Sweet Baby James

If you look back at my calendar for 2009 you will see that Wednesday December 2nd was scheduled to be a very busy day. Faith had an early visit with her birth-mom and had to be dropped off at 8:30am. Lilli and Noah had to be at preschool at 9. Faith would have to be picked up at 10:30, Lilli & Noah at noon. I was scheduled to work 1-6 and then handle Kids Church services at 7 for Nate who was on a business trip in San Antonio.

Everything was going smoothly. We were up-and-at-em bright and early. Everyone made it to their morning appointments without a hitch. I picked Faith up from her visit and headed home feeling very much like super-mom. I remember the moment so clearly. I was standing at the rear passenger door of our van getting Faith out of her car seat when my phone rang. I almost missed the call because I couldn't successfully fish the phone out of my purse with Faithie on my hip. I picked it up on the last ring and the voice on the other end would bring my ultra-busy day to a halt, wipe my over-scheduled agenda clean of all previous engagements. I was going to be a mom.... again.

If you are the mother of biological children, imagine all the important moments of pregnancy rolled into one.... seeing two lines on a pregnancy test, hearing your child's heartbeat on the doppler at week 12, seeing their tiny form at week 20 on the sonogram, hearing the doctor say "congratulations, it's a boy" at delivery. Taking a phone call like the one I took on December 2nd of 2009, is like feeling all those emotions, all that excitement, in a matter of minutes instead of 9 months.

I ran into the house, plopped Faith down in the living room, and grabbed something to write on... the back of a bank-statement envelope (I still have it and laugh every time I see it). For those of you who know his first name (which is not, in fact, James) I have his actual first name written on that envelope in the feminine form of the name, and I must confess that for the first part of the conversation I thought he was a girl.

I hung up with the social worker and did what any expectant mother would do when she finds out that she's going to have a baby in four hours. I called the baby's father.... who did not answer the phone. So I called him again.... and again he didn't answer. I gave up and called my mom... who did not answer. I called my dad.... who did not answer. I called Nate again... no answer. I called my pastor.... no answer. Are you beginning to see a pattern here?!

At this point, my cousin Val, who drove an hour to babysit while I was at work, pulled in the driveway and I literally DASHED out the front door in excitement. What do I yell to her as she comes up the walk? Not "We're getting a baby!" Nope, not me. I blurt out "I don't need you to babysit after all! I called off work!" She stops halfway to the house and kinda glares at me with a look that says "And you couldn't have called me BEFORE I drove all the way here?!" After a little bit of back peddaling and speed talk on my part, Val and I screamed and jumped up and down and did a happy girlie dance on the front porch. She was gracious enough to stay with me the rest of the day, (for the next two weeks really) and help me as I adjusted to life with four kids. I am more grateful to her than I can adequately express, and my memories of the beginning of Sweet Baby's life will always be inter-connected with her kindness.

The rest of the day went by in hyper-speed. The big kids were picked up from school. I told Nate from 1400 miles away that he was going to be coming home to an infant son. Crib bedding was washed. A carseat was added to my van. I was almost hit by a pickup truck running a stop sign. Bottles and formula were purchased. Family and close friends were called. (Or called me back is more accurate).

And before I knew it, I was standing in the lobby of Children Services holding a tiny,beautiful, perfect, 5 pound baby boy. And in that moment more than just my busy day was changed. My universe shifted... expanded just a little.... and suddenly I was the mother of four.

Pray for Faith

We need you to pray. Again. I know that we've come to you, our family, friends, and church on so many occasions over the last two years with prayer requests for our daughter Faith. We asked you to pray when children services was making their final decision about weather or not they would send Faith home... God granted us favor. We asked again for prayer when the case went to trial for permanent custody... again, God granted us favor. Well, here I am again asking you to pray one more time.

This is the end. Faith's case goes tomorrow (Tuesday Nov. 23) before the 9th district court of appeals. They will make the final decision about weather or not we will adopt the child that we've raised since her birth two years ago. The court is made up of three judges, Carla Moore, Clair Dickinson, and Beth Witmore. Please pray for them by name. There will be no oral arguments, no lawyers, no testimony, no witnesses. These three people will read the transcript of the original permanent custody trial and the briefs filed by both sides, and then they will make a decision. We will be notified of their decision in 60-90 days. Please pray that once more, God grants us favor. I am begging you to understand the finality of the situation. This is it. Aside from the supreme court, there is no further court to appeal to, there will be no further motions to file. This is truly the end of Faith's journey as a foster child, one way or the other. Please fast and pray with us today and tomorrow, and as we wait.

"There's no way I could do that."

"I don't know how you do it."

"I could never do that."


These are responses that Nate and I get all the time. Not about the fact that I just ran a full marathon. Not about the fact that we manage two jobs, one ministry and four children. It's the response we often get when people find out that two of those four children are neither biologically ours or adopted... To the simple fact that we are foster parents.

"I could never do it."

Imagine if everyone felt that way. What would happen to the most vulnerable among us? Abused, neglected, and endangered children. Little ones who have been hurt by the very person that was supposed to protect them. Neglected by the person who was supposed to provide. Put at risk by the one who was supposed to keep them safe. What would happen?

As Christians, I want to ask you what your response is to the fact that kids in your very own neighborhood, classmates of your children, are being abused by the people who gave them life? As much as I cringe at the cliche, I have to ask, what would Jesus do? The Bible makes it pretty clear what our response should be.

James 1:27
Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world.

Isaiah 1:17
Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow.

Matthew 18:5
And whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me.

"I could never do it, I'd get too attached."

Yes, you would. You would get attached. You would fall in love with a child who belongs to someone else. Who you have absolutely no legal right to. Who could be taken from your home at the end of a year or possibly two and sent to live with their abuser. Again, Christians, I want to point out that you were not called to a life of self-protection. You were called to give your life away. God is your protector, you need only to be obedient. Let me gently remind you that God loved you, even at great expense. He loved you enough to let his only child die for you even given the risk that you could reject Him. He loved you and suffered for you even when there was the possibility that he might not get to spend forever with you.... just like I might not get to spend the next 18 years with my youngest son or daughter.

"I still couldn't do it."

Maybe not. Even having said all of the above, I realize that not everyone can do this, or should do this. Not everyone can parent through the red tape and bureaucracy. Not everyone can deal with a legal system that is abuser-centered instead of child-centered. Not everyone can handle dealing with birth-parents, who are in our case, drug addicted, violent, convicted felons. Not everyone can raise children who's lives are dictated by social workers and magistrates. But everyone can do something. You can do something.

It is often said that a foster child is everyone's child. Your tax dollars fund the entire child welfare system. You elect the judges, you pass the levies that determine the very lives of these children. My children. Get involved. Get educated. Hold the system that you pay for accountable. If you, like me, disagree with the STATED NUMBER ONE GOAL of Children Services being to reunite children with the people who abused them, then stand up and SAY SO! If you disagree with their policy that the best place for a child is always with their biological family then speak up! I am begging you. Do what the Bible says and plead the cause of the orphan.

When you walk in the main door of Summit County Children Services you will see puzzle pieces all over the walls. The life of a foster child is like a broken puzzle. Nate and I can be this part of the puzzle. We can do this. We can bring them home, put a roof over their head, love them literally like our own, and give our hearts away. But we can't do it alone. We need support. We need your prayers. We need your shoulders to cry on and your hands to help. We need people to step in and be the other parts of the puzzle.

Midnight Confession

I have a confession to make...

I've been keeping a secret...

A weird, nonsensical, silly secret....

No, I'm not an addict, a CIA agent, or a superhero...

I don't have a cape or a mask....

but I do have a secret identity....

Click HERE to find out more...

An (unconventional) Baby Story

I was saving this story. Holding on to it until just the right moment. Now is that moment, I think.

One year ago today, two days after her birth, I met my youngest daughter for the first time. She was round and pink and perfect. The memory of that day is so clear in my mind, I can still remember what I was wearing, not a hospital gown, but boots and a winter coat. She was lovingly placed into my arms, not by a doctor, nurse, or midwife, but by a social worker. She was still wearing her hospital bracelet, but the name on it next the word 'mother' wasn't mine. I was handed a clip board and asked to sign several papers, not birth certificate, or social security, or hospital release forms, but placement papers and case plans. I nervously drove her home, not from the hospital but from Children Services. We had waited for this child, not for nine months, but for exactly 22 hours. We had prepared for her, not with ultrasound appointments and Lamaze classes, but with fire inspections and home studies. Her arrival was announced not by the onset of labor pains, but with a phone call, one that would change our lives forever.

Exactly eight days earlier, before I even knew she existed, I was praying for her. I was walking alone in the park, praying for the child that would be ours. I didn't know if this child would be a boy or a girl, if she would be two days or two years old, whether she would join our family tomorrow or two years from now. Like any other "expectant" mother, I prayed over my "baby" and felt that unique combination of fear, nervousness, and excitement. That day I prayed for the phone call that would come and I prayed something unusually specific. I prayed that God would give us a sign. I prayed that whenever the phone call came, and we were offered placement of a child, that that child's name would be the sign that we should say yes.

Exactly six days after that day in the park I was at the grocery store with Nathan and the kids, looking for cheese danishes and soup (not to be eaten together of course). Sometime during the shopping trip Noah and Lilli had to use the rest room at the exact same moment so we split up, Nate taking Noah, and me taking Lilli. The restrooms were apparently cell phone dead zones, and Nate's phone beeped with a voice mail as he walked out the mens room door. I nonchalantly stood around while he checked it. I'll never forget the look on his face when he made eye contact with me and uttered one excited sentence: "It's CSB, they have a baby."

The next five minutes went by in hyper-speed. Nate began dialing to call them back. I grabbed Lilli and Noah and we all raced out of the grocery store, abandoning our purchases. I don't think the kids had more than one arm each in their coat sleeves. We were certain that we had missed our chance and that CSB had moved down the list to the next foster family. Fortunately, the call went through and Nate began talking to a social worker. He motioned frantically for paper and a pen. At the time I had been been proofreading a book by the fantastic local author, Scott Curtis, and I'm sorry to admit it Scott, but I ripped a page right out of the book for Nate to write on. I did my best to assess the situation based on Nate's side of the conversation and the frantic notes he was writing on the back of page 68. In Nathan's left handed scribble, words began to appear all over the page.... words like baby, jail, girl, one year, hospital, etc.... words that made no sense to me at the moment.

Except one. One word that made all the difference. One word that made all the others fade away. In that one word I could see the hand of Lord. It was the name that He Himself had given her. It was the simple, powerful word FAITH.

waiting

It's 1 am and the four people I live with are sound asleep. And I'm awake. Vacillating between watching reruns of The Real Housewives of Atlanta and unloading the dishwasher, my tiny dog the only other creature awake, nervously pacing around behind me. But eventually all the dishes are put away and the tv turns to infomercials for no-money-down real estate and I find myself sitting here staring at the glow of my monitor. I've checked my email, I've checked my Facebook, I've even checked my (very dusty) Myspace profile and through sheer process of social networking elimination, I've landed here.

Normally when I post a blog I only do so after a topic or situation has been consistently on my mind for a length of time, or only after I've told and retold a story so many times that my friends and family are sick of hearing it, or if a moment in my life is so special, so perfect, so pertinent, or just so darn funny that I absolutely must share it. This is not any of those things, those times. I am unarmed. I am without pre-thought-out humor, wit, emotion, or clever one-liners. I have no occasion, no event. I am truly just sitting here waiting. So I apologize in advance for those of you who read my "mommy blog" and are maybe expecting my typical make-ya-laugh, make-ya-cry style or perhaps you might be expecting another political commentary. I don't think it's about to happen.

I am just sitting here waiting. Not like waiting for the light to change or waiting in traffic. Not like waiting for the server to bring your meal. Not like waiting for your computer to boot, or your car to warm up, or waiting for Friday.

It's not like waiting "with bated breath". I would prefer that. "Waiting with bated breath" implies that you are only waiting for a period of time no longer than you can hold in a breath of air. No longer than the capacity of your lungs, not a second longer than your physical need to inhale. Waiting with bated breath is sitting outside the principal's office, or waiting for the Dr. to read the test results, or waiting to hear your name called when team captains are choosing players. It's waiting for the time to run down in the last seconds of sudden death overtime, it's waiting for an answer when you're down on one knee with a diamond ring in your hand. This is none of those.

This waiting is waiting after your bated breath has been exhaled and you have to go on breathing.

This is waiting for prayer to be answered, yet no answer seems to come. Not an unwanted answer... no answer. This waiting is waiting for provision when your situation seems to have surpassed the "worse" side of the "gone-from-bad-to-worse" scenario. This is the constant waiting that pervades your day-in-day-out life. This is waiting when you fall asleep at night and still waiting when you wake up. Still waiting when you cook dinner. Still waiting when you fold laundry. Still waiting when you drive to soccer practice. And still waiting while you do it all again the next day. Still waiting while you do it all again the next week. Still waiting while you do it all again the next month. Still waiting.

This kind of waiting is like static in the air.... little sparks of nothing that you wish you could pull out of your hair, wrench from your clothes, pluck out of the air and force into something tangible. Like static in the air.... you can feel it all around you but you can't touch it, can't grab a hold of it and make it into something real. Still waiting.

"I wait on the Lord, my whole being waits, and in His Word I put my hope. My soul waits for the Lord more than watchmen wait for the morning. More than watchmen wait for the morning." -Psalm 130:5-6

The Truth about the 9-12 D.C. Teaparty

The 9-12 "Tea Party" in Washington DC has caused such an uproar that I've decided to take a moment away from my typical "mommy blogs" to talk about it. While I am a very politically active citizen, I am not usually inclined to voice such opinions in this venue, and highly doubt I will do so very often. I am not writing this to argue with or insult anyone. I am not going to get into a discussion here about communism, czars, Acorn, Bill Ayers, or Saul Alinsky. Those of you who know me, already know who I am and where I stand. You also know that I have always been respectful and open minded to opposing political views, I appreciate and expect the same in return. I just want to offer you a slightly different take on the tea party than what you might find on CNN or Fox News. I feel that I can paint a relatively adequate picture of what happened in our nation's capitol this past Saturday because unlike most of the journalists, reporters, and facebookers who are giving their opinion of the event... I WAS THERE.

Now, for those of you who don't know me very well, I want to stop you before you get the idea that I'm some middle-age, middle-class, racist, white, soccer mom who has a fear or hatred of our current president and doesn't understand the plight of the poor and is probably writing this blog on my Mac Book at Starbucks, clicking my french-tip nails across the keyboard, sipping my latte and listening to a podcast of Rush Limbaugh in my Iphone. While I am white, and I am a soccer mom, and do love Starbucks, nothing could be further from the truth. I live in a poor, rundown, urban neighborhood with terrible schools. I have three children, the oldest of which was an unexpected baby conceived my junior year of college, and the youngest of which receives Medicaid benefits. I understand what it means to have no car, no money, standing at the bus stop feeling hopeless. I understand why the change President Obama champions seems to be an offer of hope to the downtrodden, because I myself fall into that category even as I write this. However, I also understand a few other things. I understand that the man, any man, democrat or republican, who sits in the oval office does NOT determine MY quality of life. I understand that "free" health care isn't really free. I understand that every time the government gives something to one individual, it must take from another individual in order to do so. I understand that poor people, my neighbors and peers, have been voting for democrats for the last sixty years, and ya know what? They're still poor! And those things are just a snippet of what the tea party was all about.

Was the tea party about health care reform and the conservative opposition to it? Well, it was certainly a highly discussed topic, but it wasn't the only reason we were gathered in Washington last weekend. While some would like to paint us as bigoted hatemongers who would love to watch uninsured children die outside emergency room doors, we are NOT against health care reform! We are however, against the present bill and as American citizens, we have a right to express to the administration in the peaceful forms of petitions, letters, and civil demonstrations that we oppose it. For many of the protesters gathered in DC, we weren't even proposing that the bill be thrown out, just that the members of congress be required to read it! I would encourage you, liberals and conservatives alike, to read it for yourselves before you attack the other side for their opinion of it. DO NOT TRUST what you hear from the mouths of news reporters or politicians, both of which have an agenda of their own. Read it for yourself! Then decide how you feel about it. Don't automatically be for it or against it just because a democratic administration is it's proponent. This blog is about my experience at the tea party not about my opinion of the bill, but I would like to give you a small view into my perspective. I have a daughter who receives medicaid. Because of this, she is supposed to be able to access the best medical care available with no cost to myself. In texting terms, LOL! Sure, she might have access to it, but it certainly will not be in a timely, efficient, or cost effective manner. I cannot tell you how many lines I have had to sit in, how many forms I have had to fill out, how many hours spent on hold, how many documents I've had to present for inspection. One night I spent, quite literally, ALL night driving from pharmacy to pharmacy trying to find someone to fill my daughter's inhaler prescription. I had an infant in the car seat who couldn't breath, and no one would fill her prescription, because no one could verify her freakin' medicaid ID number! And you think conservatives want to see the uninsured suffer??? This same daughter drinks a very specialized formula that costs upwards of $30 a can. I have to have a prescription in order to get it. If that prescription isn't worded EXACTLY right, and I'm talking a matter of even the two letter words on the form, it won't be filled. Do you know who pays for all of that? YOU, the American taxpayer! I see firsthand how the government handles it's current health care programs and what it costs the taxpaying American... maybe they should prove that they can run those efficiently before they start something new. Now, let's talk insurance for a sec... my husband's employer, a small business owner, does not offer insurance benefits. Therefore, we buy our own health insurance. It sucks but it's what we can afford. It is the equivalent of liability insurance for your car and has a deductible of about a zillion dollars, but the care we receive and the manner in which we receive it is far superior to my youngest daughter's medicaid benefits. If the current administration attempts to force my husband's employer to provide heath insurance to his employees, it will drive him out of business, then not only will we have no insurance, we will have no income. The left likes to say that the poor need to be empowered... there is no empowerment in a handout. While I'm ranting, I'd like to turn my attention to my conservative comrades (no communism pun intended). Some, not many, but some of you who marched side by side with me down Pennsylvania Avenue had stickers and signs that said "abortion isn't health care." I'd just like to address that for a second. I totally agree that abortion does not fulfill the second half of the word health CARE. I personally believe that it violates the oath a physician takes to "do no harm." But I just want to make sure that you understand that there is a good chance that your current insurance provider covers elective abortion. Even my crappy insurance that won't cover pregnancy, covers abortion. You need to be consistent. If you are opposing the coverage of abortion in the national health care plan, you sure as heck better be opposing it in the insurance you pay into every month.

There are some in the media who are currently announcing that the "tea party patriots" were plotting the "violent overthrow of the government" last Saturday. I seriously laughed when I heard this. The talking heads making that statement were clearly not there. I was there. The assembly was bursting into "America America" not charging the Capitol Building with guns blazing! Were there a few embarrassing people in attendance? Sure. But the most "violent" thing they did was drink their diet coke and hold a sign that said "Obama is a dictator" or "Impeach Obama" or my personal favorite "No Dancing with the Czars". Nothing near as bad as the signs liberals held when Bush was in office that said "Barbara should have aborted". The majority of people at the demonstration were not offensive and nonviolent. They were not calling for the overthrow of government. They were calling for smaller government. Many of us cried out the for the same thing when Bush 43 was in office. And while I'm at it, the group I was with for the majority of the day made it clear that we would have still been protesting last Saturday if McCain had been elected, because this is about the ISSUES, not about the president. There are some in the media who would say that we marched on Washington last weekend because we were bitter about the election, that couldn't be further from the truth. That was the problem with the whole McCain/Palin ticket. Conservatives weren't really voting FOR McCain, they were voting AGAINST Obama, because we didn't agree with either of them. They were both for cap and trade for example... but I digress.

I would also like to point out that the vast majority of my fellow sign-carrying protesters do not hate President Obama, regardless of how the media might portray us. We respect him as the rightfully elected president of this great nation (a luxury President Bush was not afforded after the 2000 election). Many people on Saturday utilized the phrase "We The People" but it was not without the understanding that "we the people" together as a representative republic, elected President Barack Obama. We marched down one of the most famous streets in the nation not because we think someone else should occupy the most powerful office in the world, but because we want the occupant of that seat to be informed and aware of the feelings, sentiment, and opinion of the people he governs or at least 1.6 million of those people. I do not think the president is evil. I do not think he loves abortion. I do not think he is deliberately trying to destroy these United States. I do not think he is a communist, Nazi, a Manchurian candidate, or the Antichrist. I honestly believe that the president truly, with his whole heart, wants the best for the nation he is responsible for. I honestly think that he believes that his current plan is what is best for the citizens of this country. I am convinced that, with his whole heart, he is trying to do what is best for the United States of America. But I also think, as a citizen of that same country, as a wife, a taxpayer, a mother, a patriot.... that he is wrong.

Call it a confession, call it a rant, I just gotta get this off my chest. I just need a minute to processes my thoughts, my emotions, to let myself vent and ramble. Please don't read too much into this post, don't offer sympathy, don't shake your head and sigh. Please just let me write this down and be done with it.

We got word in May that Faith's biological grandparents were approved to take placement of her. It was a rough day. I called my family to warn them. I poured over her baby pictures, the little mementos of her life here with us. Nate spent most of the day feeling sick to his stomach. We explained to Lilli and Noah that Faith could soon be going to live with her Grandma and Grandpa who love her as much as She-She and Papa love them. At the end of the day I took a deep breath, re-committed my 6th month old baby girl into the Lord's hands and fell asleep at peace. I woke up at peace. Because honestly, this is what we agreed to when we became foster parents. This had been a possibility since day 1, since we brought her home from Children Services.

Three weeks later, we got an email saying that, after meeting Nate, the grandparents were going to leave Faith with us. For now. And so her little room with the Elmo decorations remains inhabited. For now. Our dishwasher remains full of bottles, our cupboard full of baby food. For now. Three carseats remain crammed in the backseat of our Jeep. For now. We remain a family of five. For now.

I've only had one real emotional breakdown over the whole thing. And of course, knowing my luck, it was in the middle of Walmart. It was in May, just after we got the intitial news about the grandparents. I was shopping for Noah's thrid birthday party. I was stressed out about getting everything ready; food, presents, decorations. I had a cart full of party supplies and was reaching for the wrapping paper when it hit me. I may never shop for birthday decorations for Faith. Never order a cake with her name on it, never see her smash her little face into that cake. I might not see her first birthday, let alone her third. I lost it, right there in the middle of the Hudson Drive Walmart. I stood in the card aisle, wrapping paper shaking in my hand and cried. It didn't matter in that moment how irrational I was acting or how ridiculous I looked. What mattered at that moment was the fact that there was a little girl who has been my daughter since the day she was born, and I might not ever get to celebrate that day with her. Might not ever watch her take her first steps. Might not ever watch Nate teach her to ride a two-wheel bike. Might not ever watch her switch her tassle to the other side. Might not ever lift her veil to kiss her cheek on her wedding day. On the drive home from the store, another reality hit me. The fact that my days with Lilli and Noah could be just as numbered as my days with Faith. You see, I'm not gaurenteed one more minute with ANY of my children. Neither are you with yours.

Speaking of your children... Last week in my 3rd - 6th grade Kid's Church class, during prayer request time, I asked, like I do every week, for prayer for Faith. For her birth-parents. For the Social Workers. For the judges and magistrates. One of your kids asked me if I would be sad if she went to live with her birth-parents. Of course I will be, I answered. Will you cry, asked one of the boys. Yes, I'm sure I will, I told him. I told them that God loves Faithie more than I do and that I want His plan for her life to be accomplished no matter what that is. no matter what. I was blatantly honest with my class that morning. More honest than I had been being with myself, truth be told. I told them that letting her go will be one of the hardest things I will ever have to do, if that is God's will for her life. I told them how sad I will be and how much I will need the people who love me to be there for me. I told them that I would need them. It is a humbling and very vulnerable experience to tell a group of ten year olds that you need them. And I was reminded of a similar morning many years ago, when that same group of kids were just preschoolers, some of them barley bigger than toddlers, that God used their tiny hands and huge prayers to move in my life, I fully believe that He can do that again.

That same morning we had sung Here I Am To Worship. If you don't know it, part of the chorus says "You're altogether lovely, altogether worthy, altogether wonderful to me." That morning it was so clear to me in that room full of students, that even if Faith leaves us, God will not be less lovely. He will not be less worthy. And He will not have been less wonderful to me.

A Day in the Life of........ SuperMom!

Last Thursday was supposed to be a fabulous day. The kids and I were meeting Kady at Bennigan's for lunch, and that evening I was going to dinner and a show with mom. It was the kind of day a stay-at-home mom looks forward to, the kind of day we circle on the calendar with bright purple marker and exclamation points. But little did I know that it would also be the day that I learned the hard way that all good things come at a cost.

The kids woke up around ten, (that's right, ten o'clock baby!). We watched a few episodes of Super Why and got ready to meet Kady. So far so good, right? The kids look cute, I've got my new diaper bag packed and ready (I have a diaper bag problem, see previous blogs), and I'm ready for a lunch notably absent of peanut butter and jelly. I've got my bags over my shoulder, Noah by the hand, and Lilli is already out the door when I realize that I can't find my keys! I call Lilli back into the house, and begin hunting the typical spots where my keys sometimes "hide."

No dice. They are gone. Lost. Vanished. I try to get the kids to tell me weather or not they know where the keys are. Blank stares. Word World is on. So i try to get them to help me look, you know, "Super You with the power to help!" (hey, it works when Super Why says it). Then I remember that Tricia and Aaron used my Jeep last night. So I call Aaron. No answer. I call his cell phone. No answer. I finally break down and call Kady and tell her that my keys have gone AWOL. She says she'll come get us. God bless her. Then, as I'm hunting under the bed for the keys and fuming about the fact that I've never gotten a spare made, the phone rings. Now, I would like to say that I whisked myself out from under the bed, tossed my hair triumphantly out of my eyes, and answered the phone " good morning!" But unfortunately the truth of the matter is that I wriggled myself halfway out from under the bed, got my hair stuck in the box spring which I had painstakingly straightened that day (my hair, not the box spring), grabbed the phone, sure it was Aaron, and answered it half out of breath "do you have my keys??" He didn't. I made him go check the pants he was wearing last night. Still didn't. I did finally find them in the couch cushions, where I had of course looked at least a half a dozen times. I called Kady and told her to turn around, I'm on my way. So, much less put together, my munchkins and I headed off to lunch, going ever so slightly above the speed limit.

Kady meets us in the parking lot, helps me get the kids out of the jeep and even compliments my new diaper bag. God bless her. At this point, all I want to do is go in, sit down, order a drink and sigh with relief. No such luck. The wait is 20-30 minutes long. I am not worried about such a wait, even with a two and three year old. I had actually told a friend not too long ago, how good my kids are at restaurants, how they have been going out to eat since they were merely weeks old, that myyyy children are polite, well mannered, quiet, and generally well behaved. So we wait. While we wait, I start to fill Kady in on where we are in the process to become licensed foster parents.

Now, normal people tend to keep still and talk quietly while they wait for their name to be called. But not everyone chooses to take this approach. My son for instance, and as I'm told, two-year-old boys everywhere, prefer to pass the time in much more creative ways. Like running up and down the bar, singing what amounts to a punk rock version of Twinkle Twinkle at the top of his lungs. I leave Lilli with Kady and go after him. And as any mother of a two year old knows, the faster you go after him, the faster he runs. So we play this game for a while. He runs away and I bring him back. He runs away and I bring him back. Lilli actually sighs and says to Kady "when Noah is three like me he won't act like this." I smile politely at the people eating in the bar who comment on how cute he is. Yeah, freakin' adorable, I think to myself.

Eventually, Noah tires of running solely up and down the bar and decides to head for new terrain in the dining room. Well we certainly cannot have that, so I go after him and scoop him up. And he screams. And screams. Screams like I ripped his arm off and beat him with it. I continue to smile politely at onlookers when what I am really thinking is more alone the lines of "WHAT!?!? haven't you ever heard a two year old boy scream bloody murder and flail about like an epileptic rag doll before?!?!" I smile politely at the hostess when what I am thinking is more along the lines of "Why the heck haven't you called my name?!?! There are eight empty tables in there!!" But I keep my cool and calmly search my brand-spanking new diaper bag for the toys I must have packed in all my forethought and preparation. I find two matchbox cars. They'll have to do. They entertain him for approximately 3.6 seconds. Then he is off and running again, full speed into the dining room, a car in each hand.

I take off after him, my diaper bag swinging from my shoulder, dangerously close to whacking innocent diners in the back of the head. Eventually I catch him and scoop him up again in a motion that I hope appears to be fun-loving to spectators. He screams. And screams. And chucks those cars as far as his little arms can manage. It must have been miles. If he lives though this little episode, he'll have a career in baseball I'm sure. I hoist my bags back on my shoulder, heave Noah under my arm football style and bend down to retrieve the cars. As I am standing up again, I make eye contact with the nearest diner, and who do you think that happens to be? That's right, none other than one of our foster parent trainers. I have a brief vision of her at the office writing in our file something along the lines of "maniac- raises out of control children who assault strangers with matchbox cars" and stamping a big, red REJECTED on our application. Anyway, after about nine million years, our name is called and lunch proceeds pretty much without any further uprising from my little slugger. And in case you're wondering, I left a very adequate tip.

Because I won't have much time once I get home, I go over my mental game plan for the afternoon on the drive. Noah will go down for a nap immediately when we get home. I'll put my dress clothes in the dryer so I won't have to iron them, do my hair and makeup, wait for the babysitter, and head off to meet my mom for a grown up girls night out. But wouldn't ya know it, as soon as I had my plan set, the phone rings. And wouldn't ya know it, it's the babysitter. And wouldn't ya know it, she's canceling. I take a deep breath and count to ten. By the time I reach nine, I realize that my dad will probably be at my house anyway around that time, and I really didn't need a baby sitter anyway. Ha. I go on home, crisis averted. Ha Ha.

My dad has been at my house every single day since January, but do you think he showed up last Thursday? Nope. Do you think I could get a hold of him? Nope! No problem, I can handle this. I call Tricia and Aaron, my closest, most reliable friends. I feel slightly guilty that I'm calling to ask yet another favor, but I'm certain that they will, as always, come to my rescue. No answer. I begin to pace around my house. It's too late to call Nate and ask him to leave work early, he won't make it in time for me to leave. No one is answering their phones. I'm beginning to think that caller ID has a new added feature that looks something like this:


CRAZY WOMAN
555-123-4567
NEEDS A BABYSITTER

Finally, I get a hold of a friend who doesn't have the new caller ID feature, and she agrees to watch the kids. God bless her. By this time, I am already late. I throw on my dress clothes, flip my hair up in a clip, slap some powder on my face and run out the door wearing, I kid you not, MaryKate and Ashley lip gloss that I stole from Lilli.

So, what did I say before about good things coming at a cost?

new diaper bag - $3.00 at thrift store
lunch (including outrageous tip to make up for your son's behavior) - $78654.98
your daughter's lip gloss - $1.99
A grown up night out - priceless


Stay tuned for more adventures in the life of..... Super Mom!! (make that crazy, silly, frazzled, not so Super Mom!)

This One's for You, Son

It's pretty likely that many of you have noticed that I tend to recap my life in moments. Hilarious moments, sentimental moments, humiliating moments, emotional moments , and so on and so forth. There have been so many instances in my life where I have nothing much to say except "that was the moment". They are the times in my life where, if it were a movie, the screen would freeze and the main character would say just that, "that was the moment". Well, tonight was one of those instances....

We had tickets to see Sesame Street Live at the Chevrolet Center in Youngstown but had kept it a secret from the kids all the way up until Big Bird came on stage. (I inherited this sneakiness from my parents who's surprise "i love you presents" were huge memory-makers). I think Nate and I were more excited than the kids. We got them all dressed up and told them over and over that we were going somewhere special and it was a super secret surprise! We filled the jeep up with gas (if the kids could understand how much cash it takes to drive all the way to Youngstown, they would have felt spoiled without even seeing Elmo!), splurged on some Starbucks for ourselves and hit the road.

Well, we were no further than Tallmadge when Noah started to cry. Maybe cry isn't the right word... he started to scream. If you have kids you know the one I'm talking about, that high pitched, top of the lungs, angry sounding scream. The kind equivalent to having bamboo shoots shoved under your fingernails while Roseanne Bar sings the National Anthem. Torture. Despite my attempts to quite, calm, and bribe him, he continued this rampage pretty much nonstop until we pulled into the parking lot.

By the time we got to our seats (which we had to climb over a billion people, their kids, strollers, diaper bags, toys, and snacks to get to) he had pretty much settled down due to the hullabaloo that makes up a Sesame Street Live show. Can I just pause here and tell you, on a side note, what a lucrative business kid's entertainment really is? I mean, talk about making money hand over fist! They've got balloons, cotton candy, hot pretzels. They've got toys you could get at the dollar store for a buck selling for $20 a pop! They know that if it's got Elmo, Zoe, or the newly popular Abby Cadaby on it, parents will buy it! Even the thriftiest mom at home, will, once her brain is foggy from the cotton candy-popcorm haze, will break out the greenbacks for a cheap, plastic, light-up, spinning Ernie to keep her kid happy and most importantly, quiet. I can admit that I myself (due more to the screaming than to the aforementioned haze) would have bought Noah a CookieMonster-blue Hummer with Elmo-red fur upholstery if that would have made him happy! Isn't it amazing how one minute you are a young person at an arena seeing a rock concert complaining about the price of drinks, and the next minute you are a parent seeing Elmo (or Dora or the Backyardigans) at the very same arena complaining about the price of helium balloons?

Anyway, like I was saying, we did in fact, make it to our seats. But Noah was so not on my top ten list of favorite people. So I was less than pleased when he began squirming angrily out of Nate's lap shouting "Mama, I need you! Mama I need you!" which I normally find endearing. Here we go again i thought. So in order to keep him from launching round two of the crying, I scooped him up and redirected his attention toward the sage where he was thankfully distracted by the Number of the Day. Nate went out to the lobby and bought some popcorn, soda, a hot pretzel and a huge red Elmo balloon which only cost him $764.39. Everyone was happy. Even Noah... even me.

At one point in the show, Rosita (Muchacha Fantastica) sings Twinkle Twinkle to a sleepy Big Bird. It was a quiet part of the show. The arena was dark. Then they did that thing where they shine a spotlight on a spinning disco ball and the whole place sparkles with spinning, dancing lights. Noah had never seen such a thing before. He looked up and pulled in all his breath, in awe, and practically whispered "Mama! Look!" His face was so bright, so full of wonder, so amazed by a simple trick of lights and mirrors and.... that was the moment.

That was the moment. And I was filled with a sense of wonder, and love, and joy, and as strange as it sounds, loss. Because you see, the moment was, as every moment is, so fleeting. Noah will possibly never again be enthralled by simple spinning lights. And a time will come when he won't cry out "Mama I need you!", when he will go this very same arena to see rock concerts with his friends or girlfriend, instead of to Sesame Street with his parents.

All the way home, as the kids were whining that they were thirsty and fighting over the $879 Elmo balloon, I tried as hard as I could to burn the memory of his little face uplifted, his round little cheeks covered in theater butter, his dark brown eyes shining brighter than I ever thought possible, into my mind. And so I confess to you now, that I write this not only because I wanted to share this memory with you, but because I want to be able to read it myself someday, because I am terrified of losing this moment, like we lose so many others, of letting the picture I have of my son as he is right now, fade away.

Water Fitness Fiasco

Well, I'm not feeling very funny at the moment, but I have received many requests from those who have heard this story to post it as a blog... so here goes.


This is a humorous but self-deprecating story akin to the time I played Halo for the first (and last) time (which is another story for another time)... So, I have been faithfully hauling my butt to the local Natatorium and taking a variety of exercise classes in a long-suffering attempt to lose the baby weight from NJ. A good friend of mine, we'll call her K, is also trying to be dedicated to diet and weight loss and now that her only child has started kindergarten she decided to join me at the gym. K studied the schedule of fitness classes and decided on a class that she thought would be appropriate for the two of us. Now seeing as we are both young mothers, young enough to still be relatively cool, and not totally out of shape, I was expecting something along the lines of Pilate's, spinning, or yoga. So you can imagine my surprise when K excitedly announced that we would be taking "medium intensity deep water fitness!" I had been going to the Nat long enough to have seen a water class in action a time or two, and I was well aware that the average age for members taking those classes was approximately 78. But having been a swimmer in her high school years, K was set on it, so I reluctantly agreed to give it a try on the following Friday.


When Friday morning rolled around I drug myself out of bed and squeezed into my bathing suit. That was when it happened, while I was hopping around my bedroom trying to lever myself into the suit, with the peanut gallery (my kids) jumping on the bed and laughing hysterically at me, K called to tell me that she couldn't come to class. UUUGGG! Now what's a girl to to? I had already missed my regular class (for some unknown reason, water fitness is scheduled at a later time than cardio classes... not sure why considering that every senior citizen I've ever met wakes up at the crack of dawn). I was VERY tempted to flop back on my bed, heave a sigh of relief and call it a day. But nooooo, I'm dedicated remember... faithful to the pursuit of my goals. So I went to that class anyway. Alone.


The time it took to talk myself into going had caused me to be ever so slightly late to the class. When I got there, class hadn't started yet but all the old ladies were already in the pool, happily treading water and chatting about whatever it is they chat about (grand kids and fiber I assume). Not wanting to miss the beginning of class, I quickly hopped in and swam out to the deep end, nodding and smiling politely at my blue-haired classmates.


Almost immediately, class got started. The music was turned on and the instructor, also a Golden Buckeye Cardholder, took her place by the edge of the pool. That's right, the teacher does not actually get into the water (not sure how she worked that deal, but it seems totally unfair). And one and two.. jog in place (how do you jog when you can't touch the bottom I wonder).. and three and four.. jumping jacks (hello! the water is ten feet deep out here).. and five and six.. and on and on and on. It started out ok, but about fifteen minutes into the class I began to tucker out. That might be an understatement. I began to drown. Not an understatement. I resumed treading water and looked around at the other women in the class. They didn't seemed to be phased one bit. As a matter of fact, many of them were still happily chatting about hip replacements and the like. I was completely bewildered. I mean, I was at least forty years younger than the youngest woman in there! Why was I on the verge of cardiac arrest while they were flitting around like mermaids (wrinkly mermaids, but mermaids none the less)?!?


While I was staring around the pool slack-jawed, I noticed something. All of the other ladies had something in common. Something barely visible beneath the water. When the instructor told the class to take a lap around the pool I casually (as casually as you can while gasping for air) swam over to where the instructor had her comfortable perch on the side of the pool and asked her if I was supposed to have some type of gadget to keep me afloat. She asked me what my name was. I didn't see how that was relevant to my current crisis, but I answered her anyway. After the typical explanation as to how to pronounce my name, she stood up, yelled (that's right YELLED) for the class to stop swimming their lap, and announced that I (mis-pronouncing my name of course) wanted to know if I needed some kind of "gadget" to keep me afloat. She actually used the finger quotation marks when she said "gadget". Needless to say, the class thought this was hilarious. The instructor told me, hand on hip like an exasperated mother (or grandmother in this case) to get out of the pool. So right there in front of everyone she "fitted" me for the blue (which is why I couldn't really see them under the water) belt that apparently keeps you from drowning during these classes. As if this wasn't embarrassing enough, during this little "fitting" in front of what felt like the entire elderly population of Northeast Ohio, she asked the unforgivable question. The question dreaded by every slightly chubby girl in America. That's right, she asked if I was pregnant. PREGNANT! You should of seen my face. For those of you who know how big my eyes are normally, they were practically popping out of their sockets at this point. I was beginning to wish that I actually had drowned during the first fifteen minutes of class. I mumbled "uh no" and hurried back into the water. The only thing that kept me from running out the door was the fear of slipping in a puddle and falling on my head in front of the crowd that had already witnessed all of the above.


After all that, I managed to make it through the rest of the class. The old ladies turned out to be very sweet and treated me like some kind of cute, but helpless (or beltless) mascot. However, I was discouraged when one pointed out that we were wearing the same bathing suit. It wasn't a bad workout either. I might even try it again... after an appropriate amount of time has gone by, of course.

My True Diaper Bag Story

There are many different bags out there. Purses, backpacks, those gorgeous paper bags with fancy handles and tissue paper that you get at upscale stores, book bags, shopping bags, gift bags, even a man-bag or two. But there is one bag that is unique to moms... the diaper bag.... the magic bag of remedies, where the answer to every away-from-home babyhood need is stowed away in it's unique compartment ready and waiting to be pulled out like a rabbit from a hat. Voila! Any of you who know me at all can testify to the fact that I love bags, any and all bags. Before I married N, my closet housed over 70 purses. It's an addiction, I know. Well, N insisted that I tone down my purse collection when we bought our (very small) house. Young and in love, I complied, not knowing at the time that my addiction would soon be able to be fed in a new (and much bigger) type of bag.


When we found out we were pregnant with our first baby, LGO, I went through that phase of getting prepared insanity. I shopped, registered, read magazines, made wish lists. I was determined to have the myriad of stuff I thought I needed in order to be a properly organized, prepared, and otherwise "all-together" mom. With all my purse buying know-how, I hunted down the perfect diaper bag, not too pastel, not too fluffy, sophisticated but not so sophisticated that my husband wouldn't want to carry it in public. It has all the right bells an whistles, gadgets and gizmos. It had the changing pad, the insulated bottle holders, the wipes container, a clever little slot for your cell phone. I loved it. I was determined to always have it filled with everything my beautiful baby girl would need. Everything from blankies to binkys, bottles to bandaids, breastmilk to bibs...and at first I did. (By "at first" I mean approximately three or four weeks.) After that, it wasn't uncommon for me to leave the house with a couple of Huggies in my bare hand and milk on tap.


Don't get me wrong, I still bought, still loved diaper bags, still do in fact. And when my son, NJ, was born I still went through that super-organized, time consuming, (yet very short) phase of having my diaper bag so perfectly arranged, it could have been a display for Baby Bjorn. I will celebrate my third mama-versary tomorrow as LGO turns three, and in those three years I have accumulated many diaper bags, and some regular bags that I just use for diaper bags, and some bags that I plan on using as diaper bags. When (and if) I open my hall closet to grab one of the aforementioned bags, I am presented with many options, from the Cute Baby Gap bag, to the rugged Jeep bag, to the plain canvass tote bag, to the slightly big, converted purse.


As you may have figured, I take about as much time to clean out my diaper bags as I do to supply them. So when I pull one off the hook in the closet, I never know what I may find. Many times it is an unpleasant surprise like a half-full (but only God knows when it was last used) sippy cup. Or a bib covered in three week old ravioli. But sometimes, just sometimes I find a treasure, like the pacifier I have been hunting for like a mad woman for the last hour. Or the bunny he carried with him everywhere for a while and then lost interest in. Or a favorite outfit that is now too small but not so dirty that I can't hold it and remember the last time she wore it. These are truly this mom's tiny blessings.


A few weeks ago, a woman sitting beside me in Sunday School pulled a baseball card out of her Bible. Apparently she had been using her son's Bible that morning, a son who passed away eleven years ago when he was just a little boy. She showed me the card and smiled, saying that she is always finding little trinkets that he left, little momentos for her to find. That was a diaper bag moment. It was at that moment that I realized how precious those little treasures are. You see, a real diaper bag isn't something a mom carries on her shoulder for a season while her kids are young, it's something every mom carries with her always, the place where we can reach in, reach to the very bottom and find moments of motherhood.

anniversary

It's that time of year again in Northeast Ohio. For those of you not currently living in the Buckeye state... it's fall here. It's jeans & jacket weather. Chilli (the food not the climate) weather. Play all day outside, jump in the leaves kind of weather. It's a beautiful time of year when the colors start to change, the temperature drops, football season begins, and N and I celebrate our anniversary. No, not our wedding anniversary, (we got married in the spring), but the annivesary of the beginning of our relationship...the very beginning.

Those of you who have ever been in any kind of serious relationship, know exactly what I'm talking about. The Beginning. The amazing time in every relationship when your heart races just thinking about the other person, when you could spend hours talking about nothing... i'm sure you all know what I'm talking about. N and I don't have a day of the month to mark the beginning, (I'm sure there was one, we just don't remember what it is). We know it happened sometime in the fall when he was 15 and I was 16. So instead of remebering a specific date, we remember the weather.... and this was it. The leaves were changing, the air was cool, and we were in love. Nine years, and two kids later, we are still in love. This time of year, this weather, you can just feel it in the air. I'm sure we will feel it every fall for the rest of our lives. Every time the seasons change from summer to autumn, we will look back and remember the beginning.

I just discovered the song "Hey There Delilah" (when you had it on your page C.). Yeah, yeah, I know that they play it on the radio like a billion times a day, but between Baby Einstein CD's and Talk Radio, I somehow missed it. Anyway, wow, if I had to pick a theme song to describe our "beginning" that would be it. I'm sure those of you who were there can remember... "two more years and we'll be done with school, N was gonna pay the bills with his guitar, we'd have it good, he'd write every song to me and more in love with him i'd fall..." and so on and so on. Ya know, our life didn't end up exactly like that, but that's ok with me. There's a line in that song that says "we'll have the life we know we should" and that's what we've got. N might not pay the bills with his guitar, but he still pays them nontheless. When we were 15 he promised to take care of me, and he does, better than I ever could of imagined as a teenage girl. Everytime he plays his guitar in the living room or on the worship team, I remember that tenth grade boy who was gonna make it big. I love those memories, but I wouldn't trade what I have now for anything.

There was this moment not too long ago, as the fall weather was just moving in... both kids were in bed, I was folding laundry in the living room and N was sitting on the couch playing his guitar...that was the moment...that was all there was to it...but it was perfect. The kind of perfect moment when you realize that you are truly happy. Not that life is perfect, it isn't, it's hard, and with two toddlers, it's downright terrifying sometimes, but I believe that in the midst of this overwhelming, crazy life, God gives us simple moments like that one, simple gifts like Ohio in the fall, simple memories to cherish. Happy anniversary N-darlin'.