Mama's Version of "I Spy"

I just laid little Yobie down for a much needed nap. Though I'm pretty sure I needed it as much as he did. As I begin my usual struggle with ought vs. want, I begin my own version of "I Spy."

I spy the coin jar that's still on the floor from digging out popcorn money for the kids this morning. I ought to put that away.

I want to read my book.

I spy the wrestling t-shirt and medal still laying on the table from this Chase's nightly wrestling camp this week, plus a stack of library books. I ought to put those in his room.

I want to take a nap.

I spy the kitchen floor that's needed a good mopping for a few days now. I ought to sweep and mop it.

I want to take a long, hot bath.

I spy half a dozen miscellaneous toddler toys and books strewn about the foyer, living room and kitchen. I ought to put those away.

I want to have a cup of coffee and some of my Aunt Betty's peanut butter fudge with a friend. ANY friend.

I spy my own stack of books on this end table: a Bible and a devotion book. I ought to spend some time there.

I want to WANT to spend more time there.

I could go on with all the oughts -- dishes in the sink, a pile of mated socks on my bed, five days' worth of mail stacked by the computer, four boxes of Christmas decorations looming just outside the storage room door, piles of other things looming just INSIDE the storage room door blocking the way for previous boxes, garage needs to be swept, and the front walk needs to be shoveled. 

The list of oughts is long, varied and never-ending. My list of wants rotates among the aforementioned items and also is never-ending.

If you're hoping this ends with something profound, you'll be disappointed. 

I COULD say, "Inch by inch, everything's a cinch." Putting a few things away will make a big difference.
I COULD say, "If I spent time with Jesus, then everything else will fall into perspective."
I COULD say, "Nap now while you have the chance."  The rest will still be there when you wake up.

The truth is, I spent some time on Jimmy Fallon facebook page and actually smiled a little to myself and even laughed out loud a time or two. Just keeping it real, people!

And now I hear the baby.

Arnold Memory Book 2013

Click here to view the 2013 Arnold Memory Book.

Here's hoping you'll be a part of our 2014 year in review!

Christmas Traditions

In my elementary-school years, I could set a clock by our Christmas traditions. (Go back to a favorite memory of delivering presents with my Dad here.) On Christmas Eve, we spent the afternoon at Grandma and Grandpa's (where the tree had large, multi-colored lights), then off to 5:00 children's Mass at St. James.  Then we'd spend the rest of the evening just across the street at my mom's parents' (where the tree always had silver icicles!) I'll always remember the peppermint sugar sticks Mom Elmore put in a fresh orange as a treat.  Then the next morning, we'd find that Santa had come and we'd have to open up quick and then clean up quick before both sides of the family came to have a country ham breakfast and spend the day at our home. 

Now that I have my own children and we don't live so close to the grandparents, we've come up with our own traditions. (Mostly stolen ideas from friends!)  For one thing, Santa brings the kids a box of super-sweet, sugary cereal each year -- one of their favorites! Another is that we let the kids sleep in our room on Christmas Eve. They think it's really fun, but we really do it to keep them all in one spot so we can go in for surprises together. I don't want to miss ONE look of joy! I remember sitting on the steps when we were young waiting for Mom and Daddy to get their coffee before we were allowed to go in the living room. I've kept this part of Christmas intact!

We have other traditions, but I recently stumbled upon a writing assignment of Sammie's on this very topic.  I'm so happy that these have found meaning to her already. Enjoy a couple of other traditions in her own words. I know I did!

Holiday Traditions

Every Christmas, we have our own special traditions. the first tradition is every Christmas Eve, we always have yummy Chinese food. We get sweet and sour chicken, steamed dumplings and kung pao chicken. It's a fun tradition because it's delicious.

Another fun tradition is we hide the pickle. We hide a lime-colored glass pickle ornament in the tree and whoever finds it first gets to open the first present. Families around the world have made this tradition for many years. A couple of my friends said they do this every year too. It's very interesting and fun to see who finds it.

The last tradition is we put baby Jesus in the manger. In our large nativity set, there's a dirty manger for baby Jesus. Before the Christmas holiday, we wrap Jesus up and put him under the tree. On Christmas morning, the youngest in the family gets to place him in the manger. This is a valuable and precious tradition because it represents our families Christian religion.

As pleased as I am that she loves these things. I hope that being with family is the most important and meaningful tradition of all.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Eyob's American Name is Joseph

It took some discussion for us to decide on it, but there it is: Joseph.

It’s a family name on both sides of the family for one thing. I LOVE that!

And for another, like Eyob (which means Job, as you may recall) it’s a very solid Bible name.  In fact, the very morning after we had discussed Joseph as a possibility, I ran into a friend. I’d been lamenting about some traumatic adoption stories I’d read – if I haven’t mentioned, adoption is a broken process in so many ways. She came to tell me she’d been thinking about me and wanted to encourage me with a story from the Old Testament. You guessed, the one about Joseph.

You see after the gorgeous coat and before he was named second in command in all of Egypt, he’d undeservedly landed in jail. But when he had the chance to talk about that time what Joseph said was, “Evil was planned against me, but God used those plans for the good.” I’m not one to get all goose-prickly, but I did in that moment! It’s one of the BEST stories of the Old Testament. Take a look, if you’ve never read it.

Since Sammie was little, Joseph and his coat of many colors has been a favorite story in our home. (Thank you, Donnie Osmond.) 

Also, I find it interesting as we come upon this Christmas season to remember that Jesus’ earthly father was named Joseph.

I had the joy of singing a duet at a Christmas Eve service a few years back. I had heard the song “Mary, Did You Know?” plenty of times before. This songs mixes that favorite with one I hadn’t heard called “It Wasn’t His Child.”  Julianne Hough and Phil Vassar recorded it several years ago -- Youtube it for yourself – it’s so worth it. But here are the lyrics for that part of the song – maybe you can see why it touched me so then and now:

He was her man, she was his wife.

And late one winter night, he knelt by her as she gave birth.

But it wasn’t his child.

And still he took him as his own,

And as he watched him grow, he brought him joy.

He loved that boy,

But it wasn’t his child.

It wasn’t his child.

Like a father he was strong and kind,

And I believe he did his best.

It wasn’t easy for him. He did all he could.

He grew up with his hands in wood.

And he died with his hands in wood.

It was God’s child.

The blind will see, the deaf will hear, the dead will live again.

The lame will leap, the dumb will speak the praises of the lamb

He was her man, she was his wife.

And late one winter night, he knelt by her as she gave birth.

But it wasn’t his child.

It was God’s child.

If you’ve never read that story, it’s one of the BEST stories in the New Testament. Then, read the rest. It has a great ending.

Merry Christmas, everyone!

  

30 Short Days

30 of the shortest, long days of my life. 

Someone asked me last night if Eyob (long e, long o) was transitioning well. Maybe I’m being naïve, but I think he’s doing great, given that a month ago he left a couple dozen people he’d spent his whole life with. Part of me is just waiting for the other shoe to drop, so to speak. In the meantime, I’m just trying to soak up the joy he’s brought into our home. We’ve laughed so, so much since he came home.

As for his adjustment, I guess ask me when he’s 15 or 25 or 45. We’ll know better then.

For now, I can tell you briefly what the first 30 days have been like. The transition so far has looked like this:

From screaming bloody murder in the bathtub to splashing like a fish.

From crying non-stop in the carseat to peaceful rides (mostly).

From running from siblings to arms open wide for a quick pick-up.

From clinging to mom constantly to asking sister to turn on the singing Christmas ornaments.

From staring blankly when we asked questions to signing "please", "thank you", "more" and "all done"! He even waves a greeting, if you don't scare him too much. 

From no words at all to "eat", "up" and "hot". And some swear he's trying to say “sissy.”

From eating only baby oatmeal to begging for my potstickers.

From being terrified of outside to pulling brother to the door to play in the snow.

And my favorite:

From bearing 1,000 mommy kisses to puckering up and leaning in all on his own.

Sigh.

Why Ethiopia?

It's one of the first questions people have about our adoption journey. Why Ethiopia?

I can tell you it did not start out that way. Brian says we sort of had the Forrest Gump Experience:  we just kept finding ourselves at different crossroads and we'd take one -- which would lead to the next and then the next. In the beginning, both of us felt that if we could help a child in our own backyard, so to speak, that would be best. (Sometimes we need to quit kidding ourselves that we actually have a clue what's best!)

In the summer of 2010, I attended an informational meeting about domestic adoptions. What I learned is that closed adoptions are almost non-existent. "Closed"means that the mother relinquishes all rights and identity and there is no contact once the adoption is finalized. Now what is common is that a birth mother will review a set of scrapbooks -- glorified marketing tools, if you will -- that have beautiful photographs of an adoptive family with lots of text describing why that family would be a perfect fit to raise her baby.  She chooses which family and she chooses the agreement about how much contact there will be.

When I talked with the director of the program after the meeting and told her briefly of our situation she said, "If this is what you feel led to do, don't let me talk you out of it. However, I feel I should tell you that in the 12 years I've worked here, I've never seen a birth mother choose a couple who had three birth children already."  Hmmm....

It began to become clear to me. Many of the couples in that room had no children and in fact had many failed attempts at fertility treatments over many, many years. I knew in my heart, if I were a birth mother reviewing the stories, I wouldn't choose me either.

So we took the lady's recommendation and went next door to the international adoption meeting.  At the time, our agency worked with maybe a half dozen countries. Each country's program had different requirements and policies.  For instance, to adopt from the Philippines, you must be part Filipino. News flash: we are not. Columbia requires you to live in-country for 6 - 9 weeks. We had three small children and Granddaddy at the time. Some countries only adopt out special needs children or older children. We just didn't feel like that was right for us. (Brian's heart is much bigger than mine, so by "we," I mean "I.") Due to corruption and the massive earthquake, Guatemala and Haiti had stopped their adoption programs all together. In reviewing their criteria and ours, we narrowed it down to Ethiopia.

Through subsequent education, we've learned much about adoption, our country, Ethiopia, our families and each other.

Our Country

"It seems to me, there are an awful lot of babies in need right here in our country," she said.

Yes, well since the proliferation of birth control pills and the Roe v. Wade decision, those numbers aren't nearly what you think they would be. There are many statistics out there, so I hope you'll do your own research. This from an American Progress article: "Abortion certainly played some role in the initial decline of the adoption rate when it fell from 19.2 percent for white women in 1973 when Roe v. Wade was decided to 3.2 percent 15 years later."

And this pie chart from a 2010 Guttmacher Institute profile really stood out to me. What does that make my chances of adopting one of those 14,000?






Our Family and Friends

"If that money were sent directly to the orphanage, think what a difference it could make," they nodded at each other.

Yes! I ask -- so, is your $30,000 check in the mail?

"Aren't you worried about raising a black child in a white family?" asked a blue million people.

I think about the many challenges in parenting and find I could be worried about a lot of things. I know that helping my children be proud of who they are NOT by the world's standards is at the very top of the list. I want them to be known for their kindness, generosity, hospitality, gentleness, love and joy. In that, he will be learning just like my white kids. (This topic deserves many, many blog posts on its own and perhaps, some day, they will come.)

Ethiopia

Let me tell you what I knew about Ethiopia before this journey: they had a massive famine when I was in elementary school and we told ridiculous jokes about it. That is quite literally all I knew.

I learned that estimates currently waver somewhere between 3 and 5 million orphans there, because of political unrest (did you know it was under communist rule for almost 20 years? -- that's after having fought back Mussolini time after time in the first half of the 20th century) and the HIV/AIDS crisis (did you know that while we had access to life-saving medications, due to patent laws and other craziness, they did not?) Let me put the zeros on that: 3,000,000 to 5,000,000 orphans. I'm not sure it matters which number is more accurate. Compare that to the 14,000 number in the pie chart.

I learned that Ethiopia has one of the lowest number of physicians per unit of population in the world, so their child mortality rate is staggering. By the year 2010 there was only 1 doctor per 25,000 population, a figure far below the African average of 1 doctor per 5000. Compare that to 1 doctor per 300 people in America.

I learned that the Queen of Sheba hailed from Ethiopia.  (Do you know how many times I've referenced her over the years?  Mostly in wanting to be treated like her.  GRIN.)

I learned it's just below Egypt -- the very edge of the Middle East as we know it. And yet, so far outside everything else as we know it.

I also learned that they love their children -- including the orphans. They are not put 3 - 4 to a crib and tossed a bottle to fight over. They are not turned out when they are ten to live on the streets. They are swaddled, cuddled, smiled at, played with, fed well and clothed.

I read two great books about Ethiopia. One is about the orphan crisis specifically, There Is No Me Without You and one is just a great novel called Cutting for Stone, about a set of twins who grow up in Ethiopia to be surgeons.

I never thought I'd voluntarily set foot on the African continent, yet here we are weeks away from going the second time to bring our son home.

I guess I end up answering, "Why Ethiopia?" with, "Why not?" There is a need and I can help. Our path has led this way. Where is your path leading you?

A Letter to Sammie

I'm not good at words of affirmation. I wonder if my friends realize this about me? I can encourage in short bursts. So, if we only chat on the phone every now and then or I only see you a few times a week, you may not know this. 

It's become abundantly clear to me as I parent: I see what needs to be fixed or improved and usually only comment about that. Regular, specific words of encouragement are REEEEEAALLLYYY hard for me.  (I'm sure that was apparent to Brian long before we had kids!)

Anyway, we've really struggled with Sammie the last few weeks. She's so kind and forgiving and sharing to everyone outside our home, but has little patience or respect for those inside our home.  She knows the way to behave, words to say or not say. I'm seeing more and more that what she truly thrives on, I'm quite horrible at giving. How can I fill in that gap? So, I've been praying about what to do. Since I'm much better and writing my thoughts than speaking them, I decided to write her a letter spelling out the qualities I love about her. 

Dear Sammie,                                                September 18, 2013

      I wanted to write in black and white, for you to keep forever, how much I love you.

      I know you feel like we only point out what’s wrong or what you need to work on. We’ve tried to explain until we’re tired of hearing ourselves talk that it’s part of our job. I believe that is true, but I know I can do much better at reminding you of all the things you do well and encouraging you in all of your gifts and talents – of which there are many! I really am working on saying more positive things than pointing out corrections. Please be patient with me as I try to consistently grow in this way.

      You really are such an amazing blessing to me and to our whole family. You have such a generous spirit; always wanting to make things or do things for your friends. When this quality spills into your brother and sister, it’s like a sweet perfume filling our home.

      I don’t know why I still shake my head in amazement at your creative ability in the kitchen! You’ve been this way since you were a little, little girl. Always wanting to stir, add something else, try some new combination of foods. That boldness in experimenting will serve you well in life. I expect to see you on the cover of a cookbook someday! Sammie’s Sumptuous Suppers!

      When you create a new lotion, face scrub or lip gloss, I wonder, “Will she grow up to make women all over the world feel beautiful?” What a precious, precious gift! When you build a doll bed out of duct tape and cereal boxes or form an entire miniature Italian meal out of modeling clay, I wonder, “Will Sammie grow up to bring joy to young girls and their love for dolls and all things small?” That too, would make me so proud.

      Many people say, and have said since you were tiny, “She looks just like you.” And I’ve noticed as you’ve grown into the sweet young lady that you are, that you are like me in many ways. (Good and bad – sorry about that.) You and I can bless our friends in big ways by doing small acts of kindness and in the very next moment, snap at those dearest to us because our selfishness rears its ugly head. I imagine we’ll both have to work on that the rest of our lives.

      When you were 5, you sang “The B-I-B-L-E” at three different services in our huge church. I knew then you were gifted musically. Then, about five years later, I remember the first time I heard you singing, when you didn’t know I was listening. You weren’t singing to impress anyone. Just singing a meaningful song, from your heart, the very best you could. I got teary-eyed at your pure tone and sweet voice. The ease with which you’ve picked up piano, coupled with your sense of timing and pitch, make me wonder what God will do with these precious gifts. Do you ever wonder?

      Your outer-beauty should probably go without mentioning, but I can’t help it. You’ve been given your father’s beautiful eyes and you look so much like my mother when I look at pictures from way back then. It’s truly uncanny. Your quirky fashion sense only serves to enhance what God gave you naturally.

      What a treasure you are!  I’ll never say it enough, I know. But I hope to remind you more and more, so you believe it from the inside out.

                                    I love you,

                                                Mom

As I lay in bed last night, I thought of all the things I should've added. Like her graceful athleticism and sheer smarts at her age are impressive to me. I figured the world will boost her ego enough on those fronts, but also realized these messages could become a regular part of my encouragement to her.

I'll ask her in 20 years if it mattered to her.

Are there gaps in your parenting style that your kids really need to thrive?