June 27, 2010

Tomato Soup

Surprise, surprise. One never knows what to expect with this boy's palate. He eschews beef and chicken, but eats fish and DEVOURS lamb. He eats almonds by the fistful, but lately has been positively uninterested in apple sauce.

Tonight we served tomato basil soup and salad. He licked his bowl clean and asked for more. And when he was all finished, he said, "Mmmmm, Mom, that soup was delicious."

Music Appreciation

Today we discovered Sol Gabetta and her cello. Such beautiful music!



And then Lana Trotovsek...

Benjamin-isms and What-not

Mama, get up and be tall. (His way of saying "stand up.")

Scoop me. (Scoot me - when sitting in a chair that needs to move closer to the table.)

I want milk with a lid. (Milk in a cup with a lid which, by the way, he rarely gets anymore)

I wanna have a nap time. (Said even at night when going to bed)

Are you talking Spanish? (We've started learning Spanish and he likes to identify when someone is speaking Spanish.)

It's a tiny skeleton. (Referring to a skull and crossbones.)

Do like this. (When he wants you to copy what he's doing.)

Mom, what thinking? (What are you thinking about?)

Oh, cool! (Said about anything he's excited about.)

I don't WANT it! (We hear far too much of this lately.)

This morning his request was, "Mama, let's watch violins and drums." (videos of musicians on YouTube)

When I was typing on the keyboard, he told me, "Mama, you making lots of sounds?" and put his hands on top of mine and made typing motions with his fingers.

When we told him he we were going to get a little baby (and we have been talking about this for a while now), and asked him what we should name the baby, he said, "Zoe."

June 25, 2010

Today's Music Exposure...

is the saxophone. Jazz, in fact. Benjamin is a little surprised and taken aback by it. Take it away, Maceo!



And in looking for sax videos and watching some old Coltrane, we ran across this lovely video. Ain't jazz grand? (And now Benjamin is interested in the trumpet...)



Finally, our rabbit trail led to this video - The Muppet Show, promoting musical greats. Ni-i-i-i-i-ice.

June 24, 2010

Long Live Rock and Roll, Part 2

...And today he asked me while driving in the car: "Mama, can you put on some rock and roll music, please?"

June 22, 2010

Long Live Rock and Roll

So Benjamin is displaying a penchant for rock. His favorite bands (in addition to Celtic influenced medieval strings) are The Racontuers, Kings of Leon, and Modest Mouse.

He is dancing around the room presently, shouting happily, "I like Rock and Roll!!"

June 21, 2010

Letter to a Woman Considering Adoption

Today we had our last official meeting with Sarah prior to getting hooked up with a woman making an adoption plan.  I have to turn in hard copies of our letter and photo this week, but at this point if a woman told Sarah who she was looking for and we fit the description, we could be matched.

Matching means that, to the best of her ability, a woman has decided that she wants a specific couple to parent her child. Usually this happens in the last two months of her pregnancy. She can always change her mind, even thirty days after the child has gone home with the adoptive parents. We rest in the knowledge that God is placing the baby He wants with us, and in the excellent work Sarah does with birth mothers in preparing them for the reality of going home without their baby.

For now, we are looking for the woman who is looking for us. We need everyone's help to spread the word. Some of you will get paper copies and brochures to give to your pastors or hairdressers or nurse friends (if you are willing). We have put the letter and photo up on this web site now under the tab that says Letter to a Birth Mother. Please copy and send the link to anyone you think would have connections - college students, teachers, counselors, medical professionals, people in ministry, and so on.

And...thank you. For you prayers, for your interest, for loving us, and for now sharing our story with others.

Special Request

So...this morning Benjamin came to me and asked for "violin music." As I don't have any straight up violin music, I put on Loreena McKennitt. He seemed satisfied.

June 19, 2010

The Post-MTV Generation

Benjamin is in the backyard right now singing, "Gideo storm, gideo storm. Gideo storm, gideo storm."

This is his version of "Video killed the radio star..."

Maybe it should be "MTV killed the video star" as MTV doesn't play videos anymore. Either way, I'd hate to be caught in a "gideo storm."

And in case you need a refresher on this tune...

June 18, 2010

Friday Morning Update

As I attempt to fill you in on where we've been this past week, Benjamin is standing next to me, cutting a piece of paper into shreds, saying: "Do you see the giant ego [eagle]? Mama, do you see the giant ego?"

Mama: Where is the giant eagle? I don't see it.

LP: I'm cutting the giant eagle legs. Look at that! Those are giant eagle legs!

Mama:  --listening--

LP: There's the tail. Oh!  There's a giant eagle sitting on the flower!  --runs out of the room shouting and then returns--

LP: It's a giant eagle!  It's a giant eagle!  I'm a big boy.  I found a giant eagle. C'mon. Let's run. --runs out of room again and returns-- Mom! There's a giant eagle outside in the tree. 

Mama: Where did you learn about giant eagles?  Did Gramma teach you about them...or Papa?

LP: Gramma tell me about that.


Anyway.   We spent the past week in a lodge in California wine country with my family. Benjamin went on lots of nature walks with Papa, and we all tasted lots of delicious wine. It was beautiful.  Pictures on the way...

June 9, 2010

BenTV 010 Talking About a Turtle

Sum-Sum-Summertime

Right after getting the cast off his leg, Benjamin and I went to the toy store to buy a small pool. We did have a large one that had to be blown up, and it was such a nuisance. So this summer, we are opting for this model.


Our backyard lacks vegetation and shade, so Mama rigged up a sort of movable oasis. Depending on the direction of the sun, the trees can be adjusted in order to produce shade.  Little P loves it!

June 4, 2010

Adoption of #2: Proceeding Slowly...

...and that's OK!

For back story, here's the link.  Otherwise, read on!

It seems that we are constantly in flux. Somehow, we continue moving forward, I think. It's just a  lurchy sort of movement. Last January, we got very excited about open adoption (again), and hopeful about the facilitator we had met. We dove into it in our hearts. But life got a little bit complicated. I was supposed to be writing a succinct letter that would, in two sides of a paper, tell all the big things one should know about us. I began to write, and then the questions came up: How much detail is truly relevant on this topic or that one? Do I sound obsessed? What do you mean we need to have both our voices in this letter? Oh, shoot. I forgot to mention this. Where the heck am I gonna put it? Ack!  Does this go in the paragraph on our values or on the description of Brent?

But life, now...life has been a trip lately.  It always is, so I don't know why I'm even mentioning this. Probably because I tend to be a whiner. OK. Forget the "tend to be". Let's just call it what it is. Hello, my name is Jessica, and I'm a whiner.

One of the things going on has been me making some difficult discoveries about myself. What? I'm even mentioning this here? This is not the direction I was planning to go with this post. I have faced my enormous ego squarely in the past few months and this was a tiresome and deflating process. I was probably even depressed for a period of time. Everything became really, really hard. Someone asked me, what's so hard right now? What can I do to help? And I didn't know what to say because no one thing was hard. But it WAS hard. So I said - my kitchen. It's always a mess. I crumble every time I go in there to clean it up. So this person cleaned it in about 15 minutes flat...with a smile on his face. Oh, boy, did I feel both grateful and totally ashamed.

As I was going through this and other profound and annoying self-discoveries, we were backing out of church responsibilities. We had been super involved and got super burnt out. We released tasks and meetings one at a time, and each time I thought...life is getting easier, but I am not feeling any better. By February, we had no more obligations to anyone. And in April, I was wondering why I was still so dang tired. Two months of recuperation, come on!

As church stuff waned, I added in working on the house stuff. My big, spacious house was feeling like a burden to me because its bigness is unwieldy and I am impatient. I don't like things being undone. I don't need much in life; I am not into what is grand or fashionable; I am not a big consumer.  But I do want my space to be clean and finished. This house is too big for "finished" to happen quickly...unless, I suppose, we had the kind of cash to pay other people to knock it out in a few weeks. Sadly, and more growth-producingly, that is not our case. So I have had to make peace with the process and to learn to embrace my limits as well as the limits of my environs. This has not been pretty.

The month of March I spent in two places...on a ladder, painting a couple of rooms with vaulted ceilings, or in the car, going to every store I could think of that would have affordable curtains and "home decor". Going to those stores, buying six versions of rugs, curtains, accessories, dragging them home (with a toddler, mind you) and trying them out, returning 90% of them. Oh yeah, I was also picking out paint chips and trying out about 16 colors on various walls. There was momentum, but it demanded a lot of me. Always I was haunted by not wanting to spend superfluously, and committing to colors and pieces that would last. I did not want to do all this again any time soon.

April. I can't remembered what characterized April, except perhaps the wonderment at why I was still tired. And the lovely week when Emma came to visit. Her visit was actually a bit of a vacation for me. I took naps. She played with Benjamin at times that allowed me to make dinner without a cling-on pulling down my pants.

And then came May - the party month. Actually, we threw a party in February for Brent's birthday, and one in March for my dad. But May was the ultimate party month. I did a lot of sewing in May, in preparation for the party month. My mom, my sister and I all have birthdays in the same week. Then there's Mother's Day, which I actually managed to acknowledge with homemade gifts. (Always a goal, rarely a reality.) Brent's brother and sister also have May birthdays, which I failed to send anything off for, so...Happy Birthday, Uncle Todd and Aunt Amy!  We love you even if all you got was a phone call!

And May was also the month of the cast. That's pretty well documented, actually.

Somehow, in May, the fire began burning in my belly and the funk lifted. I could attempt writing again. I set some goals for myself - things like 1. Gratitude.  2. More water and green tea. 4. Read the bible. 9. Limit email - make more phonecalls. (Instead, I've just been avoiding communication...) 11. Stop talking so much. Pray instead. And I'm not going to share all of them, because they're a little bit embarrassing. But they're hanging on my fridge in blue crayon on a sheet of 11x17 paper that was pulled from Benjamin's art supplies in my fit of inspiration. It's good, them being this big and hanging in a place where I spend, to my chagrin, far too much time. I am not allowed to forget.

I read two books in May which meant staying up kind of late and neglecting some things like the laundry piling on the couch or the dinosaur collection spread across the living room floor. Most importantly, to this post anyway, I accomplished a draft of that pesky letter.

Now, this letter is to fit on a single sheet, front to back, while leaving room for a photo of ourselves to be secured in the top right hand corner. Assuming the font is a size that is still legible, my draft was near three pages long.  I sent it off to Sarah (our adoption facilitator) for feedback on what to cut. She sent it back with cuts, and we're ready to go.

Except that now I am wondering about some of what we included and what was not expounded upon. Did I say too much about parenting? I definitely did not say enough about our extended families and how important they are to us. Our spiritual thoughts on open adoption came out, but did we neglect to emphasize how much we personally care about this child-to-be? I think I sound less cute and quirky, and more like a spazz. Oh, goodness...should I write it again?

It's hard work, being in my head.

So now we're at the point where we're waiting on our next appointment. In three weeks, Sarah is going to come to our house. We will, together, choose the best photo of our family and have a gazillion copies made because we are supposed to attach them to the gazillion copies of our birthmother letter that we are going to make. With rubber cement...that's what we have been instructed to use as an adhesive. I feel like I'm in fourth grade again. And, boy, is Benjamin going to love sniffing and tasting this product! You know that he's going to try...

In the meantime, we continue to attend the monthly Adoptive Parents Support Group. Our first meeting was a big turn off. Some adoptive mother was there with her new baby, and she went on and ON about attempting to lactate and bloody nipples and all (remember, this is a mixed group with an equal number of men in the room). Now I'm all for breast feeding and being open, but goodness gracious, there's a time and a place for airing all that stuff. It's called a "breastfeeding support group" or perhaps it's called "mom" or maybe "girlfriends" or even perhaps "your blog". Brent was all weirded out, but then, so was I. We skipped the next two sessions.

But we did go back. The last couple of sessions have been good - we hear stories of where people are in the process - in their third month of waiting, matched with a birthmother, encountering snags and hiccups, or recently having taken their new baby home. It hit me, after this last meeting, how hard this process is. I had forgotten that, sort of, because that part of our story is soundly in the past. Adoption is beautiful; it gets good; it's healing and restorative...in the long run.

At the starting block, it is full of uncertainty. One couple's birth mother went to live in Mexico for a while and they were taking bags of groceries to her at the border because she had no money to feed herself. If the baby was born there, they would no longer be able to do the adoption.

It requires patience. Frequently, adoptive parents end up "parenting" the birth mothers for this time period due to their youth, immaturity, lack of ability to take care of their responsibilities.  It also may require hours of watching Spongebob or Hannah Montana because that is what the birth mother chooses while at the hospital in labor or recuperating.

Occasionally, there are cultural challenges - as in one traditional Asian family where the parents said nothing about the daughter's pregnancy or her decision to make an adoption plan until she gave birth and an "auntie" burst in on the scene to declare the family's disagreement with the arrangement.

It requires graciousness - adoptive parents can only suggest healthier ways of coping with a boyfriend, parents, or decisions such as, oh let's say, obtaining prenatal care.  And those suggestions need to be made without judgment or condemnation, always respecting the woman, if not her choices.

It requires compassion to see the birth mother for the incredible choice she is making now - and not for the circumstances that led her to this point. Someone referred to one young couple making an adoption plan as "better off raised by wolves" - their parents and families had been so excruciatingly dysfunctional that these young people were fortunate to be alive and making such an important and good decision as placing their baby with a stable family.

I listen to these stories from other adoptive parents' journeys and marvel - Wow, would I be so gracious if I were in the midst of that situation? Wow, that adoptive father has so much love for their child's birth mother...it's humbling. Amazing, how do you find the strength to do that...and cheerfully, too?

So - we are growing and preparing our hearts right now. In three weeks we will officially be "on the market" which means only that our materials will be in place so that birth moms will have us as an option. We also need to get started on a baby room which means that Benjamin is going to have to give up his convertible crib-toddler bed and move into a real twin. Lucky him! Always in flux.

Got any questions?  I have no idea what you would like to know specifically about this process, so please leave a comment and I'll get back to you via comments or a post, whichever seems most appropriate.