Motherhood outside the lines

The last three years Mother’s Day has been very sad. For those of you who are yearning to be a mother please know that you aren’t alone. While this year has answered prayers for our family there is still a loss that while on earth will not be filled – there should be more munchkins running around…one of which should be turning 3 in a few weeks. Yes, I still count the years.  But instead of counting months I am counting years – which I am thankful for. Time really does heal. Over the past few years as I watched mothers celebrate their day and I was very sad because I knew I was a mother just maybe not to kiddos here on earth or to kids who shared my name.

While I wouldn’t change a thing – this road brought me to the wildest craziest little man that I could have never created myself. It brought me to a woman I view as a sister who loves my boy as much as I do. It united families outside of bloodlines.

But as a reminder of those who yearn to be a mother know that bloodlines or documents or adoption does not make you a mother. I was a mother long before Emerson. I was a mother and sister and friend to high school kids who spent the night at our house for years. Who would stop by our house randomly for dinner. I was a mother to kiddos who cried on my shoulder. So know that you are meant to be a mother – whether it be through bloodlines, adoption, or just loving on someone who needs to be loved on. So Happy Mother’s Day to you – you deserve to cry at the damn Publix commercials. You deserve to know that families don’t have to exist within bloodlines or last names. You are appreciated. Let’s celebrate all the women in our life who make us cookies, dinner or listen to us when we need to cry or take us to coffee. Let’s celebrate the women in our life.

So here are a few blogs that I hope will help you realize you aren’t alone.

My Definition of Motherhood – One year later

The Grinch Who Stole Mother’s Day

Ten crazy months

 

Holy 10 months batman. How did this happen to me? It happens to be Mother’s Day this month and Publix is trying to prove to the world that my heart is actually there and I weep like a baby every time I see every stupid commercial. Don’t you people realize I am dead inside and crying is not a pretty thing for me. There is also a phone commercial with a little boy that grows up and eventually gets his own place. Emerson, stop growing up. JUST.STOP.IT. I am not ashamed to be that mother who makes you live with me forever.

So here are 10 things I am thankful for in this crazy month.

1. You are a crazy yet cautious little thing. When in the house there is no stopping your ambition and climbing and crawling and hammering and screaming but when you are in a new location you are very cautious – you analyze everything around you. We are exhausted by the time you go to bed.

2. You just love mom. Apparently I fix everything to you. I’ll take it because one day you’ll realize I can’t fix a darn thing.

3. You are adopted. I know this isn’t new in month ten but your adoption changed me. Bringing you home helped your father and I write this adventurous story for our family. Every month I realize that being an adoptive mom has made me a different person.

4. Sometimes you just can’t snuggle enough. You get in my arms and just snuggle to get closer.

5. The first thing you have said in context besides mom and dad is looking at the dog and saying “no.” Poor Poopeye.

6. You sleep like a champ.

7. You put your mouth on the glass window and blow really hard. We just sit and watch you and laugh really hard.

8. You scream out of happiness. Your daycare teachers have asked us to “control this.” I am not sure how to make this stop…maybe I could stop screaming with you at home but who’s pointing fingers.

9. At daycare there is a walker you and your buddy Charlie push the mailtruck walker together. As soon as I walk in the door you almost jump out of my arms, make eye contact with your partner in crime and make your way to the mail truck. I mean the cuteness is out of control when y’all push this together.

10. You were in a play last month and sat and just smiled at everyone (by in a play you sat in a stroller for 5 minutes while a 10 year old read a book aloud to all the daycare parents).

OK now I fear I have become an annoying mom. So while I remember the good I also can’t forget the hard times of today when your little top teeth came in and you just cried. All day. When you cry and are hurt you shake your whole body as if you just can’t control the pain. You just couldn’t be put down. My unusually mobile boy just sat and cried all day. Or having to drop you off at daycare tomorrow – which I just hate sometimes.

I just finished reading a book called “A Million Miles in a Thousand Years” by Donald Miller which is all about our story. I am trying to recall our crazy adoption story and write the entire crazy story. I know I could never communicate the story as well as God wrote it but might be good to remember.

This is why you support adoption

OK that is kind of a vague statement but I am going to make another support adoption post in the midst of the news recently. I may become like the teacher on Charlie Brown. I apologize.

In the midst of the awful things I am hearing about the Gosnell trial (if you don’t know what that is you can Google it…this case and this man is just awful so beware) BUT Gosnell is one of the reasons why you adopt and why you support adoption.

During our adoption process we received many critical statements about raising money for adoption. And in the midst of this case that the news media won’t talk about, I want to scream this is why you raise money or support adoptions or adopt. This is why communities get involved with adoption. We have to tell women that we love them and they don’t have to go to awful places and do inhuman things. I am all about some women power and the emergence of this case shows me how far we have to go as women. They have to have the choice to have people love them and their unborn babies. This HAS to be part of the choice – why is this choice not talked about more? Not only is it to break the glass ceiling on wall street or main street or whatever street it is people work on, but it is to fight for women who have no where else to go but Gosnell’s disgusting clinic.

Not because you are infertile. Not because you want a better world. Not because you are some wonderful person trying to save the world but to put evil people like Gosnell out of work. You put him out of a job. That his profession is not needed. You tell the women who go to a shoddy clinic that you love them and will support them and their unborn babies. You stand up and love the kids in foster care because that is what God does. What would that do for the abortion world? What would that do for our choices?

“The thief comes to steal, kill and destroy. I have come to bring life and life the fullest.” John 10:10

Let’s fight for life to the fullest for those that have no voice. Whether it is unborn babies. Whether it is kids who are already born. Whether it is kids placed in our governments care. Whether it is women who are pregnant and are scared and their doctor is giving them abortion as their first option.

I just can’t stop thinking about this case and it has rattled me to the core. I just don’t understand.

We are in trouble

He is officially climbing baby gates and stairs. We are in trouble.

Blogs I love these days

Rage Against the Minivan

Ashley Ann Photography

Pinterest, You are Drunk

Waiting on a Word

Good reads folks! I am not sure why I go in bursts of blogging but let’s just go with it. Cheers to the 3 people that are still reading this ADD of blogs. Stupid full time job, baby, husband and food that I have to eat…although the eating happens much less often these days. Who has time for it anyway?

Being an adoptive mom

I love being an adoptive mom. I love it. It is hard and sometimes lonely; sometimes I wish I had a community of friends who I could laugh with and who have gone through adoption first hand but I love the way our family was made. I love the silly things people say and I love the friends who have worked so hard to be my place to land and even though they didn’t experience adoption first hand they went through the pain with me first hand and will fight with me. Is that one run-on sentence? Maybe.

Here are some things I have noticed in the last 9 months as this adoptive mother that may be different then mothers of biological kiddos…or maybe not and everyone feels like this. If so, ignore. *Note: I stick my foot in my mouth and do not speak for everyone.

1. People love to tell us we look like E.  And Greg really does look like him and E is starting to use my hand motions but it always makes me laugh. It isn’t offensive or rude to say that and it’s cute when we hear it, but when people say that I sometimes feel like others think it is a compliment…which it might be to others honestly, but we don’t care if he looks like us or not. We love him either way.

2. I love Emerson’s birth mom.  She is my hero. I thought there would be jealously or something but I just think she is the greatest. I get so excited when I hear from her. I can’t wait to tell E how much we love her and I can’t wait for him to look at her and see why he looks the way he does.

3. I know that bloodlines or biology makes no difference in a family.  I didn’t know it before E but I know it now. I know it with my whole being. I love this kid like I carried him. Like I carried him for 3 years. I sometimes get the “aw, I’m so sorry you couldn’t get pregnant.” But I just don’t care. I know that families are not created inside of bloodlines. It makes me want to adopt everyone so everyone has a family. Christians always say how blessed they were to get pregnant…I am so blessed to have not.

4. Walking into events is hard. Knowing that I am going to get a lot of questions about adoption is hard. I love talking adoption but when it is a mass event sometimes it is nice to just be mom. Sometimes I just want to talk about my preferred diaper instead of questions about my kid’s racial background or what his birth mom is doing. I know by adopting you become an ambassador of adoption…so I am trying to learn to be more proactive about the conversation.

5. I want to be friends with people who have adopted. I don’t have a lot of friends who have adopted first hand but I would love to talk ultrasounds or birth moms or the getting a social security card for your kid talk. Ya know – the normal stuff. Warning…I am trying to get you to come to my side.

6. I appreciate the friends who haven’t been through it first hand but will live with me through it and will try to understand. Those who say the awkward things or the funny things and laugh with me. I love that and I am thankful for that.

7. I am worried I am going to mess my kid up all the time. OK that is probably an across the board thing. But seriously, who would let me be responsible for another human being. The fact that it was a choice by multiple people AND the state and federal government concerns me to no end. I would eat ice cream for dinner every night and now I am supposed to force vegetables…poppycock.

Again, just what I have noticed. Neither is better. I have some thick skin and usually don’t mind offensive statements…unless it is meant in malice and then I will probably correct. Anyone else notice differences? I may have another addition of this post as I continue to be adoptive mom.

 

9 months of wild

I can’t believe it’s been 9 months of this little boy. He is just a wild man. He crawls so fast. He climbs everything. He disregards everything in his way. I saw this quote in an interview with Nia Vardolas in an adoption magazine and I couldn’t agree more.

Q: Many adoptive parents later reveal a feeling that their specific child was waiting for them. In Instant Mom you say, “If the standard route of creating a family had worked for me, I wouldn’t have met this child. I needed to know her. I needed to be her mother.”
A: It’s that secret we all share. Parents who got to adopt their kids…we all know something. We got invited to a club we didn’t think we could ever get into.

Anyway – here are 9 things about my little man at ALMOST 9 months.

1. You still love to cuddle with mom. You will climb over ANYTHING to get to me. After your bottle at night you stroke my arm and then jump up to hold on to my neck while you fall asleep.

2. When you get excited you rock on your knees. I think it is your first form of dancing.

3. Your hair has started to get curly. When you get out of the bath you have Kramer hair – it all sticks up at the top…it also doesn’t help that when you sleep you rub off the sides a little.

4. You have started to get opinionated about food. You love to eat with your hands and will swat away the spoon. This isn’t my favorite thing these days but kiddo, mom always wins…this is something you will learn soon enough. You will get your vegetables!

5. You are climbing the stairs and standing. This includes standing in your crib while hands are extended and screaming at the top of your lungs when you wake up in the morning.

6. You just laugh all the time. What is so funny kiddo? You are definitely like your dad with your glass half full attitude. Mom is all about the empty glass.

7. You love to sleep.

8. You love to sit and look at your books. In the evenings when we put you in your crib you lie on your back and cross your legs and look and scream at your foam book. This Sunday morning you sat in your pack and play and just turned the pages in books while mom and dad read as well. It was a moment I wish I could freeze in time because most of the time you are moving faster than I can catch ya.

9. You’re just a mess like your parents. You seem to follow suit so well.

All I can say is trouble. We are in for a lot of trouble.

 

6 for 6

Goodness, this little boy makes me smile…both of those goofy men. I love waking this dude up every morning. Seriously, every morning since I have become unemployed this week.

I think this is a look I will get for the rest of my life. “MOOOOOMMM, quit taking pictures…here is my fake smile.” Eh, I’ll take it.
Anyway, here are six things about E that I love in his sixth month. Here’s to you little man!

1. You are REALLY loud. Seriously, you talk all the time. You scream loud and then stick your fist in your mouth and try to wave. It is so goofy. Also, you scream and shake your head really fast. I love that you are loud and happy but mostly loud. Did you get that from me? Imma kinda loud.
2. You sleep with your bottom straight in the air and can circumference your crib. You need a queen size crib.
3. You let me put hats on you. I could have a hat for every day. I know one day you won’t let me so I will enjoy that now.
4. You love a good hug. I think I mentioned this last month but I still love it. At night when I am feeding you, you continue to try to turn and cuddle – it’s like you can’t handle it any longer…you just want a cuddle. I MUST CUDDLE!!!
5. You will eat anything. If it is on a spoon you will eat it.
6. You grab my neck skin – I didn’t even think there was much extra skin there but you found it my friend. You found it. Apparently I am a 90 year old woman who needs a neck lift or tightening or something because my son can find that extra skin and stretch it. Referrals welcome.

Oh man, it is going by too fast. I want 9 of him at every age. Sigh. But again, I am unemployed right now so it is ALL E ALL THE TIME. Happy 6th month little man…you get your mom home all the time…sorry. (I apologize for the weird little smiley…those are awkward but sometimes they really do capture an emotion…hence the emoticon). OK it’s late. Time for bed. Emerson, sorry your mom is a crazy person. One day a good therapist will be able to mold that towards creativity.

It was indeed merry

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year peeps! We are thankful. Em on the other hand seems to have some place to be. Probably playing with the gazillion presents he got for Christmas or looking oddly and Tickle Me Elmo. He is sitting up these days. And screaming at the top of his lungs. The kid seriously has lung power.

Also, we got a food saver for Christmas and we food savered our Christmas lights. Good thing the end of the world didn’t come on 12.21 because we didn’t have  our food saver yet – but now we do – so bring it on death star. We have a food saver so we can save ALL OUR FOOD!

Sweet Sorrow

I have a dream that one day every valley shall be exalted, every hill and mountain shall be made low, the rough places will be made straight and the glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all flesh shall see it together.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

The last three Christmas holidays have been very difficult for our family. It seems weird to sit on the other end of heartbreak and yet it is still so near and the scars that have not healed nor will they ever heal while we are on this earth.

We lost our first child at 14 weeks in 2009 right before the holiday season. We struggled and fought and cried the next two Christmases over more loss and more expectations. Last year I may have been bat shit crazy (hmmmm I wonder if bat shit is one word?). As I sit on the other end of pain I still long for something more…not another child (although honestly I want all the babies in this world)…but a different life where there is no pain…there is no loss, yet I know sitting in that loss is the closest I will come to the one who brings that healing. Does that make any sense? Does that bittersweet reality ring true with anyone else? While I dread the pain and the heartache I know that is where I find my Love and my Hope. I know Jesus is in the pain. I always know that is where I can find Him.

I know Jesus carried my faith and my life and my hope during some very dark days and while I don’t long for that pain I long for Jesus. I long for that quiet voice to remind me “Do no fear for I have redeemed you. I have called you by name. You are mind. For I am the Lord your God. I am the Holy One of Isreal. Your Savior.” Because our redemption is what I try to celebrate because that redemption is there through miscarriage, loss and beating your hands against the floor pain.

I don’t have wise words. I sat through some pain but know if you are broken and don’t want to celebrate – I get that. I think I stopped going to church because I would literally leave weeping almost every week…I get that. Get some freaking eggnog and rum and watch Clark Griswold. I have been there. I have put up a Christmas tree unwillingly with less stockings on the mantel than I was hoping. I have felt like Micah as he screamed these words to convince himself :

“Do not gloat over me, my enemy!
Though I have fallen, I will rise.
Though I sit in darkness,
the Lord will be my light.
9 Because I have sinned against him,
I will bear the Lord’s wrath,
until he pleads my case
and upholds my cause.
He will bring me out into the light;
I will see his righteousness.
10 Then my enemy will see it
and will be covered with shame…” Micah 7: 8-10

Hopefully I haven’t been too depressing but I just know that this world is not the only thing to hope for. This season is not about this weird happy snow filled days and presents and happy families and whatever else our stupid world is teaching us…it is about the God who came to redeem us. We were meant to live for so much more…is it cheesy that I just quoted Switchfoot? Dang it.

I love Sandra McCracken. I feel like her songs spoke to my broken heart. So here’s a song I listened to on repeat and still do:

Sweet Sorrow - Below is from her website as she describes this song

The themes in this lyric are pulled directly from a study of the book of Judges. Reading about the plight of the Israelites, I see myself more clearly. They served God happily for a while, then forgot him, then fell into the hands of their captors, then asked God to rescue them, and then the cycle starts all over again. Serve. Forget. Repent. Grace. Serve. Forget. Repent. Grace. I continue to learn that the Bible is not a series of stories about heroes like David and Abraham, and Moses who we aspire to be like. It is a meta-narrative of failing, imperfect men and women in a broken family together, pointing to one hero, Jesus Christ. -http://www.newoldhymns.com/in-feast-or-fallow/sweet-sorrow/

1. Oh sweet sorrow, on the heels of my reckless soul

Oh sweet sorrow,

Flooding all around me now, red sea rising to my shoulders

Where we walked across dry land—so long ago.

2. Oh sweet mercy, your love letter it bleeds my pride.

Oh sweet mercy,

Now I’ve sold all you gave, other lovers could not save me

But you are kind and strong and will not leave me to die.

3. Oh sweet redemption

Smell the burning incense fire

Oh sweet redemption

Least of these, a chosen few, raise the mighty from the fool

Your ways are not like mine—they are much higher.

__________________

If you are struggling this year here are some blogs that remind me that other people have been there too. I don’t claim to understand grief but I have been there a little and will fight with you. There are still things I just don’t quite understand that I am reminded of during the holiday season.