our minds.
Now, there are several reasons for this.
Demand. White newborns are in higher demand for a few reasons that are not as unkind as you might assume. Most people adopting in America want a white baby because most people adopting in America are white because most people in America (at the current time) are white. (Why are there more black babies? Could it be that young pregnant black women, in spite of being racially targeted by organizations like Planned Parenthood for the destruction of their race, choose to give life while young white women choose abortion more often? I don't know, but I'm so glad the ones who choose life do so, aren't you?!) People generally prefer to adopt a baby that looks like them. Why?
Conspicuousness. A transracial adoption is very noticeable. The family enters a room, a store, a reunion and the very first thing complete strangers know about them is that they are an adoptive family. This can be difficult for the child or the parent or both. The parents have to talk about adoption with their child according to other people's reactions, not on the child's own developmental time table and according to his needs and understanding.
Identification. To adopt a child of a different race is to identify with that race, whether you choose to pursue and embrace that culture, or pretend the difference doesn't exist, it is there. To adopt a child that looks different than you means acknowledging and dealing with all the prejudice and stereotypes that child will face, and to realize the privilege that comes with being white that you were heretofore unaware of. It means helping a child find ways of learning his/her culture [not learning about, actually learning it], so that he/she feels comfortable with people of similar background as him/herself.
Adoption is hard all by itself, and adopting transracially is an entirely different (and potentially much harder) thing. So in the world of adoption preferences, you get to write down if you are open to Caucasian, Asian, Latino, Indian, native American, African-American, and different mixes. Here are my preferences: I want a baby of African-American heritage.
I can come most close to identifying with an African American baby. I live in a neighborhood with black people. I have a niece and nephew from Africa. I have close friends who are black. I do not currently have any relationships with Asian or Latino or Indian people. This is not deliberate, and has not always been the case. But I currently have meaningful relationships with black people. We deliberately chose, long before the subject of adoption was on the table, to live in a neighborhood where we would interact with and connect with and identify with African-American people all the time.
Does having a black niece and nephew and living in a neighborhood with black people and having friends who are black qualify me to raise a black child? No. But it does mean I'm better equipped than I am to raise, say, a Korean child.
I don't mind being conspicuous. We're incredibly conspicuous. I think leaving the house with a child who is obviously adopted will make us look LESS conspicuous. People will look and go, "oh, they're an adoptive family" and then they'll try to figure out which other kids are adopted instead of trying to imagine how one woman could possibly give birth to 10 children in 13 years.
And as far as demand/availability, we're a long shot. Maybe no birth mother will pick us at all. We just want to say 'yes' to young women who are choosing life instead of abortion - and it happens that many of those are African American.
We said yes to that drug affected white baby, but didn't get him. And for the 3 or 4 days we were waiting to be presented, I thought about adoption and about transracial adoption. I thought it might be easier, less complicated, and that maybe God didn't think I had what it took to be the mom of a child with brown skin. And I walked around my world with my eyes wide open, wondering if my community would accept us with an adopted black baby.
At my grocery store (as often happens, I was the only white person there), there was a young woman with a teeny tiny baby with brown skin and dark eyes and black curly hair, and I was smitten and adoring and I wondered if she'd be as happy for me if I walked in holding a baby like that - or if she'd resent it. It is possible that some people in my community, especially those who don't really know us, will feel we've stolen from them, or that it is yet another form of white arrogance.
I'm aware of the many opportunities I have for screwing up - it would reflect poorly if I allow my adopted black child to run outside in just a diaper or underwear - in my neighborhood people don't do that. It might be easier in suburbia than in the city. I'm nervous, afraid. Can I raise a child to be culturally comfortable with other black people, but raise him/her first in the Kingdom of God, and therefore in the world but not of it, and therefore somewhat uncomfortable with anyone who doesn't know Jesus?
Part of me thinks this won't really happen. We went up on the mountain, we tied up "Issac" and got ready to light the fire, and that's all that will really come of it. It was just a test. We passed. $4,000 in the offering plate. I'm not afraid to offer that to God, I trust Him. And I'm not afraid of looking like a fool for Him - I do that all the time.
I'm probably more afraid that it will happen. I don't know what it will look like, or be like. I do not enjoy experiencing rejection, nor do I appreciate when my children encounter it. I am uncertain that I have what it takes. But I am completely certain God does have what it takes. I have seen that His timing is always perfect. His ways are always perfect. I know that whatever He does with us in this area in this season will be exactly right and He will give us whatever we need to be the parents of all the children He gives us - emotionally, financially, in every way.
And I guess that's where my preferences really come down. I don't want a child of African American descent for reasons of availability or conspicuousness or racial identification. I don't want to be the mom of a black boy or girl because I live in a neighborhood with wonderful black people and have wonderful black friends and have a marvelous black nephew and a gorgeous black niece. It isn't my preference because I think I could do better at raising a black child than I could if I was mom to a child of another culture or ethnicity.
I want a son or daughter with lovely brown skin and beautiful dark eyes and curly black hair because that is what God put in my heart when He planted the seeds for adoption. That's what I want because that's what I think God wants to give me. I will follow Him anywhere and do whatever He tells me to do, and if it doesn't look like I thought it would, I will still say 'yes' to Him. It wouldn't be the first time He took me to St. Louis by way of St. Petersberg or to Muncie, Indiana by way of Tulsa, Oklahoma.
Monday, July 12, 2010
Marguerite
Today a special lady went to a special place. This is my version of her story. I may have some of my facts a little wrong, or I may have made some of it up, but this is right to the best of my ability.
A long long time ago, when my grandma, Velma Ruth Powell, was 8 years old, her mother died just weeks after giving birth to her baby sister, before giving her a name. Velma named the baby Marguerite.
Many years later (61 years) my grandma died, and so did Marguerite's husband Bill. In what seemed to my young eyes a short (immediate) period of time, my grandpa married his late wife's sister and my Great-Aunt Marguerite became my Grandma.
I was about eleven at the time, making my siblings 8, 5 and 3. She was really the only Grandma my sisters ever knew. We lived 2 doors down, so we saw them all the time.
Somehow Marguerite became the matriarch of two families. She was a giving mother and grandmother to her four children and several grandchildren, but also became a devoted wife to my grandpa and picked up with all of us right where Grandma left off. She even made the same chicken and noodles and cherry delight.
For Christmas that first year she bought me my first make-up kit. It was a little wierd having all the people there together, but it was way better than not being there at all.
Once there was a dog that showed up, we later learned he was a Westie, a West Highland Terrier. We started feeding him. What we didn't realized was that next door my Auntie Evelyn and Uncle Charlie, and next to them, Marguerite and Grandpa, were also feeding the same stray dog. Finally we figured out with meals at three different houses, he was never going to leave. They advertised for him, but no one called. The family worked it out so he only got one dog's worth of food per day, and named him Benji. (Of all the things to name a stray dog!)
I remember she was afraid when she was 69 that she would die, because her brother and sister had both died at 69. But that was 20 ish years ago.
My grandpa not only lived longer because she was with him, he really really lived much longer. I remember when my husband and I were first married we all took a road trip to Colorado to see my brother play drums with the touring choir from Azusa Pacific University. Grandpa and Marguerite went right along with us - something like a 19 hour drive. Nothing stopped him, to a large degree because she was right there with him.
I remember visiting them for spring break one year and them driving around trying to find a beach for me to lay out on. In the end, we pulled over along side the road, where there was something like 20 feet of wet dirty sand by the water, and I "laid out". So funny.
Marguerite means pearl, and she was one. I named my youngest daughter after her.
So here is my goodbye to a wonderful lady who added so much to so many lives, a sweet, kind, patient, gentle woman, tenderhearted, longsuffering, a great cook, a great mom, a great wife, a great aunt/grandma.
A long long time ago, when my grandma, Velma Ruth Powell, was 8 years old, her mother died just weeks after giving birth to her baby sister, before giving her a name. Velma named the baby Marguerite.
Many years later (61 years) my grandma died, and so did Marguerite's husband Bill. In what seemed to my young eyes a short (immediate) period of time, my grandpa married his late wife's sister and my Great-Aunt Marguerite became my Grandma.
I was about eleven at the time, making my siblings 8, 5 and 3. She was really the only Grandma my sisters ever knew. We lived 2 doors down, so we saw them all the time.
Somehow Marguerite became the matriarch of two families. She was a giving mother and grandmother to her four children and several grandchildren, but also became a devoted wife to my grandpa and picked up with all of us right where Grandma left off. She even made the same chicken and noodles and cherry delight.
For Christmas that first year she bought me my first make-up kit. It was a little wierd having all the people there together, but it was way better than not being there at all.
Once there was a dog that showed up, we later learned he was a Westie, a West Highland Terrier. We started feeding him. What we didn't realized was that next door my Auntie Evelyn and Uncle Charlie, and next to them, Marguerite and Grandpa, were also feeding the same stray dog. Finally we figured out with meals at three different houses, he was never going to leave. They advertised for him, but no one called. The family worked it out so he only got one dog's worth of food per day, and named him Benji. (Of all the things to name a stray dog!)
I remember she was afraid when she was 69 that she would die, because her brother and sister had both died at 69. But that was 20 ish years ago.
My grandpa not only lived longer because she was with him, he really really lived much longer. I remember when my husband and I were first married we all took a road trip to Colorado to see my brother play drums with the touring choir from Azusa Pacific University. Grandpa and Marguerite went right along with us - something like a 19 hour drive. Nothing stopped him, to a large degree because she was right there with him.
I remember visiting them for spring break one year and them driving around trying to find a beach for me to lay out on. In the end, we pulled over along side the road, where there was something like 20 feet of wet dirty sand by the water, and I "laid out". So funny.
Marguerite means pearl, and she was one. I named my youngest daughter after her.
So here is my goodbye to a wonderful lady who added so much to so many lives, a sweet, kind, patient, gentle woman, tenderhearted, longsuffering, a great cook, a great mom, a great wife, a great aunt/grandma.
Sunday, July 11, 2010
today . . .
i started the day grinding wheat for waffles for 17 people. we have had the honor and pleasure of hosting a wonderful family for the last 3 weeks during a prayer strike at our house of prayer. it's been great. but they've been fasting, so today was our only meal together.
then i went to church and led worship all by myself, i think for the first time ever, just me and the piano. it was very sweet and delightful. i enjoyed it immensely. i think it surprises people in a church that normally has a full band to have just a voice and piano on sunday morning, but in a way, i think it somehow puts the impetus for worship on the entire body, and people pick that up and run with it.
then i taught sunday school, 4th and 5th grade.
after church we went to my second daughter's birthday party - ice skating. in honor of her special day we sent all her friends home with bruises and blisters, which is what you do for birthdays.
i'm home now, and beat. that's a full day for me. but what is really on my mind is tuesday. on tuesday 2 very important things happen.
i will go to see my ob for the first time for this pregnancy. now, this being my 11th first ob visit, you might think that is in the not-big-deal category. but the first visit is when they look (ultrasound) and see that you do in fact have a baby growing in your tummy, as opposed to just being 4 weeks late starting your period with nausea and a positive pregnancy test. but it's a big deal. seeing that everything is okay, a heart beat, a due date, the right size, having blood drawn, none of that becomes less significant the more kids you have. IT BECOMES MORE SIGNIFICANT. i know, better than most maybe, how very magnificent each of God's special creations are.
which brings me to the other incredibly important thing that happens on tuesday. we're going to be presented to a birth family to be considered to adopt.
both these events are important for the same identical reason: life. whether it is life in my womb or someone else's, life that was intended by man or woman or life that God hit the override button, whether it is life that that is exactly what you thought you wanted or life that is different from everything you had in mind, life that looks just like you or completely different, life that is perfectly healthy or life that has lifelong medical issues, life that becomes a rocket scientist or life that never leaves home, regardless, life created by God is a special creative active deliberate miracle. it is a delightful treasure and a blessing.
so as busy and active as my day was today, my heart burns for tuesday, and whatever miracles it reveals. what will God do in me, with me, for me? what majesty will He show us? i delight in His ways, in His Word, and in His works. i'm so thankful for the privilege of carrying His miracles these eleven times, and i'm in complete and total awe that He would consider allowing us to receive a life He created outside my womb into our family, into our arms.
so full of prayers for our birthmom, for the dad, for the baby, for each of them to have a hope and a future, for them to know the love and mercy of God, for them to make the best possible choice, to have wisdom and comfort and peace.
and so thankful. God is good.
then i went to church and led worship all by myself, i think for the first time ever, just me and the piano. it was very sweet and delightful. i enjoyed it immensely. i think it surprises people in a church that normally has a full band to have just a voice and piano on sunday morning, but in a way, i think it somehow puts the impetus for worship on the entire body, and people pick that up and run with it.
then i taught sunday school, 4th and 5th grade.
after church we went to my second daughter's birthday party - ice skating. in honor of her special day we sent all her friends home with bruises and blisters, which is what you do for birthdays.
i'm home now, and beat. that's a full day for me. but what is really on my mind is tuesday. on tuesday 2 very important things happen.
i will go to see my ob for the first time for this pregnancy. now, this being my 11th first ob visit, you might think that is in the not-big-deal category. but the first visit is when they look (ultrasound) and see that you do in fact have a baby growing in your tummy, as opposed to just being 4 weeks late starting your period with nausea and a positive pregnancy test. but it's a big deal. seeing that everything is okay, a heart beat, a due date, the right size, having blood drawn, none of that becomes less significant the more kids you have. IT BECOMES MORE SIGNIFICANT. i know, better than most maybe, how very magnificent each of God's special creations are.
which brings me to the other incredibly important thing that happens on tuesday. we're going to be presented to a birth family to be considered to adopt.
both these events are important for the same identical reason: life. whether it is life in my womb or someone else's, life that was intended by man or woman or life that God hit the override button, whether it is life that that is exactly what you thought you wanted or life that is different from everything you had in mind, life that looks just like you or completely different, life that is perfectly healthy or life that has lifelong medical issues, life that becomes a rocket scientist or life that never leaves home, regardless, life created by God is a special creative active deliberate miracle. it is a delightful treasure and a blessing.
so as busy and active as my day was today, my heart burns for tuesday, and whatever miracles it reveals. what will God do in me, with me, for me? what majesty will He show us? i delight in His ways, in His Word, and in His works. i'm so thankful for the privilege of carrying His miracles these eleven times, and i'm in complete and total awe that He would consider allowing us to receive a life He created outside my womb into our family, into our arms.
so full of prayers for our birthmom, for the dad, for the baby, for each of them to have a hope and a future, for them to know the love and mercy of God, for them to make the best possible choice, to have wisdom and comfort and peace.
and so thankful. God is good.
Sunday, June 27, 2010
Exceedingly, abundantly
I'm pregnant. I'm adopting and I'm pregnant. We are home study approved, with a baby on the way. I am blessed, exceedingly and abundantly beyond all that I could ask or think. To think that God would give us favor, a positive home study experience, a favorable report, a positive pregnancy test, and a confirmation of a favorable home study report. I just never would have thought it could happen.
"Somehow my weak glance has overwhelmed You, somehow my weak love has stolen away Your heart. And though I'm dark You say, I am lovely. Though I'm poor You say I am beautiful." (Sarah Edwards I think)
Somehow. The sermon today talked about what a screw-up (my term) Abraham was with all his "say you're my sister so they won't hurt me," and the Hagar incident, and in Hebrews it says "Abraham never wavered in his belief that God would fulfill His promise". Somehow God doesn't see what we see. He loves the yes in our hearts. And His grace is enough for so much weakness.
I wouldn't have believed it, and yet, here we are, within reach of our heart's desire. A little baby boy or girl with chocolaty brown skin and dark eyelashes and curly black hair. The thing I desired the most and feared the most, that I would get pregnant and not be able to adopt, has happened and not happened, and my heart is so full of joy at the double blessing of the Lord.
"I know that my Redeemer lives
What joy this blessed sentence gives
He lives, He lives, Who once was dead
He lives, my ever-living Head"
My soul doth magnify the Lord!
"Somehow my weak glance has overwhelmed You, somehow my weak love has stolen away Your heart. And though I'm dark You say, I am lovely. Though I'm poor You say I am beautiful." (Sarah Edwards I think)
Somehow. The sermon today talked about what a screw-up (my term) Abraham was with all his "say you're my sister so they won't hurt me," and the Hagar incident, and in Hebrews it says "Abraham never wavered in his belief that God would fulfill His promise". Somehow God doesn't see what we see. He loves the yes in our hearts. And His grace is enough for so much weakness.
I wouldn't have believed it, and yet, here we are, within reach of our heart's desire. A little baby boy or girl with chocolaty brown skin and dark eyelashes and curly black hair. The thing I desired the most and feared the most, that I would get pregnant and not be able to adopt, has happened and not happened, and my heart is so full of joy at the double blessing of the Lord.
"I know that my Redeemer lives
What joy this blessed sentence gives
He lives, He lives, Who once was dead
He lives, my ever-living Head"
My soul doth magnify the Lord!
Monday, June 21, 2010
questions
well, today i'm not writing about adoption or weight loss or even having a lot of children. this is personal, and maybe more appropriate for an off-line journal, but it's what's on my mind, and, you know, you don't have to read it.
tonight at a meeting i went to, i felt the Lord ask me some questions. two big ones, actually.
the first was this: the speaker told a story i had heard before, about someone who went to heaven or had a vision or dream about heaven in which he was there and heard a song he knew and said so. the angel (or whoever he was talking to) said, yes, that is a song that you got from heaven. he went on to hear songs like nothing he'd ever heard, and asked, "what are those?" the reply was that those are songs no song writer has paid the price for. so my first question from the Lord was: what is it worth to you? what price would you be willing to pay to write the songs of heaven?
the second was: what is holding you back? and so many times, my answer is, my kids. my children hold me back from ministry, i say. we never stay till the end of meetings. we rarely engage during the altar ministry time. not for lack of desire. it's just that so much Kingdom stuff is not good for families. but some of the things the Lord asks of me cost my children nothing.
the idea of a fasted lifestyle is one i heard about for the first time years ago, i think about 8 years ago, when i was pregnant with my 3rd son. the Lord asked me to live a fasted lifestyle, i said how long, knowing full well He didn't mean for a time, and He, knowing full well i had no intention of giving myself fully to Him, said, how about until the end of your pregnancy? that lasted a couple weeks, i think (which is not anywhere near how much longer i was pregnant). and the Lord brings it up from time to time. He brought it up tonight.
a fasted lifestyle does not necessarily mean never having X again. i am not sure it is a full blown Nazarite vow. i think it is more a life of belonging, of sustained decision making with a lovesick motivator - simply put, choosing to lay aside earthly pleasures for the sake of laying up heavenly treasures.
i want to look like my Daddy. i want to look like i belong to my Father. but more than that, i want to belong to Him.
what's it worth to me?
what price am i willing to pay?
what is holding me back?
i have this innate desire to be a radical. some teaching i heard a long time ago - deny yourself, take up your cross, follow me. i love that radical stuff. the crazy-love stuff. sell all you have and give everything to the poor.
i can't do the radical things i'd like to do. but i can live a fasted lifestyle at no additional drain on my children's lives or relationship with me. they don't have to stay up past their bedtimes, go to the nursery, eat dinner in the car or be babysat (or babysit) for hours on end. every time i say no to my flesh and yes to God, i get stronger and the enemy gets weaker. when my flesh gets weaker, my spirit gets stronger. i develop a habit of obedience, of listening, of devoting. and no one has to know a thing.
except the entire world wide web, because i'm pouring my heart out here for anyone to read who wants to. so much for hiddenness.
tonight at a meeting i went to, i felt the Lord ask me some questions. two big ones, actually.
the first was this: the speaker told a story i had heard before, about someone who went to heaven or had a vision or dream about heaven in which he was there and heard a song he knew and said so. the angel (or whoever he was talking to) said, yes, that is a song that you got from heaven. he went on to hear songs like nothing he'd ever heard, and asked, "what are those?" the reply was that those are songs no song writer has paid the price for. so my first question from the Lord was: what is it worth to you? what price would you be willing to pay to write the songs of heaven?
the second was: what is holding you back? and so many times, my answer is, my kids. my children hold me back from ministry, i say. we never stay till the end of meetings. we rarely engage during the altar ministry time. not for lack of desire. it's just that so much Kingdom stuff is not good for families. but some of the things the Lord asks of me cost my children nothing.
the idea of a fasted lifestyle is one i heard about for the first time years ago, i think about 8 years ago, when i was pregnant with my 3rd son. the Lord asked me to live a fasted lifestyle, i said how long, knowing full well He didn't mean for a time, and He, knowing full well i had no intention of giving myself fully to Him, said, how about until the end of your pregnancy? that lasted a couple weeks, i think (which is not anywhere near how much longer i was pregnant). and the Lord brings it up from time to time. He brought it up tonight.
a fasted lifestyle does not necessarily mean never having X again. i am not sure it is a full blown Nazarite vow. i think it is more a life of belonging, of sustained decision making with a lovesick motivator - simply put, choosing to lay aside earthly pleasures for the sake of laying up heavenly treasures.
i want to look like my Daddy. i want to look like i belong to my Father. but more than that, i want to belong to Him.
what's it worth to me?
what price am i willing to pay?
what is holding me back?
i have this innate desire to be a radical. some teaching i heard a long time ago - deny yourself, take up your cross, follow me. i love that radical stuff. the crazy-love stuff. sell all you have and give everything to the poor.
i can't do the radical things i'd like to do. but i can live a fasted lifestyle at no additional drain on my children's lives or relationship with me. they don't have to stay up past their bedtimes, go to the nursery, eat dinner in the car or be babysat (or babysit) for hours on end. every time i say no to my flesh and yes to God, i get stronger and the enemy gets weaker. when my flesh gets weaker, my spirit gets stronger. i develop a habit of obedience, of listening, of devoting. and no one has to know a thing.
except the entire world wide web, because i'm pouring my heart out here for anyone to read who wants to. so much for hiddenness.
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Sometimes I get tired.
The repetitious futility of my existence sometimes wears on me. Loading and unloading, folding and sorting, rinsing, flossing, brushing, scolding, wiping, hugging, wiping, cleaning up, sweeping, spitting in the wind.
We have a home study coming up. We want our house to be clean. So we clean it every morning. And by the time Dad gets home, it looks exactly like it did before we cleaned, except worse, because while we were cleaning, the brute squad got out a game of trivial pursuit ca. 1985 (the brute squad doesn't read yet), played with markers, peed in their pants and left them where they dropped (the brute squad is often unclad), or just went to the family closet and changed their 'clads' multiple times, no doubt in search of that one perfectly mismatched combination that says, 'my mother doesn't dress me and we get our clothes in bags not stores'.
So we clean, the house gets messier, and Dad, aka The Hammer, says, "okay, guys, we really have to clean tomorrow". The older kids, the ones doing the cleaning, say in a very realistic not rebellious way, "why don't we wait to clean until after the littles go to bed Friday night, then it will be clean for the visit Saturday?"
We have harnessed the army. We have taught it to work. We have trained it to help itself function. We have not, however, taught it to be responsible. We have trained it to match socks, but it doesn't care if they are matched correctly. We have trained it to clean a room, but not to keep it clean. We have taught it to check things off the list, but not to bear the burden.
And sometimes the volume overwhelms me. May I have a string cheese? Yes. Whammo, the entire pack is gone. May I have an apple? Yes? In the attic? Sure. There are 15 apple cores in the attic. No, 14, the baby just ate one. Umm, 15, I guess, she spit it all over the floor. May we play in the hose? Yes. That'll be one load of laundry that has to be washed immediately or it'll turn into mildew in 12.6 seconds.
But it is the emotional things that really bring me down. My incredibly handsome talented charming fun delightful pre-adolescent son had a crisis today. He's just at that age. He's sleeping in (always a morning person before), he doesn't get jokes (normally has the best sense of humor), he takes everything personally and is convinced he's the ugly one (I said, you're kidding, right?!). He's just at that age. So I spent 45 minutes laying on the couch with him, putting him back together like a lego kit, while every body sipped frozen dyed sugar water out of plastic sleeves on the back porch (should serve as a homing beacon for every ant in a 7 mile radius)(I hate ants)(we have three{3} different kinds of ants)(grrr).
Am I moving forward? Am I just spinning my wheels? Is this thing on? Didn't I say all these things yesterday?
The distance between who I am and what I did today and who I want to be is vast. It's not that I want to be anywhere else doing anything else. I just want to do it better. I want to eat less, yell less, growl less, weigh less, smile more, sing more, and eat the vegetables I buy and grow before they grow mold.
I am better than I used to be. Barely. My husband is allowing us to host some visitors for a church thing for 3 weeks. That is huge. We have earned a pittance of respect. He thinks we can keep it together to the point of not being disgusting for a whole three weeks. We "usta-couldn't" keep it clean long enough to have someone over for dinner.
But sometimes I get tired. I don't feel strong. I don't feel loved. I feel like a slug. How long does it take to be not fat? Longer.
Jesus, I need You to pull me into Your current. My own will is either not strong or goes the wrong way. I need to see Your beauty in the moment by moment, because I can't hold on to it for a whole day or even an hour. Draw me after You and I will run. I will run.
We have a home study coming up. We want our house to be clean. So we clean it every morning. And by the time Dad gets home, it looks exactly like it did before we cleaned, except worse, because while we were cleaning, the brute squad got out a game of trivial pursuit ca. 1985 (the brute squad doesn't read yet), played with markers, peed in their pants and left them where they dropped (the brute squad is often unclad), or just went to the family closet and changed their 'clads' multiple times, no doubt in search of that one perfectly mismatched combination that says, 'my mother doesn't dress me and we get our clothes in bags not stores'.
So we clean, the house gets messier, and Dad, aka The Hammer, says, "okay, guys, we really have to clean tomorrow". The older kids, the ones doing the cleaning, say in a very realistic not rebellious way, "why don't we wait to clean until after the littles go to bed Friday night, then it will be clean for the visit Saturday?"
We have harnessed the army. We have taught it to work. We have trained it to help itself function. We have not, however, taught it to be responsible. We have trained it to match socks, but it doesn't care if they are matched correctly. We have trained it to clean a room, but not to keep it clean. We have taught it to check things off the list, but not to bear the burden.
And sometimes the volume overwhelms me. May I have a string cheese? Yes. Whammo, the entire pack is gone. May I have an apple? Yes? In the attic? Sure. There are 15 apple cores in the attic. No, 14, the baby just ate one. Umm, 15, I guess, she spit it all over the floor. May we play in the hose? Yes. That'll be one load of laundry that has to be washed immediately or it'll turn into mildew in 12.6 seconds.
But it is the emotional things that really bring me down. My incredibly handsome talented charming fun delightful pre-adolescent son had a crisis today. He's just at that age. He's sleeping in (always a morning person before), he doesn't get jokes (normally has the best sense of humor), he takes everything personally and is convinced he's the ugly one (I said, you're kidding, right?!). He's just at that age. So I spent 45 minutes laying on the couch with him, putting him back together like a lego kit, while every body sipped frozen dyed sugar water out of plastic sleeves on the back porch (should serve as a homing beacon for every ant in a 7 mile radius)(I hate ants)(we have three{3} different kinds of ants)(grrr).
Am I moving forward? Am I just spinning my wheels? Is this thing on? Didn't I say all these things yesterday?
The distance between who I am and what I did today and who I want to be is vast. It's not that I want to be anywhere else doing anything else. I just want to do it better. I want to eat less, yell less, growl less, weigh less, smile more, sing more, and eat the vegetables I buy and grow before they grow mold.
I am better than I used to be. Barely. My husband is allowing us to host some visitors for a church thing for 3 weeks. That is huge. We have earned a pittance of respect. He thinks we can keep it together to the point of not being disgusting for a whole three weeks. We "usta-couldn't" keep it clean long enough to have someone over for dinner.
But sometimes I get tired. I don't feel strong. I don't feel loved. I feel like a slug. How long does it take to be not fat? Longer.
Jesus, I need You to pull me into Your current. My own will is either not strong or goes the wrong way. I need to see Your beauty in the moment by moment, because I can't hold on to it for a whole day or even an hour. Draw me after You and I will run. I will run.
Saturday, June 12, 2010
The Cruise
I went on a cruise. I've always wanted to, because, well, I grew up in the 70's and 80's - I watched The Love Boat, so I've always wanted to do it. My husband gets sea sick, so that kept us from doing it alone, but for my parents' 40th anniversary, they helped each of my siblings and their spouses to do it.
I'd have written about it along the way, but I watched The Net, so I'm still a little unsure about informing the entire world wide web when I'm going to be gone, and the cost of staying connected with any form of reality is prohibitive. So we really left and didn't talk to our children or their caretakers for a little over 4 days.
I'm pretty sure the cruise line lost money on us. We didn't gamble, didn't drink what wasn't free, didn't buy any art or jewelry, and we ate what would have been in real world dollars way more than the cost of our tickets. I had so much fun eating different kinds of things. For example, my last supper on the cruise I had: a wild mushroom pastry, asparagus soup, prime rib, lobster, curried chickpeas (which was, believe it or not, probably better than the prime rib or the lobster), and cherries jubilee. It was all amazing and delicious.
For me, just sitting down and having someone bring me food is a delight. But this wasn't just food. It was excellent food, with excellent service, in beautiful surroundings, with 9 of the people I like best in the world. And I didn't have to do the dishes!
I had a goal of working out as much as possible. So the first full day, I did 40 minutes on the elliptical, and then went up on the top deck where there was a track, and walked/ran a little over 5K. That was huge for me.
Each day I did either one or the other of those things. I also swam in the ocean, in the pool (which unfortunately tasted just like the ocean) and almost never took the elevator. (our room was on the 9th floor, we ate on either the 3rd or 11th, the pool and fitness center were in the 11th and 12th) I ice skated and roller bladed - neither of which burned many calories because I was clinging to the wall and trying hard not to get a concussion. And the last full day, I did a total of 5 miles on the elliptical and a 5K. The 5K was on deck, like the other days, but it was during peak tanning hours. All the lawn chairs were full, and there I was, fat chick, running (jog/walk/shuffling) around and around. People were counting laps (strange, usually people count children when they see me) as I went around. Some started cheering and high-fiving me. It got really fun.
I am like two reality shows in one: The Duggars meet The Biggest Loser.
The other really outstanding thing for me about the trip that I'll mention now is that I was amazed at how many colors the ocean is. I just couldn't believe it. In Bermuda, in the bright sunshine, it was the definition of "aquamarine". Later it was royal blue to my left, and silvery gray to my right, below the clouds. Then the sky was also blue and gray, and I just have to say, I enjoyed my Father's palette very much.
We also got to see a couple Portuguese Man-Of-War, and I ate Escargot. It was amazing. A couple nights later they were selling Royal Caribbean Cookbooks and it had their recipe for Escargot. It has a stick of butter in it. No wonder it tasted good.
I'd have written about it along the way, but I watched The Net, so I'm still a little unsure about informing the entire world wide web when I'm going to be gone, and the cost of staying connected with any form of reality is prohibitive. So we really left and didn't talk to our children or their caretakers for a little over 4 days.
I'm pretty sure the cruise line lost money on us. We didn't gamble, didn't drink what wasn't free, didn't buy any art or jewelry, and we ate what would have been in real world dollars way more than the cost of our tickets. I had so much fun eating different kinds of things. For example, my last supper on the cruise I had: a wild mushroom pastry, asparagus soup, prime rib, lobster, curried chickpeas (which was, believe it or not, probably better than the prime rib or the lobster), and cherries jubilee. It was all amazing and delicious.
For me, just sitting down and having someone bring me food is a delight. But this wasn't just food. It was excellent food, with excellent service, in beautiful surroundings, with 9 of the people I like best in the world. And I didn't have to do the dishes!
I had a goal of working out as much as possible. So the first full day, I did 40 minutes on the elliptical, and then went up on the top deck where there was a track, and walked/ran a little over 5K. That was huge for me.
Each day I did either one or the other of those things. I also swam in the ocean, in the pool (which unfortunately tasted just like the ocean) and almost never took the elevator. (our room was on the 9th floor, we ate on either the 3rd or 11th, the pool and fitness center were in the 11th and 12th) I ice skated and roller bladed - neither of which burned many calories because I was clinging to the wall and trying hard not to get a concussion. And the last full day, I did a total of 5 miles on the elliptical and a 5K. The 5K was on deck, like the other days, but it was during peak tanning hours. All the lawn chairs were full, and there I was, fat chick, running (jog/walk/shuffling) around and around. People were counting laps (strange, usually people count children when they see me) as I went around. Some started cheering and high-fiving me. It got really fun.
I am like two reality shows in one: The Duggars meet The Biggest Loser.
The other really outstanding thing for me about the trip that I'll mention now is that I was amazed at how many colors the ocean is. I just couldn't believe it. In Bermuda, in the bright sunshine, it was the definition of "aquamarine". Later it was royal blue to my left, and silvery gray to my right, below the clouds. Then the sky was also blue and gray, and I just have to say, I enjoyed my Father's palette very much.
We also got to see a couple Portuguese Man-Of-War, and I ate Escargot. It was amazing. A couple nights later they were selling Royal Caribbean Cookbooks and it had their recipe for Escargot. It has a stick of butter in it. No wonder it tasted good.
Wednesday, May 26, 2010
Greater than, less than
My children don't mind greater than, less than problems in math. Neither did I. I have taught them what I learned from Mrs. Needham back at Darrough Chapel School in the first grade. The little greater than >, less than < symbol is a crocodile's mouth, and he wants to eat the bigger number because he's sooooo hungry. Then you draw teeth and eyeballs. Fun. Thanks Mrs. Needham.
As an adult, greater than, less than has caused me some consternation lately. Now, before I go any further, I know some people who read this that love me are going to want to make me feel better as you read. That's okay, but understand that this is part of my journey and it will help me if I let it.
As a fat person, I have an understanding of what I look like, that isn't completely accurate. I am like the man the Bible talks about, who looks in the mirror but after he walks away forgets what he looks like. I do that. I don't think I look like what I really look like. Not only do I not think I'm this overweight, I also don't think I'm this old, but that's another story. Instead, I have an image of myself that is something of a comparison. I'm not fixated on it, it's just a relative definition that I'm acknowledging is in my mind. Fat is someone who is fatter than me. Am I fat like that? No, I'm not that fat. Okay, fat is that, and I am less fat than that.
And I'm not the only one who thinks like that. We all define fat by way of comparison. I remember a painful conversation years ago, that has been repeated a number of times in some way since then, where someone described another person to me as being a little overweight. I said, "like me?" The answer, "Oh no, not like you. Just a little chubby."
So we think like that. More fat and less fat. Greater than, less than. There are people in my world (people who I love and respect), who in my mind are fatter than me, therefore, they are fat and I'm not. It's the same with tall. I am probably a really short person to most people. But I don't see myself as short. I just think most of you are either tall, quite tall, or really tall. Only people (adults) who are shorter than me are what I consider short (I know of two).
Well recently, someone I (a fat person) thought of as fat, someone who has always been bigger than me, who made me feel better in the "at least I'm not that fat" sort of way, has lost a significant amount of weight. She looks wonderful. Not skinny, but wonderful. More wonderfuller, it turns out, than me. She gave me her fat clothes. Someone who has always been heavier than me gave me clothes that are too big for her. And the worst part is: they barely fit.
The season of biggest loser that just ended had one episode, the makeover episode, where the guy who eventually won it, Michael, still had to shop at the plus-size store for makeover week, even though he'd lost almost 200 lbs. (Guys don't call it plus-size, they call it Big and Tall. Why is that?? Because the store wants you to feel good enough about yourself to spend your money there. It's cool for a guy to be "big". No woman wants to be big.) It was really hard for him, to feel like he'd come so far but was still so fat.
So that's how I feel. I have lost almost 30 lbs since January. But I'm still fat. I don't look good in my clothes, let alone my swimming suit. I've been working hard and trying, albeit inconsistantly, but I'm still too fat for a bigger lady's too big hand me downs. I am near (but not past) some huge milestones. Perhaps more importantly, I'm exercising every day, because my blood pressure will be high if I don't. But I'm having a tough time staying the course because I want to see results. I want to succeed. I want to be > than I used to be.
Well maybe I am, a little. Tonight we went to the cubbie picnic (Awana club end of year party for the little guys) and I ate 1 hotdog, 1 burger, a little pasta salad, 1 brownie and a small pile of watermelon. Oh, and a little soda. Does that sound like a lot of food to you? It wasn't. There was a plateful of brownies on the table, and another plate of cookies. What I really wanted was a couple more hot dogs. But skinny people don't eat two hot dogs or two brownies. They eat one. So I ate one.
I don't know if the scale tomorrow morning will say something that represents the self control I showed today or the workout I did tonight. I don't know if those stupid size 20 jeans my dear friend passed on to me will be loose enough that I can wear them and breath and eat and sit down without pain and trauma to my intestines.
I'm just trying to be faithful. Diligence is a man's precious possession. My laundry is still caught up. I'm exercising every day. My dentist told me I did a good job taking care of my teeth. I AM MORE DISCIPLINED THAN I USED TO BE!
So the greater than less than problem, it turns out, is not
**The Amazing Supermom is > than her previously overweight friend**
but rather
**The Amazing Supermom > than she used to be**
As an adult, greater than, less than has caused me some consternation lately. Now, before I go any further, I know some people who read this that love me are going to want to make me feel better as you read. That's okay, but understand that this is part of my journey and it will help me if I let it.
As a fat person, I have an understanding of what I look like, that isn't completely accurate. I am like the man the Bible talks about, who looks in the mirror but after he walks away forgets what he looks like. I do that. I don't think I look like what I really look like. Not only do I not think I'm this overweight, I also don't think I'm this old, but that's another story. Instead, I have an image of myself that is something of a comparison. I'm not fixated on it, it's just a relative definition that I'm acknowledging is in my mind. Fat is someone who is fatter than me. Am I fat like that? No, I'm not that fat. Okay, fat is that, and I am less fat than that.
And I'm not the only one who thinks like that. We all define fat by way of comparison. I remember a painful conversation years ago, that has been repeated a number of times in some way since then, where someone described another person to me as being a little overweight. I said, "like me?" The answer, "Oh no, not like you. Just a little chubby."
So we think like that. More fat and less fat. Greater than, less than. There are people in my world (people who I love and respect), who in my mind are fatter than me, therefore, they are fat and I'm not. It's the same with tall. I am probably a really short person to most people. But I don't see myself as short. I just think most of you are either tall, quite tall, or really tall. Only people (adults) who are shorter than me are what I consider short (I know of two).
Well recently, someone I (a fat person) thought of as fat, someone who has always been bigger than me, who made me feel better in the "at least I'm not that fat" sort of way, has lost a significant amount of weight. She looks wonderful. Not skinny, but wonderful. More wonderfuller, it turns out, than me. She gave me her fat clothes. Someone who has always been heavier than me gave me clothes that are too big for her. And the worst part is: they barely fit.
The season of biggest loser that just ended had one episode, the makeover episode, where the guy who eventually won it, Michael, still had to shop at the plus-size store for makeover week, even though he'd lost almost 200 lbs. (Guys don't call it plus-size, they call it Big and Tall. Why is that?? Because the store wants you to feel good enough about yourself to spend your money there. It's cool for a guy to be "big". No woman wants to be big.) It was really hard for him, to feel like he'd come so far but was still so fat.
So that's how I feel. I have lost almost 30 lbs since January. But I'm still fat. I don't look good in my clothes, let alone my swimming suit. I've been working hard and trying, albeit inconsistantly, but I'm still too fat for a bigger lady's too big hand me downs. I am near (but not past) some huge milestones. Perhaps more importantly, I'm exercising every day, because my blood pressure will be high if I don't. But I'm having a tough time staying the course because I want to see results. I want to succeed. I want to be > than I used to be.
Well maybe I am, a little. Tonight we went to the cubbie picnic (Awana club end of year party for the little guys) and I ate 1 hotdog, 1 burger, a little pasta salad, 1 brownie and a small pile of watermelon. Oh, and a little soda. Does that sound like a lot of food to you? It wasn't. There was a plateful of brownies on the table, and another plate of cookies. What I really wanted was a couple more hot dogs. But skinny people don't eat two hot dogs or two brownies. They eat one. So I ate one.
I don't know if the scale tomorrow morning will say something that represents the self control I showed today or the workout I did tonight. I don't know if those stupid size 20 jeans my dear friend passed on to me will be loose enough that I can wear them and breath and eat and sit down without pain and trauma to my intestines.
I'm just trying to be faithful. Diligence is a man's precious possession. My laundry is still caught up. I'm exercising every day. My dentist told me I did a good job taking care of my teeth. I AM MORE DISCIPLINED THAN I USED TO BE!
So the greater than less than problem, it turns out, is not
**The Amazing Supermom is > than her previously overweight friend**
but rather
**The Amazing Supermom > than she used to be**
Friday, May 21, 2010
double major
I double majored in college. I mean, I only got one degree, but my advisor told me it was basically a double major. In order to get a degree to teach music, you have to get a degree to teach and a degree in music. It makes sense. I will mention here that my classes in teacher education were some of the stupidest hours of my life, including waiting rooms, having cavities filled, and mmmm, probably not kidney stones - those are in a class of their own.
In our process of becoming marginally less ignorant about being an adoptive parent of an African American child (that is our pursuit, it hasn't happened yet) it turns out that is a kind of double major as well.
There's adoption. Adoption is hard. A child has this family, that, no matter how wonderful they are, cannot erase the fact that his/her mother, father, family, are not in his life. Maybe they were sick, maybe they died, maybe they are wicked, maybe just weak. They are not there.
We are not great, as a society, at understanding that people grieve people they have never known. We don't get it with a miscarriage. We don't get it with adoption. Even if you never knew your mother or your baby it still really, really hurts. And the fact that you have a great family now, or whatever, doesn't make it not hurt.
So there's adoption, which is hard, and then there is the trans-cultural part. Because a trans-cultural adoptee hasn't just lost his/her birth mom/dad/family. He lost his culture. He lost the place he learns how to talk like a black man, walk like a black man, and dance like a black man. The very subtle innuendos that make culture, he now has to have a tutor for those. That's false. It's harsh and wrong.
On the other hand, (not saying the first two hands are in any way invalid) he has a permanent home. And that's a start. It is just important that we know that, in the natural, when we adopt him out of his culture, we place him at a disadvantage.
I have learned (www.answersingenesis.com) that there is no genetic difference between any ethnicity of people. There is one race: human. I've started to get irritated with the form that makes me pick one. It's not right. There is one race - the rest is culture.
And we are counter-cultural people. All of my children are being brought up to be different from the world (that whole "in the world, not of it" thing). We don't do what the culture says we should do. It's not how we make our decisions. American culture is not having 10 or more children, driving a 15 passenger van, wearing hand-me-downs or home schooling.
So my adopted child will also be double majoring: he/she will have a degree in feeling comfortable in the skin God gave him, and a second degree in belonging to a Kingdom not made with human hands, being a stranger and alien in a world that doesn't love us, but being confident in the One who made him.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: Adoption, becoming a multi-racial family, is a whole different set of problems than we have any experience with. But even though the problems are new and different, the Answer is the same. Different problems; same Jesus. I do not have delusions that we can make all the pain of trans-racial adoption go away, but I have every expectation that Jesus can.
In our process of becoming marginally less ignorant about being an adoptive parent of an African American child (that is our pursuit, it hasn't happened yet) it turns out that is a kind of double major as well.
There's adoption. Adoption is hard. A child has this family, that, no matter how wonderful they are, cannot erase the fact that his/her mother, father, family, are not in his life. Maybe they were sick, maybe they died, maybe they are wicked, maybe just weak. They are not there.
We are not great, as a society, at understanding that people grieve people they have never known. We don't get it with a miscarriage. We don't get it with adoption. Even if you never knew your mother or your baby it still really, really hurts. And the fact that you have a great family now, or whatever, doesn't make it not hurt.
So there's adoption, which is hard, and then there is the trans-cultural part. Because a trans-cultural adoptee hasn't just lost his/her birth mom/dad/family. He lost his culture. He lost the place he learns how to talk like a black man, walk like a black man, and dance like a black man. The very subtle innuendos that make culture, he now has to have a tutor for those. That's false. It's harsh and wrong.
On the other hand, (not saying the first two hands are in any way invalid) he has a permanent home. And that's a start. It is just important that we know that, in the natural, when we adopt him out of his culture, we place him at a disadvantage.
I have learned (www.answersingenesis.com) that there is no genetic difference between any ethnicity of people. There is one race: human. I've started to get irritated with the form that makes me pick one. It's not right. There is one race - the rest is culture.
And we are counter-cultural people. All of my children are being brought up to be different from the world (that whole "in the world, not of it" thing). We don't do what the culture says we should do. It's not how we make our decisions. American culture is not having 10 or more children, driving a 15 passenger van, wearing hand-me-downs or home schooling.
So my adopted child will also be double majoring: he/she will have a degree in feeling comfortable in the skin God gave him, and a second degree in belonging to a Kingdom not made with human hands, being a stranger and alien in a world that doesn't love us, but being confident in the One who made him.
I've said it before, I'll say it again: Adoption, becoming a multi-racial family, is a whole different set of problems than we have any experience with. But even though the problems are new and different, the Answer is the same. Different problems; same Jesus. I do not have delusions that we can make all the pain of trans-racial adoption go away, but I have every expectation that Jesus can.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
forty by forty?
Nah, I'm going for it. I'm going for broke. Why?
Well, first of all, I visited the doctor and my blood pressure was high. Not pregnancy induced hypertension high. Not last trimester get the baby out high. Nope, just normal, plain ole high blood pressure. And we all know what that means: lose weight and exercise or take a pill every day for the rest of my life. I have until June 11th. And I have no choice.
I am still sitting at about 210 lbs. Still? Yes! That's why it's called a wall! I have not broken the 206 barrier in 13 years. But I am going to break it. Soon. Not because I want to lose weight, but because I do not want to take blood pressure medicine for the rest of my life. Not if I can help it.
I know taking medicine is not the worst thing in the world. But I'm actually lousy at it. I have a hard time finishing antibiotics. I am horrible about prenatal vitamins. It's just not my best thing.
So here's my plan: I'm trying to stay around 12-1300 calories. I'm avoiding sugar and white flour. I'm on the treadmill 40 minutes daily. And I'm trying to do 40 flights of stairs a day (or at least as many as possible).
So I'm not trying to lose 40 lbs in the next year. I'm shooting for 70 or so. Hey, it could happen. Why not try? I've got plenty of time and the best motivation in the world: my life.
Well, first of all, I visited the doctor and my blood pressure was high. Not pregnancy induced hypertension high. Not last trimester get the baby out high. Nope, just normal, plain ole high blood pressure. And we all know what that means: lose weight and exercise or take a pill every day for the rest of my life. I have until June 11th. And I have no choice.
I am still sitting at about 210 lbs. Still? Yes! That's why it's called a wall! I have not broken the 206 barrier in 13 years. But I am going to break it. Soon. Not because I want to lose weight, but because I do not want to take blood pressure medicine for the rest of my life. Not if I can help it.
I know taking medicine is not the worst thing in the world. But I'm actually lousy at it. I have a hard time finishing antibiotics. I am horrible about prenatal vitamins. It's just not my best thing.
So here's my plan: I'm trying to stay around 12-1300 calories. I'm avoiding sugar and white flour. I'm on the treadmill 40 minutes daily. And I'm trying to do 40 flights of stairs a day (or at least as many as possible).
So I'm not trying to lose 40 lbs in the next year. I'm shooting for 70 or so. Hey, it could happen. Why not try? I've got plenty of time and the best motivation in the world: my life.
Wednesday, May 05, 2010
socks
I think I'm ready to talk about socks now. I just matched 103 pair of socks. Does that sound like a lot? How many pairs of socks do you have? 103 pairs is about 9 per person at my house. The crazy thing is that I still have an overflowing basket of unmatched socks looking at me, staring at me, daring me to match one more pair. But I'm not gonna. In this area, at least, I have some measure of self control. I can stop matching socks anytime I want to.
I am convinced that a psycho-analyst could learn a whole lot about someone by watching them match socks. It used to be pretty important to me to get sock matching just right. I remember getting very irritated at my mother-in-law once, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, for matching socks less precisely than I wanted them done, which is, of course, nothing like I do them now.
These days, if it is about the same color and about the same style and about the same size, it's a match! Once you put your shoes on, no one knows if the letters in the word Hanes are the same color. (By the way, my favorite socks to match, not to wear, but to match are the ones Hanes makes. I'm not getting paid to say that either. The whole colored lettering/stripe thing makes it so easy to match things correctly, or to get it close anyway.)
Why do we have so many socks? Other than the obvious reason that we have a lot of feet, and the other obvious reason that I have a tendency to get behind on laundry, it is also because we are pretty hard on socks. I have 4 to throw away from this batch alone. I remember a sweet older lady telling me in a marvelously patronizing voice about how she taught her daughters AND her sons to darn their socks. I wanted to say, but didn't, we don't just get holes in our socks, we annihilate them. You can read through a sock before we throw it out. There's nothing there to sew up!
So, when someone gives me a bag of socks (it is beyond me that anyone would have socks to give that are matched and don't have holes in them) I take them. We will wear them until we A) lose them, B) wear them paper thin, or C) leave them at a friend's house.
We don't buy socks that often, usually. We buy them at Christmas, when we are in Indiana and run out of socks before it's time to come home, and just before KOV (church day-camp) when finding socks to wear is the last thing this amazing super mama wants to think about, when I'm packing lunches for 10 or 12 or 14, washing everyone's shirt for the next day, and trying to get all those people in the van before 8:30, 5 mornings in a row.
No one really has their own socks in our house. My husband sort of does, but I bum from him when I run out. I almost do, but the big kids bum from me, also. The rest of the socks are downstairs in two drawers for anyone's taking. They do a pretty good job, mostly, of being able to tell if a pair of socks is too small for them. They are not as good at knowing if the socks will be too big. And a couple of them are downright lousy at putting a pair of socks back, folded together, if they don't fit. Alas.
And then, sometimes, just to keep me near the edge of the cliffs of insanity, some bright eyed adorable children get the idea that it would be great fun to put socks on our hands AND feet, maybe multiple pairs (if 1 is good, 4 is better, don't you think?) and pretend to be dogs or skate around the slippery floor. Socks are also wonderful (who knew?) for carrying small treasures, money, rocks, legos, marbles, polly pockets, small sleepy beanie babies, and those little decorative glass pebbles we call dragon tears.
Summer is (or should be) the answer to all these problems. I beg my children to wear crocs (fake ones), flip flops, sandals, aqua socks, anything that doesn't require socks. I offer them tax incentives, increases in allowances, extra minutes on the computer, easier math homework next year, if they will just show mom a little love and stay away from the socks.
My eldest has some hillbilly blood in her, and would be happy to go bare foot all the time. But society (a.k.a. the department of health) insists that she wear shoes when we go places. So she respectfully wears them to wherever we are going and promptly takes them off as soon as she gets in the van. Does she sometimes forget to bring them into the house???
My sons tend to wear their socks until a few seconds before they fall asleep. B3 recently got assigned the job of tidying up the boys room each day. What that means is that it is his responsibility to harvest all the dead socks from the sock graveyard every morning.
The shoe closet is also a prime location for going on a sock hunt. Stuffed in the shoes, on the floor, scattered from the closet door up the stairs, it seems the best place to leave dirty socks is anywhere but where they ought to be.
And why is it that the butt-ugliest socks in the house never, ever get lost?
So, like much of my life and yours, the battle wages on. It has no end. Well, Heaven. I am as sure as I am of anything that I will not have to match socks in Heaven. Oh that will be glory for me, glory for me, glory for me. When by His grace I will look on His face (and not have to match socks anymore) that will be glory, be glory for me.
I am convinced that a psycho-analyst could learn a whole lot about someone by watching them match socks. It used to be pretty important to me to get sock matching just right. I remember getting very irritated at my mother-in-law once, a long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, for matching socks less precisely than I wanted them done, which is, of course, nothing like I do them now.
These days, if it is about the same color and about the same style and about the same size, it's a match! Once you put your shoes on, no one knows if the letters in the word Hanes are the same color. (By the way, my favorite socks to match, not to wear, but to match are the ones Hanes makes. I'm not getting paid to say that either. The whole colored lettering/stripe thing makes it so easy to match things correctly, or to get it close anyway.)
Why do we have so many socks? Other than the obvious reason that we have a lot of feet, and the other obvious reason that I have a tendency to get behind on laundry, it is also because we are pretty hard on socks. I have 4 to throw away from this batch alone. I remember a sweet older lady telling me in a marvelously patronizing voice about how she taught her daughters AND her sons to darn their socks. I wanted to say, but didn't, we don't just get holes in our socks, we annihilate them. You can read through a sock before we throw it out. There's nothing there to sew up!
So, when someone gives me a bag of socks (it is beyond me that anyone would have socks to give that are matched and don't have holes in them) I take them. We will wear them until we A) lose them, B) wear them paper thin, or C) leave them at a friend's house.
We don't buy socks that often, usually. We buy them at Christmas, when we are in Indiana and run out of socks before it's time to come home, and just before KOV (church day-camp) when finding socks to wear is the last thing this amazing super mama wants to think about, when I'm packing lunches for 10 or 12 or 14, washing everyone's shirt for the next day, and trying to get all those people in the van before 8:30, 5 mornings in a row.
No one really has their own socks in our house. My husband sort of does, but I bum from him when I run out. I almost do, but the big kids bum from me, also. The rest of the socks are downstairs in two drawers for anyone's taking. They do a pretty good job, mostly, of being able to tell if a pair of socks is too small for them. They are not as good at knowing if the socks will be too big. And a couple of them are downright lousy at putting a pair of socks back, folded together, if they don't fit. Alas.
And then, sometimes, just to keep me near the edge of the cliffs of insanity, some bright eyed adorable children get the idea that it would be great fun to put socks on our hands AND feet, maybe multiple pairs (if 1 is good, 4 is better, don't you think?) and pretend to be dogs or skate around the slippery floor. Socks are also wonderful (who knew?) for carrying small treasures, money, rocks, legos, marbles, polly pockets, small sleepy beanie babies, and those little decorative glass pebbles we call dragon tears.
Summer is (or should be) the answer to all these problems. I beg my children to wear crocs (fake ones), flip flops, sandals, aqua socks, anything that doesn't require socks. I offer them tax incentives, increases in allowances, extra minutes on the computer, easier math homework next year, if they will just show mom a little love and stay away from the socks.
My eldest has some hillbilly blood in her, and would be happy to go bare foot all the time. But society (a.k.a. the department of health) insists that she wear shoes when we go places. So she respectfully wears them to wherever we are going and promptly takes them off as soon as she gets in the van. Does she sometimes forget to bring them into the house???
My sons tend to wear their socks until a few seconds before they fall asleep. B3 recently got assigned the job of tidying up the boys room each day. What that means is that it is his responsibility to harvest all the dead socks from the sock graveyard every morning.
The shoe closet is also a prime location for going on a sock hunt. Stuffed in the shoes, on the floor, scattered from the closet door up the stairs, it seems the best place to leave dirty socks is anywhere but where they ought to be.
And why is it that the butt-ugliest socks in the house never, ever get lost?
So, like much of my life and yours, the battle wages on. It has no end. Well, Heaven. I am as sure as I am of anything that I will not have to match socks in Heaven. Oh that will be glory for me, glory for me, glory for me. When by His grace I will look on His face (and not have to match socks anymore) that will be glory, be glory for me.
Tuesday, May 04, 2010
tribute to the amazing super mom
I have a confession to make. I realized this weekend that I am not the amazing super mom. But I know her. In fact, I'm related to her. Okay, I'm her daughter.
My mom is both super and amazing. She flew in (she came in a car) to my world and in two days (mostly one) she not only found the floor in my laundry room, she cleared it. She dragged me kicking and screaming (for once I didn't complain) down the path of laundry-caught-up-ed-ness, and at this moment, I can honestly say that I am, in fact, in that mythical state of "caught up", which I had heretofore thought only existed in fairy tales (and houses where there were less than 7 or 8 people).
She cleaned my bathroom. She cleaned my kitchen floor. She cleaned the laundry hallway! My house is sparkling and clean, and I am a nervous wreck.
The songs going through my head while we cleaned: "I don't ever want to hear that song again" by Olivia Newton John, and "I guess that's why they call it the blues" by Elton John. I think I hung up a thousand shirts.
She did most of it in her pajamas, wearing a funny hat some of the time. She pulled g2 in on the action [I have decided to dub my children by order and gender in my blog from here on out, so g2 simply means second daughter]. Actually, we pulled everyone in many times, but g2 became her sidekick, complete with her own funny hat.
I tried to give her my cape, but she wouldn't take it. (there is no charge for awesome-ness or attractiveness, apparently) Now, if I can maintain it for, say, a month without thrashing my children or taking drugs, then maybe I'll have earned my title back again. But right now, I'm just a bill, I am only a bill and I'm living here on capital hill . . .
My mom is both super and amazing. She flew in (she came in a car) to my world and in two days (mostly one) she not only found the floor in my laundry room, she cleared it. She dragged me kicking and screaming (for once I didn't complain) down the path of laundry-caught-up-ed-ness, and at this moment, I can honestly say that I am, in fact, in that mythical state of "caught up", which I had heretofore thought only existed in fairy tales (and houses where there were less than 7 or 8 people).
She cleaned my bathroom. She cleaned my kitchen floor. She cleaned the laundry hallway! My house is sparkling and clean, and I am a nervous wreck.
The songs going through my head while we cleaned: "I don't ever want to hear that song again" by Olivia Newton John, and "I guess that's why they call it the blues" by Elton John. I think I hung up a thousand shirts.
She did most of it in her pajamas, wearing a funny hat some of the time. She pulled g2 in on the action [I have decided to dub my children by order and gender in my blog from here on out, so g2 simply means second daughter]. Actually, we pulled everyone in many times, but g2 became her sidekick, complete with her own funny hat.
I tried to give her my cape, but she wouldn't take it. (there is no charge for awesome-ness or attractiveness, apparently) Now, if I can maintain it for, say, a month without thrashing my children or taking drugs, then maybe I'll have earned my title back again. But right now, I'm just a bill, I am only a bill and I'm living here on capital hill . . .
Friday, April 30, 2010
how do you do it? part 4, i think
One thing I think people wonder about when you have a bunch of children is how (if) you maintain your sanity. They say things like, "I can barely handle my two," and they kind of imply that either I am supermom (which I am, because I can do all things through Christ who gives me strength, Philippians 2:13) or that I'm certifiably insane (you may be right, I may be crazy, but it just may be a lunatic you're looking for, Billy Joel).
When I had my first few children, I kept my sanity due in large part to those sacred two hours a day known as nap-time. That was my moment to re-group, to rest, to read, clean, relax, SHOWER. That was ME-time. I remember a friend talking about letting her children skip a nap and go to bed early, and I was horrified at the thought. Give up the nap? I'd sooner cut off my right hand than give up the nap!
But there comes a time in everyone's life, unless you live in Latin America (I don't), when people give the nap up. I'm not saying it's right. I think the British and Latins are onto something. In the afternoon, everyone should either have tea or a siesta. But we don't.
And for us, about the time a child stops taking a nap, they start school. When my oldest child began her education, we did it during nap-time. Whammo! Just like that, my me-time became her-time, school-time. Thankfully, about that time, I read a book by Vickie Farris (wife of hslda founder Michael Farris, mother of 10) called "A Mom Just Like You" and she talked about this very thing (funny, i really did think the fact that she had 10 children sounded quite ridiculous).
She said, roughly, that she basically give up the idea of me-time, and learned instead to trust God to sustain her. I agree with this. It is a struggle at first, but I learned to lean, not on that scheduled oasis, but on Jesus Himself to provide for me. My times to regroup are not always predictable, not always regular, not always what I expect.
I need to point out, God has made me to be my husband's helpmeet, not the other way around, so I am careful not to tear my husband down to build myself up. He does not come home to relieve me. I do not go off duty when he walks in the door. My obligations are to love and serve Jesus, to love and support my husband, and to love and care for my children. But I have found, really truly, if I give myself to God and to the tasks of being helpmeet to the man God gave me, and mother and teacher to the children He gave me, I can trust Him to meet my needs.
And He does give me everything I need. He sustains me with His Word, with His presence, with the friends He gives me, through my husband and even through my children. He gives me joy in the morning, when I'd rather roll over and sleep some more. He gives me rest, even when the night is too short and I was up twice, nursing, cleaning up puke, or putting clean sheets on a peed-in bed. He gives me beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. He heals my broken heart, and helps me dance. He helps me forgive when I'm wounded, trust when I've been betrayed, and hope when I feel like giving up. He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness. He anoints my head with oil, my cup is overflowing!
Jesus is my bread, my life, and everything I need. He is the secret of any success I have, and the solution to every problem I face. Because this is true, and as they see it in action, I also point my children to seek Him in every situation, including potty training, sickness, wants and needs, loneliness, rejection, discipline, and frustration with math problems. If I can wear a path with them to the Cross that they travel on their own later, I will have succeeded as a mother, regardless of where they live, how much money they make, whether or not they marry or have children, what they scored on the standardized tests, or if they ever get a driver's license.
Jesus is enough. He is enough for people with two children, 19 children or no children. He is enough for women who have lost their husband, left their husband, have a great husband or lousy or alcoholic husband or no husband at all. He is enough for the wealthiest Wall Street tycoon or the poorest beggar. He is enough for the man living in the White House or the man living in the mud hut. Those who put their trust in Him will not be put to shame. He is enough for me.
Everything else is gravy.
When I had my first few children, I kept my sanity due in large part to those sacred two hours a day known as nap-time. That was my moment to re-group, to rest, to read, clean, relax, SHOWER. That was ME-time. I remember a friend talking about letting her children skip a nap and go to bed early, and I was horrified at the thought. Give up the nap? I'd sooner cut off my right hand than give up the nap!
But there comes a time in everyone's life, unless you live in Latin America (I don't), when people give the nap up. I'm not saying it's right. I think the British and Latins are onto something. In the afternoon, everyone should either have tea or a siesta. But we don't.
And for us, about the time a child stops taking a nap, they start school. When my oldest child began her education, we did it during nap-time. Whammo! Just like that, my me-time became her-time, school-time. Thankfully, about that time, I read a book by Vickie Farris (wife of hslda founder Michael Farris, mother of 10) called "A Mom Just Like You" and she talked about this very thing (funny, i really did think the fact that she had 10 children sounded quite ridiculous).
She said, roughly, that she basically give up the idea of me-time, and learned instead to trust God to sustain her. I agree with this. It is a struggle at first, but I learned to lean, not on that scheduled oasis, but on Jesus Himself to provide for me. My times to regroup are not always predictable, not always regular, not always what I expect.
I need to point out, God has made me to be my husband's helpmeet, not the other way around, so I am careful not to tear my husband down to build myself up. He does not come home to relieve me. I do not go off duty when he walks in the door. My obligations are to love and serve Jesus, to love and support my husband, and to love and care for my children. But I have found, really truly, if I give myself to God and to the tasks of being helpmeet to the man God gave me, and mother and teacher to the children He gave me, I can trust Him to meet my needs.
And He does give me everything I need. He sustains me with His Word, with His presence, with the friends He gives me, through my husband and even through my children. He gives me joy in the morning, when I'd rather roll over and sleep some more. He gives me rest, even when the night is too short and I was up twice, nursing, cleaning up puke, or putting clean sheets on a peed-in bed. He gives me beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, a garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness. He heals my broken heart, and helps me dance. He helps me forgive when I'm wounded, trust when I've been betrayed, and hope when I feel like giving up. He restores my soul. He leads me in the paths of righteousness. He anoints my head with oil, my cup is overflowing!
Jesus is my bread, my life, and everything I need. He is the secret of any success I have, and the solution to every problem I face. Because this is true, and as they see it in action, I also point my children to seek Him in every situation, including potty training, sickness, wants and needs, loneliness, rejection, discipline, and frustration with math problems. If I can wear a path with them to the Cross that they travel on their own later, I will have succeeded as a mother, regardless of where they live, how much money they make, whether or not they marry or have children, what they scored on the standardized tests, or if they ever get a driver's license.
Jesus is enough. He is enough for people with two children, 19 children or no children. He is enough for women who have lost their husband, left their husband, have a great husband or lousy or alcoholic husband or no husband at all. He is enough for the wealthiest Wall Street tycoon or the poorest beggar. He is enough for the man living in the White House or the man living in the mud hut. Those who put their trust in Him will not be put to shame. He is enough for me.
Everything else is gravy.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
how do you do it? part 3
not well, really. not well at all. and laundry is the crowning jewel on my crown of thorns. the essence of my weakness. the perfection of my failure. but this is how we do it, or at least, how we try.
first of all, we have a family closet. we copied the idea from the duggars. (we have not copied having 4 washers and dryers, having 4 older daughters helping with laundry, or having our piano teacher help do laundry 2 full days a week. then again, we're not on tv, and that's ok-fine with us.) it is not for the parents, just the children. all the children. we converted a bedroom and put shelves up and down each 10+ foot tall wall.
the upper shelves, which even tall people need a step ladder to reach, contain a laundry basket for each size and gender, 0-6 month girl, 9-12 month boy, etc. then one wall has a large and a small basket for each child. the large basket has his/her pants and shorts - just what they wear, no shorts in winter, limited number of pants - and the small has jammies and unders (not socks, they live downstairs, near the shoes).
on the opposite wall are two long rows of hangers which contain all of the shirts we own, from size 2 through young adult (snap crotch shirts go in the baby's bucket). we don't separate the shirts out for weather (which explains why my children show up places in june with long sleeves and in january in a tank top).
when sizes are close, there is the potential of overlap. the kids tend to have shirts that are theirs, and don't normally wear each other's shirts, even when they could. they just don't like the same things. i have had a couple boys bicker over a shirt or two, and had to help the older one see the size, and that he was too big for it.
this system has eliminated much of the headache of changing sizes and seasons. much. but not all. i still have to take down the right basket and switch the shorts for the pants or size 4 for 5. sometimes a child will find their own next size basket (or the pants that were too small for big brother got put in little brother's bucket) and that basket will have all the size 4 and size 5 pants in it, until mom gets around to putting the too small size away, but it really is a pretty good system.
i also get in trouble when we receive a new bag of clothes that don't fit anyone immediately but i don't get around to putting them up, and then they get assimilated into the wrong size bucket (daughter number two wears size ten but has been pulling 14's from a new bag because i'm behind on laundry - you'd think this would inspire me to catch up)
the problem is just volume. and toddlers. small people inspired by aliens (we watched close encounters last night) who go into the family closet and just start ripping clothes off hangers, breaking and bending the hangers in the process. (it's an evil plot to send me to the asylum and hope for a nicer replacement mom.)
but no, i don't go insane. i delegate. i put someone in charge of cleaning the room. so every day, the person responsible for cleaning the family closet goes in, gets ALL the clothes, clean AND dirty, from all over the floor and put them in the dirty clothes. i start to get suspicious when i find shirts in the dirty laundry baskets that are still on the hangers, maybe this shirt hasn't been worn. not by a human anyway. only aliens wear clothes with hangers still in them.
then there's the problem when the dirty clothes basket from the family closet gets brought to the laundry room but isn't replaced with an empty one. you can guess what happens. someone's basket gets christened the new dirty clothes basket and begins to fill with everyone's cast-offs. now the 4-yr-old's basket has her clean clothes and everyone else's dirty ones.
and sometimes the 5 year old just takes his clothes off and flings them everywhere, some kind of freedom ritual, no doubt. and the 7-yr-old has discovered the value of privacy and has made the space behind the door his own private dressing room and hamper.
so the family closet is at one end of the long hall way. with all it's shortcomings, i still prefer it to having 10 dressers. at the other end of the long hallway is the laundry room. about two thirds of the way down is my door. and the space between my door and the laundry room is what we call the laundry hallway. there is a bathroom in that hallway that no one uses, partly because the door can only be opened about 10 inches before it hits the line of dirty clothes baskets, and partly because rumor has it there are spiders and "tivisees" (3-yr-old for weird , scary, centipede-looking things) in it. so everybody uses mom and dad's bathroom and only the truly brave or duty driven venture further down the laundry hallway.
the laundry hallway rarely (only after grandma visits, really) has fewer than 5 baskets of dirty clothes in cue. inside the laundry room/cave, there is usually at least a foot and a half of clean clothing waiting to be folded and sorted (a foot and a half deep, as wide as the floor). i am 6 foot 5 in the laundry room.
the system, when it is working properly, which would probably require a different mother, goes like this:
child A collects clothing from the two hampers and brings to the laundry room and starts a load in the morning.
child B comes up sometime during the day and switches the laundry load, folding and sorting all of the clothing into 1 of 3 places: parents pile, shirts (to be hung up by child C), and the 6 kid baskets.
[the kids' clothing baskets have different buddies, chosen specifically so that their stuff looks different from the person they're with: big girl with little girl, big boy with little boy, middle kid with downstairs laundry or dressup clothes.]
child C hangs up all the shirts in the laundry room.
in the evening before bed, mom does the final switch and sort and we're all caught up.
in the morning, everyone empties their buckets and hangs their shirts and life is beautiful.
but there are some hitches. as i said, one is volume. there are a lot of clothes. we receive a lot of clothes. we keep stuff we get when it is good (good = modest and not ripped up or stained) because we are hard on clothing. we go through the knees of most pants. we rip and stain shirts. we don't just put holes in socks, we disintegrate them. this seems to be the last stop clothing makes before it hits the dump. so we have a lot because we need a lot. even if a pair of pants happen to survive child #3, they will be worn again by children numbers 6, 7, and 9. the result of having a lot of clothing is that if we get behind, we get way behind.
another hitch is illness. particularly the kind of illness that makes for more laundry. there is a delightful young woman at our church who recently started coming over and picking up 3 baskets of dirty clothes on mondays and bringing back 3 baskets of clean clothes a day or two later, which is a huge blessing. but when we all got a horrible puking thing, we agreed that she would not do any more laundry till we had disinfected ourselves, for the sake of her one-year-old. i'm not caught up yet. it's like saying i won't get help for my algebra class until i get an A on a test. who am i kidding?
another thing that sets us back is road trips. as i said before, we take more stuff to soccer than many people take for a weekend away. many years, i haven't caught up from thanksgiving before it's time to pack for Christmas. and a big camping vacation . . . it could take weeks to recover.
finally, there is the laundry waste problem. do we really need to wash dress-up clothes after they are worn for an hour? do we have to get out a fresh washcloth for every spill? i have a couple people, one in particular, who will wear the same clothing until i require them (him!) to take them off, but i also have a little girl who changes clothing to go from one room to the next, and a little boy who, um, walks around with a wet circle on the front of his trousers. then there are the diaper people, who, between their less than tidy eating habits, the diaper factor, and the innate desire to shed and lose clothing when one is that age, change clothes a little more often than some.
socks. that's probably another blog. it's not good. that's all i'll say. it's not good.
so, that's how i do it. don't you feel better about yourself, now?
first of all, we have a family closet. we copied the idea from the duggars. (we have not copied having 4 washers and dryers, having 4 older daughters helping with laundry, or having our piano teacher help do laundry 2 full days a week. then again, we're not on tv, and that's ok-fine with us.) it is not for the parents, just the children. all the children. we converted a bedroom and put shelves up and down each 10+ foot tall wall.
the upper shelves, which even tall people need a step ladder to reach, contain a laundry basket for each size and gender, 0-6 month girl, 9-12 month boy, etc. then one wall has a large and a small basket for each child. the large basket has his/her pants and shorts - just what they wear, no shorts in winter, limited number of pants - and the small has jammies and unders (not socks, they live downstairs, near the shoes).
on the opposite wall are two long rows of hangers which contain all of the shirts we own, from size 2 through young adult (snap crotch shirts go in the baby's bucket). we don't separate the shirts out for weather (which explains why my children show up places in june with long sleeves and in january in a tank top).
when sizes are close, there is the potential of overlap. the kids tend to have shirts that are theirs, and don't normally wear each other's shirts, even when they could. they just don't like the same things. i have had a couple boys bicker over a shirt or two, and had to help the older one see the size, and that he was too big for it.
this system has eliminated much of the headache of changing sizes and seasons. much. but not all. i still have to take down the right basket and switch the shorts for the pants or size 4 for 5. sometimes a child will find their own next size basket (or the pants that were too small for big brother got put in little brother's bucket) and that basket will have all the size 4 and size 5 pants in it, until mom gets around to putting the too small size away, but it really is a pretty good system.
i also get in trouble when we receive a new bag of clothes that don't fit anyone immediately but i don't get around to putting them up, and then they get assimilated into the wrong size bucket (daughter number two wears size ten but has been pulling 14's from a new bag because i'm behind on laundry - you'd think this would inspire me to catch up)
the problem is just volume. and toddlers. small people inspired by aliens (we watched close encounters last night) who go into the family closet and just start ripping clothes off hangers, breaking and bending the hangers in the process. (it's an evil plot to send me to the asylum and hope for a nicer replacement mom.)
but no, i don't go insane. i delegate. i put someone in charge of cleaning the room. so every day, the person responsible for cleaning the family closet goes in, gets ALL the clothes, clean AND dirty, from all over the floor and put them in the dirty clothes. i start to get suspicious when i find shirts in the dirty laundry baskets that are still on the hangers, maybe this shirt hasn't been worn. not by a human anyway. only aliens wear clothes with hangers still in them.
then there's the problem when the dirty clothes basket from the family closet gets brought to the laundry room but isn't replaced with an empty one. you can guess what happens. someone's basket gets christened the new dirty clothes basket and begins to fill with everyone's cast-offs. now the 4-yr-old's basket has her clean clothes and everyone else's dirty ones.
and sometimes the 5 year old just takes his clothes off and flings them everywhere, some kind of freedom ritual, no doubt. and the 7-yr-old has discovered the value of privacy and has made the space behind the door his own private dressing room and hamper.
so the family closet is at one end of the long hall way. with all it's shortcomings, i still prefer it to having 10 dressers. at the other end of the long hallway is the laundry room. about two thirds of the way down is my door. and the space between my door and the laundry room is what we call the laundry hallway. there is a bathroom in that hallway that no one uses, partly because the door can only be opened about 10 inches before it hits the line of dirty clothes baskets, and partly because rumor has it there are spiders and "tivisees" (3-yr-old for weird , scary, centipede-looking things) in it. so everybody uses mom and dad's bathroom and only the truly brave or duty driven venture further down the laundry hallway.
the laundry hallway rarely (only after grandma visits, really) has fewer than 5 baskets of dirty clothes in cue. inside the laundry room/cave, there is usually at least a foot and a half of clean clothing waiting to be folded and sorted (a foot and a half deep, as wide as the floor). i am 6 foot 5 in the laundry room.
the system, when it is working properly, which would probably require a different mother, goes like this:
child A collects clothing from the two hampers and brings to the laundry room and starts a load in the morning.
child B comes up sometime during the day and switches the laundry load, folding and sorting all of the clothing into 1 of 3 places: parents pile, shirts (to be hung up by child C), and the 6 kid baskets.
[the kids' clothing baskets have different buddies, chosen specifically so that their stuff looks different from the person they're with: big girl with little girl, big boy with little boy, middle kid with downstairs laundry or dressup clothes.]
child C hangs up all the shirts in the laundry room.
in the evening before bed, mom does the final switch and sort and we're all caught up.
in the morning, everyone empties their buckets and hangs their shirts and life is beautiful.
but there are some hitches. as i said, one is volume. there are a lot of clothes. we receive a lot of clothes. we keep stuff we get when it is good (good = modest and not ripped up or stained) because we are hard on clothing. we go through the knees of most pants. we rip and stain shirts. we don't just put holes in socks, we disintegrate them. this seems to be the last stop clothing makes before it hits the dump. so we have a lot because we need a lot. even if a pair of pants happen to survive child #3, they will be worn again by children numbers 6, 7, and 9. the result of having a lot of clothing is that if we get behind, we get way behind.
another hitch is illness. particularly the kind of illness that makes for more laundry. there is a delightful young woman at our church who recently started coming over and picking up 3 baskets of dirty clothes on mondays and bringing back 3 baskets of clean clothes a day or two later, which is a huge blessing. but when we all got a horrible puking thing, we agreed that she would not do any more laundry till we had disinfected ourselves, for the sake of her one-year-old. i'm not caught up yet. it's like saying i won't get help for my algebra class until i get an A on a test. who am i kidding?
another thing that sets us back is road trips. as i said before, we take more stuff to soccer than many people take for a weekend away. many years, i haven't caught up from thanksgiving before it's time to pack for Christmas. and a big camping vacation . . . it could take weeks to recover.
finally, there is the laundry waste problem. do we really need to wash dress-up clothes after they are worn for an hour? do we have to get out a fresh washcloth for every spill? i have a couple people, one in particular, who will wear the same clothing until i require them (him!) to take them off, but i also have a little girl who changes clothing to go from one room to the next, and a little boy who, um, walks around with a wet circle on the front of his trousers. then there are the diaper people, who, between their less than tidy eating habits, the diaper factor, and the innate desire to shed and lose clothing when one is that age, change clothes a little more often than some.
socks. that's probably another blog. it's not good. that's all i'll say. it's not good.
so, that's how i do it. don't you feel better about yourself, now?
Monday, April 19, 2010
limbo
it's that time of the month again. i'm waiting. waiting to find out if i'm pregnant again. i think i have a unique position in this - i'm okay either way. i will always be thrilled to be pregnant. and if i am not, and if God doesn't bless me in that way again, i am also pleased to be a vessel for whatever He chooses to do with me. i am at peace.
this month, however, is a little different. i have a little more apprehension this month, because today we began our home study. and although i know the same God who gives good gifts in the uterus also gives good gifts via adoption, and i trust Him, there is still that little nervousness that says, God, could You please wait until this adoption thing is taken care of before You give me another little bun in the oven.
now, i know some people think this line of thinking officially puts me over the edge of the abyss of insanity. first of all, why does a family who has 10 children already and is obviously quite fertile want to pay money to adopt when they already have more than they can handle? and then, not only to pursue adoption, to pay lots of money for the privilege of raising someone else's child, but to do it without practicing birth control!!! that's nuts!
is it? my sister had, without taking any fertility drugs, 3 children within the span of 13 months. a lady i met at soccer had 5 children within 52 months, naturally. people have multiples all the time. why would it be different if we had a biological and an adopted baby the same year?
it seems excessive, doesn't it. gluttonous, in a way. oh, it's like the octo-mom - i'm a baby-holic.
then again, maybe, having had 10, i've figured something out that some people don't know - children are a blessing from the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is His reward. do people who win the lottery continue to play the lotto?
but i will say again: if i am done having children, if i am never pregnant again, if God closes the door on adoption, i am just as pleased and contented. it is enough for me to say 'yes' to Him. and whatever He does with my yes is my delight and my pleasure. if He gives me 10 more children, i am blessed. if He gives me 0, i am blessed. so i don't think that makes me a baby-holic. maybe i'm a God-holic. i'm okay with that.
it's the waiting that's hard. the not knowing. am i? am i not?
i am not. sigh. contented.
this month, however, is a little different. i have a little more apprehension this month, because today we began our home study. and although i know the same God who gives good gifts in the uterus also gives good gifts via adoption, and i trust Him, there is still that little nervousness that says, God, could You please wait until this adoption thing is taken care of before You give me another little bun in the oven.
now, i know some people think this line of thinking officially puts me over the edge of the abyss of insanity. first of all, why does a family who has 10 children already and is obviously quite fertile want to pay money to adopt when they already have more than they can handle? and then, not only to pursue adoption, to pay lots of money for the privilege of raising someone else's child, but to do it without practicing birth control!!! that's nuts!
is it? my sister had, without taking any fertility drugs, 3 children within the span of 13 months. a lady i met at soccer had 5 children within 52 months, naturally. people have multiples all the time. why would it be different if we had a biological and an adopted baby the same year?
it seems excessive, doesn't it. gluttonous, in a way. oh, it's like the octo-mom - i'm a baby-holic.
then again, maybe, having had 10, i've figured something out that some people don't know - children are a blessing from the Lord, and the fruit of the womb is His reward. do people who win the lottery continue to play the lotto?
but i will say again: if i am done having children, if i am never pregnant again, if God closes the door on adoption, i am just as pleased and contented. it is enough for me to say 'yes' to Him. and whatever He does with my yes is my delight and my pleasure. if He gives me 10 more children, i am blessed. if He gives me 0, i am blessed. so i don't think that makes me a baby-holic. maybe i'm a God-holic. i'm okay with that.
it's the waiting that's hard. the not knowing. am i? am i not?
i am not. sigh. contented.
Sunday, April 18, 2010
how do you do it? part 3
one thing people mean when they ask 'how do you do it?' is really, how do you afford it. there are several answers, some philosophical, some practical.
first, God really does give us everything we need, sometimes in the most unlikely way. some examples:
clothing: i've stopped being surprised when we get a bag of hand-me-down clothes that is exactly the size of the child who needed exactly what was in the bag. we rarely buy clothing.
food: my next door neighbor has been bringing us near-date bread and produce from a food pantry he works at for a while. just recently that stopped. the following week (no kidding) a different neighbor started bringing us food his mother got from a food pantry at her church.
miscellaneous: my (then) 5 yr old son desperately wanted a bicycle, but hadnt grown into the size bike we had waiting for him. we told him to pray, and sure enough, within a few days or weeks, a guy at my husband's work said, 'hey, i've got this bike . . '.
secondly, we live pretty simply. we are not very stylish, we are not very interesting in what we eat, our vehicles and decor are functional, we take and use hand-me-downs with thankfulness in our hearts. we are not very impressive. we are not trying to be impressive. we say sometimes, we didn't have 10 kids by caring what people think about us, so there's no point in worrying about what people think now. besides, i've learned that there are several very different variations on "normal", so it's not a reliable bar to measure myself by.
thirdly, regarding education, what people want to know is, how are you going to pay for all those kids to go to college? we're not. we will help pay for many of them to go to college. but, again, we are probably not hoping for a full ride to an ivy league school. we don't see getting a good education so you can get a good job and make lots of money as being a Biblical worldview. we want to teach our kids to follow God, work hard, do what they love and live within their means. the american dream and the narrow road are not necessarily the same path. if the narrow road takes them to stanford, we'll help as much as we can. but our goal is children who follow Jesus, not children who make lots of money.
first, God really does give us everything we need, sometimes in the most unlikely way. some examples:
clothing: i've stopped being surprised when we get a bag of hand-me-down clothes that is exactly the size of the child who needed exactly what was in the bag. we rarely buy clothing.
food: my next door neighbor has been bringing us near-date bread and produce from a food pantry he works at for a while. just recently that stopped. the following week (no kidding) a different neighbor started bringing us food his mother got from a food pantry at her church.
miscellaneous: my (then) 5 yr old son desperately wanted a bicycle, but hadnt grown into the size bike we had waiting for him. we told him to pray, and sure enough, within a few days or weeks, a guy at my husband's work said, 'hey, i've got this bike . . '.
secondly, we live pretty simply. we are not very stylish, we are not very interesting in what we eat, our vehicles and decor are functional, we take and use hand-me-downs with thankfulness in our hearts. we are not very impressive. we are not trying to be impressive. we say sometimes, we didn't have 10 kids by caring what people think about us, so there's no point in worrying about what people think now. besides, i've learned that there are several very different variations on "normal", so it's not a reliable bar to measure myself by.
thirdly, regarding education, what people want to know is, how are you going to pay for all those kids to go to college? we're not. we will help pay for many of them to go to college. but, again, we are probably not hoping for a full ride to an ivy league school. we don't see getting a good education so you can get a good job and make lots of money as being a Biblical worldview. we want to teach our kids to follow God, work hard, do what they love and live within their means. the american dream and the narrow road are not necessarily the same path. if the narrow road takes them to stanford, we'll help as much as we can. but our goal is children who follow Jesus, not children who make lots of money.
Saturday, April 17, 2010
triumph.
today i hit a milestone i wasn't aiming for. heck, i didn't even know it existed. didn't suspect there was a line i would cross today. but i did. i jogged.
now if you are thinking, big deal, then you are someone who has never been obese. you have never been just honestly fat. you have never felt the after-shock vibrations that happens when just honestly really overweight people jog. normal people thump thump when they run. fat people thump-sloosh, thump-sloosh.
and i don't mean i jogged to the car to get something in a hurry. i got on the treadmill, felt good, turned it up, still felt good, turned it up some more, and ran (jogged) for something like 20 minutes. i don't know exactly how long it was because i knocked the stupid safety magnet off and lost the info for the first half.
but it was a long time. and it was okay. if it had been less okay, i'd have been watching the clock. but it was pleasant. i felt good. i felt healthy. i felt like not an elephant stampeding. i felt not so fat. ohhhhh - that is indeed a good feeling.
i am within 4 lbs of the least i've weighed in 13 years. i am within 10 lbs of weighing less than my husband. big milestones just ahead. but today i crossed an amazing wonderful milestone i didn't know was there. 24 lbs down, i ran (jogged).
sigh.
now if you are thinking, big deal, then you are someone who has never been obese. you have never been just honestly fat. you have never felt the after-shock vibrations that happens when just honestly really overweight people jog. normal people thump thump when they run. fat people thump-sloosh, thump-sloosh.
and i don't mean i jogged to the car to get something in a hurry. i got on the treadmill, felt good, turned it up, still felt good, turned it up some more, and ran (jogged) for something like 20 minutes. i don't know exactly how long it was because i knocked the stupid safety magnet off and lost the info for the first half.
but it was a long time. and it was okay. if it had been less okay, i'd have been watching the clock. but it was pleasant. i felt good. i felt healthy. i felt like not an elephant stampeding. i felt not so fat. ohhhhh - that is indeed a good feeling.
i am within 4 lbs of the least i've weighed in 13 years. i am within 10 lbs of weighing less than my husband. big milestones just ahead. but today i crossed an amazing wonderful milestone i didn't know was there. 24 lbs down, i ran (jogged).
sigh.
Friday, April 16, 2010
how do you do it? part 2.1
forgot to mention very important thing: matching shirts. wearing the same color (not white or gray) is huge. late last fall we planned a trip to old world wisconsin, and i can't afford to buy everyone new winter coats the same color, so i got matching red and black plaid hats. it worked. the key is to have something you can count from a distance. when you have 10 or so children, you count. all the time. i try not to keep the matching hats/shirts in regular circulation. they live in a box in the laundry room and only come out for outings.
you might think, teenagers wouldn't want to wear a family shirt. i cannot speak for other, cooler, teenagers. i just know that my people see being part of our family as a bigger part of their identity than they do the opinions of their peers.
you might think, teenagers wouldn't want to wear a family shirt. i cannot speak for other, cooler, teenagers. i just know that my people see being part of our family as a bigger part of their identity than they do the opinions of their peers.
Thursday, April 15, 2010
how do you do it? part 2
sometimes the question "how do you do it?" begs a longer answer.
the first thing i say is, "not very well". i am not aiming for the same goals many parents hold in high esteem. and i am not attaining some of the goals i hold in high esteem. i say that because, once you find out how i do it, or why i do it, it may serve to convince you to NOT do it the way i do it.
and so, if only to help solidify your confidence in doing it the way you do it and steer very clear of the way i do it, i've decided to attempt a series of blogs with this title.
where to start.
excursions.
our children are involved in very few activities outside the house, only the ones that can be attended by more than one child, and only if we can find something productive to do while they do it, and only if it is really, really worth the time and effort. when getting out of the house to go anywhere we pack more crap than most people take for a weekend away. i usually keep a package of diapers and another of wipes in the van, along with a pair of shorts that will fit nearly anyone.
eating on the cheap at the golden arches costs us around 25 dollars (we drink water, order sandwiches off the dollar menu, and share a few large fries; we keep a package of brown lunch bags in the van so it's easier to distribute everyone's "happy meals"), so we pack a meal as often as we can (loaf of bread, peanut butter and honey or pack of lunch meat, pack of cheese, something munchy like carrots or cheezits, something sweet like apples or granola bars or cookies, and water). first road food for babies who are eating real food: mashed potatoes from kfc, refried beans from taco bell, or an apple i quickly ate the peal off of.
i used to have (and may still in the abyss we call our basement) a double stroller that both seats laid down, creating a 4 foot long flat space. i took it everywhere. pretty sure we killed it. we would walk all around the zoo (or wherever) and see and do and play and eat and when everyone was absolutely exhausted beyond any readily available solution, i'd put one in the back packer, one on my front in a snugly, pile 3 or 4 in the stroller and make a beeline for the van, going as fast as my little overweight (and more often than not pregnant) body could move.
i think communicating expectations with small people helps a lot. even babies, if you count aloud while doing things that are hard to wait for (nail trimming, hair cutting, food prep, almost done car rides), handle the wait better. i just count to 10 over and over, acting like 10 is a party every time, and every other number is an exciting adventure.
i give all my folks a 10 minute warning (which means we'll leave sometime in the relatively near future), a 5 minute warning (which means we really are going to leave) and a 1 minute warning (which means, maybe we'd better find our shoes) before telling them to head to the van.
of course, now i have a police whistle. it is the e.f. hutton whistle. okay, for you young punks, a long time ago when there were still dinosaurs and black and white tvs, there was a commercial for an investment firm called e.f. hutton. in the commercial, there would be a room full of people talking, and one person would mention his broker, e.f. hutton and everyone would stop talking and eavesdrop. the line was, "when e.f. hutton talks, people listen."
well, when i blow the whistle, people listen, because it is so very loud, it hurts their ears. i taught my children to come when i blow it by giving them chocolate chips when they do. sometimes they would come, get the chocolate, and walk away, before i said what i had to say. so now i blow the whistle and stand there waving the bag in front of their eyes, till i'm done with them, then they get a couple chips.
we've gotten a lot of von trap family jokes since acquiring the whistle, and we deserve it. 1 long blast means listen up, 2 means send someone, 3 means drop what you're doing and get here quick. three quick blasts and my children take their own attendance, saying their names in descending age order.
i read or heard somewhere (or maybe i made it up) that going on the road is like the test, and being at home with your children training them is like studying. if you haven't done your homework, you won't do very well on the test. and in order to do homework, you have to be home. when my children start to really behave poorly, it makes me think, we need some home training. and the home training isn't for the sake of the people we'll meet up with when we're out. it's for my children. to become who it's my job to train them to become, for Jesus' sake and theirs.
so that's how we do excursions.
the first thing i say is, "not very well". i am not aiming for the same goals many parents hold in high esteem. and i am not attaining some of the goals i hold in high esteem. i say that because, once you find out how i do it, or why i do it, it may serve to convince you to NOT do it the way i do it.
and so, if only to help solidify your confidence in doing it the way you do it and steer very clear of the way i do it, i've decided to attempt a series of blogs with this title.
where to start.
excursions.
our children are involved in very few activities outside the house, only the ones that can be attended by more than one child, and only if we can find something productive to do while they do it, and only if it is really, really worth the time and effort. when getting out of the house to go anywhere we pack more crap than most people take for a weekend away. i usually keep a package of diapers and another of wipes in the van, along with a pair of shorts that will fit nearly anyone.
eating on the cheap at the golden arches costs us around 25 dollars (we drink water, order sandwiches off the dollar menu, and share a few large fries; we keep a package of brown lunch bags in the van so it's easier to distribute everyone's "happy meals"), so we pack a meal as often as we can (loaf of bread, peanut butter and honey or pack of lunch meat, pack of cheese, something munchy like carrots or cheezits, something sweet like apples or granola bars or cookies, and water). first road food for babies who are eating real food: mashed potatoes from kfc, refried beans from taco bell, or an apple i quickly ate the peal off of.
i used to have (and may still in the abyss we call our basement) a double stroller that both seats laid down, creating a 4 foot long flat space. i took it everywhere. pretty sure we killed it. we would walk all around the zoo (or wherever) and see and do and play and eat and when everyone was absolutely exhausted beyond any readily available solution, i'd put one in the back packer, one on my front in a snugly, pile 3 or 4 in the stroller and make a beeline for the van, going as fast as my little overweight (and more often than not pregnant) body could move.
i think communicating expectations with small people helps a lot. even babies, if you count aloud while doing things that are hard to wait for (nail trimming, hair cutting, food prep, almost done car rides), handle the wait better. i just count to 10 over and over, acting like 10 is a party every time, and every other number is an exciting adventure.
i give all my folks a 10 minute warning (which means we'll leave sometime in the relatively near future), a 5 minute warning (which means we really are going to leave) and a 1 minute warning (which means, maybe we'd better find our shoes) before telling them to head to the van.
of course, now i have a police whistle. it is the e.f. hutton whistle. okay, for you young punks, a long time ago when there were still dinosaurs and black and white tvs, there was a commercial for an investment firm called e.f. hutton. in the commercial, there would be a room full of people talking, and one person would mention his broker, e.f. hutton and everyone would stop talking and eavesdrop. the line was, "when e.f. hutton talks, people listen."
well, when i blow the whistle, people listen, because it is so very loud, it hurts their ears. i taught my children to come when i blow it by giving them chocolate chips when they do. sometimes they would come, get the chocolate, and walk away, before i said what i had to say. so now i blow the whistle and stand there waving the bag in front of their eyes, till i'm done with them, then they get a couple chips.
we've gotten a lot of von trap family jokes since acquiring the whistle, and we deserve it. 1 long blast means listen up, 2 means send someone, 3 means drop what you're doing and get here quick. three quick blasts and my children take their own attendance, saying their names in descending age order.
i read or heard somewhere (or maybe i made it up) that going on the road is like the test, and being at home with your children training them is like studying. if you haven't done your homework, you won't do very well on the test. and in order to do homework, you have to be home. when my children start to really behave poorly, it makes me think, we need some home training. and the home training isn't for the sake of the people we'll meet up with when we're out. it's for my children. to become who it's my job to train them to become, for Jesus' sake and theirs.
so that's how we do excursions.
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
how do you do it? part 1 - intro
there is a brief list of things people say to you when you have a big family (which may be as few as 3, depending on who you talk to). i could pay for all my kids to go to college, or at least for a very satisfying visit to chuck e. cheese (is there such a thing as a satisfying visit to that place? it is somehow a seedbed of selfishness. children cannot just play and be happy there. they get a few tickets and turn into ticket-hungry, grasping competitors, trying to get more and more in hopes of possibly having enough pieces of paper to purchase . . . crap. complete and total crap that will in fact break before we all have our seatbelts on.) if i had a dollar for every time someone had asked me the following questions:
"You sure have your hands full." (more than a statement than a question, i know)
Godly response: Yes, they are full of love and smiles and hugs and kisses and i wouldn't want it any other way
frequently used response: Yeah, can you please get out of my way.
"Better you than me." (okay, also not a question)
G.r: I am very thankful God has given them to me.
f.u.r: If you feel that way about it, I agree with you.
"You must be very organized (or patient or some other positive adjective)."
G.r.: I'm way more patient than I was 13 years ago.
f.u.r.: Sometimes. ("sometimes is the magic answer, by the way, to anything anyone says about your children, positive or negative. for example: they say, 'your children are so cute' - you say, 'sometimes'. they say, 'your children are so well-behaved.' - you say, 'sometimes'. they say, 'your children are really loud and obnoxious' - you say, 'sometimes'. they say, ' your kids make a really big mess.' - you say, 'sometimes'.)
"Are they all your children?"
G.r.: Yes and I am so glad they are.
f.u.r.: No, I left half of them at home.
"Don't you know how this happens?"
G.r.: The Bible says that children are a blessing from God.
f.u.r.: Yeah, and apparently, we're pretty good at it.
"How do you do it?"
G.r.: God really does give me everything I need to do what He's given me to do.
f.u.r.: Not very well.
"You sure have your hands full." (more than a statement than a question, i know)
Godly response: Yes, they are full of love and smiles and hugs and kisses and i wouldn't want it any other way
frequently used response: Yeah, can you please get out of my way.
"Better you than me." (okay, also not a question)
G.r: I am very thankful God has given them to me.
f.u.r: If you feel that way about it, I agree with you.
"You must be very organized (or patient or some other positive adjective)."
G.r.: I'm way more patient than I was 13 years ago.
f.u.r.: Sometimes. ("sometimes is the magic answer, by the way, to anything anyone says about your children, positive or negative. for example: they say, 'your children are so cute' - you say, 'sometimes'. they say, 'your children are so well-behaved.' - you say, 'sometimes'. they say, 'your children are really loud and obnoxious' - you say, 'sometimes'. they say, ' your kids make a really big mess.' - you say, 'sometimes'.)
"Are they all your children?"
G.r.: Yes and I am so glad they are.
f.u.r.: No, I left half of them at home.
"Don't you know how this happens?"
G.r.: The Bible says that children are a blessing from God.
f.u.r.: Yeah, and apparently, we're pretty good at it.
"How do you do it?"
G.r.: God really does give me everything I need to do what He's given me to do.
f.u.r.: Not very well.
Monday, April 12, 2010
gardening in glass
i visited the missouri botanical garden last week and saw the spectacular remnants of the chihuli glass exhibit that graced us a few years back. there is a beautiful piece (i want to say thing, but that's not appropriate) hanging in the entrance that spans two floors, blue and white pieces of blown glass, it was amazing. then in the climatron there were glass 'blooms' coming out of a pond - really beautiful.
today i spent time in my garden, where there is also a significant amount of glass. clayish missouri soil, gravel, weeds, and lots of broken glass. you can't just 'pick it up'. our property was vacant for somewhere between 12 and 20 years. we were told it was probably a crack house. the broken glass goes deep. each year the freezing and thawing process of the ground brings more to the surface.
we made some raised beds, and that helps, no glass in there. but still, much of our garden work here is done in the presence of pieces of broken glass.
we are redeeming the land. we are planting, watering, taking root and bearing fruit. at least, that is our intention. right now we're just planting, watering and hoping. in a few months, or a year, or two, or ten or twenty, our current blisters and sore backs will produce a crop of tomatoes, green beans, blueberries, beautiful lilac blossoms in the spring, kindness, patience, self control, discipline, healthy relationships, freedom and maybe even salvation.
in an unlikely place, in an unlikely season, in an unlikely way, unlikely people planting, watering, weeding, praying, hoping, longing, waiting.
today i spent time in my garden, where there is also a significant amount of glass. clayish missouri soil, gravel, weeds, and lots of broken glass. you can't just 'pick it up'. our property was vacant for somewhere between 12 and 20 years. we were told it was probably a crack house. the broken glass goes deep. each year the freezing and thawing process of the ground brings more to the surface.
we made some raised beds, and that helps, no glass in there. but still, much of our garden work here is done in the presence of pieces of broken glass.
we are redeeming the land. we are planting, watering, taking root and bearing fruit. at least, that is our intention. right now we're just planting, watering and hoping. in a few months, or a year, or two, or ten or twenty, our current blisters and sore backs will produce a crop of tomatoes, green beans, blueberries, beautiful lilac blossoms in the spring, kindness, patience, self control, discipline, healthy relationships, freedom and maybe even salvation.
in an unlikely place, in an unlikely season, in an unlikely way, unlikely people planting, watering, weeding, praying, hoping, longing, waiting.
cleaning house
for the record, i do not hate to clean. i actually enjoy cleaning. it's therapeutic. especially when i'm angry, or waiting for something, or just stewing about a situation, cleaning my house is something i enjoy very much.
i am partial to cleaning big and or bad messes. it's very rewarding. and i prefer to clean when i know the smaller, potentially more troublesome, people in my life are asleep or being watched or tied up with duct tape and baling twine (it's a joke) so that they are not unraveling the other end of the sock i'm darning the whole time i'm working (picture the old pink panther cartoon, p.p. is painting the wall pink right behind the trenchcoat guy who has just painted it blue).
what i do not dig is maintenance. it stresses me out. some people feel completely out of control if their house is messy. while i do enjoy a clean house, i have a hard time not turning into an obsessive witch when my house is clean. the need to keep it clean is a consuming fire. i grow horns and fangs and speak in a voice either one octave deeper or piercing enough to shatter glass. clean house, angry frustrated obsessive mama. messy house, relaxed, pleasant focused on the right things mama.
i know that using the army of children i've given birth to is the answer to this dilemma. i know that if i train my children to do their share, not for the sake of cleanliness, but for the sake of learning responsibility, that it will go a long way toward the goal of a pleasant learning environment (while pursuing the real goal of training my children). the down side with that lofty concept is that i still have to do it! i am still the one having to train and enforce yet another thing.
i'm better at fell swoops than i am at the daily grind. it means i'm good in a crisis. i rise to the occasion at tornado/blizzard/reunion/wedding/funeral or any manner of business. it's just the daily to-do list that looks ever so much like yesterday's to-do list and has a distinct resemblance to every other stupid to-do list i have.
diligence is a man's precious possession
diligence is a man's precious possession
diligence is a man's precious possession . . .
so help me God.
i am partial to cleaning big and or bad messes. it's very rewarding. and i prefer to clean when i know the smaller, potentially more troublesome, people in my life are asleep or being watched or tied up with duct tape and baling twine (it's a joke) so that they are not unraveling the other end of the sock i'm darning the whole time i'm working (picture the old pink panther cartoon, p.p. is painting the wall pink right behind the trenchcoat guy who has just painted it blue).
what i do not dig is maintenance. it stresses me out. some people feel completely out of control if their house is messy. while i do enjoy a clean house, i have a hard time not turning into an obsessive witch when my house is clean. the need to keep it clean is a consuming fire. i grow horns and fangs and speak in a voice either one octave deeper or piercing enough to shatter glass. clean house, angry frustrated obsessive mama. messy house, relaxed, pleasant focused on the right things mama.
i know that using the army of children i've given birth to is the answer to this dilemma. i know that if i train my children to do their share, not for the sake of cleanliness, but for the sake of learning responsibility, that it will go a long way toward the goal of a pleasant learning environment (while pursuing the real goal of training my children). the down side with that lofty concept is that i still have to do it! i am still the one having to train and enforce yet another thing.
i'm better at fell swoops than i am at the daily grind. it means i'm good in a crisis. i rise to the occasion at tornado/blizzard/reunion/wedding/funeral or any manner of business. it's just the daily to-do list that looks ever so much like yesterday's to-do list and has a distinct resemblance to every other stupid to-do list i have.
diligence is a man's precious possession
diligence is a man's precious possession
diligence is a man's precious possession . . .
so help me God.
Sunday, April 04, 2010
where you been?
you haven't blogged lately.
it's a funny thing, the private personal public nature of this blog world. it's a place for me to process my innermost thoughts and feelings for all the world to see.
first of all, for those of you in my balcony on the healthy eating weight losing roller coaster thing: obviously the reason i haven't written is because i'm struggling to maintain. it's not the weight i'm trying to maintain. actually i'm maintaining THAT quite well. it's the motivation. even though i have maybe a hundred reasons to want to change, to be different, to be healthy, to get thin, to eat better, to exercise, to take care of the body God gave me . . . i'm not feeling any of them.
so what do i tell my children when they say, "but i don't f-e-e-l like _______"? sometimes doing the right thing goes against our feelings. it's called discipline. diligence. diligence is a man's precious possession. (proverbs something)
the most motivating motivator i've had lately is Daniel. he was set apart for God in the midst of a foreign pagan idol-worshipping land where he was a political prisoner of sorts. he was set apart by what he ate. he set himself apart for God by deliberately living a fasted life, not being bought with the delicacies of the king's table.
the king's man, who was over the group of young men daniel was part of, said (read with an italian mafia kind of accent), "look, buddy, i'd like to help you out, but, if you only eat your vegetables (there's a switch moms - a kid who ONLY wants to eat veggies) you're going to start to look bad and it's my butt on the line, know what i'm saying? so you boys be good and eat your meat and drink your wine, okay?"
Daniel said, "give me 10 days. 10 days of just vegetables and water. if i look bad then, you got me, i'll do what you say. but if i'm looking fit and feeling fine, you let me do it God's way." and he did. he and his homeys ate rabbit food and came out looking better than all the king's men (and all his horses too, incidentally), and they were given permission to be permanently set apart, which came in handy in the next chapter when the king has a bad dream one night and a rippin' bad 'tude the next day, wanting an interpretation without telling the dream, deciding to kill all the supposedly wise men on his staff including the young punks from Israel, and Daniel gets the revelation AND the interpretation - arguably because he had set himself apart.
10 days. veggies. set apart. Daniel.
Daniel is the name we had chosen for our first born (for the middle name) and our youngest, both of whom wound up being girls and therefore did not get named daniel.
which brings me to Part B of the answer to the question 'where you been'.
we've been thinking about adopting. which means i've been thinking about it almost constantly and he's been thinking about it fleetingly each time i bring it up. [i don't fault him for this quality; it's how God made him. it means he's really doing whatever it is he's doing, and it's a good way to be.] then we fasted and prayed about it as a family; which means we were all thinking about it and talking about it and praying about it and hearing from God about it, and in the end, we felt clearly what we heard at the very beginning: that we had been given an invitation.
i had always liked adoption, wanted to adopt, wrote a paper about adoption, was positively predisposed to adoption. i have two cousins who are adopted, who, i'll admit, i forgot were adopted. it's not that i wasn't around or don't remember it. i remember it vividly. it's just that, well, they are mine, and nothing could convince me otherwise. i don't think of them as adopted. i think of them as my cousins.
i also have an adopted niece and nephew. it is a little easier to remember with them because of their beautiful chocolaty brown skin, huge brown eyes, and because it is more recent. but they are also unquestionably unmistakeably mine..
when my brother and his fam were in africa as missionaries, we visited them, and from the outset of the trip, adoption was on my heart. part of his job was helping to make first one orphanage and then another, happen. there were nearly 200 children without parents there. most had some kind of families, but almost all had lost mother and/or father to HIV.
i wrote a song for my youngest sister's wedding called 'gift to me'. immediately after their wedding, it became a song between me and my children. when i went to africa, it became an adoption song. and my mom, who arrived there a week earlier than i, taught it to the children at the first orphanage to sing and dance to when we arrived. so we get out of the jeep after a day and a half of travel, approach the welcoming committee (which in kenya is everyone) of 96 children singing to us:
you are a gift to me, sent from the Father
(keep in mind, i've got adoption on the brain - i know that it takes 3 months to adopt from kenya, you have to live there for 3 months, and i'm trying to figure out how to get my then 7 children and us back there to live for 3 months and take home as many as we can afford to buy a plane ticket for)
from the day i was born, God had you in mind
and every day you help me remember how much He loves me
'cause He gave you to me
i wept. so the idea of adopting beautiful brown skinned children has been in my heart for a little while.
moving to our home of the last 6 years which is located in a neighborhood populated pretty much exclusively by people of African American heritage also, i think, helped prepare us for this leg of our journey on the planet. we have loved dozens of brown skinned neighbors. loved them. not because of their skin. not in spite of their skin. just loved. loved the heart, loved the person, loved the inside and the outside.
so, not long ago, our old friend lou engle speaks, and as he's speaking, we both hear God speak. i had honestly put adoption in the 'not right now, maybe later' box, primarily because, hey, i've got biological offspring in what some would call excessive numbers. look at me, do i need more children? [of course, the more appropriate question turns out to be, do more children need me] but i don't have 10 children because i need them. i delight in them, but that's not why i have them. i have them because i said yes to God.
adoption seemed like not an option because i didn't think the people handing out spare children would give any to a woman who lives in a shoe. for a long time, i didn't think we could handle even what we had, and honestly, the idea of having a home study, you know, where someone STUDIES your HOME, scared me to death. i do not feel worthy of a whole lot of scrutiny. i have the organizational skills of a tornado and the consistency of midwestern weather (we have a saying in my town: don't like the weather here, give it an hour, it'll change). it just didn't seem like a good idea to pay someone to come and give us the fine tooth comb treatment.
and then God said - why don't you try, take it out for a spin, see what I'll do? turns out, the same One handing out biological children is the one handing out the adoptive kind. same Guy.
so we are taking the first steps. baby step to the christian adoption consultants (tracie loux). baby step to the home study application fee. baby step to the 80 plus pictures and 8 pages of answers to the questionnaire for the family profile. baby step to spring cleaning our house top to bottom to be ready for the home*study.
i've been busy. busy hands. busy mind. busy heart.
i'm trying to apply the salve of the Word of God to my fluttering heart (like Noah's dove, not finding anywhere to land) and i have found peace there that passes my understanding (which isn't a lot). it's good for me.
Daniel is what i would like to name our first male adopted brown skin baby. set apart. 10 days. i am not going to start a daniel fast on or before easter. i know Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead for me. it's just that, well, cadbury eggs only come around once a year . . .
it's a funny thing, the private personal public nature of this blog world. it's a place for me to process my innermost thoughts and feelings for all the world to see.
first of all, for those of you in my balcony on the healthy eating weight losing roller coaster thing: obviously the reason i haven't written is because i'm struggling to maintain. it's not the weight i'm trying to maintain. actually i'm maintaining THAT quite well. it's the motivation. even though i have maybe a hundred reasons to want to change, to be different, to be healthy, to get thin, to eat better, to exercise, to take care of the body God gave me . . . i'm not feeling any of them.
so what do i tell my children when they say, "but i don't f-e-e-l like _______"? sometimes doing the right thing goes against our feelings. it's called discipline. diligence. diligence is a man's precious possession. (proverbs something)
the most motivating motivator i've had lately is Daniel. he was set apart for God in the midst of a foreign pagan idol-worshipping land where he was a political prisoner of sorts. he was set apart by what he ate. he set himself apart for God by deliberately living a fasted life, not being bought with the delicacies of the king's table.
the king's man, who was over the group of young men daniel was part of, said (read with an italian mafia kind of accent), "look, buddy, i'd like to help you out, but, if you only eat your vegetables (there's a switch moms - a kid who ONLY wants to eat veggies) you're going to start to look bad and it's my butt on the line, know what i'm saying? so you boys be good and eat your meat and drink your wine, okay?"
Daniel said, "give me 10 days. 10 days of just vegetables and water. if i look bad then, you got me, i'll do what you say. but if i'm looking fit and feeling fine, you let me do it God's way." and he did. he and his homeys ate rabbit food and came out looking better than all the king's men (and all his horses too, incidentally), and they were given permission to be permanently set apart, which came in handy in the next chapter when the king has a bad dream one night and a rippin' bad 'tude the next day, wanting an interpretation without telling the dream, deciding to kill all the supposedly wise men on his staff including the young punks from Israel, and Daniel gets the revelation AND the interpretation - arguably because he had set himself apart.
10 days. veggies. set apart. Daniel.
Daniel is the name we had chosen for our first born (for the middle name) and our youngest, both of whom wound up being girls and therefore did not get named daniel.
which brings me to Part B of the answer to the question 'where you been'.
we've been thinking about adopting. which means i've been thinking about it almost constantly and he's been thinking about it fleetingly each time i bring it up. [i don't fault him for this quality; it's how God made him. it means he's really doing whatever it is he's doing, and it's a good way to be.] then we fasted and prayed about it as a family; which means we were all thinking about it and talking about it and praying about it and hearing from God about it, and in the end, we felt clearly what we heard at the very beginning: that we had been given an invitation.
i had always liked adoption, wanted to adopt, wrote a paper about adoption, was positively predisposed to adoption. i have two cousins who are adopted, who, i'll admit, i forgot were adopted. it's not that i wasn't around or don't remember it. i remember it vividly. it's just that, well, they are mine, and nothing could convince me otherwise. i don't think of them as adopted. i think of them as my cousins.
i also have an adopted niece and nephew. it is a little easier to remember with them because of their beautiful chocolaty brown skin, huge brown eyes, and because it is more recent. but they are also unquestionably unmistakeably mine..
when my brother and his fam were in africa as missionaries, we visited them, and from the outset of the trip, adoption was on my heart. part of his job was helping to make first one orphanage and then another, happen. there were nearly 200 children without parents there. most had some kind of families, but almost all had lost mother and/or father to HIV.
i wrote a song for my youngest sister's wedding called 'gift to me'. immediately after their wedding, it became a song between me and my children. when i went to africa, it became an adoption song. and my mom, who arrived there a week earlier than i, taught it to the children at the first orphanage to sing and dance to when we arrived. so we get out of the jeep after a day and a half of travel, approach the welcoming committee (which in kenya is everyone) of 96 children singing to us:
you are a gift to me, sent from the Father
(keep in mind, i've got adoption on the brain - i know that it takes 3 months to adopt from kenya, you have to live there for 3 months, and i'm trying to figure out how to get my then 7 children and us back there to live for 3 months and take home as many as we can afford to buy a plane ticket for)
from the day i was born, God had you in mind
and every day you help me remember how much He loves me
'cause He gave you to me
i wept. so the idea of adopting beautiful brown skinned children has been in my heart for a little while.
moving to our home of the last 6 years which is located in a neighborhood populated pretty much exclusively by people of African American heritage also, i think, helped prepare us for this leg of our journey on the planet. we have loved dozens of brown skinned neighbors. loved them. not because of their skin. not in spite of their skin. just loved. loved the heart, loved the person, loved the inside and the outside.
so, not long ago, our old friend lou engle speaks, and as he's speaking, we both hear God speak. i had honestly put adoption in the 'not right now, maybe later' box, primarily because, hey, i've got biological offspring in what some would call excessive numbers. look at me, do i need more children? [of course, the more appropriate question turns out to be, do more children need me] but i don't have 10 children because i need them. i delight in them, but that's not why i have them. i have them because i said yes to God.
adoption seemed like not an option because i didn't think the people handing out spare children would give any to a woman who lives in a shoe. for a long time, i didn't think we could handle even what we had, and honestly, the idea of having a home study, you know, where someone STUDIES your HOME, scared me to death. i do not feel worthy of a whole lot of scrutiny. i have the organizational skills of a tornado and the consistency of midwestern weather (we have a saying in my town: don't like the weather here, give it an hour, it'll change). it just didn't seem like a good idea to pay someone to come and give us the fine tooth comb treatment.
and then God said - why don't you try, take it out for a spin, see what I'll do? turns out, the same One handing out biological children is the one handing out the adoptive kind. same Guy.
so we are taking the first steps. baby step to the christian adoption consultants (tracie loux). baby step to the home study application fee. baby step to the 80 plus pictures and 8 pages of answers to the questionnaire for the family profile. baby step to spring cleaning our house top to bottom to be ready for the home*study.
i've been busy. busy hands. busy mind. busy heart.
i'm trying to apply the salve of the Word of God to my fluttering heart (like Noah's dove, not finding anywhere to land) and i have found peace there that passes my understanding (which isn't a lot). it's good for me.
Daniel is what i would like to name our first male adopted brown skin baby. set apart. 10 days. i am not going to start a daniel fast on or before easter. i know Jesus died on the cross and rose from the dead for me. it's just that, well, cadbury eggs only come around once a year . . .
Tuesday, March 23, 2010
Competition, competition, COM-PE-TI-TION!!!
Competition brings out the best in us. And the worst. My children are not in a lot of organized sports for several reasons:
#1 We cannot afford it.
#2 Even if we could afford the money, we could not possibly justify the number of man hours it would take to chauffeur all the humans to the various practices and games/meets/tournaments and what-have-you.
#3 Organized sports have a way of elbowing their way to the front of the line and saying, "I'm more important than these other things," including (and especially) things spiritual.
So every fall and spring my children participate in a home school soccer weekly scrimage activity. It costs $5 per kid per season, but the gal in charge only lets me pay for the first 4 people (even though 7 play).
And they are in Awanas, which means that once a year they participate in the AWANA GAMES and in what Jonathan calls "Sparkie-A-rama". This year their respective teams had too many and too few players, so they wound up playing for another team - we singlehandedly shored up both of their teams with 3 players for each level.
The Sparks event was delightful. I smiled so much my face hurt. Jonathan is not quite old enough to even be in Sparks, but, as we said before it happened, he was born to do the sparky-crawl. The sparky-crawl is an event where 40 5-8 year olds in knee pads line up, 10 on each side of a square that is roughly 20 feet across, the horn is blown, and they crawl like mad to get all their players to the opposite side. You can imagine the pandemonium. They should but don't wear helmets. At any rate, as number 7 in our house, Jambo's whole life is one big sparky crawl - dodging other people, head down, just trying to get to the other side. It was awesome.
And after each event, win or lose, Jambo stood up, put his hands in the air, thumbs up, and acknowledged his adoring fans (remember, this is not our team, so no one knows him).
The final event in Sparkie-a-rama is a balloon relay. Ten children stand in a line and pass a balloon between all their legs and the final person sits on it and pops it. Jon was in balloon sitting position, even though he was the smallest. It took a while, and they were way in last place, but he didn't care. When he finally popped the balloon, his big brother picked him up and carried him around, Jon waving to the crowd. I laughed till I cried.
Then it was time for the TnT's. And that's where it got ugly. I have to say, I got to see my boys and girl shine. They ran fast. They won races. (we didn't think Ben could even make it around the circle without tripping, and he won the 'marathon'!) But the competition was fierce. And heartbreaking. And, believe it or not, parents get ugly, even at Awanagames. I genuinely was hoping for other children to fall down so mine would win. I was wishing for their demise. And the other parents felt the same way. I know, because when our team would default on a line rule, they booed and shook their cowbells. I was ashamed of my emotions. If I had kids in real sports, I'd probably be in jail right now.
I'm aware that there is value in those kinds of activities. I enjoyed seeing my children run (and crawl) with all their strength. The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. Going through the highs and lows of sports, movies, and life are part of what makes us humans, made in the image of God.
God is a Father, watching us, soaring with us, rooting for us, even participating with us, under the rules He ordained (specifically the one where He chose to give us free will). He waits on high to show us compassion. He desires to help us, to nurture us, to strengthen us, to do even the miraculous for us, but as I believe is the case in WWF wrestling, sometimes He is waiting for the tag. He is for us, who can be against us.
#1 We cannot afford it.
#2 Even if we could afford the money, we could not possibly justify the number of man hours it would take to chauffeur all the humans to the various practices and games/meets/tournaments and what-have-you.
#3 Organized sports have a way of elbowing their way to the front of the line and saying, "I'm more important than these other things," including (and especially) things spiritual.
So every fall and spring my children participate in a home school soccer weekly scrimage activity. It costs $5 per kid per season, but the gal in charge only lets me pay for the first 4 people (even though 7 play).
And they are in Awanas, which means that once a year they participate in the AWANA GAMES and in what Jonathan calls "Sparkie-A-rama". This year their respective teams had too many and too few players, so they wound up playing for another team - we singlehandedly shored up both of their teams with 3 players for each level.
The Sparks event was delightful. I smiled so much my face hurt. Jonathan is not quite old enough to even be in Sparks, but, as we said before it happened, he was born to do the sparky-crawl. The sparky-crawl is an event where 40 5-8 year olds in knee pads line up, 10 on each side of a square that is roughly 20 feet across, the horn is blown, and they crawl like mad to get all their players to the opposite side. You can imagine the pandemonium. They should but don't wear helmets. At any rate, as number 7 in our house, Jambo's whole life is one big sparky crawl - dodging other people, head down, just trying to get to the other side. It was awesome.
And after each event, win or lose, Jambo stood up, put his hands in the air, thumbs up, and acknowledged his adoring fans (remember, this is not our team, so no one knows him).
The final event in Sparkie-a-rama is a balloon relay. Ten children stand in a line and pass a balloon between all their legs and the final person sits on it and pops it. Jon was in balloon sitting position, even though he was the smallest. It took a while, and they were way in last place, but he didn't care. When he finally popped the balloon, his big brother picked him up and carried him around, Jon waving to the crowd. I laughed till I cried.
Then it was time for the TnT's. And that's where it got ugly. I have to say, I got to see my boys and girl shine. They ran fast. They won races. (we didn't think Ben could even make it around the circle without tripping, and he won the 'marathon'!) But the competition was fierce. And heartbreaking. And, believe it or not, parents get ugly, even at Awanagames. I genuinely was hoping for other children to fall down so mine would win. I was wishing for their demise. And the other parents felt the same way. I know, because when our team would default on a line rule, they booed and shook their cowbells. I was ashamed of my emotions. If I had kids in real sports, I'd probably be in jail right now.
I'm aware that there is value in those kinds of activities. I enjoyed seeing my children run (and crawl) with all their strength. The thrill of victory, the agony of defeat. Going through the highs and lows of sports, movies, and life are part of what makes us humans, made in the image of God.
God is a Father, watching us, soaring with us, rooting for us, even participating with us, under the rules He ordained (specifically the one where He chose to give us free will). He waits on high to show us compassion. He desires to help us, to nurture us, to strengthen us, to do even the miraculous for us, but as I believe is the case in WWF wrestling, sometimes He is waiting for the tag. He is for us, who can be against us.
Friday, March 12, 2010
happiness is . . .
going to sit on the couch and finding it fully assembled (as opposed to having cushions eskew and couch pillows all over the floor.
refilling the 'sock' drawer.
waking up and realizing it's friday . . . not only is it the end of all the hard parts of the work week, but it's also casual day, no shirt to iron.
hearing those three little words that mean so much: no cavities today! (spoken by the dentist)(mine or the children's)
being caught up on home school records.
knowing what is for dinner and not being too tired to cook it.
finding my toothbrush on the counter when i'm ready to use it, and it's dry.
hearing my children sing in the van (oh you can't get to heaven on roller skates).
any time spent alone with my husband, even better if he is awake.
opening the dish washer to load it and it's empty.
hugs and kisses from any of my 10 sweeties.
when my son says, "mom do you need help".
knowing where the babywipes are at the critical moment, and they are still wet.
having my identity in Christ.
refilling the 'sock' drawer.
waking up and realizing it's friday . . . not only is it the end of all the hard parts of the work week, but it's also casual day, no shirt to iron.
hearing those three little words that mean so much: no cavities today! (spoken by the dentist)(mine or the children's)
being caught up on home school records.
knowing what is for dinner and not being too tired to cook it.
finding my toothbrush on the counter when i'm ready to use it, and it's dry.
hearing my children sing in the van (oh you can't get to heaven on roller skates).
any time spent alone with my husband, even better if he is awake.
opening the dish washer to load it and it's empty.
hugs and kisses from any of my 10 sweeties.
when my son says, "mom do you need help".
knowing where the babywipes are at the critical moment, and they are still wet.
having my identity in Christ.
Friday, March 05, 2010
a day in the life
of my stomach
does this look like the eating habits of a girl trying to lose weight? maybe more like a girl trying to maintain weight? or perhaps like the dietary patterns of a bear getting ready to hybernate for um, say, three months or so?
for breakfast i had 2 eggs and salsa (so far, so good)
i had a cup of coffee with sweetened condensed milk - measured 1 tbs, 65 calories
two pieces ezekial bread
a bean burrito (about 250 calories - still maintaining a measure of self-control)
2.5 peanut butter cookies (225 calories)
large bowl veggie beef soup (200 calories)
handful of miniwheats
steamer, skim milk, honey and vanilla
spoonful of brownie batter (you see where that's going)
large bowl of chili with a small amt. cheddar cheese
1.5 small brownies - 150 or so calories
almonds, white chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips, marshmallows - maybe a half cup all told, maybe more
so you see, it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but still not the way you eat if you are trying to be, well, smaller.
i have a hard time getting it through my head that i am going to be smaller. i have a hard time not eating more when i'm bothered about something, or lonely. i have a hard time stopping the sugar train once it's started down the track (which is, as it turns out, all downhill, and the brakes are, in fact, broken).
and so, Jesus, i'm asking for help, here in front of You and everybody. no plans or counts are strong enough to get me there. You are my King. please help me submit myself to You, to the way You made my body to eat, to Your answers to my hearts cry for more of something. You (not obiwan) are my only Hope.
does this look like the eating habits of a girl trying to lose weight? maybe more like a girl trying to maintain weight? or perhaps like the dietary patterns of a bear getting ready to hybernate for um, say, three months or so?
for breakfast i had 2 eggs and salsa (so far, so good)
i had a cup of coffee with sweetened condensed milk - measured 1 tbs, 65 calories
two pieces ezekial bread
a bean burrito (about 250 calories - still maintaining a measure of self-control)
2.5 peanut butter cookies (225 calories)
large bowl veggie beef soup (200 calories)
handful of miniwheats
steamer, skim milk, honey and vanilla
spoonful of brownie batter (you see where that's going)
large bowl of chili with a small amt. cheddar cheese
1.5 small brownies - 150 or so calories
almonds, white chocolate chips, dark chocolate chips, marshmallows - maybe a half cup all told, maybe more
so you see, it wasn't as bad as it could have been, but still not the way you eat if you are trying to be, well, smaller.
i have a hard time getting it through my head that i am going to be smaller. i have a hard time not eating more when i'm bothered about something, or lonely. i have a hard time stopping the sugar train once it's started down the track (which is, as it turns out, all downhill, and the brakes are, in fact, broken).
and so, Jesus, i'm asking for help, here in front of You and everybody. no plans or counts are strong enough to get me there. You are my King. please help me submit myself to You, to the way You made my body to eat, to Your answers to my hearts cry for more of something. You (not obiwan) are my only Hope.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)