A Scarecrow, a Ninja, a Rainbow, and an Astronaut Walked into a Yard

Happy Halloween from these yahoos! As usual, we raided the dress-up bin and the thrift store to create this bit of munchkin cuteness.

She busted out this scarecrow pose all on her own.

Of course we took about ten photos of all the fierce ninja poses. Because he knows so much about martial arts. (Insert laughing emoticon here.)

We had planned the rainbow facepaint and the hair, but this $3 thrift store leotard really made the whole thing!

This is the boy who wants to fly to the stars. Though this costume was a bit of a challenge when he needed to use the restroom.

Our tradition is to visit the neighbors we know before taking off to a Halloween party with friends...one of those gatherings where the adults get into dressing up and the kids run through the house at full speed. Yeah, all kinds of crazy fun. But we always check in on the neighbors first because they love these yahoos.

Ending on a shot with the kids who live across the street from us! Hope you had a fun night!

Remember Easter?

Yeah. I'm not so great at getting photos up in a timely manner. But you are getting Easter pics right in time for Halloween!

After church we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house because a.) fabulous yard and b.) fabulous wine selection.

Not gonna lie.

So the kids hunted for eggs filled with coins and chocolate covered...raisins?

We crazy like that.

And then there was time for a romp in the sprinklers.

And playing with balloons.

And playing corn toss.

And jumping off the corn toss boxes.

And napping in the sunshine.

And drinking wine. Of course.

And surreptitiously photographing my dad and brother-in-law.

And hanging out with my two awesome seesters.

Little Bird Takes a Bath

The birds that frequent our feeder and birdbath leave me laughing sometimes.

After a warm rain last week, this little guy thought he'd have a bath. He was so hilarious, I ran and got my camera. Check my long lens, yo.

Fluttering, splashing...

...slipping and sliding.

Check out his face in the next one.

And now he's clean and happy.

Got somewhere to be!

Pumpkin Bread and Contentment

The Papa is out of town - he surprised his dad in Florida with a visit. I am, therefore, trying to make the most of these days with the kiddos. Thus the pumpkin bread.

We spent the first half of the day getting ready to, and then going swimming with friends who have access to a local time-share/resort. This wore the kids out, and they came home and napped for nearly three hours, waking up after 5:00. We took it easy, ate leftovers for dinner, played Play-Doh, watched a show, and ate fresh-from-the-oven pumpkin bread. Oh. Yum.

This brings me to thoughts of my deep contentment in mothering. Oh, it's hard. When we jumped from two kids to four overnight it got really, really hard. It's actually been a lot of unromantic ugly in the last several years. (I keep meaning to write about the two-year transition, but as much as I think about things to say, the words just won't come out of me quite yet. So I will just keep alluding to that time, and you can anticipate the big reveal that will one day come.)

Our home is loud, way too loud for my sensitive nerves. It's boisterous, which is really just code for often supremely chaotic, which triggers my clamp-down response as I try to get a handful of control back in a life that feels so out of control to my INFJ personality.

But there is peace, too. There are sweet moments of sharing, or times when playing Play-Doh is a calm and creative experience rather that a wild, squashing, mixing-all-the-colors-into-puce experience. There are apologies and hugs when the feral wrestling matches end up hurting someone. There is the sharing of a toy out of the blue. There is even cheerful helping in the kitchen on occasion. There are moments when I read to a crew all snuggled up on the couch, and moments where a little girl is sounding out words and demonstrating the amazing transformation that occurs when the brain learns to read. There is lying down in each kiddo's bed at night and listening as they share their thoughts.

I used to dream of going back to work. At something. Just about anything. Like, I thought being a barista at Starbucks sounded heavenly. I wanted to do something mindless. Something you could leave at work and not bring home. Something that did not require endless self-doubt, invasion of personal space (OK, let's be clear here...groping and being slobbered on and leaned on and interrupted), and constantly seeking perspective - reading, talking, praying, reading, talking, praying...so much processing and trying to figure the crazy out.

The days are more manageable lately. And this has allowed me to reconnect with the joy I once thought I would have in parenting. The joy and wonder I DID have before our world got rocked. At some point during the trying times, I found a necklace at World Market. It was just a piece of flat circular pottery on a leather string, but it bore the imprint of a symbol that (supposedly) meant "joy" in some African language. I bought it immediately and wore it as a reminder to find the joy in my life. It took a long, LONG time for that to sink in on a daily basis. But I have it again.

I have joy. I am content. I don't dream of escaping to a job anymore. I do freelance from home a few hours a week. I like being home when the kids get out of school. I like that my presence is a dependable part of their day. I'm not always in a great mood, but I am here. I am accessible. I dislike the hectic routine of making dinner--it's probably the lowlight of my day, but I love that I am able to cook dinner from scratch most nights. It's meaningful for me and sustaining for them. We are in a good place right now, and I am enjoying it.

I catch myself enjoying moments IN the moment. Not later. Not looking at pictures, in fact, I am taking fewer photos lately in part because I just want to be. Be present. Not be trying to capture it all for someone else. I am perhaps selfish in that--I want all the moment fully. I want all its senses burned into my memory so that I don't need a photograph in order to remember it.

In contradiction to all the "positive thinking" philosophy out there, I have learned that you can't just "fairytale think" your way out of tremendous upheaval. You can't change everything by simply willing yourself to be happy or different. It's a process. The only way through the storm is, wait for it...through the storm. Real growth, permanent change, and wisdom come from enduring and learning from, reflecting on, what was endured. And that is no picnic. Right? You can't picnic in the middle of a hurricane.

I found that several things help me tremendously.

1. Gratitude. I read Ann Voskamp's one thousand gifts a while back and have intermittently kept a gratitude journal (actually I can never find one when I need it, so I have three or four journals scattered throughout the house). I dove in again when my mom got me a devotional based on the book, and it has been such a lovely experience - there is room to respond to the text as well as to continue the list of gratitude. I feel refreshed afterwards, even if I only spent ten minutes on it while waiting in the pick-up line at school.

2. A high-altitude perspective. Individual moments can be very overwhelming. Emotion, stress, uncertainty, and other people's disregulation can whip up the intensity of a problem or issue. We have dealt with ADD impulsivity, anxious attachment issues, speech therapy, massive tantrums, hours of occupational therapy, loss/grief, death, sneaky passive aggression, temporary depression, declarations of not believing in God, declarations of hatred towards me, my own grief over my flawed responses to my children, and, at one point early in the transition when we had two kids in diapers and a third regressed due to the upheaval and everyone was sick, I changed 12 gag-inducing poopy diapers in one day. All of it, ALL OF IT, even the stuff that brought me to my knees in tears and frustration, was ultimately handled by clinging to the truth of God's plan and supremacy. Clinging to the truth that these kids are not my own, but God's, and therefore I am called to do my best to be a faithful parent and let God handle the healing. I cannot plug all the emotional gaps for my kids. I cannot fix the sorrows in their stories. I cannot take away the challenges they were given in their natures or their brain chemistry. I teach, coach, feed, hold, discipline, and stretch them. God's going to have to see to all the super-human stuff because, ahem, I'm only human.

3. Community. This part is so very beautiful. I have more loving community than I know what to do with, and it's why I am sane. Um...really. I meet monthly with a few other adoptive mamas. We are free to be raw and sad and mad. Adoption is beautiful, and it is very hard. Some situations are mild, others eat the family. In my little group, we are all dealing with some thing(s) specific to adoption and our kids. And so we cheer each other on as one finds a glimmer of hope, a medication that works for a child's issue, a neurologist who "gets it," a teacher who makes all the difference in a school experience, resources that support healing. We make an annual getaway - once we escaped to a cabin in the mountains for a weekend, another time to a hot springs spa for a day. We can laugh at things that most people wouldn't find laughable, and while it is sometimes a dark, wry laughter, it brings some relief.

I also have a community of mamas through my church. These mamas have children in the same age range as my own, but as mamas our own ages span more than a decade. This is life-giving. We get together with our kids, do Bible studies, read books, and take our book club to Big Bear because we are fun like that. We know each others' stories well. We keep each others' kids in line. We babysit at the drop of a hat when an emergency arises. We pray for one another, text each other goofy updates and memes, and generally instigate a healthy amount of belly-laughing. 

I am not alone.

It feels so good to be sure of my place and to be happy in it. And tonight I was reminded of that, so I thought I'd share.

The End of that Chapter

Life has more quiet moments now that school is back in session. This morning I continued cleaning and organizing my desk area. Something that has piled up over the years in no particular order is the paperwork associated with our adoptions: overflowing hanging files, random documents in a pile on a shelf, in an envelope that never got fully emptied. Receipts, papers poached to request social security numbers or a passport and never returned to the file...I looked at and sorted it all. I also dumped all the infertility treatment forms and medical reports into the "shred" pile. They are no longer needed.

Not gonna lie. The emotion swelled and took my breath away a couple of times.

I'm not sure where the emotion came from - I wasn't sad. It was just a period in our lives that was so...intense. To look it in the face again - the checklists of things to do, the piles of receipts, the lawyer notices, the thick stapled packets of information about ourselves or the birth parents, it opened a tender place in my heart that remembered, viscerally, the weight of it all.

At the same time, that period in our lives is OVER. Done deal. And I experienced great joy in keeping only one copy of each item in a file for the appropriate child and throwing out the duplicates. Each child has a file with his or her origins told in the indifferent language of legal documents. One day these papers will interest them.

I'm trying to understand the hollow feeling of loss that is still there when I say goodbye, in this concrete way, to that chapter in my life. It makes no sense - I am glad to leave it behind. Maybe it's that, while there's finally closure for me, it is still something my kids will open up and experience for the first time one day. Those papers are all familiar to me; I signed most of them or took them from envelopes myself while standing on the wooden staircase of our Albany home, reading them in the winter light that glowed softly through the arched window of the front door. I sat across a table in a room lit by fluorescent lights and helped draft some of them with a couple we were just getting to know.

Closure is good, and closure I have. We are truly in a new chapter in our lives. It is apparent in the way our family has settled. We are one. We are parents and children, brothers and sisters, and the "how we got here" does not diminish this bond. And this new chapter is oh so good. So onward.

Cousins from Cleveland

Uncle Brian brought Morgan and Molly out for a visit last week, and this is the best photo I could get. Lots of laughter and silliness!

It is so special that the cousins get opportunities to hang out like this. They are infrequent but full of memory-making. Molly and Morgan were SO excited to meet Oli and Bella in person - they've seen them through Skype or in pictures, but not face-to-face. They just kept hugging them.

We fit in a visit to the zoo and a lot of hanging out at the house. We love when Dem Clevelanders come to town!

First Day: Elementary School Style

Watch out, World. Sadie Lou has officially joined the ranks of elementary school yahoos.

On Monday, these two started school - Sadie in kindergarten and Benjamin in third grade.

Yes, she donut rolls her socks. Totally her idea.

We are already hearing tall tales of what goes down at school. I have to dangle this out there for our wildly imaginative, drama-stirring-up girl: "I am going to email your teacher about that to see if she tells me it's true." Sadie will inevitably retract whatever story was told...the one about being sent to time-out for half a day, or watching movies in class (on Day 2?!), or about how another kid was already kicked out, or how her friends swapped food with her at lunch in order to trick their moms. (Seriously, whaaaaat?)

She comes by it honestly, though. Ever since watching the movie Big Fish, the Papa decided he needed to be that kind of figure in the kids' lives. Breakfasts are often spent discussing how he had a prodigious mustache when he was a mere infant. You can see where she might want to join the ranks of the grand  storytellers.

But things are off to a good start, barring the disappointing reality of homework. And long days. I try to make up for it with interesting after school snacks, however, three days in and I am already straining for ideas. The Papa and I are pretty excited that everyone crashes into bed by 7:00 and hardly a peep is heard after about 15 minutes. YES.

THE TALK

One of my goals for this summer was to teach the two oldest kiddos about sex. We now have a 3rd grader and a very mature Kindergartner. How did I know either one of them was ready? The trigger was the oldest child's scientific mind: as we were driving around town he asked, "Mom, I know how a baby would get DNA from his mother because he grows inside of her. But how does he get DNA from his father?"

It's pretty impossible to answer that without being honest about the details.

And it's pretty hard to put off that answer without sending the signal that somehow it's taboo.

And because this child is such a persistent learner, the question was clearly not going to go away on its own.

And since the second child is already FAR more aware of bodies and body stuff than I imagined at this age, and because she's the most committed sidekick to the first child (who I'm guessing would not be able to keep his mouth shut forever), The Papa and I just decided to teach them both together.

For a little more background, studies have shown that it's healthier (and kids make healthier decisions in the future) when parents talk early and often about sex--kids who get the scoop from parents learn to trust their parents to give them accurate information; they are also more likely to have sex later than their peers and use protection when they do; and they tend to pick up their parents' attitudes and values surrounding sex.

A family therapist once told me that the average age when children hear about BJs for the very first time is first grade. FIRST GRADE, people. Now of course they don't have the brain development to totally get what they're hearing but still. Do I want my kids to trust playground wisdom or do I want them to come to me? I am not going to keep my head in the sand about this subject.

For more authority on the subject, here are a few articles and facts that might be informative:

TIME Magazine shares why it's often "Too Little, Too Late."

The CDC has sexual risk statistics for 2015.

The Guttmacher Institute reports on how teens learn about sexual health.

The Palo Alto Medical Foundation emphasizes that parents are the most important sexuality educators for their children. 

Now I didn't need all those sources to tell me this is a good idea, but they provide some evidence of the importance of being the first and the best source of information for our kids, as well as an ongoing source of information. It's not a one-stop talk.

I headed into the first conversation today lead by The Talk by Luke Gilkerson. I'll tell you about that in a minute, but first I want to share a few tidbits from the parent introduction. Gilkerson talks about the work his organization does with families that have been affected by porn obsession, including kids who have been exposed as young as 8, 9, or 10 years old. One of the things the parents say is this: "I wish I would have spoken with my child sooner about sex."

Another point I appreciated: "In some conservative religious Christian circles, sex is treated as gross, a necessary function they'd rather not talk about. In the world, sex is treated like a god, an ultimate source of pleasure, meaning, and value. Neither of these is a right biblical attitude. Sex is not gross. It is not God. But it is good. As parents it is not only our job to communicate to our children what sex is, but a godly attitude about it."

The introduction also explains why, in most cases, the best age to begin talking about sex is between the ages of six and ten. I won't go into it here, but it's comforting to read, actually.

Now I don't want to betray my kiddos by sharing their responses in too much detail. You can imagine the "Ew!" and the "I'm so embarrassed" and so on. But what was curious to me was the complete respect they both had for the womb--talking about how the body produces and brings a baby into the world blew their minds in the best way possible. When I asked them what they found most interesting about all the stuff we talked about, they both had their spin on that information. My firstborn found it even more fascinating than anything he learned about his own body.

I'm pretty sure that, while they didn't mention it, learning all the technical terms for the parts of the body "down there" was exciting for them. Like looking up the rectum, and understanding how the urethra works, and comparing the male and female systems.

And I did cry from laughing at one point as one child gyrated in an attempt to get down the logistics of it all.

If you are curious about this resource, I highly recommend it! There are seven lessons, all Biblically based. (We accomplished the first two today, because the BIG QUESTION of "HOW" was left unanswered by the first lesson.)

1. God Made them Male and Female
2. Go Forth and Multiply
3. Wonderfully Made
4. The Two Shall Become One Flesh
5. You Shall Not Commit Adultery
6. Do Not Violate Me
7. Bought With a Price

Get The Talk on Amazon.

May this be helpful, fellow parents, as you navigate this tricky subject. I am already loving it!

Sweet morning moment

Every now and then I am allowed glimpses into the truth that the hard work we are doing with these kiddos will pay off. This particular morning, breakfast was ready and the kids were still quietly in their rooms with the doors closed. I thought perhaps they were still sleeping (shocking idea, that one). When I went looking for them, I opened the door to the girls' room to see this - peaceful playing. One was reading a story to the others, while one managed the Fisher Price record player as it played musicbox melodies.

Be still my heart. They can actually hang out with each other sweetly. I had to grab the camera and take a picture. Proof that I didn't dream that moment up.

So we press on, trusting that one day these moments will increase in frequency. In the meantime, I am so grateful for the glimpses we do receive.

Looking back at Christmas 2015

I am finally getting around to sharing a slideshow of this past Christmas.

Here's what the slide show is NOT -- a complete picture of our Christmas. It does not show our attempts at advent readings and activities to still our pace and center our hearts, or how the kids picked out and sent gifts to impoverished families around the world through World Vision. It doesn't reflect our desire to make Christmas about Christ, though that was the focus.

It does show lots of presents which could appear to be all about consumerism. These were not ordinary presents, however; they were thoughtful gifts from so many family members near and far, biological and adoptive. Gifts from people who, in some cases, suffered a lot this past year, and they still made time to think of our kids. To send something from Ohio or New York or Florida to bless the kids.

This year there was much loss in our families -- our extended families, our kids' biological families -- deaths, financial struggles, cancer, dissolving marriages. The opening of these presents represents the giving hearts that continued despite all the grief.

I chose this somewhat odd song to accompany the slide show because there is always room for forgiveness, new starts, and ultimately the redemptive and transforming power found in Jesus -- God become man to connect with us, heal us, and change the trajectory of this fallen world and our broken lives.

The past two years (since Oli and Bella joined the family) have been so hard for us, but we are finally on the other side of the transition. This Christmas finally felt like that. Finally felt as if I had breath in my lungs again. (I am working on a couple of posts to let y'all into that part of the journey. Coming soon...) When the lyrics say, "So it's been a long year, every new day brings one more tear..." my heart sighs with the knowledge of that feeling. And yet the good news is what Christmas represents. God with us. Emmanuel.

The Clubhouse & Mud Kitchen

A couple of years ago The Papa and I had a conversation that went something like this:

Mama:  Let's build a fort for Benji for Christmas. We can use some of the wood we have lying around here. It'll be cheaper than buying a play structure and we can build it ourselves. It will be rustic and good for his imagination.

The Papa: OK.

As we got into the project, the conversation then went something like this.

Mama:  Wait. What are you doing? That's not what it said in the plans!

The Papa: I'm following your plan.

Mama: No you're not! That is supposed to be 54" total. See? LOOK at it!

The Papa: It wasn't clear.

Mama: How could it not be clear?!  That's what the line shows!  That's the number RIGHT THERE.

The Papa: These aren't good sketches.

Mama: They are perfectly clear! You just have a mental block when it comes to me trying to communicate with you about something you don't want to do.

The Papa: I think we should hire the Northrops to finish this for us.

Somehow The Papa and I managed to build the foundation together. And the Northrops did come complete the job. And it cost at least twice what I had hoped because we got real weatherproof siding and because I had no idea lumber was so expensive. Truly. Plus the whole paying someone else to do the labor thing.

And, P.S., they understood my blueprint just fine.

But then the little building sat. It had no curtains and no furniture in it. I thought that would make it the birthplace of imaginative ventures, but all it became was a ghost town. I thought it would transform into a castle, or a pioneer fort, or a spy hideout. It did no such thing.

So this past spring I decided to lure Sadie into it. I sewed curtains from fabric that was languishing in a pile in the loft. We rearranged the kids' playroom and brought the table and chairs out to the little building. The kids made art and taped it to the walls. We hung hooks for a handheld broom and dustpan for tidying up, and a few for hanging superheros capes, lanterns, and fake crystals. Because...fancy.

Now the house is in heavy rotation, and they all refer to it as "The Clubhouse." We are in the process of painting a sign to hang on the front, and I am pretty sure it needs a hanging pot of succulents at the entrance as well. (Then again, someone already tore down the windchime, so maybe I am a little too ambitious.)

 This brings us to The Mud Kitchen.

No matter what I do, they ALWAYS come back to digging in the planters.

So I got smart and gave them a patch all their own.

 The mud still ends up all over, but now they are not digging up newly planted vegetables.

Bee-la-la is in the busybody stage. She swiped these sunglasses from behind Benji's back.

And she decided to actually eat the mud pie. She gave it a thumbs-down.

And there ya have it!  Backyard times at our place - good dirty fun.