Women (and one man) Who Shaped My Life

I don't remember a time I didn't know my calling was to care for orphans.  I grew up on stories of women (and one man) who did the same:
a missionary in the fictional book Star of Light
Gladys Aylward (missionary to China; Inn of the Sixth Happiness)
Amy Carmichael (missionary to India)
George Muller (started an orphanage in England)
Mary Slessor (missionary to Africa)
I also saw countless street children, beggars, and refugees overseas.  One little girl stands out in my mind.  She lived in a Nuristani village near where we spent our summer.  She had a cleft lip.  No one would play with her; they threw rocks at her.  I wanted to take her home with us.  She stood in the street and stared at us, her mouth gaping, snot dripping, blood trickling down her face from where a rock had struck her.  I've always wondered what happened to her.

Way up... and back down...

Back on the roller coaster ride:  Yesterday Brooklynn's case worker got a call from some distant relatives who just discovered she was going to be adoptable.  So they want to adopt her.  The laws have changed since I adopted Derrick; foster parents who have cared for a child over a year are no longer considered at the same level as relatives who want to adopt.  In other words, the relatives will likely be preferred over me in this adoption, unless they are considered too far distant.  Feels like a punch in the gut.

What single moms really need...

(I wrote up this list during a frustrating evening at a discipleship class.  The topic was on single parenting, but should have been more correctly titled "Divorce Care".  I understand that there are very few single-parent families that fit my situation, but the needs of ongoing single parenting are much the same.)

• to be part of an involved extended family
• to have close friends who will stop by and tell a son/daughter that their mom loves them and deserves respect
• trustworthy men who will take sons of single moms along on manly-man outings with their own sons (hunting, fishing, 4-wheeling, doing yard work, fixing cars, etc.)
• extra grandparents to pour on the love and the discipline; we won't resent you telling them not to take a fifth cookie
• married friends who will live out godly marriages (complete with healthy disagreements) in front of the children
• occasional financial/material assistance; the gift of a women's retreat can save a single mom's life
• a day or evening off without the cost of a sitter
• offers of help with car maintenance, yard work, home repair, cooking, homework projects, or any other overwhelming task; we're usually pretty independent and hate to ask for help
• 48 hours in every day
• acceptance when their kids are dressed funny (if at all), when their children's hair sticks up and they have Saturday's lunch on their faces at Sunday school, when they've forgotten crucial information, when they come in 10 minutes late, when the darlings are screaming, when the task of being both mom and dad 24/7 becomes too much for one person alone
• and last of all introductions to eligible, wealthy, handsome men who want an instant family!

My Favorite Things

But I'm not Oprah, so you won't find a basket of these under your chair.


The first year I've had tomatoes that look like they (I hope!) will ripen!  I also love my portable fence section that I'm using for a trellis right now.  Those 5x3 sections have a lot of uses!

  

My rain barrel -- doubles as a redneck splash park for the kids.



I love, love, love my flower garden!  It's full of masses of brown-eyed Susans, lupine, and a bunch of other anonymous flowers.  I also love finding surprise visitors out there, like this bee and grasshopper.  Right after I took this picture, the bee tried to land on the flower the grasshopper was on, but he kicked at her, and she startled away.




I have a sparrows' nest right outside my window in the carport.  They've nested there for years, but this winter a windstorm cleared out all three nests.  One pair rebuilt and have raised a noisy family this summer.  I love the sound of the "pio pio pio" in the morning.




Who doesn't love frogs?  These fellows have been living on our kitchen counter all summer.



Cardamom is the spice of the gods, I'm sure.  Just the scent of it in my spice cabinet makes me feel wealthy.  It's delicious in chai, coffee, bread, rice, and anything else.

Many years ago I got rid of my beautiful matching dishes and collected mismatched, brightly colored ones instead.  I like variety.

This is my newly redone bedroom.  I painted over the old manufactured-home wallboard (the paint is the color of peach smoothie), replaced the thin plastic wood molding, ripped out the mauve shag carpet and painted the floor brown, then put in new curtain rods, curtains, and comforter.  I didn't put my niece there; she rolled herself into the photo.

The Gospel According to Brooklynn

On the topic of naps:
B. ~ Why do I have to have naps?
Me ~ So you won't be grumpy.
B. ~ I'm not grumpy.
Me ~ Oh?
B. ~ No, it's only the part of me that is grumpy.  In my bones.  But I am happy in my heart.  My heart is all full of happy.
Me ~ I see, so which part is the grumpy part?
B. ~ The grumpy part is all swept away from my heart.
Me ~ Where did the grumpies go?
B. ~ Far, far away when Jesus put all my grumpies in the sea.  I asked Him to.  In my dreams.

We're on our way... I think

Parenting has its normal ups and downs, but adoption is bipolar.  The ups are way up, and the downs are devastating.  It's an Up today:  Brookie-B could be ours before Christmas!  I almost don't dare hope.  Please pray for all involved during the next month, that this will go through smoothly.

Random Thoughts

I got a new phone, which the kids think is top-of-the-line (it's actually pretty basic) because it takes pictures and records their voices.  So now my ringtones consist of, "I love you, Mom!", "Okay, Mom, you got a new message," "It's a picture!", and "Grampa's calling..."  I also have half of "I love you more..." sung in a wavering seven-year-old voice.  We played with it so much that we ran the battery down in an hour or two.

The kids started swimming lessons.  Derrick's class has two kids and two teachers.  He's on his fourth attempt to pass level 3, coordinating arms, legs, shoulders, and side breathing.  He is slowly learning not to flip vertical in the water to take a breath!

Brooklynn, meanwhile, has started Preschool level 1, beginning bubble blowing.  She has a boy teacher, which means she will try anything he asks of her -- even to releasing her death-grip on his arms.


I feel like a quitter this summer -- I'm finally giving in and seriously considering buying an air conditioner.  Until then, we've been spending most evenings at Cline Falls, with our wonderful water dog.  Buddy likes to chase sticks and things in the water, but he's at least half blind, so he usually misses the stick, and he almost never brings it all the way back.  Can a dog have ADHD?

I had a great workout the other day, hauling four children across the river so they could stand on the "big rock" and say they'd crossed the river.  (Barby wouldn't let me take the baby across, fearing, perhaps, a repeat of the Moses story.)  Then the girls made mud pies and the boys hunted tigers.

THE PROCESS BEGINS!

I have officially started the paperwork for Brooklynn's adoption!  It's kind of like the first labor pains, even though you know you have several hours ahead of you.  In this case it's several months ahead of me, but the process has begun!

Songs of the Store

We took Brooklynn shopping while at the beach and lived to regret every moment!  I'm sure the folks in Goodwill were ready to call Children's Services:  "Mom!  You're hurting my hand!  Let go!  Waaahaaaa!  Mo-o-o-o-o-o-om!"  (Note to DHS workers who may be reading this blog: I was holding her hand loosely; the problem was that she was throwing herself on the ground while I was holding her hand.)

Once we got home, she had a cup of milk and went straight to bed where she composed her latest song:

"We went to the store,

And I cried, cried, cried.

And tomorrow we'll go to the store,

And I'll cry, cry, cry.

It doesn't matter,

I'll just cry, cry, cry.

When I'm hurt

I cry, cry, cry.

Sometimes when I'm not hurt,

I still cry, cry, cry."

Beach Vacation



An attempt at mass burial of the middle-sized cousins



After spending a week at the beach with nine children and eight adults, I've come to realize that adults and children have completely different definitions for phrases:

"trip to the beach"

Adults: leisurely strolling along the sand, watching the waves and seabirds, or simply sitting on the beach, soaking up the rays



Children: running wildly in and out of the surf, daring each other to go out further each time, flinging sand, lugging driftwood into the water to watch it trip unwary waders, and burying each other up to the chin in sand





"beach clothes"

Adults: swimsuit/trunks or sundress or beach wrap

Children: clothes?  at the beach?  why?

"soak in the hot tub"

Adults: relaxing in the warm bubbles, easing the knots in muscles, sipping a cold drink

Children: turning the bubbles on and off, plugging the nozzles to make all the bubbles come out of one nozzle, playing who can hold his breath the longest?, dunking each other, launching bodies off the adult who is trying to relax

"go for a hike"

Adults: trudge up a mountain path, avoiding the mud, enjoying the flora and fauna, rest at the top to enjoy the view and take photos

Children: run zigzag uphill near a mountain path, hitting every mud puddle on the way, stopping only to poke an unwary salamander, tumble around in the flowers at the top before running haphazardly downhill to smear mud on the interior of the cars

The unlucky amphibian



"play with cousins"

Adult: Sorry, catch, tag, Frisbee, Chess, etc.

Children: pick up the smaller cousins and use them as missiles to knock the bigger ones down the stairs

"go fishing"

Adults: bait a hook, cast, wait in silence, reel in, repeat

Children: pull worms to bits, bait a hook, cast, reel in 3 seconds later, complain about not catching anything, cast again, catch lakeweed, reel in with help, fight over who has the bigger worm, bait, cast, get help to untangle line from cousin's neck, cast again, drop rod in water, go wading fully clothed, strip down to beach clothes*, swim until lips are blue, cry about having wet clothes to put on

*see "beach clothes"

"bed time"

Adults: 8 o'clock

Children: We're on vacation!  What do you mean bedtime?!

Bathroom makeover

I wish I had "before" photos.  I never remember to take those.  I will try to describe: sand-colored walls, plastic wood trim, layered with dark blue trim, blah clear shower curtain, blue & white rug.  Pretty basic and boring, but a big improvement over the turquiose blue paint it had when I moved in!

Redo a la cheapo:



Found the shower curtain at Grocery Outlet: $4.00
Matching trash bucket at Ross: $5.00
Bath mat from Kohls: $8.00
Bright colored washcloths from Kohls: $5.00



Supply bucket at Ross: $2.00
Soap dispenser from Ross: $2.00
Brown wall paint: leftover from another project
Colored polkadots for wall: cut out from old gift bags

 I painted over the old wood trim with white trim paint leftover from my bedroom project.  I will replace the blue washcloth basket with a white one from school.  I added a curtain: $8.00 and rod $.75 from Goodwill.  Then bought 2 bath towels, one turquoise and one lime green, and 3 hand towels to match from Fred Meyer's clearance: $8.00 and $4.00.  Total cost: $46.75.  Total time: less than a day.  Response from the kids: "Wow!  Mom, it's beautiful!"



Come here so I can yell at you!

Brooklynn sitting on her bed in time out for bossing me:  "Mom, I don't like you.  Mom?  Mom?  Mo-o-o-om!  Mom, I don't like you!  Mom, come here, I'm talking to you!  Mom, I really don't like you!"
I never did respond.  Poor thing!

Well, I guess it was good exercise...

After spending two weeks digging out a sprinkler pipe trench 20 feet long and 8 inches deep, I visited Home Depot to find sprinkler heads.  Did you know they make sprinkler heads that rotate and fan out to cover a huge area?  They're terrific.  All you do is screw them onto the existing sprinkler system (note: not the pipe that you spent two weeks digging a trench for) and they fan out to cover the entire area needed.  I don't know whether to regret the wasted two weeks of digging, or to rejoice that I found a short cut to the project.

Next on my list for the summer:

1. Buy a camera to record all the work I really am doing while I'm not washing dishes or clothes, bathing the children, cooking meals, vacuuming, mopping, or doing any of the other boring housework that's always here.
2. Rake aside all the big gravel chunks in my yard, digging up buried soldiers and dinosaurs in the process -- plastic ones, not real.  If I had real dinosaurs in my yard, I guess I couldn't put in a lawn.  Same for real soldiers, I imagine.
3. Pull every last weed.  Convince Brooklynn to help pull a weed or two each day.
4. Spread topsoil.  Respread topsoil after Derrick and his friend across the street turn it into a jump for their bikes.
5. Lay sod.  Any volunteers??
6. Edge driveway.
7. Spread gravel on driveway to replace the gravel that Brooklynn throws into the street during her tantrums.
8. Finish painting trim in bedroom (with trim paint this time, instead of the exterior paint accidentally used).
9. Paint trim throughout house.  It's about time to cover up all the plastic-covered cardboard that passes for "wood" in this house.
10. Mend the holes in my wall.
11. Lay a new kitchen floor.  It's difficult walking around with no floor to stand on...
12. Paint the kitchen cabinets a color that will look good on my dog.  (This week he is black with white accents.  Last summer he was black with green accents.  Black pretty much goes with everything.)
13. Rejoice if I get even half of what I plan done.

Compliments from a three year old?

"Mom, your bruise is so pretty.  It looks like a vampire.  Vampires are black and purple too."

"Look, Mom," said in great delight, "I have rolls on my belly just like yours!"

"Your hair is so pretty like that, Mommy."  (My hair was greasy, pinned up loosely, and covered with weeds.  She liked the weeds.)

It's never really finished...

The thing with adoption is it's never really completed.  If you give birth to a baby, you go to all your doctor appointments, you eat right, take your prenatal vitamins, go into labor, deliver the baby, name him/her, take the child home, and fall into a sleep-deprived routine for the next 18 to 20 years.  And that child is yours, only yours, always-has-been yours, always-will-be yours.

Adoption is not like that, whether "closed" (very rare now) or "open" or somewhere in between.  My children, much as they are mine, will never be only mine, never be always-have-been mine, never even be always-will-be mine.  Yes, I am "Mom".  But they have first moms out there.  Those young women will never stop being my children's moms.  They were mom first.  They carried my children, felt them move, gave up overpowering addictions for a time to protect them, gave birth to them, parented the best they could, and then relinquished them.  I don't know what kind of pain, guilt, grief goes into saying, "Just take him with you."

I will never be my children's only mom.  There will come a day when they say, "You aren't my real mom!"  I've already heard, "I want to go live with my tummy mom!"  There will come a day when they want to meet their first moms again.  I don't dread it, any more than I dread them growing up, but I know it will be emotional and painful and messy.  I pray I will be kind and confident and loving and open -- and then back off and give everyone some space!

I am not my children's only mom now.  Their moms show up, now and then.  Sometimes sober, sometimes not so much so.  Sometimes in the news.  Sometimes on the inmate list.  Sometimes clean and happy with plans for a future.  And I never know what to do.  Do I "protect" my children by refusing contact that comes only sporadically?  Do I "selfishly" keep my children from building a relationship with their real moms?  Damned if I do, damned if I don't.  There's no easy answer.

Adoption is never really finished...

Gardening -- maybe

Tomorrow being the official start of summer, I finally planted squash (much to Derrick's dismay).  He had already planted corn, insisting that this year it would grow tall enough to produce something.  I think we could live out of garden entirely if we didn't mind subsisting on onions, mint, and tiny raspberries.  I thought we had potatoes last year.  I had planted potatoes.  But when I dug up what should have been new potatoes, it was only the leavings from my neighbor's cat.  I regretted not purchasing the bow-and-arrow set that read: "WARNING: Do not aim at people or animals.  Not even at cats."

The Apple

The apple was mealy and bland.  The kind that your teeth press into a bit before they finally pierce the skin, the kind that mushes between your teeth.  It was the most delicious apple I’ve ever tasted.  I had hepatitis and could hardly eat anything.  All I wanted was an apple.  Every day all I could think of was how good an apple would feel between my teeth, how the juice would fill my mouth and run down my chin, how I would crunch each tangy bite.  But apples weren’t in season.  My dad spent all day looking for one and finally paid three dollars for the only apple in the whole city.  Thanks, Dad.

They're great for spotting mice





Little girlie announced out of the blue the other day: "Mommy, I have weasel eyes."

"Oh, do you?"  (I'm used to this kind of comment coming from Derrick, my seven-year-old.  He has hawk eyes, and is half dog, half cheetah, and half eagle.  He also has little understanding of fractions!)

"Yes.  I have big weasel eyes."  Then the conversation disintegrated into an argument between the two children over whose eyes were better.

These proclamations about weasel eyes went on for several days.  I could not figure out what she meant until one afternoon:  "Mommy, I do have weasel eyes.  Weasel is kind of like brown."
Weasel -- hazel.  Yeah, they do sound alike.

Waiting for Superman

Apparently, I can't write only about foster care, without writing about teaching too.  Teaching is as much my passion as parenting is.  Just as fostering is about rescuing those children who have been harmed by their parent(s) choices, for me teaching is about reaching those children who would otherwise be sidelined -- the timid children, the naughty ones, those that find learning harder, the advanced children who beg for more challenging learning.  I love teaching!
I watched Waiting for Superman last night.  (I know I'm a little late to the conversation, but I'm cheap and had to wait for the library to get it in.)  Wow.  The light of day reminded me that I do have children, a house, a dog, and a fish; I can't really just pack up and move to the inner city to make a difference teaching in a lousy school.  But let me say:  it is a crime that children have to enter a lottery in order to get a decent education.  It is a crime that for every one child who succeeds, ten children are sent back to their failing schools.  It is a crime that the child who wants desperately to learn and grow is held back by poor teachers who cannot be fired.  It is a crime that great teachers, who are making a difference in the lives of children -- especially in the lives of children who have no other options -- can be let go before poor teachers who have been babysitting for decades.  If we must keep poor teachers, send them to teach in upper-class schools, schools where the parents have other options.

National Foster Care Month

May is National Foster Care Month, and I've been wearing my little blue ribbon faithfully.  Many people have asked about it, allowing me to (briefly) point out some of the needs of foster care in our state and county.  Tomorrow I get to share in our middle school chapel about how I came to do foster care, and how middle schoolers (and their parents) can help foster kids.

When I was seven years old, I went to a private Christian school in Hesperia, California.  My teacher's name was Mrs. Thompson.  She was rather large, and black hairs stuck out through her nylons on her legs.  But I loved her.  Surely there could be no teacher so caring as Mrs. Thompson!  And she read to us every day.  One story she read was Star of Light, by Patricia St. John.  The story tells of a fatherless boy who rescues his blind baby sister from being sold to a beggar.  The boy takes this baby to a city where a missionary lives.  The missionary opens her home every night to feed street children and tell them the gospel.  The boy, Hamid, sets his sister Kinza on the missionary's doorstep, hoping the lady will have pity on the blind girl.  Of course she does, and everyone lives fairly happily ever after.

This story was the first time I realized that there were children in the world who did not have parents caring for them.  I made a vow in my young heart that when I was old enough, I would run an orphanage for kids with no homes. 

One of the lessons in Toddler Boot Camp: how NOT to drown

Well, fast forward 21 years, and I realized that I couldn't actually start an orphanage single-handedly.  Foster care seemed to be a good way to get my feet wet.  So I signed up to take in school-aged children.  I got a call for a baby boy.  Isn't that how foster care works!  Of course I took him, and now he's my own son.  I gripe frequently about "the system", about children bouncing in and out of care, about never having a "settled life".  But the truth?  I love doing foster care!  I love taking small children through "toddler boot camp", where they learn to eat properly, talk, play in the dirt, bathe, and sleep through the night.

There are so many books to read

My computer was down for over a week.  I read seven books in four days.  Then I took my laptop to our wonderful computer girl at school.  Good news: I have a brand new Windows system.  Bad news: all my old documents and photos are gone.  I can remember most of the important documents (did I really want to hang onto my Master's action research project?), and the kiddos I have in front of me every day.  But I would have liked to keep the photos of them when they were tiny and round and cute.  It always helps to look at old photos when you can't stand your children anymore!

See, he used to be so dang cute!  Then he learned to talk -- I mean, really talk:  "Mom, why do you always...?"  "Always" usually means twice in the past year.  "You only want me to be slave labor!" I'm sure there are lots cheaper/easier ways of getting slave labor than raising an adopted child!  "I'm going to go live with my tummy mom!" Did I scar him for life when I told him they wouldn't let preschoolers live in the jail?

Anatomy Lesson

Brooklynn was looking at her toes on Sunday:  "Mom, what's this toe's name?"
Me:  "That's your big toe."
B.:  "No, it's my thumb toe.  And that's my little pinkie toe.  It's so cute -- except it stinks!"

Today she fell onto my bed and started sobbing because her "head ankle" hurt.  Oh, you don't know where your head ankle is?  Neither did I.  Your foot ankle turns your foot, so your head ankle (sometimes called your neck) turns your head.

The Cost of Adoption

I've always told my son, jokingly, not to get himself injured or killed because I paid good money for him:  "Wear your helmet.  I paid good money for that brain of yours."  "Don't run after your ball in the street.  I paid $28 for you."  and so on.
I should mention that this year I am also his teacher -- not a situation I would recommend to any other single mom out there.  So at school I told him, "Don't tip your chair back.  I paid good money for you, and I don't want you to fall on your head."
Gasps filled the classroom:  "Your mom paid for you?  How much?"
Derrick, very proudly:  "Yeah, my mom paid $28 for me.  See, adopted kids, they're paid for.  Kids that are just born to their parents are free."
I didn't burst his bubble...

Fun weekend; sick kid

I had a wonderful weekend away with the women in my church.  Lots of fun, lots of rain, lots of FOOD!  Very little sleep...
I come home, pay the exhausted babysitter, note with dismay that my foster daughter only slept an hour, plug her into a Strawberry Shortcake movie (the theme song of which I'm sure I could sing in my sleep -- come to think of it, I have sung it in my sleep!), and fall on the couch for a brief catnap.  Then... rustle, rustle, rustle...  My son had an Easter egg hunt at church this morning.  (Isn't Easter still a week away?!)
Me: "No more candy."
He turns around and looks at me woefully.  Oh no...  You know that glassy-eyed look?  The one that children get when they have a fever of 103?  The one that says, "Sorry, Mom, you'll have to take yet another sick day off school"?  Yes, that one.  I don't really mind days off of school.  It's only that it's so hard to prep for a sub.  And I go stir crazy at home, wondering what my little terrors darlings are doing to the dear sub.  And my computer froze up twice in the middle of writing my sub plans.  And, did I mention?, this week is school-wide achievement testing, which messes up everyone's schedules.
So now it's 11:30 p.m. and I've had to retype every other word of this because I'm so bleary-eyed.  Good night!

Part-time Parenting

When I first started fostering, I ran into an acquaintance at the store.  She asked me about my foster son.  When I explained that I was a foster parent, she responded: "So you're, like, a part-time parent?"
Really? Which part is "part-time"?  Perhaps it's the meeting with the case workers.  Or the certifier.  Maybe she meant all the phone calls with the CASA*, or going to the CRB* meetings.  Possibly it's the extra doctor appointments to catch up on missed immunizations.  Or the developmental screenings.  Or the WIC* appointments.  Or the sleeping outside a RAD* child's door so he doesn't get up and harm someone in the night.
Yes, it's like being a part-time parent, on top of being a full-time parent.

CASA -- Court Appointed Special Advocate, who speaks to the judge on the child's behalf, and is usually the only one who can really say how s/he feels about the whole situation.
CRB -- Community Review Board oversees the county foster care system; their main question seems to be "Has the child seen a dentist yet?"  (Ummm, no, we've ben working on getting the child to eat more than chicken nuggets, and getting her to say her first word at 2 years old.)
WIC -- Women, Infants, and Children, a program that provides nutritious food and training for low-income families with children under five; for years they provided peanut butter, but no bread, and frosted shredded wheat, but not plain.
RAD -- Reactive Attachment Disorder, when a child fails to bond with his first caregiver, and cannot bond with anyone after that; results in the child giving threats such as, "I'm going to burn down the house!" or "I'm going to eat grass and take off all my clothes!"  (The latter threat being somewhat ineffective, unless he meant to make us all laugh.)

What they DON'T tell you in foster parent training:

1. You'll constantly be checking the inmate list to see whether the bio parents are in jail.
2. You'll be comforting the extended family while they wonder where the bio parents are.
3. You'll preface every plan with "If you're here in the summer..."
4. You'll never know exactly how many children you have. Do you count the ones that stayed six months or more? Or the ones that bounce back? How about the siblings of the ones you've kept?
5. You can't possibly draw your family tree. Unlike Hickville's (which has only one branch), yours has seven trunks.
6. You expect a knock on the door every birthday and Christmas from bio parents who haven't been in contact in over a year.
7. Every time you see "Drug Bust" in the headlines, you hide the newspaper until you can check that it's not your child's parents.
8. You'll need to explain drugs, half-siblings, arrests, depression, overdoses, and suicide attempts to children who can't yet tie their shoes.